I read the first collection of Black a while back and was disappointed that it squandered its brilliant premise -- a world where only Black people have super powers -- with bad comic book plotting and dialogue that showed it really wanted to be a 1980s/90's X-Men comic. Well, now this spin-off wants to be that first very Wolverine limited-series by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller, where the enigmatic member of the team gets pulled back to Japan, where he trained to be a ninja. This international adventure then continues on to Russia and Sudan pursuing human traffickers who are selling super-powered Black children.

The writing is as bad as the first go-round and assumes a lot of knowledge about the characters, doing little to introduce their names, powers, and the world in which they live. One character, a Gorilla Grodd knock-off, is not even named in the story, and we only find out in the end matter that he has the wild name of Mindgrapes! Mindgrapes!!! (And here I thought all the good superhero names had already been taken.)

A real mess. ( )