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

Thanos Rising 5, Deadpool 15, A+X 11

Thanos Rising 5
Aaron (w) and Bianchi w/ Pieruccini (a) and Svorcina (c)

The conclusion of the Thanos origin story begins as Thanos returns to Tian, now with a skeleton crew running his fleet (he's killed, you know, a bunch of them), to raze his home world. He has the crew stay inside after the initial wave of bombing, deciding to walk the grounds himself. The last man standing on Tian, Thanos' father, confronts him with a gun of his own design. Even with everything Thanos has done and how betrayed his father is, he can't bring himself to shoot his son. Thanos has no such issues, takes the gun, and shoots himself in the head with it. It doesn't work well and Thanos discards it, shooting his father in the stomach with his own weapons. The two have a chat about everything that's happened and, in the course of the chat, Thanos reveals that he's done it all for Death, who he still thinks is an actual person beside him. A'Lars is shocked by this and implores Thanos to check all the devices in his lab to tell him whether or not there's anyone else with them. Thanos keeps clinging to the idea of her but he begins to get a little concerned. Thanos shoots A'Lars again, still not enough to kill him, just enough that now A'Lars can watch the destruction Thanos spreads across the universe. It was enough, though, to sour him on the idea of Death as a physical person and he walks away from her, leaving her to follow him across the universe begging for him to acknowledge her.

I'm still thrown a bit by this series as a whole. Obviously the timing makes a whole bunch of sense with new readers coming from The Avengers and his likely subsequent appearances in other movies as well as his importance in the recently started Infinity event. This gives all those new readers a sense of Thanos as a villain and the lengths he's willing to go to and what drives him and the way his mind works and so on and so forth. While I liked the way this series ended (as opposed to the way I feared for a while it was going, where some tangible person was poking and prodding at the mighty Thanos to make him evil), I'm still unsure whether it's a series that needed to be done. In a business sense I'm sure it did so I'm willing to accept that answer. Comics are a business and you don't ever want to exclude new readers just as you don't want to upset old readers unduly. I think this series is a good example of that, giving a backstory for new readers while being inoffensive to old readers. Still, I've always seen Thanos as one of those "death for death's sake" kind of guys or the Iago trope of someone who seeds destruction because he's a sociopath. Less that, perhaps, than some others but in that vein. Giving him a driving backstory kind of takes that away (though you could make an argument to say this particular backstory doesn't because all of his motivation still comes from within). Oh well. Can't complain, solid business move and an acceptable creative move. Nicely handled, Marvel.

Deadpool 15
Posehn and Duggan (w) and Shalvey (a) and Bellaire (c)

Deadpool suspects that the people who have been harvesting his organs, led by the mysterious Butler, are connected to the Weapons Plus program, the same program that created Deadpool and Wolverine (as well as Fantomex, though I don't know, sadly, that we'll get him in this arc) and that was based around the Captain America model. He's not wrong, as we see Butler reprimanding one of the Weapon Plus scientists for rejecting Deadpool after they thought they had failed with him (they cured his cancer even if they didn't feel successful with his brain damage). Butler sees this is a huge oversight and wishes to test on him more, though he has his own ulterior motives in the form of someone he loves who's apparently in suspended animation or something similar. Anyway, Deadpool infiltrates Stark Tower to talk with Wolverine about the issues. Wolverine isn't much help and thinks Deadpool is being paranoid (well, not entirely, he thinks probably people are after Deadpool but he doesn't think it concerns Weapon Plus). Deadpool and Agent Preston go next to have a chat with Captain America at an AIM base he's bringing down. Cap follows Deadpool's logic in coming to see him but also doesn't quite believe him. He recommends Deadpool find someone to talk with about everything and come in out of the cold to find where he belongs in the world. Deadpool isn't assuaged and decides to put a mysterious device in his leg in case anything happens to him. Solid call since that night he's attacked by Butler and his cronies and taken in for testing (after a dream wherein he and Wolverine successfully defend from the Weapon Plus guys). Butler commands that Deadpool's legs and arms be removed as Deadpool's not going anywhere.

First and foremost I want to say that this is a legitimately good issue. I've had a lot of well-documented problems with this series in the past though I think it's steadily been improving bit by bit. I think the plot and the humor of the first arc was at its worst, slightly improved in the second arc, and slowly working its way up from there. One thing this team has done pretty well so far has been characterizing pre-existing heroes from the Universe and this arc is going to be a good test of that with super-established Wolverine and Cap joining the ranks. More than that, the plot seems sound and Deadpool is making fewer stupid jokes. Maybe he's talking less, I don't know. It does also make me feel like the supporting cast has been holding the book back (I haven't been a fan, exactly, of SHIELD agent Michael nor Ben Franklin nor really Preston, let alone the other bit-part characters that have come through). I've mostly liked the art in this series so far as well but I feel like we can't overlook this arc's art team of the awesome Declan Shalvey and Jordie Bellaire. But really, it's a good issue with almost entirely good writing and ideas (there are still a couple of unnecessary and overkill jokes in there) and a solid plot to put us up against. I'll be thrilled if this series as a whole turns it around. As I've said, I don't like not liking books and I hate not having a good Deadpool book out there. Rooting for it here.

A+X 11
Thor and Magik: M. Benson (w) and Texeira (a) and Loughridge (c)
Spider-Man and Cyclops: Krueger (w) and Lim (a) and Sotomayor (c)

Another issue of A+X and I still don't know what this series is doing. The first story is Thor and Magik and it's a doozy. Thor, visiting the Asgard armory for just about the first time ends up inadvertently touching a weapon that sends him to Limbo (don't know why Asgard has that). Magik feels the disturbance and travels to Limbo to get Thor to stop messing around in her dimension. Thor isn't happy to see her and demands to bring her back to justice. He's also not really dying to give up on the fight with all the demons but eventually she just brings him back out to Earth anyway. Then she leaves. And that's the issue. Really weak story with pretty bad characterization. Very bare bones (Thor likes fighting, Magik runs Limbo, so on) and somewhat strange and off-character writing (Thor literally says "I tip my wings to his lady wife" at one point and what what does that even mean, Thor). Not much to be gained from this one.

Second story features Cyclops chasing a mutant body snatcher named Malice into the New York subway trains only to find himself confronted by Spider-Man, who sees Cyclops picking on average people (Malice doesn't just shape-shift, she takes over a body). When Spider-Man begins to hear Cyclops out, Malice tries to take him. Spider-Man is not so easily taken, though, as he's a bit familiar with people inhabiting other bodies. Eventually, Malice puts Cyclops in a position where he has to make body contact with her to save the life of the human she's attached to. She takes him over, which actually works according to Spidey's plan. He's able to take down Cyclops and restrain him enough to pull Malice out of Cyclops (Doc Ock has his ways to pull a mind out of a body). The two chat back in Spidey's lab for a minute wherein Spidey tells Cyclops it could help him to use the villain identity as it suits him. It's a fair sight better than the first story as we actually get some decent characterization here both between Cyclops being the hero and still being bewildered to find himself such a villain and between Spidey as Doc Ock still having trouble dealing with insults to Doc Ock and being as smart as he is. Better stuff, still a bit of a silly series. I swear some day it will end.

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-Termination 2, Uncanny X-Men 5, Wolverine and the X-Men 28

X-Termination 2
Lapham, Liu, and Pak (s) and Lapham (w) and Lopez, Mogorron, Valdez, Lolli, Ho, Ruggiero, Cuevas, and Martinez (a) and Mossa (c)

It's worth noting in this final issue of the event (which I should have noted a while ago) that there are usually a lot of artists on these books because the book is broken up into chapters (which, admittedly, is kind of random) and that different artists draw each chapter. Also, in terms of my own process, I put pencils and inks all under the "artists" label, for better or worse, so half of that (a) up there is made up of pencillers and half of inkers and they all switch off throughout the book. ONWARDS.
Nightcrawler prepares himself for what he has to do, which is mostly jump back and forth through the portal carrying people. As we saw with little Kurt Waggoner, it's an extremely exhausting task and will leave him weakened, but it's the only way to save people. He brings people back one by one until everyone we've seen recently (which does not include most of the AoA crew) except Dazzler and Prophet remain. Prophet even sends for AoA cast member Harper Simmons (from the 616 originally) so Nightcrawler can bring him back, saying that someone has to tell the story. Dark Beast also hijacks a trip back with Nightcrawler and ends up on the other side of the portal. Dazzler doesn't want to abandon the AoA but Prophet knows it's the only way and refuses to hear her out. He also says he'll fight to win or go down with the ship. Jean swoops in and knocks him out and tells Dazzler to send him to the other side. She's still pretty much in control of the Apocalypse power but she knows she's likely to be overwhelmed by the monsters. Dazzler and Prophet leave. On the other side of the portal, the teams need to figure out how to close off the AoA. The solution, it seems, is for Nightcrawler to grab the "end" of the portal (black swirls on the border that have a physical form) and teleport them back into the AoA. The trip will kill him, but it will close the portal. Nightcrawler redeems himself, even in the eyes of Wolverine, and shuts the portal. The threat passed on the 616, the three remaining members of the X-Treme X-Men part ways and Wolverine offers Dazzler a spot at the school, impressed with her actions here. She wants time to think about it. Prophet and Harper Simmons meet a few weeks later to talk and Dazzler happens to be on the same beach. It ends with a short in memoriam to those who died.
I liked this event a lot. This final book was maybe the weakest, if only because everything turned out okay. I don't mean that in a "I WANT EVERYONE TO DIE" nor a "THE AGE OF APOCALYPSE DIDN'T MATTER, I'M GLAD IT'S A PRISON FOR THE MONSTERS" way. I mean that in a "oh, the plan worked" kind of way. Okay, look, there's no way to say that that doesn't feel stupid. I guess the issue is that the event was so good at taking twists and turns and putting insurmountable enemies against them that a plan working out seemed out of the question. Then it did. Still, it's a solid event that didn't overstay its welcome and gave us a solid story while effectively wrapping up two different series. Good event. Now it'll be interesting to see the fallout from that, with Dazzler probably going to join the school and a William Stryker back in the world.

Uncanny X-Men 5
Bendis (w) and Irving (a and c)

There are problems with Magik's powers after all. She seems to be holding her powers together through the Darkchilde, a fierce and mysterious force that isn't totally unlike the Hulk of magic. Dormammu has taken over Limbo in Magik's absence, berating her for spending so much time away. Magik attacks him but loses until the Darkchilde takes over and wins. Now she's having trouble stuffing it back down, despite a pep talk from Scott. Meanwhile, SHIELD frets about the new team after Scott's on-camera declaration about defeating the Avengers and the sudden emergence of a new mutant who can stop time being on their team. Speaking of her, they're also trying to set up a love triangle or something between her, Emma, and Cyclops, despite the fact that she seems to be a teenager and she's only ever seen Cyclops in his costume, which looks RIDICULOUS. I haven't really gotten into their new costumes in this book but I'm against pretty much all of them. I think Magneto's all-white costume looks okay but there's a weird obsession Bendis has with taking a character's iconic colors and replacing them with white. He did it with Iron Fist too. Neither looks bad, it's just an odd choice. Also, it severely reduces the number of heroes with the green and yellow motif and the number of characters with the maroon motif. Magneto is one of the most famous villains/characters in the Marvel Universe; it's an interesting decision to change the costume. It all represents a new era for the X-Men, sure, but if you're going to have Magneto as a defining member of that team it seems like you shouldn't pretend he's a different Magneto than the one he's always been or than the one he's been recently. On top of that, he doesn't fit the black theme that the rest of the team has. He's a literal white sheep. Well, not literally a sheep. Whatever. Anyway, I've gone off-topic here. Cyclops looks RIDICULOUS. I have trouble believing that the teenager, who dubs him a "beautiful man," could really believe that physically. If it's based on his personality, what she knows is a man who shows up and takes kids and possibly killed his master. I think she's heard all that. It's all hard to separate because plot points get repeated about a thousand times. That's about all that happens. Magik hulks out and is still having trouble controlling it and that girl expresses affection for Cyclops. And some more wacky things happen with the other new mutants. Just wacky.

Wolverine and the X-Men 28
Aaron (w) and Perez (a) and L. Martin and Milla (c)

The Savage Land field trip wraps up as Wolverine meets up with Idie and Broo, who have taken refuge in a cave where Idie hopes to live out the rest of her life (she fears returning to the temptations and evils of normal life). Meanwhile, Eye Boy, the only student who we haven't seen use Wolverine pep talk to help them aside from Glob Herman who is terrible, reveals that he's more impressive than he looked. He can see more than just physical things as he focuses and Sherlocks the rest of the team, citing random physical actions as proof of Shark Girl's abandonment issues and Sprite's need for validation while perfectly shooting down a robot. It's a neat little turn for the character that actually makes him a useful addition to the team. Whether Wolverine suspected that would happen or not is up for debate, but it's certainly happened. He helps neutralize the immediate threats and gets everyone back on task before Dog shows up again and threatens the kids again. They stand up to him this time before Wolverine steps in and allows Dog to beat him up a bit. One of the time traveled bad guys shoots Dog, demanding answers. Dog, upset by the fact that he still couldn't best Wolverine as the best Logan, time travels himself and some of the others who are displaced in time away. Logan is angry that he got away, but angrier at himself for allowing the kids to be taken from him. He has a whole slew of doubts about his abilities with these kids. He passes them all on the assignment and, as such, the course, except for Glob Herman, who ran away. Wolverine suspects, and the audience sees, that he's gone off with Sauron to join the Hellfire Club. It's fine, he was always a terrible character.
I have to say, I'm often kind of suspicious about this book. It doesn't tend to deliver the best characters nor the best stories. It's usually a little more fun-oriented than other Marvel books, though it certainly has its share of tension at times. However, this arc went a long way to characterizing the newest students of the Jean Grey School. Some of them have been around for a while now and some are pretty new, but it's all worth exploring. I would say that Bendis' Uncanny X-Men book needs an arc like this to let us know more about the new recruits they've gotten, but I'm not sure that's for the best, entirely. He's done stuff each issue to try to build their characters through dialogue and a little through action, but they still feel largely indistinguishable from one another. My worry with an arc like this would be that they'd remain indistinguishable and wacky. If he could do an arc that characterized them and made them worth caring about, great. If they're all going to keep their stock personalities, it's far less great. Well done by Aaron to go out of his way to make sure these guys all had a specific personality and a specific interaction with Wolverine. Interesting arc.