X-Men: Prisoner X
By
Ann Nocenti
Nocenti is known
for her cereberal storylines. We comic readers witnessed this in
her Daredevil comic run and other short stories she has written
in the Marvel short story anotholigies,but none were as good as
this novel was. This was a prison novel disquised as a X-novel.
That however doesn't mean the book wasn't eXcelent.
For everyone who reads novels, there are two types. The first is
the novel that drags along. The story is contrived and the
characters you could care less about. But you've already spent $6
or more dollars, and have read 100 pages and feel obligated to
finish the darn thing. The second type of novel is one where you
can't put down. You are immediatly drawn into the storyline and
care about where they are going on this journey for 200 or more
pages. The opening bar scene with Wolverine showed me immediatly
that this book was the latter.
The novel plot involved Mojo taking over a new prision in space
named UltraMax. Mojo then broadcasted the exploits on television
on his new prison channel. Rogue and the rest of the X-Men
stumble across the channel and see their teammate Longshot is one
of the inmates and decide to rescue him. The inmates are brought
to this prison through a new tranporting video game system. Let's
see how Nintendo beats that new trick.
Nocenti has a great ability of getting into the characters heads.
In some cases quite literally,for instance when Longshot put a
metal object in his head to catch radio transmission from prison.
Nocenti nailed the characterization of all the X-Men very well. I
especially loved her take on Wolverine. It would be great to see
her write a solo Wolverine novel.
This novel gets three web heads out of four. Good solid reading
to put next to your "to read" spot on your nightstnad.