Uncanny X-Men 24, X-Men 17

Uncanny X-Men 24
Bendis (w) and Anka (a and c) and Caramagna (l)

Beast, using Cerebro, knows where Cyclops and his group are. He's been unwilling to disclose such up to now because he doesn't want to deal with Cyclops any more but now the team gets on a jet and flies to the old Weapon X facility to gather their old teammate. They tell him what's happening and head back home with Cyclops, Emma, Magik, and Kitty following via teleport. Amidst fears that Xavier may have left the school to Cyclops, She-Hulk begins to read the will, which reveals a marriage to Mystique and a chip with a video recorded message from Xavier that promises a big secret reveal.

You know those complaints I occasionally lodge about a story REALLY dragging forward? Well here ya go. It also plays to my more specific criticisms of this rift in the X-Men Universe being a rift in name only since they're ALWAYS hanging out together. ALSO, while we're on the subject of issues I'm having, I roll my eyes every time I see that cover and remember the punk (is that what we'd even call it? Just terrible, is what I'd call it) makeover of Dazzler. Look, what I'm saying is that there are real issues with this issue. There are some upsides, particularly in that it looks like Bendis might actually be ready to go a little deeper with some of the characters he's had in his control for the last two years or so, including Ice Man and, maybe, Beast. Still, more bad than good for my own tastes.

Total Score: 3/5


X-Men 17
Wood (w) and Diaz and Briones (a) and Mounts (c) and Caramagna (l)

The X-Men have brought the fight to The Future only to be stopped in their tracks by The Future's defense mechanism Bloodline, which allows only people with The Future's DNA to enter. At Kymera's request, Beast has brought Shogo to the fight scene. Using her future knowledge and begging the trust of her mother and the other X-Men, she brings Shogo to the edge of Bloodline and cuts his finger, wiping the baby's blood on one of the plants in the forest. Bloodline, needing to adjust, shuts down for enough time to allow Jubilee out of her prison and the X-Men into the forest. However, even Jubilee is too slow as the forest rips through the ground and kills The Future itself. Not all is well, though, as Shogo is poisoned by the foliage. Beast is forced to admit that he used Arkea to save Primal and Sprite and asks Storm to trust him as well as he injects the strain into Shogo, which he does and it saves his life. The X-Men all head home relatively happy, though Kymera sets off to live in the world, understanding that her mother didn't ask to suddenly have a teenage daughter and that the two would likely butt heads to no end. She'll still be around, ready to help and to protect the baby Shogo (her best friend in the future), but she won't be at the school.

The Future's storyline is interesting and ends up being almost more of a story for Kymera, who saves the day with some risky maneuvers and the sort of decisiveness we've come to expect from a Munroe. It's not a bad issue (a particular highlight is an unleashed Storm, prepared and able to raze the forest to stop The Future) and the art is pretty solid throughout. It does feel a little anticlimactic for a villain who, just a couple issues ago, seemed so untouchable, to die horribly tucked away from all of our heroes. Still not a bad issue, just a strange ending and one that doesn't sit particularly well, as if Wood had to rush out to finish up the other storylines and check in with all of our key characters before the issue officially ended.

Total Score: 4/5

Uncanny X-Men 23, X-Men 16

Uncanny X-Men 23
Bendis (w) and Anka (a and c) and Caramagna (l)

As the team recovers from the most recent attack of the future evil brotherhood, She-Hulk receives a startling package. While Cyclops tries to talk to Eva about whatever it is she's hiding and her suddenly faster aging and as Emma, Magik, and Magneto try to help Dazzler track down Mystique, She-Hulk heads to the Jean Grey School and calls together Storm, Beast, and Iceman, waiting only for Cyclops to turn up so that she can read the last will and testament of Charles Xavier.

The issue serves as both the start to a new arc and a bit of a rest issue after the last arc. It drags a little bit in its own way, combatted well by Bendis by jumping around the X-Universe a bit. As the team settles back in, welcoming recent overpowered hero Hijack back into their midst, Bendis sets up the new story which will, he promises, rattle the X-World to its core. That said, it comes as a big sort of GASP moment at the end when She-Hulk informs the three X-Men around her that they'll need to get Cyclops to hear the reading of the will, which would probably be more effective if the two rival teams didn't see each other every third book or so. For someone who has sort of been excommunicated by the X-Men, Cyclops has still made a number of appearances, met with varying degrees of anger and I think it's weakened the series and the death of Charles Xavier a bit. I'd have liked it more if they could have kept this Uncanny X-Men team from the X-Men team or the Wolverine and the X-Men team or whatever entirely, really giving a sense of isolation. Instead, Cyclops has appeared in every major X-Men story, it feels like, and Bendis has even gone so far as to send the O5 X-Men with Kitty Pryde to Cyclops' side. Hardly feels as dramatic. Anyway, the total score/review for this issue is only for this issue, not for the faults I'm expressing about the series as a whole. So...

Total Score: 4/5


X-Men 16
Wood (w) and Buffagni and Sandoval (a) and Mounts (c) and Eliopoulos and Caramagna (l)

The Future, thrown a bit by Kymera's appearance and actions, has altered his plan and captured Jubilee instead of killing her and trying to take Shogo himself. He retreats to a safehouse in the Adirondacks and waits for the X-Men's response. They prepare an assault, readying even the students for the fight, despite the notion that students should stay away from the fighting and acknowledging that the kidnapping of an X-Man and the brutal attacks on their home are more serious than most things they face. As they begin their attack, they learn that The Future has all manner of futuristic defenses, including a sort of bio-coded forest which would only allow entrance to people with the same DNA as The Future, stopping even the powerful Monet in her tracks. When The Future makes an offer of a trade, Jubilee for Shogo, to Storm, sure that she will give up the baby that he believes means nothing to her, she declares war.

Things are getting heated against The Future and I think that the only problem with the story as a whole is that The Future is still such a foreign entity. That isn't altogether bad; the idea that the X-Men don't really know who they're facing and that they've never faced him before opens the door for plenty of fear and poor decisions. However, it does make it kind of hard to see how much of a threat he is. Obviously Wood has done his part, showing The Future effortlessly attacking the Jean Grey School and incapacitating Psylocke (actually hard) and kidnapping Jubilee (ehhhhhh, not so hard once you're IN the school). Even with that, though, it's hard to get a read on this guy. This is where the continuity of comics hurts the current comics because the X-Men, appropriately, are treating this as one of the biggest threats they've faced but long-time X-Readers are undoubtedly thinking of all the other villains in the team's rogues gallery and wondering why The Future stacks up so high suddenly. Again, not necessarily Wood's fault or the fault of this book but it is a problem when reading this story. Still, strong issue overall, harkens back to Wood's ULTIMATE X-MEN with the sentient seed and the forest that fought on behalf of the mutants of Utopia, even if now a pseudo-sentient seed is fighting against the X-Men.

Total Score: 4/5

Winter Soldier: The Bitter March 4, Wolverine 7, B-B-B-BONUS Savage Wolverine 19

Winter Soldier: The Bitter March 4
Remender (w) and Boschi (a) and Chuckry (c) and Cowles (l)

As the train goes crashing into a small village, Ran Shen and Mila manage to use a grappling hook to stay above the explosion, just as Winter Soldier and the Drain hover out of it on Bucky's jetpack. The Drain starts to open Winter Soldier's mind to his past, draining his will to live by showing him what he's become after what he'd been. Bucky is barely able to keep from killing himself but jettisons the Drain on to the village, blasting himself a bit away from his influence. The Drain calls out to Shen and Mila, appealing to Mila's desire to help people by making the villagers kill themselves and draining their willpower. When she shows herself to make him stop, he does the same to Shen, calling him out as someone whose given everything to a country he no longer believes in and citing a mission that went wrong and led to plenty of innocent deaths. As Shen is beginning to believe that he should kill himself, the Winter Soldier shows up again and punches the Drain, forcing him to flee with Mila and giving Bucky a chance to appeal to Shen for his help. As they advance, he tells Shen that his memories are blurry and that the Hydra psychic opened something up in him. When they catch up to the Drain, the psychic convinces Mila to kill herself, preferring she die than fall into enemy hands. As Shen attacks the Drain, Winter Soldier dives off the cliff and catches Mila.

I've been writing shorter reviews this week rather pointedly but between this and the earlier THUNDERBOLTS issue, I just can't stop telling you the plot. That's sometimes not a great thing because sometimes it means there's too much plot told through too much exposition and I have to relate it all for the summary to make sense. In this case (as with THUNDERBOLTS though probably more here), it's because I'm excited by the story and because so much happened in 22 pages that I want to say it all. It's a pretty phenomenal issue and it's such an interesting limited series as we get to see a Cold War-era Winter Soldier remember who he is and temporarily break out of his programming. Remender has so much happening but it never bogs him down; instead, the pacing is near-perfect and the characters all get their moment and it's all compelling. Roland Boschi's art is great and Chris Chuckry's colors complement it perfectly. Really phenomenal book and I'm sad but excited to see the way it all ends next time. This has, so far, been one of the most satisfying limited series I've read in a long time.

Total Score: 5/5


Wolverine 7
Cornell (w) and Sandoval (a) and Curiel (c) and Petit (l)

Some monkeys steal the orb that Wolverine needs to get for MI-6 before Sabretooth can get it while he plays his team and pretends that he's still trying to get the orb for Offer so he can make a deal with Sabretooth. As Sabretooth goes in pursuit of the Orb, the Hand bring Wolverine down with poisoned arrows. Faiza shows up to extract the poison and save Wolverine before withdrawing, but she can't leave before Pinch sees her and it confirms Pinch's fears about Logan. They finally get their hands on the orb and it fights Logan, who can't get the passcode, with his opposite Logan. When the doppleganger's been put down by Pinch, who, with the help of Fuel, can interact more successfully with the Orb, she and the team leave Wolverine behind. Captain Britain extracts him but Sabretooth finds Pinch and the others, kills Fuel, and shows Pinch that he has her daughter.

There's a lot of fairly interesting stuff here that's tied together by a somewhat loose few strings. The first loose string is that the orb is rather a convenient plot device of a weapon, one that announces to Pinch that Wolverine is a hero and pulls his opposite version, a feral villain, out of the ether to fight him to further confirm things (also that it needs a passcode, which is weird for an orb). The second and probably more important string for the big character moment of this issue is that I don't buy Pinch and Wolverine's relationship. Granted, Cornell may not have had a couple years to cement their relationship as something that seemed real before this arc but it still feels like their relationship was something wispy and hardly there and now it's the crux of this entire emotional journey. It feels weak from both sides so using it to raise up the entire story causes the whole thing to rather collapse. There are some interesting ideas in here and I like Sandoval's art for the story (makes things look a lot more dynamic than anything in Cornell's first WOLVERINE story and feels maybe a little more cartoonish in the action than Stegman's stuff, though Stegman didn't have as much action to draw), but it all falls somewhat flat on their relationship (and, to a lesser extent, on the convenient orb).

Total Score: 3/5


Savage Wolverine 19
Simone (w) and N. Edwards (p) and Pallot (i) and Sotomayor (c) and Petit (l)

Note: This is a b-b-b-bonus review insofar as it came out last week but I didn't get my hands on it until pretty late so I rather put it off more than I should have. So, not so much bonus as "here it is, late." Here it is either way though, SAVAGE WOLVERINE 19 written by the incomparable Gail Simone (I wrote this blurb before I read the issue so hopefully I have only good things to say about Simone afterwards)

Wolverine dreams of a home under the Northern Lights, removed from people, with Jean. Of course, it's too good to be true and Professor X communicates with him to break him out of the dream, reminding him that he and Jubilee have been captured by AIM for testing. They're trying to get a hold of where the two are but for now, he has to get out of his restraints and find Jubilee. He manages it and learns that they're under a new sedation method that makes them dream of something they really want, meaning that they don't really fight the sedation and the brain does all the work for them. Though Wolverine broke out of his, Jubilee remains attached to hers (where she's one of the most powerful X-Men, even with her powers, and Wolverine is her sidekick) even when he breaks her out. Professor X informs Logan that they're closing in and that he shouldn't break Jubilee's illusion in the fear that it's strong enough to do real damage to her mentally if she comes out unexpectedly. So Wolverine, acting like Jubilee's sidekick, follows her as she storms through the compound being ineffective. Finally she does get smart to what's really happening but, as it happened softly enough, she's okay, just a little hurt by how bad her powers are. However, as Wolverine gets blasted, she manages to hold off AIM long enough for him to recover and for them to get out of there. He cheers her up as they leave, telling her that her powers, in his eyes, are some of the best around (he harkens back to the Northern Lights as he compliments them).

It's a rather sweet issue and an overall very fun issue. One of the things that I really like about Gail Simone (though I haven't read too much by her as she's mostly with DC these days) is that she gets into the head of a character so well and that she seems to understand the humanity of a character. On top of that, she's not afraid to pull punches. In this issue, she teams Wolverine, someone who claims to be the best there is at what he does, with Jubilee, someone with the power of fireworks (the only way you can be more '80s/'90s is by dressing like Jubilee did in the '80s/'90s). Jubilee's happy place is a place where she is more powerful than she actually believes she is. On top of it, she snaps out of it and almost immediately says "my powers suck," which is rather true but also rather cutting. You don't see that sort of self-awareness from a lot of characters. On top of that, Simone cuts right to the core of things (very important for a self-contained issue) and teams Wolverine and Jubilee, two characters who don't particularly see themselves fitting in with the X-Men at any point. It's immediately a compelling story and one that instantly works. Obviously she's not the first person to team the two and it's a duo that's worked to varying degrees in the past but she dives right in and makes it her own here. Solid book, definitely worth a look.

Total Score: 4/5

X-Men 14, Uncanny X-Men 21

X-Men 14
Wood (w) and C. Mann (p) and C. Mann and S. Mann (i) and Mounts (c) and Caramagna (l)

The Future has attacked two students, Primal and Sprite, and, in doing so, somehow broken past every defense that the X-Men have. Monet and Rachel tear off after Primal's shooter and track him to a train in an attempt to make a getaway. They manage to take him down before he can shoot himself, bringing him back to the school for questioning while Psylocke ups the mansion's defenses and Beast attempts to save the wounded. Storm calls everyone together to tell them that she's officially announced them as a team (AKA made it known to Wolverine) but her speech is interrupted when the Future strikes again shattering more defenses and breaking through where they were holding the original shooter. Storm's future daughter Kymera helps protect Shogo and trounces the shooter, who turns out to be a bomb, and the ensuing explosion complicates things further.

Story
The Future, despite his name, continues to be a frustratingly compelling villain, one who is able to inexplicably get past all of the mansion's many defenses and to remain hidden from even the talented psychics on the premises. Amid the fear of the Future is a story about the team forming and starting to work together as Storm begins to back down from her leadership position, allowing for more voices of dissent or more strategies and at least stalling the overthrow talk. Wood has always done a solid job at ramping up and balancing tensions and this issue is a prime example. 5/5

Character
There are a number of strong characters in this book and Wood should be praised for keeping their voices almost entirely distinct. It's the sort of book where you could focus on the words on the page and know who's speaking. The only time that that line gets a little muddied is with Rachel, who occasionally plays the side that's convenient to the advancing plot, though I'd also say that I'm not really sure I've read a really great Rachel Grey before and I'd say that I've read great versions of all of the other major characters elsewhere. 4/5

Writing
Wood bounces back and forth between locations and characters enough to make the book feel really fast-paced even when a lot of this issue is just fortifying defenses and reacting to last issue. It creates the sort of panicked and terrorized tone for the issue that allows the reader to begin to understand what the outlook is like at the school. Particularly effective with this is seeing Beast's full-on sadness at what's happening and his seeming inability to help the injured. 5/5

Art
Strong art from Clay Mann, as is typical. There's a nice panel as Ororo apologizes for her recent behavior and announces that they're officially a team where, though the camera is pulled back far enough that there's not much detail to the characters' faces, we get a good sense of the situation from the position and the posture of each character, with Storm fretting anxiously, Rachel listening o obediently, Monet with her arms-crossed, Psylocke with her hands on her hips, and Jubilee cradling Shogo. It's a nice characterization of all of them in the briefest of moments. 5/5

Miscellaneous
As in the last issue, the mini-story BROMO-SUPERIOR continues in this issue, again written by wood but with art from Phil Briones and colors from Matt Milla. It's fine, or whatever.

Total Score: 5/5


Uncanny X-Men 21
Bendis (w) and Bachalo (p) and Townsend, Irwin, Mendoza, Olazaba, and Vey (i) and Bachalo (c) and Caramagna (l)

Cyclops and Magik have lost control of their powers upon arriving at the Jean Grey School to question Beast on whether or not he's tracking their movements with Cerebro. The mutants at the mansion subdue the pair just as Dazzler arrives and demands to take Cyclops into custody. Beast fights her on it, convinced something is wrong with them and realizing he's best suited to understand what and who is attacking them. Maria Hill steps in and eventually sides with Beast, giving him an hour to study Cyclops. The mysterious entity behind the attacks sees his opportunity and uses the SHIELD helicarriers to attack the school while Beast begins to study Cyclops in his lab and realizes who is behind everything. Meanwhile, Magneto frees Dazzler in Madripoor and swears he'll help her find revenge.

Story
Though I thought that Cyclops' reason for coming to the Jean Grey School was kind of stupid and convoluted (the dude's just going to keep making excuses to go there apparently and the more he does it the less of a dramatic "OH NO, LOOK WHO'S HERE" sort of a moment it is. Soon we'll just assume he's a part-time professor), you can see here why Bendis chose to send them. Though the ends don't necessarily justify the means, we're here to examine this issue and not the last one and the at ion of this issue is compelling enough. I do have some problems with the fact that this book can't seem to go more than a few issues without pulling in the other mutants or SHIELD or anything else, but we are moving quickly to our mysterious adversary. The most compelling story of the issue, though, is Emma Frost's refusal to completely give up on Scott as a love interest. Just kidding, of course it's not that, I could not care less about that. I swear, every time I start to fight for this book, I'm reminded that I'm actually annoyed by it. No, it's Magneto. His determination to get Dazzler out and stop the MGH production is a nice arc for his character and it boosts this up from the 3/5 I was going to give this issue after remembering Emma Frost's contribution. 4/5

Character
Like last time, I'm going to fall back on Magneto's arc here because there's not a lot else to look at. There's Emma Frost and I continue not to care even a little bit about that relationship. Magneto's stuff is strong, I'm still not particularly into SHIELD's involvement though Maria Hill's agreement to let Beast check out Cyclops was both interesting and baffling. 3/5

Writing
Bendis reins in the back-and-forth dialogue here which I really appreciate since there's a lot of fighting and a lot of exploding in this issue and I really hate it in those moments. I think the tone of the book works pretty well but I'd have to put that to the colors as much as anything. Still, writing didn't hurt that and that's sometimes just as important as actively fostering it. 5/5

Art
As I said, I think the colors really helped the art in this one. Bachalo's art is typically impressive and it's extremely consistent. This issue loses a point in art for a weird gratuitous upskirt of one of the girls in the Jean Grey School (I'd call her Surge but I've not known Surge to wear a skirt and I'm unclear if she's there or not. Who knew I'd have to choose between blue-haired girls?). 4/5

Miscellaneous
I think this book has the ability to shine through some of the problems I've had with it but it keeps barely scratching that surface instead of leaping over it.

Total Score: 4/5

X-Men 13, Uncanny X-Men 20, X-Force 3

X-Men 13
Wood (w) and C. Mann (p) and C. Mann and S. Mann (i) and Mounts (c) and Caramagna (l)

With a moment to rest following Arkea's defeat, the team ponders where they've been and where they're going. Psylocke encourages Storm to officially make them a team and own up to being its leader, Rachel Grey tries to get over her crush on John Sublime (which may turn into a revenge on Sublime), Monet pushes herself harder to eliminate the weakness she found against the Sisterhood, and Jubilee tries to find her place in the school with Shogo. They're thrust into their new mission, though, as a professional bad guy (that may as well be his description) claiming to be Shogo's father begins to attack the school, promising that everyone will die unless he gets his hands on the boy.

Story
Though we're entering quickly into the new BLOODLINES storyline and this bad guy who goes by the name "The Future," this is meant to act more as a downtime issue. The action doesn't kick in until about halfway through as it's more important here to understand what the team is going through. It's a needed break in the action but, as with all serial media, it can't last. The Future is maybe a little weak so far in his actual background (he really does just seem like a generic really bad guy, though that may be developed further) but he does seem already to be an impressive adversary. 4/5

Character
With a break in the action, the character takes an important role and Wood does a good job taking advantage of it here. Psylocke wants Storm to be the Ororo that gets up in people's faces and that doesn't back down and they have an exchange that works really well. Still not totally sold on Rachel Grey in this book but I think Wood can use her as a good foil to Storm. Monet's determination is right on the money and Jubilee's restlessness towards not understanding her new role is solid. 4/5

Writing
Pretty solid writing throughout. The story comes across well and Wood does a good job switching between characters and even shifting the tone when the action starts to pick up. 5/5

Art
Clay Mann draws really impressive people and some pretty good action, though there's not a lot here. Still, the range from Ororo and Storm's talk to Monet and Rockslide's punching to Jubilee's dancing is a pretty wide range and Mann handles it well. 5/5

Miscellaneous
A first issue of a new arc is hard, particularly one following an arc that was so long. I think Wood and company gave just the right amount of downtime here before diving into the new story. Still not totally sold on the Future (also his name is the Future). This issue also has a little mini-story at the end by Wood and artist Phil Briones called BROMO-SUPERIOR where Hellion, Rockslide, Anole, and Broo go to train in the Danger Room on the heels of the Future's first attack on the Jean Grey School.

Total score: 4/5


Uncanny X-Men 20
Bendis (w) and Bachalo (p) and Townsend, Faucher, Holdredge, Mendoza, Olazaba, and Vey (i) and Bachalo (c) and Caramagna (l)

After the attack in Chicago, Scott decides to check in with Maria Hill personally, using the Stepfords to get into SHIELD unnoticed and ask his questions of her. They search her mind, to which she submits willingly, and find that she also believes that SHIELD could be behind the Sentinel attacks but knows little more (though she has an attraction to Scott because Bendis). Scott and the Stepfords leave and, back at base, realize that whoever is targeting them must be using Cerebro technology to do it. The list of people who can use Cerebro tech is very short and Scott narrows in on Hank McCoy. He and Magik pay Hank a visit at the Jean Grey School but are quickly found by SHIELD and attacked.

Story
Scott's war continues just as Mystique and Sabretooth continue their fight with SHIELD, Mystique still posing as Dazzler. It's hard to really get in the head of some of these characters because I'll likely never face the persecution and fear on these guys but I find it hard to buy that Scott would even feel the need to check on Hank. They weakly try to explain it all away by saying that it's probably not him but who knows, he certainly hates Scott these days, but it's hard to see even the most persecuted and feared man believing that Hank McCoy would employ Sentinels. Also, Maria Hill having a crush on Scott is INFURIATING. Bendis can't go two minutes without introducing another love interest for so many characters. 4/5

Character
Scott's character is so often in flux these days that it's hard to kind of pinpoint if he's in character or not. It's also hard to tell about Maria Hill because she's sometimes savvy and crafty and sometimes totally off-the-handle obsessed with one aspect of her job. I don't think these problems are this issue's, I think these are line problems at Marvel. Still, I'm going to lump the score for Maria Hill's crush on Scott into here so... 2/5

Writing
The tone works for this issue as things jump around pretty quickly to disorient the reader. In addition, it does feel like it's coming from a darker place right now, which is how things surrounding Scott should feel. The Maria Hill attraction thing (no, I'm not going to get over it and I HATE Maria Hill) feels a little out of place amidst all the serious Sentinel things going on. 4/5

Art
I like Chris Bachalo's art a lot and I think he does an interesting job matching tone here. There are times where I think that his art is almost too cartoony for how dark this tries to go but overall I think he manages to balance it out with a seriousness that matches Scott's concerns and the war designation Scott is so eager to give out. Also, I will admit that I'm still not really onboard with a lot of these costume designs. 4/5

Miscellaneous
I really don't think that my aversion to the Maria Hill-Scott Summers thing is out of place here. I think Hill is a stronger character if she's not obsessed with Summers based in part out of some schoolgirl crush on him. On top of that, it is one of my frequent complaints about Bendis that he tries to overload with love triangles and romances that I feel tend to bog things down. Don't get me wrong; there are romances and love triangles elsewhere throughout comics and every other sort of media, but we don't need it in every single comic.

Total score: 3/5


X-Force 3
Spurrier (w) and R. Kim (a) and Sabino (l)

X-FORCE needs to find Volga, their suspect for the bombing at Alexandria. Psylocke combs Cerebro to find Volga but settles for finding people who are thinking about Volga, honing in on one mutant in particular, a teleporter named Antonio Aggasiz who had escaped but was again captured by Volga and terrified of him. The team travels to Brazil only to find that many mutants are being held there because their home countries wanted them secreted away and punished for being mutants. With guards keeping an eye on Aggasiz, the other inmates ask to be let out of their cells to help take down the guards. Cable accepts their help but Psylocke refuses to let them become killers and puts everyone to sleep while she goes in and kills all the guards. She wakes the team but before they can get anything from Aggasiz, Volga himself appears in some sort of energy projection and kills the teleporter.

Story
The plot thickens as Volga seems to have some sort of powers though it had seemed for all intents and purposes previously that he was just a regular human. In addition, the look at the rendition of these mutants is as dark as anything else we've seen pertaining to these mutants and really helps illustrate the sort of conditions mutants live in more than fights with various supervillains could. 5/5

Character
Psylocke narrates this issue though her narration is far more sparse than the previous two issues from Cable and Marrow's perspectives. Instead, she puts her thoughts on her sleeve this time out, snapping at Marrow for calling her ability and methods into question and putting everyone to sleep before admitting to her team that she sought out X-Force, unlike the recruitment of the others, because she can't stand to be away from the killing. It's dark but it's really well done and we get a couple hints at more interesting developments down the road as she reveals she knows why everyone else joined up. Something interesting also happening with Marrow as her language centers do, as Psylocke threatened, seem to be on the fritz. 5/5

Writing
A really good comic book will more or less have this "writing" section covered based on the "story" and "character" sections because the plot, tone, and characters will mesh so well that I'll have nothing to add. Such seems to be the case here as Spurrier is showing us the world that Cable fears is out there already in this darker issue. 5/5

Art
I wasn't sure how I liked Rock-He Kim's art when the initial preview art for the series came out. Much like so many books with a steady artist, though, it's grown on me and come to match the tone so inextricably that I can't imagine another way it could be illustrated (though I saw preview pages recently for an issue done by another artist so I guess I find out). 5/5

Miscellaneous
The team is starting to come together here and the closer look at Psylocke really helps to establish some of the things Spurrier wants established. In this case, she shines a light on Marrow (who helps her own case by talking so much this issue) and on Fantomex (there's a great moment when she corrects his faux French and calls him a fraud but then later reveals that he's joined with the team because he needs help and won't ask for it). Even MeMe has a nice couple moments here. And her name is actually MeMe and not Meme. Who knew? Such is the flaw of writing in all capital letters all the time.

Total score: 5/5

Wolverine 3, Revolutionary War - Motormouth 1

Wolverine 3
Cornell (w) and Stegman, Morales, and Livesay (a) and Curiel (c)

Going for record speed on this review. Present day Wolverine's a little shaken by the man he killed with his new team and by his memories of the past, the day when he left his old team. Spider-Man threw him off the roof then caught him and let him swing down to the ground himself, where Jubilee met him and led him to a fight against anti-mutant robots. At the same time, Maria Hill tried to recruit him to go after Sabretooth. He declines all options and heads home to find a new costume from Spider-Man waiting for him. Meanwhile, Sabretooth, still wearing a suit, has decided to dedicate his life to becoming God.

As has been true for some time now, I continue to be bored by this series, both in its characters and in its presentation. The characters all sound rather the same with the very slight exception of Wolverine, who sounds very slightly more gruff, which you can tell by the way he knocks the "g" off of verbs ending in "ing." Everyone else is somewhat indistinguishable and the pacing continues to be off-the-charts slow. While Cornell tries to get new readers caught up on the saga of the new status quo for Wolverine, he ends up wasting issues trying to show that Wolverine is both frustrated and vulnerable. Somehow, that doesn't make for much compelling reading.

Revolutionary War - Motormouth 1
Dakin (w) and Cliquet (a) and Redmond (c)

Motormouth, another Marvel UK superhero, gets thrown into the fight against Mys-Tech, with whom she's had plenty of experience in the past, who are after her for her very special shoes. She and a group of neighborhood thugs team up to take out the agents they sent and to save both Motormouth and her kids, one of whom reveals that she has the power to see into her mother's head and remove memories if she so chooses. They decide, as a family, to go to Hell to help rescue Motormouth's old partner Killpower.

OKAY, first item of business, not sure if those names up above are correct. The cover states different names and the splash page for this one talks all about the stuff happening with Colonel Tigon Liger and refuses to even mention Motormouth. Granted, this series has worked in such a way that this is Motormouth's first appearance in these events so maybe that's intentional but Liger is barely even mentioned in this issue so I have my doubts. Furthermore, the distribution list I follow (which I'm already mad at this week) has the names above as the creative team but again defines the book as one seemingly about Tigon Liger. So I just don't know what to think. Anyway, it's another REVOLUTIONARY WAR book which means it's another disjointed and strangely paced and toned book showing a UK hero being forced into the fight against Mys-Tech and ending with the now very old ending of someone deciding to take matters into their own hands to stop the evil entity. I didn't end up reviewing the last one, REVOLUTIONARY WAR - SUPERSOLDIERS because I rather ran out of time in the week and it's good to know that, as I guessed at the time, I didn't actually miss a beat.

All-New X-Men 22, X-Men 9, Marvel Knights X-Men 3

All-New X-Men 22
Bendis (w) and S. Immonen and von Grawbadger (a) and Gracia (c)

The ANXM team is back from their meeting with the Purifiers and everyone's relaxing their own way. For Scott and Jean (and, inadvertently, Warren), that means arguing about her knowing the future and being upset and Scott being upset and drama and so on and so forth. The fight ends as Jean storms off and is promptly kidnapped by suddenly attacking aliens who, according to Kitty, seem to be Shi'ar. They put everyone attacking them in bubble forcefields and take Jean away in one without a giant fight. As soon as they've left, the Guardians of the Galaxy pop by and realize that they're too late.

Right off the bat the pacing feels a little strange in this one. Things move pretty well for the second half of the book but the first half is largely made up of Scott and Jean fighting across a cafeteria table (and across Warren for comic relief). Though the back-and-forth dialogue is pretty prevalent in this scene, I actually think that it works here because they're meant to be kind of quickly shouting at one another and it doesn't often step into strange asides and quips. Instead, it feels like a real fight. So my problem, then, isn't with the writing of this scene, it's with the length of it. Maybe halfway through it I think it's safe to say it could have ended. There's even an out there that could have still sent Jean walking away and the issue progressing from there. It might be an attempt by Bendis at trying to give just a little more characterization to the three characters present in whatever way he can but it feels like it just overstayed its welcome, causing readers to have to push through the end of a fight they already fully understand and, worse still, to which they know the ending. Still, it's not one of the weaker issues of the series for that, as the pacing almost immediately picks up (though again, I'd say there's a bit of waste in the second half insofar as how often people explain what's happening in the fight, but that's pretty petty, even by my own admission) and the ending paves the way for the now started TRIAL OF JEAN GREY. Solid Immonen artwork on this one but, then again, it's always solid Immonen artwork.

X-Men 9
Wood (w) and T. Dodson and R. Dodson (a) and Keith, Woodard, and Mossa (c)

Lady Deathstrike has moved her operation, along with Enchantress and Typhoid Mary, to a new office in Dubai where she hopes to power her small team up and hopes to bring Arkea to life. The X-Men are trying to track them but not finding much until Jubilee and Karima find a Cortes jet landing in Dubai. Monet is ready to strike and aimed at the top seven floors of the building, all of which are owned by Cortes and seem empty, aside from the villains. Monet blasts through but it's just too late; Arkea has already been revived, taking the body of Cortes' assistant Reiko, and amped up the powers of the other three. Enchantress, her powers fully restored, manages to grab and hold Monet until she loses consciousness while Mary and Arkea escape. Mary and Arkea talk about the X-Men, whose databases Arkea still retains from her first appearance, and it gives Arkea an idea: she begins to take over other entities all over the world (including, possibly, Karima again) and plans to attack the X-Men on every home base she knows.

The stakes are pretty quickly rising here as Arkea comes back online. There's still plenty of intrigue and questions as Sublime returns to the X-Men to help for one reason or another but it's largely out in the open now as the audience is privy to Arkea's rebirth and her plan going forward. The team building and characterization is mostly in the actions of characters as everyone has her role and takes to it immediately, with Jubilee and Karima trying to track Arkea, Storm and Psylocke meeting with Arab superhero and peacekeeper Sabra to ensure their fight with Arkea keeps from starting a war, Monet as the strike force, and Rachel probing Sublime for information and directing the others. Everyone has an individual voice, even as some of our characters have fewer lines and are maybe a little out of focus. Meanwhile, the plot is running full tilt now and our players are largely accounted for, though there are hints that Arkea might be picking up new enemies for her sisterhood, as Enchantress deems it. As X-MEN moves firmly out of the event it was wrapped up in, it's progressing extremely well with Brian Wood doing his "raising all the stakes" thing perfectly as expected. Good stuff, excited to see what comes of it.

Marvel Knights X-Men 3
Revel (w and a) and Peter (c)

As the X-Men onsite begin to see their memories come to life as a result of Darla, powered up by Krystal's drugs, things start to break down pretty rapidly. Tons of old X-Men villains and horrors descend on the town and tensions immediately start running high, particularly from Wolverine, who has apparently gone crazy and is set on killing Darla for what he saw in her memories and what's happening all around them. As he and Rogue fight pretty brutally over it, Kitty tries to get Krystal to safety. Meanwhile, a mysterious group practically running the town and creating the drug that everyone in the town has been using, a mutant drug born of a mutant who arrived in the town some time ago, is ready to jump into the fight and do so by killing the sheriff of the town, Krystal's uncle Jasper. As Kitty and Krystal try to get away, an entity that Krystal refers to as Jasper appears in the car and attacks Kitty from behind, forcing her to phase through the moving vehicle and stranding her on the road in front of a mob of angry townspeople.

The chaos of this book is really ramping up and it's easy to lose track if you miss a single panel. In that respect, the interesting and rather gorgeous art is almost a hindrance to the book as you kind of want to skip the writing just to look at the artwork. It's the sort of book that might take a couple read-throughs to really comprehend (and even then I'm not sure I've got it all) and to really see it. I'm not the type to start complaining about pretty and experimental art in a book. The plot is maybe a little convoluted but this is the sort of story that I'd like to see the results before I officially condemn the plot. I think that it's something that could wrap up really nicely or could go entirely south depending on how Revel moves from here. This serves, then, as a very interesting midway point for the limited series and continues to set itself apart from a lot of the other books on the shelves with its action, its intimate team, and its artwork. Pretty neat issue, looking forward to how this one wraps.

Uncanny X-Men 14, X-Men 7

Uncanny X-Men 14

Bendis (w) and Bachalo, Townsend, Mendoza, Vey, Irwin, and Olazaba (a) and Bachalo (c)

The new X-Men team Cyclops has assembled isn't exactly up to spec yet and Cyclops wants to make sure they're ready when the true tests come. That means extra training for everyone, both using and not using powers. Perhaps the most disillusioned is Benjamin Deeds, the new X-Man who can change his appearance (or at least people's perceptions of him) to match what others want to see. He believes he is not of much use to the X-Men and Cyclops doesn't really help that feeling. Emma Frost, though, sees his power as perhaps the most impressive of the bunch and takes it upon herself to train him a little more, bringing him to Atlantic City and running him through a couple of tests to get him used to using his powers. After he's worked a bit with it, she sends him on a mission, delivering a letter to one Timothy Dugan (who readers will recognize as Dum Dum Dugan) in a disguised SHIELD facility. Deeds manages to make his way through successfully, deliver the message, and leave. The message, unfortunately for Deeds, informs Dugan that SHIELD is using Sentinels and that they need to discontinue or it will spark a war and is signed by Cyclops. Men surround Deeds as he's trying to leave, though Illyana and Emma break him out in time. They return to base and find an impressed but not surprised Cyclops waiting.

I think this would be the right move for this book for the next set of issues, a series of what basically amount to one-shots focused on each new character individually. I think the team moments of this book have been bogged down by Bendis' need to back-and-forth every bit of dialogue and to make everyone quip in the background of tense moments and what have you. Changing the focus from team to individuals to help establish who these characters are would go a long way to legitimizing the X-Men team as a whole. We've had this team for 14 issues now and I feel like I have very little sense of who these guys are as individuals and even by their powers. The best way to right that ship would be to allow each of them some one-on-one time with a professor or something, giving them their own story to establish them, as this issue did. As a result, I liked this issue more than I've liked a lot of the others. I think giving us a sense of character would help a lot in terms of making the book feel more like an X-Men book and would, perhaps, make some of the back-and-forth banter parts more tolerable (less optimistic on that front).

X-Men 7

Wood (w) and T. Dodson and R. Dodson (a) and Keith (c)

Lady Deathstrike is returning to the Marvel Universe in the form of a shared body after dying some time ago. The body she's sharing is that of 18-year-old Ana Cortes, billionaire heiress to her recently deceased father's Colombian empire. Cortes wanted to team with Lady Deathstrike and upgraded herself to accept her consciousness and powers (kind of ill-defined on the how she did that, as yet, or REALLY the why). Her target now is Karima Shapandar, newly out of her coma, hoping that she can get her hands on the Omega Level Sentinel tech inside of her. Armed with a set of henchmen and dossiers on the everyone at the school, Cortes arrives at Westchester, hoping to access Karima. It's easier than she thought to reach Karima as Karima and new school resident Monet, formerly of X-Factor and currently taking some time and laying low, are out for a run. Cortes' men manage to get a shot on Karima, hitting her in the arm, before Monet, not documented on Cortes' intel, absolutely destroys the henchmen and their weapons. Cortes leaves but not before Monet identifies her as Lady Deathstrike. As both teams regroup, the X-Men realize what they're up against and Deathstrike finds a new target and a new assistant; her new target, based on recent gathered information, is the immensely powerful Arkea, and her new assistant is Daredevil villain Typhoid Mary.

A lot of cool stuff here as our cast of characters grows a little bit with the addition of Karima, Monet, and (kind of) Bling. Bling has a moment in here where we find out she's been talking to Jubilee about her love-life and things aren't going particularly well, as her unrequited feelings for Mercury led to Mercury punching her, apparently. She tells Jubilee that it's okay though, as she has her eyes set on someone else now (HINT: smart money's on Jubilee), meaning we're not likely to see the last of her just yet. ANYWAY, the story I spent the whole paragraph above describing. The re-emergence of Lady Deathstrike is an interesting choice and one that I think I'll be a little more interested by when we get a little more information. I had to re-read most of the comic before reviewing it and still ended up deleting a lot of my first attempts at sentences, as they mostly kept saying things like "Cortes wanted to team with Lady Deathstrike because...oh, we don't really know that. Cortes upgraded herself by...I don't know. I mean, the slot in her neck, right? And like, a USB drive? Um. Okay." Still, the characterization is solid with a nice amount of time spent on new resident Monet and on Karima, as well as brief flashes of Storm and Rachel's continued power struggle and Jubilee's situation. There's a story forming here and it seems like it could be a good one, but I'd like to get a little more information out of it first.

Infinity: Heist 1, A+X 12

Infinity: Heist 1
Tieri (w) and Barrionuevo (a) and Sotomayor (c)

The Avengers are up in space which means it's open season for the supervillains of Earth. Of course, it's not quite as straightforward as that because there are still a number of heroes left on the planet but that's the mentality of the supervillains. That mentality is out in full force as Blizzard and Whirlwind plan an attack on the Wakandan embassy, which just received a shipment of gold. They successfully break in and fight their way past the Wakandans only to find Spymaster waiting for them in the vault. He's already stolen the gold (and diamonds!) and sold them but he has another job for them, one that is even better paying. They meet him at a supervillain nightclub (these pop up pretty frequently) and find their team, adding Whiplash, Unicorn, and Firebrand to the duo. Spymaster explains that they're going to rip off Tony Stark then introduces the last member of their team, Titanium Man. As soon as Titanium Man bursts into the room, Blizzard has some sort of attack and can't breathe, collapsing to the floor.

It's a little hard not to compare this to Superior Foes of Spider-Man because there are some obvious similarities. First and foremost, we're focusing on the supervillains. I'd also put Whirlwind and Blizzard on the same level as Boomerang and company (okay, maybe a tiny step up, if only because "whirlwind" and "blizzard" are both Pokémon moves and therefore more dangerous while "Boomerang" is not. If his name was "Bonemarang," maybe he'd have a case). The tones aren't dissimilar, though I'd say that Spencer's book aims for the funny more than this one does (though there are comedy bits in here too). However, with the similarities come the same overall problems. A book like this relies very heavily on characterization of these villains, who have only ever been characterized as villains before. Some may have more nuances to them, depending on how long they've been around and who's handled them before, while some may have fewer. However, they're not, for most people, the characters we've long been rooting for. As a writer, you have to make the villains sympathetic enough that you want them to kind of succeed, or at least not die trying to fight the hero we're actually rooting for. Because, in most cases, the reader goes in rooting against your protagonist and the antagonist is the hero your reader does care about. Tricky stuff here. We'll have to let this one carry on a bit further before any judgement can be made.

A+X 12
Wonder Man and Beast: Gage (w) and D. Williams (a) and Gandini (c)
Captain America and Jubilee: Jordan (w) and Unzueta (a) and Mason (c)

This issue of A+X feels a little more like the form this book should be taking, or at least one of the forms it should be taking. The first story re-teams former Avengers and former best pals Wonder Man and Beast as they decide to meet up for drinks at a bar. The two reminisce a bit before each expresses disappointment in what the other has become. For Beast, Wonder Man going crazy and attacking Avengers before becoming a superhero pacifist is a strange turn and for Wonder Man, Beast bringing the original X-Men forward in time to relive the past is completely out of character. And guess what, I agree on both counts. Wholeheartedly. Anyway, the two wonder if they can recover their friendship and decide to go out on the town like they used to. It's a nice night out for the two of them and they return to the bar toward the end of it, only to walk home drunkenly singing like they used to. It's not a bad story (and this is coming from someone who doesn't really care for Wonder Man) and finally shows characters in the Marvel Universe making some sense. Wonder Man's a pacifist? Beast, the scientific genius who would like nothing more than to talk about the dangers of time travel, bringing the original X-Men to the present? It's a crazy, crazy, sometimes ridiculous plot-driven world out there and someone is finally highlighting it. Christos Gage, even in his random one-shot appearances here and again, writes some compelling characters and relationships, I tell you what. Hoping to meet him tomorrow at Granite State Comic-Con but THAT DOESN'T REALLY MATTER HERE, DOES IT?

The second story is one of the more unusual team-ups we've seen as Captain America pairs with Jubilee to take down a sunken submarine of Nazi vampires, a sentence I just wrote. Cap's actually had a couple of weird team-ups, notably this one and one with Quentin Quire in maybe issue five or six. They work in similar ways, in truth, as Cap again pulls a younger hero out from the X-Men and guides him or her somewhere (subterranean, no less) to show the kind of positive impact they could have on the world. In this case, Cap was hoping that the Nazi vampires would give up their fight, realizing that their war was well over, and would see Jubilee and realize that vampires don't have to be evil. It doesn't quite work out but it still leaves a nice impression on Jubilee, who realizes Captain America has respect for her, enough that he wanted to bring her as a role model, in essence. I suppose, in a book like this, that's what Cap's role is going to be, a guiding hand for younger heroes. He teamed up with Wolverine as more or less equals and next issue will team him, likely uncomfortably, with Cyclops, but there are certain characters who break down in certain ways and Cap is either the leader, the teammate, or the kind of guiding hand. That's him throughout his appearances in this series. Not a bad story and a better full issue overall than we've seen in a bit from this book.

X-Men 4, Cable and X-Force 13

X-Men 4
Wood (w) and D. Lopez and C. Smith w/ N. Lee (a) and Peter (c)

The new team is fresh off their first adventure together wherein Storm was prepared to make the call to kill their friend Karima to protect the world from Arkea. It's a decision that's not exactly sitting well with her teammates, particularly Rachel, who also feels that Storm has installed herself as leader prematurely. The team has to work out their issues as they save a jet with a malfunctioning engine from crashing by hooking it to their Blackbird. Meanwhile, Wolverine escapes the school for a bit to hang out with Jubilee for the first proper time in a long while (they hung out at some point in the last couple years but it was amidst Jubilee turning into a vampire and a clan attacking Wolverine to find he doesn't turn into a vampire very well so it's not a real hangout, you know?). The two friends and Jubilee's adopted son Shogo hit a couple of Jubilee's old favorite places in the California town where she grew up and share a very nice day which ends with Wolverine buying Jubilee's old house, unbeknownst to her. He's a good guy, that one. Also featured prominently on the cover.

Lot of really good stuff in here. It's a bit wordy, particularly as we get accustomed to this team and the way they talk and the issues they have to work out but the words aren't typically wasted. There are a few bits that feel a little forced, particularly with Jubilee as she and Wolverine decide that subtext is for suckers and that they'd rather lay their history out on the table in front of us for all to see but it's still not the worst decision. Jubilee has been removed from the spotlight for a while now and it seems like she's going to be a major player in this book full of people who have stayed very much in the spotlight lately. Best to get everyone caught up. Besides, her relationship with Wolverine does allow for that sort of talk. It's not perfect and you do catch yourself reading a lot of bits like "hey, I was a pretty lost kid myself when the X-Men found me!" but it gets across the points we need and generally keeps pretty uptempo. The other storyline, featuring the actual X-Men team, is even stronger, showing the team dealing with problems and giving us a good sense of personalities on the team. On top of that, it's a little nice to see a crisis solved efficiently and effectively and without a single supervillain showing up. You guys, there wasn't even a supervillain in this book. Kind of neat to just see them being heroes because they can do things like save jets, not because they're the only one matched to fight a supervillain. Solid issue, I think the best that's come about so far. Also a nice side of Wolverine that certainly has existed but isn't focused on a ton.

Cable and X-Force 13
Hopeless and Bunn (w) and Larroca and Sandoval (a) and D'Armata (c)

Hope is still in the future talking to future Hope and Blaquesmith while X-Force, starting to come back together again, is still dealing with problems in the past. We finally get the Dr. Nemesis and Forge bit that I've been waiting for and it does not disappoint, though it's incredibly short-lived as the two argue about the best way to destroy a giant horrible monster (kind of Cthulu-ish but not exactly, for reference), with both shooting down the other's ideas one by one. Domino, Boom-Boom, and Colossus show up and, with a combination of punches and explosions, defeat the monster pretty quickly. As the team talks, Domino reveals that Cable's in trouble and they head out to attack the Uncanny Avengers again. Cable himself is trying to explain things to Alex who finds himself in the difficult position of believing Cable but still unsure how to deal with what seemed to be a terrorist attack to the media by Cable's team and the fact that Cable's seizures are getting worse and worse, causing his powers to go out of control and hurt people nearby. Finally, Hope, in dealing with her future self and Blaquesmith, has found that she's not particularly fond of her future self and the solutions they've come up with. They've made Cable have these visions in the hopes (ha, get it, two Hopes) that he stays in the superhero game (he would have quit, future Hope relates, if not for these visions and it would have doomed the world). Of course, the downside is that now it's killing him and present Hope has to figure that out herself.

A lot going on here and, as I said, the Dr. Nemesis and Forge bit is exactly what I was reading for and I was not disappointed, except in that it's so quickly over. I just want to read them talk with one another. PRO-TIP: read Dr. Nemesis as a 1950s detective or, more accurately, as the Venture Brothers' Cardholder and Doe. It's the most fun in the world and hopefully you'll understand what I see in him. Anyway, the team's stuff is mostly interesting, the Hope stuff feels a little protracted and a bit weak and Cable's stuff is good but we already pretty much know it all, it's just him explaining it to Havok now. Some decent writing carries a bit of the bad stuff though the Hope sections still feel pretty slow and they're the majority of this book. It's tough to wade through a bit of time as Hope can't quite figure out what's happening and, when it all clicks into place, she's angry at future Hope for not realizing her plans might kill Cable. The issue ends with Blaquesmith and future Hope preparing to send Hope back to the past with the corny and shoe-horned line that the weapon she's carrying with her back there is "a fighting chance." Come on, don't leave us with that, you guys. Leave us with Dr. Nemesis finding a new hat! His excursion to a hat store!

All-New X-Men 13, Uncanny X-Men 7, X-Men 2

All-New X-Men 13
Bendis (w) and Immonen and Von Grawbadger (a) and Beredo (c)

Wolverine, Kitty, and the young original X-Men team are on the search for Mystique and company, fresh off being framed for crimes she committed with their appearance. Wolverine and Kitty teach Jean how to use her powers to keep them unseen at the crime scene and the rest of the team starts investigating. Wolverine recognizes that Sabretooth is with Mystique and says that he can track them. Jean can't keep up the illusion and soon they're found at the scene. Bobby makes an ice wall to cover their escape but they've again been seen on the spot. In the X-Jet, Jean frets about letting the team down while Scott tries to comfort her and they all watch Alex Summers' press conference from Uncanny Avengers, where he says that he wants people to stop using the "m" word and start viewing everyone by their character. Wolverine and Kitty both express levels of distaste for this plan with Kitty's coming as an impassioned speech about anti-Semitism she's faced and how she'd rather see prejudiced people coming or something of the like. They crash Mystique's hideout where she's trying to pay Madame Hydra for control of Madripoor. The entire team instantly starts fighting everyone but Lady Mastermind spots Jean Grey and creates an image of the original Mastermind to toy with her mind, which sends her into a panic and makes her go Phoenix on everyone.

I have a number of issues with this series that are pretty documented at this point but there are a handful that are specific to this issue that are worth mentioning. At one point, when Wolverine is discovering that Sabretooth is with Mystique, Scott asks how long they've fought Sabretooth and how well Sabretooth knows them before deducing that Sabretooth and Mystique will know Wolverine is going to do this and is coming, to which Wolverine responds "Yeah, you're right," as if the thought hadn't crossed his mind. I understand Bendis' need/desire to make Cyclops look like a good leader/strategist but it comes at the expense of showing Wolverine, someone who literally thinks about fighting more often than anyone in the world and who knows these specific enemies better than anyone, as incompetent. The speech from Kitty about a moment in her past when her heart was broken by a boy who made an anti-Semetic comment is a nice character pice for her but it gets pretty muddled in there. I thought she was going to agree with Alex's point about judging people for their character before judging them for their race or religion and then I had to read it over again a couple times to see where I'd lost the thread of it. And, of course, it ends with Bobby going "You're Jewish?" because he's incapable of keeping his mouth shut at any point in this series for any amount of time. These may seem like nitpicks but they all do strike an unpleasant chord with me that makes this story feel like lazy writing. Scott is a strategist because he improbably out-strategizes Wolverine and Kitty has a full page talk about how people are prejudiced. In six panels, there are 27 word bubbles, all from Kitty. I don't know. I still can't get my head around this series. Seriously, why are these kids still in the present?

Uncanny X-Men 7
Bendis (w) and Irving (a and c)

Magik has managed to magic Scott's X-Men out of Limbo at great personal cost. She tells her story to a somewhat confused and stunned Doctor Strange and it carries throughout the issue. She tells him about how they got into Limbo and about her connection with it before explaining the fight that went on. The X-Men are losing the fight and she knows it. She manages, then, to really take control of Limbo, sending the X-Men out of it to safety and taking the whole dimension within herself. That's why she's come to Doctor Strange; she needs to get the dimension out and learn to control her powers more than she ever has. Doctor Strange accurately realizes in the midst of the story that Illyana has traveled through time to talk to him and we learn that she is talking with him in a point before he's ever been an Avenger. Illyana explains that the Avengers and X-Men don't see eye-to-eye right now and that she couldn't go to him in present day because he might not help her. He agrees to teach her what he can. Meanwhile, the X-Men, back home, are starting to figure out that maybe Scott doesn't have the level of power they think he does and he tells them that they're all going to train more. The kid who produces gold balls (what) doesn't want anything to do with the team any more. Oh, and one of the kids died in Limbo but their healer managed to bring him back.

Time travel is popping up a lot in books recently and, used well, it can be pretty effective. The problem with time travel is that it too often comes as a panacea to problems and typically an uninteresting one in that role. Someone like Kang, who is known for time-traveling, tends to use it best because it's part of his character and it's what we expect him to do. It would be weird if he wasn't time-traveling to wreak havoc. However, I think I've made it pretty clear that I'm not impressed by Bendis' time-traveling capers. I didn't care for Age of Ultron and I don't care for All-New X-Men. Throw time-traveling in again here and you can bet that I'll be on my guard.

X-Men 2
Wood (w) and Coipel, Morales, and Hanna (a) and L. Martin, Milla and Strain (c)

Arkea has taken the body of X-friend Karima Shapandar, the Omega Sentinel who has been in a coma for some time but who has all sorts of technology in her, and it using this body to attack the X-Men. She takes Hank out and locks down the entire Jean Grey school. Rogue goes immediately to try to stop her and is surprised to see Karima up and moving. It catches her off-guard long enough to keep Arkea ahead in the fight. Storm sends Kitty in next, which legitimately worries Arkea, who has accessed the X-Men files. When Kitty arrives, Arkea attacks her and Kitty gives Karima one chance to fight back before she threatens to compromise the system. Arkea, with all the files downloaded and with Karima's circuitry repaired, escapes. Sublime stresses to them again how much trouble they're in as Rachel tracks Arkea's movements. The team, except Kitty (and maybe Rogue, it's hard to tell where she's at right now), all get on a jet to track Arkea. Storm allows Jubilee and the little baby Shogo to come as well and Sublime has a somewhat nice moment with them, where he tells Jubilee that the baby is safe of control from Arkea and, to Jubilee's delight, refers to the boy as Jubilee's son. Kitty, heading up the clean-up efforts at the Jean Grey School, is surprised when one of the students unearths what looks like it could be a bomb.

The action keeps on rolling with issue two and it definitely puts this series in a good place going forward. We have an interesting and very formidable villain and a definite feel for the team. It's still a little too early to get a complete read on how this team is going to hold up but we can already start to see the pieces falling into place. Storm has quickly assumed the leader role (well-deserved) and dispatches orders with efficiency. Every piece works pretty well together and it feels right; all of these X-Men have worked with one another innumerable times and it makes sense that they would so quickly fall into the appropriate roles and trust that everything Storm was directing would make sense. It's a solid issue of what looks like it could be turning into a solid book. There are a few nice character moments, including the question of whether Kitty would have phased through Karima to try to take out Arkea. I'm sure we haven't seen the end of that.

X-Men 1, Uncanny X-Force 5

X-Men 1
Wood (w) and Coipel and Morales (a) and L. Martin (c)

John Sublime, powerful enemy of the X-Men, has returned to the mutant corner of the Marvel Universe but seemingly only to ask for help. Also returning to the X-Men is former-mutant-turned-vampire (this is comics, this is how things work out here) Jubilee, now with a baby in tow. It's not her baby and these events aren't unconnected. Sublime followed Jubilee in Europe and in the New York train station while she made contact with the X-Men. He then pushes ahead to the Jean Grey School, where Rachel Grey and Psylocke accept his surrender and begin interrogating him. They learn that he had a sister strain of bacteria who he had more or less pushed away and forced to evolve on her own. She has returned to Earth after millennia in space, feeding off alien technology before riding meteors back to Earth, and seems destined both to do the jobs Sublime couldn't and to kill Sublime, who has come to the X-Men for protection and aid. He reveals to them that Jubilee is connected to this whole situation through the orphan baby she's adopted. That baby seems to be carrying the strain, which Sublime reveals can take over machines the way he takes over people, and the strain causes the train Jubilee and her escort force of Kitty Pryde, Storm, and Rogue are on to switch tracks. The X-Men save the people on the train (if not the train itself) and manage to make it to Westchester. When there, the baby makes contact with a phone that Jubilee has been given and the strain transports itself to Beast's lab, where it takes on a new form and reveals itself as Arkea Prime.

The series starts off with a bang, considering how much information and story we're given to process. It's nearly impossible to make judgment calls on the first issue as there is too much that needs to get done in that time so it's tricky to make definitive statements about a series as a whole and I wouldn't want anyone doing it, let alone myself. So I won't do that. However, I will say that I'm looking forward to seeing all these characters interact. I was looking forward to it before the series started and I'm looking forward to it even more now. I appreciate the way that it was handled this issue and I'm hoping that more time grants more opportunity for that. Though she's already been somewhat quieter than the rest, I love the way Storm is being developed so far. She's quiet and thoughtful and seems to always have something processing. It's a bit early to get a read on everyone at this stage, but hopefully little characterizations come up like that more. For now, though, enjoy this Skottie Young variant cover for X-Men 1.

Uncanny X-Force 5
Humphries (w) and Alphona and Soy (a) and Strain and Curiel (c)

Storm and Psylocke have entered Bishop's fractured mind to try to understand what's going on with the crazed mutant while Puck watches over them and Spiral, their captive. Inside Bishop's mind, Storm and Psylocke move through the memories of their old friend and learn a bit about what the time traveler has been up to since he was exiled in the future by the X-Men for trying relentlessly to kill Hope. They have some sympathy for him, especially when he spares the life of a possessed girl and cures her, despite what his new leaders tell him and when he tells that girl that he now can see how much he tortured Hope and how unconscionable it was. They also manage to see who it was that possessed him, finding the White Owl and the Bear that Psylocke fought and trying to stop him from ever being possessed. As Storm and Psylocke are at work in Bishop's mind, their bodies are taking a bit of a toll, both nose-bleeding as tough mind-reading is wont to cause. Puck doesn't really notice (nor can he really do anything) as Spiral offered him alcohol and now he's telling stories and doing flips and the like. She uses this moment to try to escape but finds Puck isn't quite so incapacitated as she thought and he puts her back down but, at that point, notices that something's wrong: Betsy's body is missing. Cut to Cluster, the Lady Fantomex, driving away with Betsy and swearing that she's safe now.

The way that Bishop's mind is presented and illustrated is pretty stunning, as Storm and Psylocke trek through the ruins trying to figure out what went wrong and what they can do to save it. It does carry on for quite a bit to give us a sense of the person Bishop is now and to create questions for the reader (how was Bishop brought back from the dead? Who is the mysterious Order that Bishop joined up with? What is the White Owl and how are they going to find/stop it? Why did Bishop save the possessed little girl against orders? Where did the White Owl end up? When will we find all of this out?) but there's enough to keep the reader interested. However, it's hard not to feel, still, like the best story is going on in the shadows. Granted, I'm a huge Fantomex fan and it was the Fantomexes that really drove my curiosity about this book, but we're getting their story very slowly or quietly, if at all. I can't say I blame Humphries for this and perhaps the payoff of waiting so long for this story (yes five issues is SO LONG) is going to be enhanced by the way its being divulged, but it's a little hard to get to the end of the issue and go "THAT'S THE STORY I WANTED TO READ, THE ONE WITH THE THREE FANTOMEXES FIGHTING." Still, paves the way for a solid Fantomex issue next time, right? Right?