Volume 41: Son of M

Son of M

Author: David Hine  |  Illustrator: Roy Allen Martinez

"There's something dark inside you. It's spreading all over. Can't you feel it? Doesn't it hurt you?"

The aftermath of the momentous event that ended House of M (see Volume 40) is far-reaching, and therefore explored across a number of different Marvel titles. Son of M focuses on Pietro Maximoff, aka Quicksilver. I can't talk about Son without going into what happened in House, so there'll be spoilers ahead for the latter title. If you haven't yet read House and, like me, hate spoilers, then it'd be best not to read past this paragraph because I will be referring to it.

Pietro's conscience is troubled by his role in the 'Decimation' that ended House, but what's really eating him is the loss of his powers. A life lived at normal (human) speed is a kind of living hell for the speedster. He spends his days like an addict forced to live without his drug of choice. Haunted by memories, he's a shell of man. His self-interest drives him to the point where he'll do almost anything to get his fix, even if it means screwing over those who care for him most.

Son of M is a smaller, more personal story than the one that birthed it, but it's every bit as good. In fact, I liked it more than House. It explores the moral depths that a damaged individual will sink to in order to fill a void in their life. It understands that rock bottom isn't always the starting point to recovery that opportunistic people think it is. Sometimes a victim will choose to exist there for a long period of time, until escape becomes so all-consuming that their sense of reason is suppressed. Scars don't heal well when they're hidden under the covers. (To err is human... to super-err is superhuman?)

Pietro's sister, the Scarlet Witch, is an interesting character, but I'd personally never found Quicksilver to be that exciting, but Author David Hine changed that, at least for a time.

I loved Roy Martinez's art. Faces are occasionally a little off, but when he gets it right, which is most of the time, he gets it VERY right! His thin lines retain the human touch that I adore, and his ability to communicate the fragility of the human condition through them gives the book a special quality, one to which the carefully chosen colouring is fully respectful.

The book collects together Son of M #1-6.

Verdict: