Warning: this article contains spoilers for the X of Swords event!
When an event gets spread over more than a few titles, it begins to ask more of readers - both those who would rather their favorite comic wasn't put on pause to serve a larger narrative and those shelling out to collect the entire story. In this spirit, the X of Swords event - in which the X-Men take part in duels to save the world - feels like it has been spinning its wheels for weeks now, and recent developments have made it harder to imagine the ultimate conclusion will feel like it was worth the wait. Of course, it's possible there's a much broader hidden agenda which will eventually be revealed and blow readers’ minds, but having been promised a deadly tournament, readers have so far mostly encountered narrative busywork and joke challenges.
At the moment, X of Swords is teetering on the edge of being too big and too ambitious to pull off. So many characters, so many new threats and new worlds have entered the frame that the stories read as crowded and repetitive pageants hinting at greater substance but never delivering it. Expectations have been subverted, but to what end?
Powerful weapons have been accumulated, in some cases at the expense of important allegiances and relationships, only to have no bearing on the challenges whatsoever. Even the challenges are proving to be nonsensical, with a huge liability, and Mr. Sinister's quest to influence the competition skewing off in bizarre directions.
The whole affair has transformed into a rushed montage, rather than a series of epic duals: Krakoa’s most powerful versus Arrako’s most powerful in a contest overseen by Lady Saturnyne, a being so frustratingly mercurial she makes any attempt to engage in fair competition impossible. Obviously, fair competition wasn’t the actual objective of the X of Swords event - something else is happening behind the scenes - but Saturnyne is so smugly removed from consequence that most of the event feels like a game she's playing to amuse herself before she gets around to the actual exposition.
Of course, X of Swords isn’t all bad. The details it has established about Apocalypse’s backstory have deepened the character’s psychology and vulnerabilities, and shown him to be more human than he lets on. The new fantasy lands it has opened up, and the histories it has made available to future storytellers are amazing and exciting. As children of the lost Okkara, the series has fixed mutantdom in a broad mythology that transcends their Earthly woes and struggles entirely, which is a welcome change of pace for Marvel’s most traumatized community. But all these accomplishments add up to planting promising seeds for the future, and the event itself is starting to drag.
It’s the cumulative effect of repetition and confusion without suitable payoff that’s so tedious. If that isn’t enough, now, with the zanier twists and turns is wearing off and every new issue just reads like more of the same, taking up space in a range of comics which were telling their own stories. The edge X of Swords started off with has dulled, and all that remains is to see if its conclusion can hit the mark, or if the X-Men's first major crossover since their relaunch is ultimately a dud.
