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X-Men: Prelude to Schism #4 Review

Wolverine lends his two cents as the X-Men prepare for war.

At some point enough is enough. Paul Jenkins pretty much squeezed every last drop of potential out of the Prelude to Schism concept by the end of issue #3. That issue even ended on a perfectly fine note, leaving me to wonder what could possibly be accomplished in a fourth chapter. The answer, as expected, is not very much at all.

As has generally been the case with this series, issue #4 is a perfectly decent character study and a less than stellar source of build-up to Schism itself. Paul Jenkins dives into Wolverine's history, specifically his early years on the Howlett estate and subsequent escape, as well as his time spent in Weapon X. The idea is that young James Howlett's prickly relationship with his grandfather informs his current views on confronting... whatever the hell it is the X-Men are facing in Schism. It all works well enough, thanks to the quality of Jenkins' narration and character interaction.

The problem, as always, is that this series is greatly overextended. The cryptic references to the shadowy enemy at the gates have gone from being mysterious to just plain annoying. More than ever, Jenkins goes out of his way to avoid naming the threat, and character dialogue suffers as a result. And because this issue takes place concurrently with the others, no mo more story material is given. Issue #3 still offers the satisfying ending to the series this should have.

But hey, at least Clay Mann is along for the ride. Mann is a vastly underrated X-Men artist who brings his talent for body language, facial work, and general character design to this finale. The only fault to be had with Mann's work is that he mixes up costume details once or twice, but he isn't the only one to have that problem in the series.

Once again, Prelude to Schism would have been a fine oversized one-shot. But by expanding such a limited concept to four issues, Jenkins just isn't able to provide the individual chapters with the meaty content they needed.
