There are a handful of details that I don't bother asking while I'm reading Claremont's X-Men Forever, mostly because they're irrelevant to the stories at hand. Now that we have reached this final installment for the Sentinels storyline (which was a tad underwhelming even if I never had any kind of grand expectations in the first place), I feel like I had to ask these stupid questions such as: (1) When and why did Rogue ever get that short haircut?; (2) Since when did it become acceptable that Gambit look so slick with those sophisticated, dandy and metrosexual clothes?; (3) Where is the Professor's cool yellow cab-wheelchair and why would they even think about replacing that?; (4) Why is Shadowcat not wearing her mask anymore? These questions are all a matter of aesthetics, I know, and they never really bothered me until after I finished this issue. That's how completely uncaring I was about the Trask bitch and her newly enhanced goddamn Sentinels. I just realized that the Sentinels are like the Cybermen of Doctor Who if the Brood are the equivalent of the Daleks. They're historical and prominent in their respective canons but I don't particularly care for them personally unless something strange or inventive will be done about them.
To further illustrate my Whovian point, I would argue that the only Dalek storylines I ever enjoyed were Dalek from the Eccleston era, and the latest one in Capaldi's run for the current season, Into the Dalek. Those two stories were parables at their core about some existential construct or philosophical conundrum, as oppose to straight-up action story about scary machinery that can murder you. Sadly, this Sentinel storyline was just that, and adding more insult to injury is the personal backstory of one Sigrid (which is an awful name for a girl, by the way) Trask who I don't have any sort of emotional stake in so fuck her. Though it pains me to do this, let's get on with this obligatory review.
I practically begged in my last review to give me something new or revelatory about the Consortium, the oh-so-super-secret organization who implanted the impostor Storm into the X-Men's close-knit group, and this issue thankfully gave me that although it was a most detestable development. I was already expecting the very worst from the assholes who made Storm into a two-faced, friend-murdering turncloak, but the fact that the Consortium is blatantly behind of the new Sentinels program is just sickening. One of the figureheads turns out to be Bolivar Trask's second wife, and Sigrid's mother. Sigrid is actually Bolivar's daughter and that makes her Larry's half-sister, and the Trask scientist who Logan killed back in the second world war is her grandfather. So yeah. I think I made a mistake with her lineage last time so I just want to correct myself here. So Sigrid (or "Ziggy" because why not) wants to continue her father and brother's project in spite of the defective nature of such an endeavor in the first place; meaning the Sentinels eventually turned against their human creators because they deemed both humans and mutants to be abominations that are inferior to them. Because, scary robots that murder people, right?
For some reason, Ziggy thinks she can do better and improve the Sentinels this time so that they actually don't turn on humans. Now as a female character who makes her own choices no matter how reckless they are, or executed for the most vile and racially prejudiced of intentions, this is an empowering stance, I suppose...? Anyway, she tells Nick Fury about her grand plans to protect and elevate her family's legacy like any babbling villain that gives the heroes enough time to catch up to her. But, just like any inexplicable scene where the bad guy somehow gets away because the heroes got distracted (in this example, via a slight earthquake), Ziggy evades capture long enough to stumble in the forest by herself and discover the Sentinels have recognized her as their sole master and are ready for whatever commands she wishes to extrapolate. That's how the issue ends, with Sigrid surrounded by giant robots who are ready to do her bidding. It's supposedly ominous but it made me roll my eyes in exhausted acceptance that the Sentinels and this bitch are bound to come back in the future installments of X-Men Forever and I had to read more of this trite. OH THE JUBILATION!
RECOMMENDED: 6/10
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