‘Ink Master’ season 4, episode 5 review: Hugh Jackman, The X-Men and Scott Marshall domination

We love, love, love when “Ink Master” includes a comic book themed tattoo challenge. Last season we saw a lot of really great comic book icons tattooed on the canvases like the Joker and Joey Hamilton’s Catwoman (our favorite tattoo on the show ever), and this year we not only get to see canvases get tattoos of super mutant powers, but an X-Men themed elimination tattoo that brings us Hugh Jackman.

Flash challenge: The artists are taking on the task of demonstrating technical precision (all lines and shading must be absolutely perfect) and the big reveal is that the artists will be tattooing a representation of a mutant super power that the canvas wants to have. This kind of imagination is only going to help the top of the pack shine in this challenge and anyone who is not a strong artist is going to struggle with this one.

Scott was a total boss on the last episode of “Ink Master” winning both the flash challenge and best tattoo of the day and his advantages don’t end there. At the flash challenge he will get to pick the canvas of his choosing while the rest of the artist had their canvases randomly selected.

This was a pretty tough challenge and it really showed a lot of the artists weaknesses. Even though there were some tattoos that we thought showed better technical precision (like Bubba’s tree), Matti won the flash challenge.

Elimination tattoo: Kyle tried to work a strategic angle with Matti and told him to target some of the harder contestants like Scott, but when handing out the canvases Matti saw an opportunity to take Scott head on. The challenge was again technical precision, but this time focusing on color portraits of character from the X-Men films. There were two canvases that both wanted Wolverine and Matti took one for himself and gave the other to Scott to really see who was the better artist.

Judging: These X-Men tattoos were not easy and it showed in a lot of the artists work. Seeing Hugh Jackman come out to help judge the tattoos was a total thrill and not only is he such a comic book icon, but he was so genuinely happy to be there and it came through to us as a viewer. We were really impressed with Sausage (professor Xavier) and Halo (Rogue), but Scott ended up winning again… can anyone beat this guy? Scott decided to put up Roland for elimination and the human canvas jury picked Lydia. So who went home tonight? Roland had to pack up shop this week and Lydia stayed to fight another day.

This wasn’t the most exciting episode ever when it comes to drama, but we loved that the show went back to it’s roots tonight. There was no creepy, shocking, or over the top flash challenge to rattle everyone’s cages – they show focused on the tattoos and it was everything we’ve been missing about the show. Episode grade: A –

Are you excited to see Hugh Jackman and Wolverine tattoos on “Ink Master? If you are looking for more news on the show (including our exit interview with Randy Vollink) just head over to the link here. We also have been podcasting about the show all season long and you can listen to them on the site at the link here or download them over at itunes.

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Photo: Spike TV