What began in last month’s “Giant-Size X-Men” one-shot continues in this week’s Giant-Size Age of Apocalypse. There was also a “Giant-Size Dark Phoenix” story but I just couldn’t quite nail the flow of the sentence without excluding it. The story thus far: Ms. Marvel is on a tour of the X-Men’s history along with her guide, the increasingly crazy mutant known as Legion. No longer tethered to Charles Xavier’s son David, Legion is now a hive-mind of insanity in pursuit of greater power and destruction. Imagine the Venom symbiont without Eddie Brock and completely lacking in Spider-Man’s scruples; also super-wild hair. Legion’s plan conflicts with Ms. Marvel’s natural heroism so their team-up of sorts is about to reach its inevitable conclusion – but who else will be standing in their wake?

As an Age of Apocalypse super-fan, this book held a lot of appeal, although at a brisk 30 pages, we don’t get to spend a lot of time with the characters that made the event so much fun back in the 90s. Writers Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly manage to inject some honest-to-goodness character development in Kamala, particularly with her lack of enthusiasm in being a mutant. They also do a solid job of handling Rogue and Colossus, who get the lion’s share of page-time, while most of the other mutants are either there as window-dressing or for an unceremonious death. The art team of C.F. Villa and Rafael Loureiro do an equally solid job, delivering some great character work that has a dynamic 90s feel, without the gratuitous, logic-defying anatomy that the decade is mostly known for.

The sense of nostalgia is on full-display in the back-up story by Jeph Loeb and Simone Di Meo, depicting a prelude to the original event featuring Wolverine and Sabretooth. This story seems to be over as soon as it starts but it’s still a fun few minutes to share with some very different versions of familiar characters. While the craftsmanship of this issue is great, its accessibility is virtually nonexistent. Even if your knowledge of the AoA event is casual, this is the third chapter of a series of sequential one-shots and relies on the reader to already be up-to-speed with these, as well as Kamala Khan’s current status quo. For all its high points, this book is a glaring example of Marvel’s current shortcomings: yet another big issue number one that requires a great deal of prior reading to truly understand and enjoy.