X Omnibus, Volume 2

X Omnibus

by Steven Grant, Javier Saltares, Andrew Pepoy (Illustrator)

Nothing in Arcadia is what it seems. Beneath its facade of order and industry lies a corrupt brotherhood of criminals, cronies, and cops all drawing from the same tainted well. But there's a wrench in this dirty machine, a leather-clad, one-eyed, one-man wrecking crew bent on tearing down the lie of Arcadia, brick by brick. The man known as X cares about only one thing, the rule of law. Unfortunately, that law is X. X Omnibus Volume 2 collects for the first time the audacious, critically acclaimed Dark Horse series that didn't just push the boundaries, but battered them to rubble. Violent and morally ambiguous, X walks the thin line between mission and madness and shows that the devil you know may be better, much better, than the devil you don't.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Crime

352 pages, Paperback

First published September 3, 2008

About the author

Steven Grant is an American comic book writer best known for his 1985–1986 Marvel Comics mini-series The Punisher with artist Mike Zeck and for his creator-owned character Whisper.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_...

Reviews

[Chad · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book quickly jumps the shark once X takes over Arcadia. A lot of the book doesn't make much sense at all. Javier Saltares's art is pretty grand. Although by the end I was tired that he never drew any backgrounds to his panels.

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

This wasn't bad. We got a somewhat satisfying conclusion and also more information on the origin of X. However, we were still left in a bit in dark about his exact motivations. Also, as some other readers have said, at times the characters were hard to distinguish due to the art, and sometimes, not even the art but the characters themselves as they all sorta ran together.

Overall this wasn't a bad series and worth a read if you like Punisher or Sin City type stories.

[The Wintermute System · Rating 4 out of 5]

Knocked off a star because, while the writing and art was amazing, this felt like too slow of a burn: I spent a good deal interested, but slightly frustrated that I couldn't really tell what X's motives were or what his history was. Furthermore, they set up a reunion fight early on and then it was a little too slow coming, in my opinion.

I make this sound like more of a dire problem than it really was: I was unsettled by this comic, in a good way. It questions what we do to stay safe or keep sane, even, and it's highly effective, so much so I was left slightly queasy: X has a sympathetic background, and a mission that's righteous, at least on paper, but there's enough moral ambiguity that I wanted to like him and slowly disliked him more and more.

I never loathed him, and the pangs of sympathy were there when I was reminded of his trauma that caused him to be the way he was, but I couldn't justify his actions - even when I wanted to. After all, he killed bad guys - for the most part, although I believe I wouldn't classify some of them as worth death, and there was that one at the end that really sat wrong with me - and I'm a sucker for the traumatizing past that makes people seek justice.

But I think the fact that I wanted to like him, and tried to justify things until they became unjustifiable was part of the point: how far do we go, after all...

Anyway, I am left disquieted with myself. This was far more of an introspective read than I expected, although others may not have that experience. Approach with caution, but if you're willing to risk it, I'd say it's wroth the risk.

[Clay · Rating 2 out of 5]

The art was pretty bad at a times. So bad that I couldn't tell one civilian character from another until a different character addressed them. And they all look like they could play linebacker for the Chicago Bears with their big shoulders and bulky body types (even the women).

A bit of background on the X character is given, but still no concrete motivation of why he wants to clean up Arcadia. A silly fight with the Predator and an even sillier menacing of congressmen in Washington in order to get money for rebuilding Arcadia. About the only bright spot, plotwise, was the scheme to get rid of the cops all in one fell swoop; unfortunately this was just as the series was cancelled (I assume), so there is no follow up or logical need for having X maintain his law.

Meh.