X-Men: The Jewels of Cyttorak
By
Dean Wesley Smith
Ever read an issue of X-Men
Unlimited? This novel reminded me a lot of that comic. In the
Unlimited comic it seems that every other month Marvel drags out
an X-Men story that has been on the back burner for awhile, and
passes it along to the reading public. The story itself is
average if not sub-standard,and the characterization of the main
players seems half-assed at best. This novel was a prose version
of X-Men Unlimited.
The book started off with one of my favorite X-baddies the
Juggernaut. He's always entertaning. The plot then introduced a
billionairethat had found another of Juggy's mysterious jewels
that gives him his incredible strength. The billionaire and his
two sons have a "Jerry Spiringer" like family fight and
the evil brother gets the jewel.
The rest of the novel has Juggy crossing the USA and tearing up
property and land to find this billionaire,because the two jewels
are causing Juggy severe pain.
One thing that has distressed me about any novel or TV show is
the use of "Throw-away- characters". The billionaire
family I could care less about. They added nothing to the plot
and they were stereotypical. The "good son", the "bad
son" and the "sick father." Writing 101 tells you
to come up with more rounded characters and not go with such
standard fare.
The book was no where as bad as the Gen X novel or the Empire's
End novel, it just had a serious case of being average. And for
that we give the average two out of four web heads.