When we last left Brian Michael Bendis and his new team book, Beast had just traveled back in time to bring the younger version of himself and the rest of Professor Charles Xavier’s first class of students to the present. All of this was in order to confront Cyclops in the hopes that the young team could prevent whatever trouble Scott Summers and his team have up their sleeves.

Now, with the first X-Men in tow, Beast is back in the present and his teammates at the Jean Grey School For Higher Learning have discovered their colleague’s desperate plan involving time travel. Needless to say, for people like Wolverine and Iceman, everyone’s a little shocked at exactly how far Hank McCoy has gone this time.

The first thing I want to comment on is that they addressed my point from my review of the first issue about time travel. In fact, Beast himself (the younger version) is the one that brings is up. That Bendis is a step ahead of me with these storytelling elements it seems.

Next, there were a bunch of little moments that I appreciated very much. The first one that comes to mind is Logan in the classroom. It was a quick little moment, but seeing him teach a class on ninjas made me laugh a good bit. I don’t think I could handle having him as teacher, but I’d love to see more panels here and there showing that side of Wolverine.

Another standout moment is Iceman meeting himself. Bobby Drake has always been a point of comedic relief, but now that we have two of him, how much more hilarious can things get? Or, with the present day Iceman being older and wiser, will he be fed up with the juvenile younger version of himself? I mean, I don’t see the second option actually happening, but it’s a thought.

Finally, the last thing that I’ll talk about is Jean Grey and Wolverine. There’s a long storied history with many volumes pertaining to that relationship, and just when you thought it was gone, here comes Bendis to open Pandora’s Box once again. And on top of that, we haven’t even seen Cyclops’ reaction to her presence in the present yet. It’s going to be quite an interesting show, and I’m really looking forward to it. Basically, this series is hitting on a lot of great things for me, so I’m enjoying it immensely.

Final Score:

 

ALL-NEW X-MEN #2

Written by BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS

Art by STUART IMMONEN, WADE VON GRAWBADGER, & MARTE GARCIA