3 out of 5

Utter 90s bizarreness!  From out of some random corner of the Marvel Universe came an entirely new class of mutants – the Underground; descendants of a 20,000 year old offshoot of humanity – pitted against another faction who’re, like, anti-human.  Led by Blackwulf!  The masked man whom no one knows his secret identity except for everyone and except (spoiler for the first issue of this thirty year old series) he dies in issue one!

Glenn Herdling writes this exclamation and declarative statement-laden first issue with Stan Lee pomp, which works in its favor: it exists on that skewed soap opera plain that takes itself seriously in context but isn’t taking itself seriously at all.  Angel Medina’s giantly muscled 90s-era figures float and prance about in a way that matches this tone, Medina’s sense of layout belying a similar appreciation for the medium that strayed from the grim and gritty typea stuff during the time.

Of course, you also have the curiosity of introducing a completely new set of characters and history within an established universe, and then fussing with what you’ve set up with a death from the get-go.  There’s more familial nonsense in there, and a one line reference to the government inserting an agent to keep watch on the Underground…

Who knows.  To my understanding, Blackwulf would only appear in his ten issue series, despite (with a wiki browse) having some Eternals lineage and Skrull appearances, he was here and then not, so audiences mayhaps weren’t “ready” for whatever this was hoped to be.  It’s campy, and not especially grabbing, but delightfully weird for existing with gusto.