Uncanny X-Men 13, X-Men Legacy 18, Cable and X-Force 15

Uncanny X-Men 13
Bendis (w) and Bachalo, Townsend, Vey, Irwin, Mendoza, and Olazaba (a) and Gracia (c)

Battle of the Atom pushes forward (this is part 8 of 10) with more fights as present-day Scott's team arrives on the scene in time to learn that the first team of future X-Men to come back to the present is made up of frauds and that the second team of future X-Men is the real deal but then they get eaten by Krakoa, controlled by Xavier. Meanwhile, Magik fights alongside Colossus as they try to push into the school while the fraud X-Men team try to send the past X-Men back to the past. They have some trouble with the time cube, though it seems the cube works (they test it with Wolverine and Mystique's son Raze, who jumps back to the past briefly and returns to the present to test it). Beast speculates that the original X-Men have jumped back and forth in time so much that they now kind of exist outside of their own timeline so they can't be forcibly sent back? Look, that's what they said, okay? The issue ends as Scott and his team, having defeated the Krakoa, burst into Hank's lab.

This series, as you can tell from the summary and the fact I have to specify which of the five or six X-Men teams present I'm talking about, is extremely convoluted. Complicated isn't necessarily bad. Convoluted is. Infinity is complicated (apparently I'm planning to link everything back to Infinity this week), with plenty of moving parts and new characters and untold power and consequences. This is convoluted. In addition, this series is clearly just making up rules at this point. The O.G. X-Men exist outside of their own timeline because they've created such a paradox? The problem with time travel (or one of them) as a literary device is that there are no real defined rules because it's a thing that doesn't and really can't exist. Therefore, everyone who gets a turn to play with it has the chance to make up his or her own rules. As a reader, though, I still have to compare the rules of time travel within a given medium; I'm not comparing the time travel in Dr. Who to the time travel in the Marvel Universe but I sure will compare the time travel in Marvel to other time travel in Marvel and there are way more complicated, paradox-inducing time travel stories in the Marvel Universe already. There was already one this year with Age of Ultron and that turned out, obviously, pretty poorly but it still didn't create a paradox that acted like this. The response, of course, is that there are no defined rules of time travel because time travel isn't real, which is infuriating because I'm not looking for rules of real time travel, I'm looking for rules that make sense when measured against the other rules this universe has set forth. Frustrating. Also, this book is built, it seems, only on revealing new X-Men teams and on fight sequences, as just about every issue in this event has ended in either a new X-Men team or a fight sequence. I guess welcome to comics? AND ANOTHER THING (I really didn't want this to go on this long but here we are), I'm getting pretty tired of future people constantly hinting at ridiculous future events that will either never be referenced again or will be erased from the timeline. You don't need to mention the Baxter Building/Stark Tower wars because it's almost certainly not applicable here and you're just getting people to say "well hey, what's that?" without any chance of offering an answer. It feels like the basest form of fanservice, throwing in things that fans never asked for but will no doubt recognize and thaty ou have no intention of showing. It happens constantly in any book that has to do with time travel and by god it is irritating. Okay, next book.

X-Men Legacy 18
Spurrier (w) and Pham w/ Leisten (a) and Rosenberg (c)

Luca has revealed himself, after jumping from body to body watching David all over the world as he prepares to intercede when David loses control of his powers. Luca wants the end of mutantkind and knows, with the abilities he's stolen from Blindfold, that David might be the root of that. He can't accurately see David's future but he recognizes that the best way to ensure Blindfold's failure in stopping David is simply to follow him around everywhere, hopping from body to body. Finally he jumps in as it seems David is set to explode but he quickly realizes that David has been aware that he's been followed. David had released one of his personalities, the Delusionaut, to the site of his battle with Cyclops earlier that day and it had created a scene that drew the X-Men there, which also drew the press and everything else, meaning that David would get a highly publicized fight with Cyclops, publicized enough to make it seem real if he looked like he was losing control. It drew Luca out and now David has caught Luca in his web. The fight with Cyclops was never about hating Cyclops (David recognizes that he couldn't hate Cyclops more than Cyclops hates himself), to Cyclops' surprise; it was about drawing Luca out. However, Cyclops' team had cheated in the battle and poisoned David's mind with a psychic poison that Emma and the Cuckoo's had designed in the case of a foe stronger than they could fight. It takes longer to kick in but now it has and David crumples to the ground, his mental jail in shambles and, worst of all, the Xavier in his head escaping, potentially teaming with Luca for the next step.

Plenty happening here. I swear, I keep coming into each of these reviews planning only to write a little bit but I get complicated book after complicated book. Whether it's Infinity, where every step is important and we're dealing with longer books anyway, or it's Battle of the Atom and I have to spend half of the review explaining which X-Men team I'm talking about, or it's Hawkeye and no real action happens in the classic sense so I feel like I have to describe every inaction because it all seems equally important to the plot, or it's X-Men Legacy where crazy complex things are happening and I have to explain them, I end up here, with a really long summary and the worry that I've ruined the book by boiling it down to text. Bleh. Oh well, this is another solid issue, and one made particularly good by the end of the fight with Cyclops. I liked the fight itself, with David using his powers to wipe the floor with the X-Men and with what seemed legitimate rage but it would be a lie to say it didn't feel a little out of place. David has a very complex relationship with his father so attacking Scott to avenge that father felt more than a little Hamlet-like, though admittedly with less whining. Instead, it was all another part of his plans. I don't really get why I don't see this coming, Spurrier has pulled this off several times now, with the Pete Wisdom adventure and the Church of the Happy Host, and Darwin's Martyr's. Each time I go "no, something must be up," but then I forget that I thought that and buy into the story as it's written before being pulled back again as David cries "something was up!" Really great book that can fool you over and over and not annoy you but, in fact, delight you. Good stuff. Really long review. I swear I'll cut this next one down if it kills me.

Cable and X-Force 15
Hopeless (w) and Sandoval (a) and Rosenberg (c)

Things are returning to "normal" for Cable and his X-Force as the team is working again to prevent threats to mutants before they happen. They're split on three fronts for this issue, with Cable and Hope taking out bomb-wielding Reavers in Australia, Domino and Colossus stopping thieves from accidentally activating a Sentinel at a Trask safehouse in Colorado, and Forge, Dr. Nemesis, and Boom Boom at mission command in Montana. Forge is hacking on a tight schedule between the other two missions while Dr. Nemesis and Boom Boom test out a new device that should be able to enter Cable's mindscape to see the visions he's getting so he no longer has to be bothered relaying them to the team, they can just see them. The plans, which are all going pretty well, go belly-up when Forge is attacked by an enemy who seemed to be biding his time in Forge's own mind, leaving Cable and Hope at the detonation of a bomb, Domino and Colossus at the hands of a fully operational Sentinel, and Dr. Nemesis and Boom Boom squaring off against a Native American demon thing that was inhabiting Forge.

It's another good issue for Cable and X-Force and one that starts to get back at the root of what this book had set out to be. Obviously there were complications here and there as we had to deal with the Uncanny Avengers and some of the ramifications of the team's actions for several issues in there, as well as whether or not Hope belonged with the team, but now we seem squarely back on task of preventing threats to mutants and dealing with internal problems on the team. I'm pretty happy about it; I like the Uncanny Avengers and I thought the series was still telling some pretty good stories but we're reading this book in large part because of the team so to have the team take kind of a backseat to the story seems counterproductive. Here, in just one issue split out among seven team members, we get a good feel for every character as if to re-establish them before diving into this new story. What's particularly great about the way it's handled is that it definitely feels, after the fact, like it's re-establishing the characters, but during the issue you don't get that sense. Sometimes books will take the easy way out and will try to re-establish characters in very much the "tell don't show" method, where someone will come out and say "you're always so bitter, you have to let go of [events in your past]" which very much tells us what's happening instead of showing it over time. Some books, of course, don't have the luxury of time to tell a story but this one makes sure it shows but doesn't tell. Good stuff. Also some choice Dr. Nemesis lines so you know I'm on board. God, I thought this review was going to be shorter.