Uncanny X-Men 22, X-Men 15

Uncanny X-Men 22
Bendis (w) and Bachalo (p) and Townsend, Deering, Irwin, Mendoza, Vey, and Olazaba (i) and Bachalo and Villarrubia (c) and Caramagna (l)

The helicarrier continues to attack the X-Mansion while Hank brings Scott to the perpetrator and Magneto shows up with the drained Dazzler in tow. While Triage helps Dazzler, Hijack reappears, hoping to join up with the Jean Grey School, and manages to take control of the helicarriers again. Beast reveals to Cyclops that the person behind all of this is, in fact, Dark Beast, from the Age of Apocalypse timeline. Cyclops kind of inadvertently kills him when he blasts open his big suit that DB claimed was keeping him alive. Cyclops and Maria Hill have an argument on the front lawn and SHIELD and the X-Men's relationship gets a little rockier.

Things have ramped up quickly in the SHIELD Sentinels' attack on the X-Men as suddenly everything is converging on the Jean Grey School, just as Hijack deus ex machinas his way over to the campus. Overall, the action is pretty solid and the book reads a little faster for it though it's hard not to feel like simply too much happened. Between the attack and Magneto+Dazzler and SHIELD and Dark Beast, it feels like there was zero chance for the story to have meaningful impact because we're jumping too quickly from one thing to another. How can you worry about the implications of Dark Beast's actions when you're busy thinking about how SHIELD let this happen? How can you question the limits of Hijack's powers when you're busy trying to remember if there was some dumb subplot about Maria Hill being attracted to Cyclops in just another example of Hill's character being weakened by Bendis? How can you wonder about what Dazzler's going to do next when you're thinking about how terrible Maria Hill is? Too much happening, though it doesn't necessarily make the book unreadable, just smaller than it feels it should be.

Total Score: 3/5


X-Men 15
Wood (w) and Buffagni (a) and Mounts (c) and Caramagna (l)

The Future, who has trained for everything and who will, according to Kymera, manage to separate Jubilee and Shogo, is taken aback momentarily by the fact that someone in the X-Mansion killed one of his men. It doesn't line up with what he believes about the X-Men and it gives him pause about how to proceed, recognizing that there's at least one wild card out there. However, it doesn't give him much pause as he manages to take out Psylocke on the front lawn and proceed inside, where he finds Jubilee and shoots at her, grazing her head with the bullet and knocking her out to take her, though he doesn't quite take Shogo. MEANWHILE, the BROMO-SUPERIOR Wood/Briones mini-story wraps up as Psylocke saves her students by killing her danger room boyfriend (weird) in a big teaching moment.

The Future, though something of an inexplicable villain right now, becomes a little more interesting as he gets a bit of narration in this one. We don't necessarily get anything of his motive or his personality, but we start to see just how dangerous he is. He continues the theme that Arkea started, the idea that knowledge is real power and that his knowledge of a situation makes him a far more impressive villain than simply being a strong combatant. Wood also does a good job to settle out some of the team issues by having Ororo show a little more strength here, coming back to a place where the others respect her more. There's also a really nice moment in this issue where Jubilee, talking to Beast while he tries, perhaps ill-advisedly, to save Teon and Sprite with a bit of Arkea, boosts Beast up by talking about how much of a rock he is and how she knows he'll always be there to protect him. PERHAPS some ominous foreshadowing but, in the here and now, it's a nice win for Beast as a guy who hasn't had a lot of those recently.

Total Score: 4/5