Dean Motter

I really really really wanted to like this book. I mean, come on. The basic premise is that one of the architects of a Metropolis-style city has returned to find it's driving its inhabitants mad. And that architect is mostly mad himself, reduced to taking drugs to never sleep and constantly saying, "So much work to do...so little time to do it..."

How do you fuck that up?

Well, you fuck it up by devoting something like two or three panels on a single page in an almost 350 page book to that architect actually attacking the problem, but you spend the bulk of the time having people run around trying to solve one boring mystery after another, including whether the architect, known as Mr. X, is really Santos, or Walter, or Eichmann, or... yeah, don't care. So, the writing, while having the odd flash of brilliance, was mostly banal.

And then there's the art. It started off extremely strong with the talented Hernandez brothers, then got progressively worse until it hit rock bottom with artist Seth.

There was a constant thought going through my head as I struggled through two-thirds of the book before the apathy came to stay. And that thought was...

Mister X.
Misdirects.

I think that's the more accurate title. Don't call it Mister X. Call the the phonetically similar Misdirects. Because that's all this book seemed to do. It misdirected you from the main story of what Mr. X could have done to save the people of Radiant City, and instead involved you in the small, boring stories of some of the city's most boring leaders.

Not worth the time.… (meer)