Very intereting way of telling an x-men story. There's evething I love about the characters. ( )

Let me begin by getting the negativity out of the way. I hated the cover of this book. Not so much the style of the cover but the interpretations of the characters. Perhaps Cyclops can pass for half decent but the rest, and Rogue in particular, don't look like the characters in the Marvel universe. Sure, you can tell who Wolverine is by the claws and the suit but would you know that was Jean Grey or Rogue if they didn't appear with the rest of the team on the cover? I really think not.
For many years the Marvel prose novels appeared to be very much in house when it came to the authors penning them. You would see the same writers going from one set of superheroes to another so it was a pleasant change when Marjorie M. Liu brought a fresh perspective to the world of the X-Men.
Published in 2006 'Dark Mirror' adds an intriguing twist to the usual X-Men tales. You see, instead of them fighting the bad guys with their array of superpowers they find themselves stripped of their powers, by virtue of inhabiting the bodies of strangers, and so find themselves relying on their cunning, stealth and brains. From the back of the book...

"Jean Grey awakens in an unfamiliar room. She is weak, disoriented, stripped of her telepathic and telekinetic powers - and trapped in someone else's body. Also prisoner are her teammates Cyclops, Wolverine, Rogue and Nightcrawler - their minds held hostage within the bodies of strangers. Who has brought them here, and for what purposes? The answers lead to a terrifying plan that threatens not only the X-Men. but all of mutantkind..."

You would think that stripping away the powers that make the X-Men who they are would be a mistake as they would be losing what makes them unique. However, Ms Liu has such a wonderful grasp of the characters and how they act and think that this is far from the case. In fact, it was a refreshing change to see the X-Men stripped down to their bare bones. One of them, I won't spoil it by saying who, is inhabiting the body of someone of the opposite sex which really mixes things up and makes this X-Men novel even more unique.
I would suggest that all the other X-Men prose novels I have read, all twenty-nine of them, would only really appeal to fans of the franchise. However, this one is different and should appeal to those with little or even no knowledge of the X-Men due to the characters being stripped bare. It's only at the novel's climax when the X-Men's individual mutant powers come into play and by then, if you're not a superhero fan, you will have already had more than your money's worth due to the excellent story. ( )

rated 3 out of 10 by MasterDeski's dad; our fav characters spent the vast majority of the book in other bodies, without their mutant powers. ( )