Review: Devil’s Reign: X-Men #3

Can Emma Frost get herself out of Kingpin’s sights?

Devil’s Reign: X-Men #3
Marvel Comics
W: Gerry Duggan
A: Phil Noto
$3.99 (Available on the Marvel Unlimited App)

What To Know
Kingpin is the mayor of New York and, to get revenge on super heroes, outlaws vigilantes. He’s keeping files of dirt on all of them, including Emma Frost. Frost was in Kingpin’s employ at one point in the past; he frames her for a murder of a child (Isabelle), who she actually saved and relocated without Kingpin’s knowledge.

Recap
Emma is in custody of Union Jack and it taking her in. She’s able to escape by using her telekinesis on some of the police that aren’t using PSI blockers. She gets back to a Hellfire Club location to change and find Isabelle; only Isabelle is waiting at the Club for her. Isabelle reveals that Elektra (who was hired to kill Isabelle) came to train her to defend herself as retribution for the past. Isabelle buys Emma some time by fighting Union Jack before they both take a portal to Krakoa.

Emma takes the story to Ben Urich and is cleared of the murder; Emma and Isabelle go their separate ways. Emma is still a wanted criminal for fraud (she impersonated the Invisible Woman at a bank to get a loan in the Fantastic Four’s name), but cleared of murder charges. She decides to buy into the bank that filed the charges, hoping to have a larger stake in it before she’s caught, so she can drop the charges. She also confront’s Kingpin by using her telekinesis on Typhoid Mary, letting him know that she can get to him at any time, even with his mental implants that block telepathy.

Thoughts
It was an OK story. As a tie in to a bigger event, it was perfect; you really didn’t need to read one to understand the other. The story shows the growth of Emma as a character since her bad guy days; it even shows that she wasn’t fully bad even when she was an X-Man villain. At the same time, it didn’t feel like there were any stakes for Emma; it felt like they needed an X-Man tie in and they could show her moral gray areas pretty easily. Very few of the core X-Men could have been manipulated in the way they needed for the story.

The overall Devil’s Reign story is better, but there really wasn’t much of a way to incorporate the X-Men, other then doing something with the core team at the tree house.

Duggan’s script was pretty good, if a little predictable; he has a good grasp of the characters and didn’t feel like he was forcing unneeded backstory into Emma’s history. Noto’s art was top tier, as always; it’s crisp and the everything fit the script.

Rating
3 out of 5. It’s really going to be a forgettable part of a bigger story while being a quick and harmless read.