Forget it, kid, it’s non-canonical X-Men.

I’ve reviewed Raymond Chandler on CBR. I’ve reviewed X-Men on CBR. I’ve even reviewed comic book noir on CBR. You would think X-Men Noir would be perfect for me. At least, that’s what I thought. After all, the pitch for X-Men Noir is great: Drop the X-Men, and all of their drama, into a gritty mystery from the past. Shuffle the players. Shake it up. See what pours out. Smooth right? Sadly, it ain’t smooth. It’s a kick in the pants. 

Jean Grey is dead. She was brutally murdered – eviscerated. Her body washed up on the beach. Young detective Peter Magnus is on the case. His search for the truth leads him through Mr. Shaw’s seedy Hellfire Club, Remy Lebeau’s casino, and into prison to visit the disgraced alienist, Charles Xavier. Xavier was dropped from the American Psychological Association because he believed sociopaths were not suffering from a mental illness, but instead had taken an evolutionary leap above the common man. What does he know about Grey and her associates, the sociopaths who took on his name as the “X-Men”? Magnus investigates Cyclops, Beast, and the the rest. He talks to the seafaring smuggler called Logan. He even confronts his all-powerful father, Chief Magnus – leader of the PD.

While it sounds awesome, the execution was muddy. The story is convoluted. Noir plots are usually somewhat nonsensical, but this one was confusing in a bad way. The art was also dark. Like a low-lit movie, it was hard to tell what was happening in a lot of the panels. I consider myself a savvy reader of both comics and hard-boiled fiction, but I had to google what happened once I finished the book. The bright spot (literally and metaphorically) was the story within a story – the pulp sci-fi of Bolivar Trask that is peppered throughout the collection. You’d have to read it to get it, but it was fun.

Thus, as a whole this book didn’t work for me. It’s probably better than my rating, but the gap between my expectations and reality was so wide that I couldn’t award more than two stars. This four-issue collection is only $3.50, though, which is cheaper than a current single issue of a Marvel comic. So you might want to give it a shot, but buyer beware. Things aren’t always what they seem.

If you want a hard-boiled comic, check out Brubaker’s The Fade Out.