New X-Men #40

One-sentence summary: I should really remember more of what happened, but I don't; I think it was ok?

Alright, I'll fess up: I don't really care about New X-Men. I really don't feel the artwork, I got into it too late to like any character but Santo (and occasionally Dust), and I barely remember half the characters. Combine that with this latest storyline about Ilyana Rasputin, a character I only remember as a child for having died, and I really don't know what's going on in the plot. They're in limbo? It looks like Hell, but I think it's limbo (they keep saying that). A character who's a devil, but not the devil or anything, has huge amounts of power and they need to beat him, so they need a soulsword, which can only be made from yakity smakity, blah blah blah. It's just such a convoluted storyline where things are happening all over the place, with characters dying and being brought back from the dead like nothin', involving characters that I didn't think we'd seen for 15 years, all with confusing artwork that does not facilitate easy understanding.

I just don't really enjoy New X-Men; they die so often even their own self-pitying speeches have turned to self-referential mockery.

On a good note, though, this issues does contain the latest Endangered Species bit, which I'm enjoying more than most X-books (excluding [X-cluding?] X-Factor). This one was ok; I didn't know the character he was talking to, so I couldn't connect with that, but it was still interesting. I'm hoping this mini-series answers the question that's been bugging me that I don't know an answer to: why the 198? What's special about them, or that number, that prevented them from being hit by Wanda's curse (that's actually part of the story and not an obvious story-telling device to prevent Marvel's most lucrative characters from disappearing)? I do look forward to this.