Mister X: Condemned

Mr. X #3.1

by Dean Motter

Visit Radiant City, designed using the principles of psychetecture to soothe its inhabitants. But something went horribly wrong, and the city instead causes anxiety, insomnia, and madness! As ordinary citizens begin giving in to dementia and a serial killer walks the streets, a desperate City Hall commissions a drastic program of urban demolition, resulting in the deaths of an entire sect of architects. Returning from exile with a mission to recover Radiant City's original blueprints, only one man has a chance of restoring its sanity - the enigmatic Mister X!

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Fiction

120 pages, Paperback

First published October 27, 2009

About the author

Dean R. Motter is an illustrator, designer and writer who worked for many years in Toronto, Canada, New York City, and Atlanta. Motter is best known as the creator and designer of Mister X, one of the most influential "new-wave" comics of the 1980s.

Dean then took up the Creative Services Art Director's post at Time Warner/DC Comics, where he oversaw the corporate and licensing designs of America’s most beloved comic book characters such as Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. In his off-hours he went on to create and design the highly acclaimed, retro-futuristic comic book series, Terminal City-- and its sequels, Aerial Graffiti. and Electropolis.

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having recently reread some of the original Mister X run, I decided to read this 2008 series today. It's written and illustrated entirely by Dean Motter, so it's got a bit more consistency of vision than the original series. That's both a good and bad thing, since the Hernandez brothers brought something to the original series that's not quite here. But this is more of a "pure" distillation of the concept.

It helps that I read the original series recently, but I guess you could enjoy this without having read it. I think it might be a little hard to follow though (but not overly so).

I felt like the story was a little sparse here; maybe it could have benefited from a couple of extra issues or at least a few more pages to flesh some stuff out.

The artwork is typical Dean Motter; very stylized and clean. I liked it a lot. The character designs are great and there are a lot of nice design touches.

[James Schneider · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, but nowhere near the quality of the first series, and it contained some retreads that were blatant and disappointing.

[Dan Pfeiffer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Drips with noir mystery and moodiness. Part architectural manifesto, part hard boiled mystery, Radiant City brims with retro - future goodliness!

[Matt Shelton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent story but overall not one I plan on re-reading or continuing.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

i couldn't understand mister x when it first came out, 20 years ago(?), now i get it. brilliant

[Bill · Rating 2 out of 5]

Packed with cool ideas and fun references but poorly executed.