All New X-Men #1
Summary: This issue starts with Beast frantically doing things while in pain, saying he's going through another form of mutant evolution, and he thinks this time it may kill him. He hopes to do something useful in the last days of his life and doesn't want to tell anyone else and burden them by making them worry when they can do nothing to help. From there we see a young woman named Eva out with her friend when she approaches a boy she likes, although their flirting is quickly broken up by Eva's big meat head brother (He's even shirtless for some reason) who punches Eva's crush. This turns into a big fight between the brother, the crush and the crush's friends as Eva yells for them to stop and apparently freezes time, discovering she's a mutant. She's then confronted by Cyclops, Magneto and Emma Frost, who recruit Eva, with Scott telling her he's done a lot that he needs to atone for, and he needs her help. We also see Cyclops and Magik break into a police station and rescue another new mutant, who's being interrogated for healing a woman with his mutant powers. Storm, Kitty, Iceman and Beast are arguing about what to do with Scott, as they have to stop him but going after him would result in a Mutant Civil War, which Storm wants to avoid. Bobby states that he and Beast have known Cyclops the most and if the old Cyke could see the current one he's beat the hell out of him, to which Beast surprisingly tells Iceman he's right. From there we go to the past and see Hank and Bobby telling Scott how upset they are that they were almost attacked by a mob of angry humans, and Hank says he's done risking his life for Humans (HA!) and how he thinks Magneto may be right about them, and how he's resigning from the X-Men. The conversation is cut short when a big blue Beast shows up, who Hank recognizes as him. Beast tells the five original X-Men, Scott, Bobby, Hank, Jean and Warren that he's come from the future for help, he needs Scott to stop his future self from committing Mutant Genocide, as this issue ends.
Thoughts: So, I really enjoyed this issue. I thought It was a nice introduction, especially for anyone who's kinda new to the X-Men like I am, having started reading X-Books when Schism started. I thought this did a nice job of setting up the storyline, building questions about Beast, and introducing a few new interesting mutants to Cyclops' fold. I did think Cyclops actually didn't come off as a bad guy here, which was interesting, I mean sure he was fighting people when he could've avoided it, especially in Eva's case, but meh, he still didn't seem like a full-fledged villain, all and all I'm pretty excited for this series, especially when the Original Five come to the future.
Score: 8/10
Hank: He's me.
Beast: I am.
Bobby: Is that what you look like when you don't shave?
This looks pretty interesting. Good stuff, bro.
ReplyDeleteFunny...I didn't think Cyclops as a villian as well JT, though at the end of AvX it appeared he was. Marvel has basically written off the death of Xavier as caused by posession of the full fledged Space Chicken (Scott explaining to Wolvie you don't know what Jean felt like and I do now)...remember. Scott's viewpoint has changed is all. He's tired of protecting mankind when all they do for the most part is attack his kind, therefore, Cyclops is more a freedom fighter of sorts, doing any and all to protect his so-called kindren...the Mutant species of humanity. Scott just sees things totally different from the former boyscout Cyclops he will soon meet. He and Wolvie have basically switched roles is all. The only difference is that Scott remains a leader and Wolvie has only now began to take on that role of leadership. As a killing machine, wolvie was still an underling of Charles Xavier's camp but Scott is still leader of something whether X-men or anti-Xmen.
ReplyDeleteI must admit, out of all the Marvel Now releases, I feel my top picks will be All New X-men for the original X-men tie-ins with the future versions and its incredible possiblities in storylines. Cable and X-force just because CABLE and his team are considered terrorists and are the Uncanny Avengers targets. Plus Nathan no longer has the TO symbiote attached and quite curios how they treat his power grid. And finally, the Uncanny X-men which will focus primarily on Cyclops new team of anti-Xmen and them possibly intercepting the Uncanny Avengers who happen to be targeting Cyclops' son. So there you have it, Havok battling Cyclops with Cable strapped in the middle. That spells Awesome in my book personally.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Bendis really nailed Scott's characterization, working off Gillen's work in "AVX: Consequences." After all, Scott has a point: both mutants in this issues WERE being threatened by humans. Plus, I really liked what he did with the School-based X-Men, showing them really struggling with the bad options they face when it comes to addressing his new Brotherhood. After years of just hoping against hope that Bendis would just leave the Avengers books, it's nice to see why he got them in the first place.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments guys, and I agree. I mean, like I said above, I could see how Scott's methods in this issue seemed a bit radical, as he was basically fighting the police along with Magneto, Magik and the "somehow magically out of jail" Emma Frost, but he had good reason. Like JW said, the mutants he saved were being threatened by humans, so he never really seemed like a villain to me, just a freedom fighter as Rad said. Now had he just blown the police station up, and had magneto encase the dude in a magnetic field to keep only him alive, THAT would've seemed more evil, but this seemed kinda like how Cyclops was post-Schism.
ReplyDeleteExactly JT, Scott isn't a new old-school Magneto at all. Mags hated the human race and wanted to eradicate so that mutants would rule as the superior or quite possibly the only race. Freedom-fighter Scott isn't trying to purposely hurt mankind and cause radical explosions of sorts. If humans leave mutants alone, there ain't no problems. BUT....if they mess with a fellow mutant (without proper cause, might I add, such a petty mutie hatred), Cyclops and Team Freedom will investigate and get on that human booty with utmost quickness. The only way I don't see Team Freedom not getting involved against the humans is if the mutant is causing a deliberate and dangerous disturbance and then I'm betting Team Freedom will do what they must to contain the situation just like any other X-men team would do with as little danger to humanity as possible....although this is strong speculation due to such an event hasn't taken place yet since Team Freedom was established after AvX Consequences.
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