Welcome to the land of "reality", where scientific experiments, accidents, genetic heritage, and alien influences affect the lives of ordinary mortals. Join me as I observe the superhumans of planet earth and their struggles against equally powerful foes.
This review does not represent the opinions of the general public. It reflects my personal thoughts and opinions on the book.
That said, on to the review!
X-Men: Mutant Empire, Book Two--Sanctuary continues the story of Magneto's conquering of Manhattan. It's a self-contained trilogy in the Marvel Universe, which is rather strange, when you think about it. After all, Manhattan is the stomping ground of the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, and a number of solo adventurers like Spider-Man and Daredevil, so you'd expect that at least one of the super groups or some of the individual superheroes would do what they could to challenge Magneto. And even if it they didn't, surely someone else with plans of world domination--say, maybe, Doctor Doom or the Red Skull--wouldn't sit still while Magneto set up his own kingdom. And certainly these two evil-doers, at least, would make some gesture at eliminating Magneto, right? But I guess it's okay, because instead, we get to see some of the X-Men's old enemies, such as the Marauders--mutant mercenaries who nearly wiped out the Morlocks, mutants themselves, who lived beneath the city--and members of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants like the Blob, the Toad, and Pyro.
This book does an excellent job of presenting the X-Men and their opponents believably and consistently. And I'm not just talking about in relation to the comics. For example, Bishop--who is still an enigma to me even after his long tenure in the X-Men comics and the cartoon series--comes across as extremely real and motivated. Here we have a mutant from a future who's come back to prevent it from ever coming to pass but witnessing its birth before his eyes. Certainly he'd be upset, even maddened and terrified by it; you'd half expect him to have a nervous breakdown or something. But in keeping with Bishop's character, the whole thing is internalized and--while readers can see his thoughts--expressed only through a fierce determination and sometimes excessive reprisals for attacks on his person. We neither expect nor want an overly emotional Bishop, and we don't get one. We get a Bishop who's true to character and situation. The same goes for all the other characters as well, hero and villain: Magneto and his Acolytes behave much as we'd expect, and their internal conflicts are all eminently believable.
Sanctuary is definitely a novel worth reading, though I naturally suggest reading Siege first. These books don't detract from the comics in any way, instead offering a side story that is indubitably believable and possible and just happened to not appear in the comics. So Marvel fans, don't knock yourselves out trying to reconcile these books to the comics, you don't need to!
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