X-Men 41, Uncanny X-Men 1, Wolverine and the X-Men 25

X-Men 41
Peck (w) and Palo and Mogorron and Ruggiero (a) and Mossa (c)

The final issue of this run of X-Men with this team of X-Men (which just premiered last issue but WAS pretty consistent before then) brings us up to the present in what's happening in the world of mutants right now. The X-Men go back to their roots in this final issue of approaching a scared new mutant and trying to get him to understand what it is to be mutant and to talk him into Xavier's dream before someone else takes him for their own purposes. It does not work. Instead we see again the Freedom Force we saw last time issue and get a little of their background (geez military, amirite guys?) and their powers. There's some interest here, though it does make me hope that they'll bring these guys back in the future. Not necessarily because they were interesting (they were, but we see enough villain mutants and none of these powers were exactly new. What are you going to do, we have hundreds and hundreds of heroes by now, there are only so many powers to go around), just because I don't want these last two issues to be forgotten or have just been to re-establish the theme of the X-Men. We know it at this point, I would think. And if you're a new X-Men reader, you'll probably just wait until the new #1.

Still, not a bad issue and not a bad finish to this run. It's not as big a finish as I might have anticipated, but it doesn't have to be. The X-Men aren't disbanding. They're just reorganizing the team. Again. After reorganizing it a little last issue. LOOK, I don't love the way they ended this to restart it but I don't want to hold that against these two issues. I don't think they were bad issues. I just didn't think they were particularly historic for final issues of a major series. Oh well, what are you going to do?

Uncanny X-Men 1
Bendis (w) and Bachalo (a + c)

Okay, so you guys know how I have my issues with Bendis? They are well-documented on this blog. This issue shows a whole bunch of those issues again.

First, I hate Maria Hill. I could not be more clear on that. But Bendis really wants her to be a big player in this Universe. She's also referred to as Director Hill. Secret Avengers told me the new director of SHIELD is Daisy Johnson. WHO IS LYING TO ME? Also, we get another one of those glimpses of Bendis doing the quick back-and-forth and people being interrupted. It can work, but I don't think it works a ton in this medium and he uses it a ton. Finally, I think the story has some promise. I think there are interesting things here. I don't like that there was someone hidden this whole issue, who we couldn't have identified without the caption anyway, and that it took the whole issue to reveal him. It's a weird frame that he's the key to this whole issue and, instead of using him at the end, we get the issue as a story he tells while he's still hidden, with his eyes and the top of his head unrevealed. So we know he's someone but we don't know who he is. This happens occasionally in comics to build suspense. However, we usually don't see the hidden figure for maybe a page or two because that suspense gets old if you use it for too long. Instead, here, we get it the whole issue only to eventually be told that it's Magneto. A bald Magneto who is unidentifiable without the Velma-reveal of Maria Hill saying "...MAGNETO." I don't get the frame. It's a little like, hypothetically, saying an unknown word like "Mapone" in the first issue of an eight issue run, have characters constantly reference the word, but take your sweet time to reveal what it actually has to do with anything. Eventually you'll just stop caring and you'll resent the implication that you should care.

Like I said, there are some interesting ideas in here going forward (ideas that have already largely been presented in All-New X-Men and some other books in the wake of AvX, but will be the focus of this book) but I'm hesitant to say I'm looking forward to seeing them to fruition. I've been burned before and a lot of the things I find irritating in Bendis' books are present here. We'll see where we go from here.

Wolverine and the X-Men 25
Aaron (w) and Perez (a) and Martin (c)

I tend to like this example of young potential heroes less than Avengers Academy and Avengers Arena (maybe because I'm more on the Avengers side than the X-Men side). I also tend to dislike too much goofiness in a comic, as stuck-up as that sounds. This book tends to have a bit of that all over (it was my issue with the arc about the murder-circus too). However, there are some good things spread out throughout this entire series. One, I think, is the relationship that's developed between Quentin Quire and Wolverine. Even though they have a hugely adversarial relationship with one another, it's developed into something a little more banter-driven and almost respectful. There is, I think, probably a real hate in there somewhere but it's warped by a real appreciation. It's an interesting twisting of that kind of relationship.

The other thing I think this book has done relatively well is to intersperse threatening villains occasionally without overwhelming us with them. However, an issue like this one pulls back a bit to remind us how many threats face the school and its students while simultaneously introducing a new one. This one, as so many in the X-Men's past, comes somewhere out of Logan's timeline, past or future, it's unclear. Should be interesting as we move forward. We also have a couple things brewing from past villains that are discussed and the beginning of a possible resolution of the things that have happened with Broo. He's feral now, with the personality that set him apart from other Brood all but eliminated. We also see, again, how much it's affected both Idie and Hank. Both of those (particularly Hank's failures) have been pretty compelling bits of character development. I can't say I totally look forward to this book month to month, but I rarely fully dislike an issue. That might not be a screaming endorsement but...well, it's a thing, right?