Astonishing X-Men 67, X-Men 5

Astonishing X-Men 67
Liu (w) and Pinna (a) and Peter (c)

I was wrong in my pre-game this week as somehow I ended up skipping an issue of Astonishing X-Men, marking this one as the last instead of issue 68. Somewhere along the line I lost track which means we still have one more issue to wrap things up. So instead, here, we find Wolverine and Gambit on the trail of the baby alien from last issue, a trail that leads them into a small town in Indiana, home to a high school girl, Wendy, with ambition but no momentum. She loves superheroes (writes fan-fiction about them, particularly Wolverine) and wants to be special but believes herself to be stuck in her small town where she also feels like an outsider (she's the only black kid in the town). Wolverine and Gambit end up stopping in at the diner she goes to before school and she works up the guts to talk to them before they head out, which happens to be either really good or really bad timing, depending on your outlook. The baby alien has hitched a ride in their car and the parents of the alien, who were looming over the world last issue, descend on them, trapping the four of them in itself. Concerned that the X-Men have hurt its baby, the parent touches the brain of Wendy and decides that the X-Men are good people based on what it sees. The parent talks for a bit then departs with its child, leaving Wendy to talk with Wolverine and Gambit, giving her the inspiration she needs to start applying for colleges and making future plans and the likes.

Bit heavy-handed here in the penultimate issue as we get a few meaningful lessons, of sorts. There's more talk between Gambit and Wolverine about what happened with Bobby and how badly they let him down and whether putting him back on the team was the right thing to do and so on. Wendy's story is the centerpiece, though, with her struggle to find a future outside of the town despite being, as she puts it, not special. It ties to a really long and rather hard to read speech from the parent alien (who has trouble with English, making the long speech something of a headache) about wanting to protects its child from growing up and the pain of being an adult. It then all ties back together as Wolverine and Gambit sit with Wendy for a bit and impart advice and wisdom. They're not bad stories and they're right up the X-Men's alley but it is a little heavy-handed, if a worthwhile message. Glad it's not the final issue, didn't feel right to end with a team that wasn't, you know, the team.

X-Men 5
Wood (w) and D. López and C. Smith (a) and L. Martin (c)

The Battle of the Atom continues as the teams gathered at the Jean Grey School prepare to track young Jean and Scott. It proves a bit difficult as Jean is trying to block her thoughts but Xavier is able to amplify his powers, in tandem with old Jean, and get a bead on them. They track them, leaving young Beast and Bobby as well as Rachel and Kitty at the school in case they should come back. Rachel and Kitty agree that maybe sending them back, especially against their will, isn't the best idea (no it totally is you guys) and set out on their own to try to aid Jean and Scott. Everything collides and Jean and Scott are in the middle, being attacked by X-Men from all sides. Rachel and Kitty show up just in time to cause a distraction, mostly involving yelling at the X-Men for attacking children with full attacks even if Scott did swing first, and allow Jean and Scott to get away. Jean psychically calls old Scott's new team and they meet at the ruins of Utopia.

I had, well, not exactly high hopes about this book as my pre-game documented, but higher hopes for this book. I really didn't like the first two issues of Battle of the Atom as things got more and more ridiculous but I was hoping for a rebound here from Brian Wood, a writer I tend to find pretty good and pretty good with events. I do think that characters got slightly better characterization here, which is an upside, but overall I still don't like the story. Thanks to the better characterization, there is slightly better reasoning behind why the supporters of the young X-Men are supporting the young X-Men. It ultimately boils down to "despite myself, I like having them here and I don't want to send people back against their will." It's not really a good reason, still, but it's at least a reason that's somewhat understandable. I can put myself in Kitty or Rachel's shoes and say "these are their friends, albeit young versions/versions they never knew. Some of these versions are like versions they've lost, as with Jean or Warren. Having them around must be nice to a point." Granted, it doesn't make up for destroying space-time so it's still rather weak reasoning, but at least it's some reasoning. Still not thrilled with Battle of the Atom. "Not thrilled" might be an understatement. I also still rather resent how long this series is and how much of a crossover effect it has, particularly on this book. I'll be honest, I don't care much about it distracting Uncanny X-Men and All-New X-Men, nor about it carrying into Wolverine and the X-Men. However, X-Men has a fairly solid premise and is just starting to find its feet only to need suddenly to take two issues off to tie into this long (and rather expensive) event. Not a particularly wonderful move.