X has consistently been one of my favorite books each month for over a year now.  Although this issue features a re-hashed character much like Dr. Heide in the last story arc, the set-up for the rest of this arc is nothing short of intense. This month’s issue follows X as he’s stalking Kristoff, Arcadia’s premier weapons merchant.  X doesn’t want the armory-sized stash that Kristoff has control over getting into his streets.  The room X is tracking Kristoff from is filled with thugs.  Thugs that would have no problem taking X out had they known he was there.  X handles this in the only way he knows how-pure brutality.  I loved the lead-up into X’s killing with him explaining the different ways to snuff people out.  Right as he’s about to strike down on one of the thugs he admits that his sword is his weapon of choice.

Leigh has a stalker of her own as someone anonymously comments on her recent post about “Peter Winter” aka the Archon.  She ends up responding to the comment and eventually gets talking to the stranger.  The anonymous commenter ends up sending her a text that says they’re going to pay her a visit.  I really don’t want to give anything other than this away since I think everyone should be picking this book up every month, but the ending is one of the tensest endings from this book in recent memory.

Although I’m a big fan of this series, I can’t help but feel like a lot of the issue was spent just kind of going through the motions so we could get to the explosive ending.  You get some gruesomely beautiful scenes of X doing what X does best, and there’s a bit of tension with Leigh and her stalker…but we all knew who her stalker was going to be, especially if you read the intro.  And if you know who the stalker is, you know who else is coming-so I can’t really justify buying this issue, maybe just pick it up off the rack and skim through it.  If you read the past few issues you can pretty much tell what happens in this issue without even reading the whole thing.  I have faith in the rest of the story arc being great, but I’d be lying if I said this issue wasn’t a bit of a let-down.

Score: 3/5

Writer: Duane Swierczynski Artist: Eric Nguyen Publisher: Dark Horse Comics Price: $2.99 Release Date: 1/14/15 Format: Ongoing; Digital/Print