Overall, X-Men #15 is a thrilling and high-stakes installment that significantly raises the stakes for the series. MacKay expertly balances the immediate threat to Merle with the intriguing and ominous introduction of 3K and the Means. This issue is a must-read for X-Men fans eager for intense action and the unveiling of a potentially major new threat. Read Full Review

This is a big downer from the last few issues, which were capsules of pure intensity.

Neither this nor the last was Stegman's strongest work; there is a lack of detail, volume and as i mentioned, intensity. Villa is worse, way worse. Like bad Stegman is a good artist, bad Villa, oh God. It's terrible, the characters look like slaps of paint, the movements look minimal, it's like older A.i. Also Villa's nonconcrete, rushed as hell style and Stegman's style of exaggeration and details(even if they are not so much here) is so badly slapped together. I can't see a thematic reason, and their renditions of the characters is so different, which even makes the issue look even more like A.I and puts me out of it. That said Stegman's still has some moments of greatness in some pages, where he has control over the action.

But this still remains the cool title, not the emotional one, sadly, this cool here comes like the cool from 20-30 years ago, which honestly is the cool of a lot of x-men comics, contribution to the more wooden dialog here mainly. This arc has so many thing that reminds me of the last decade and I mean the appeal of the last decade, which is just giving us some new type of mutants, while the characters are not written badly, but without much soul either, and there is not much to it. Especially the end is so much a battle of the atom, which I hate with a passion. And also it's the second issue that fully relies on it's end, while it feels like everything else is written for us to go there. I really do not care about what happens next here, i don't care for the new group, because I don't know why I should care, nor the current antagonist. Like the new is coming out of the blue, there is also Cassandra Nova for some reason. there is so much, that happens so out of the blue, while we still do not get any meaningful development. And also last arc with Alpha flight was so very similar in it's appeal and it was better executed. it has this sense of worry, because so many things were happening so fast and there were so many reveal, but they managed to sell it. I think a little bit of realness and gritiness would have benefited this issue, especially when Stegman does not carry it with the dynamism that his art usually carries, but sadly, there is not much of this here; there is no urgency or sense of seeing something terrific, at least for me.

This title is not like this all the time, but now it is. This issue has terrible pacing, progresses very little; very little of importance happens here. more