X #4 Review


The final showdown between X and Berkshire is here and the brutality is at an all time high. Not for the squeamish but for those who love their action without restraint!

Official description from DARK HORSE:
It’s a bloody showdown on Arcadia’s rooftops as X is assaulted by the pig-faced Berkshire, a maniac who can no longer feel physical pain! As Leigh fends off a swarm of the city’s thugs, Berkshire shatters the lock around X’s neck . . . and the mask finally comes off!

Make no mistake about it. Duane Swierczynski is taking the gloves off and throwing subtlety out the window with X. Book four brings out the best in an all out action packed issue and you leave a little more battered and bruised. X has his final showdown with Berkshire and it hits 100 miles an hour out of the gate. Berkshire new pig-face leaves him almost impervious to pain and for X that’s just more motivation to try an inflict as much as humanly possible. While the tease is that X’s mask finally comes off you don’t need to see his face to understand what he’s capable of and we finally understand why he locks his mask on with a padlock. The answer is just as satisfying and visually striking as any over-the-top action can get. You literally want to react viscerally to what you witness on the page.

Leigh has more than enough to handle here as well with Berkshire’s thugs hunting her down but don’t under estimate her and what she has learned by following X and his brand of justice. She’s tough and resilient against the goons and comes to realize she’s much more than a reporter. Her eyes are opened and her final move may be the most surprising yet.

What makes this a great action piece is that Swierczynski is unapologetic in his approach to X’s vigilantism and brutality. It might not be everyone’s cup of tea but for my money his honest dealing with violence, vengeance and justice makes it more than a bloody action piece. Eric Nguyen is as good as it comes with the art. He captures the grit and heart pounding violence with as much grace, pace and flow as their is blood. His dynamics between X’s fight and Leigh’s is well balanced as it is graphic and for this story is severed well.

Swierczynski’s final pages of this issue slow down enough to have Leigh figure out what makes X tick and for her it’s as eye opening as it is an genuine progression of their relationship. Simply put X is what it says it is and nothing more or less. If you can go in with that perspective and surrender to Swierczynski and Nguyen’s all out assault on your senses then you’ll get more out of it than a simple vigilante violence because somewhere lurking beneath lies substance to go along with the brutality.

4/5

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