Comic Book Review: 'Uncanny X-Men' #3

Previously on the pages of Uncanny X-Men, we’ve seen Scott Summers building a new school for gifted youngsters under the name of Charles Xavier. He is rescuing mutants to try to keep them safe and all in all angering everyone who thinks he should still be in jail. At the close of the last issue we saw that he was taking a student home to see her mother. We also saw that Magneto called in S.H.I.E.L.D on them the moment they left who sent in The Avengers.

While you might argue that we just saw this in AvX, things go a little bit differently this time around and Bendis’s writing is taking us in a great direction on the X titles.

Captain America tries to talk Scott down at the introduction. Cyclops tries to argue that The Avengers are just as wrong for what happened as he was. He also tries to argue there isn’t a reason for him to be brought in (clearly skimming over that he’s a wanted fugitive that broke out of prison).

After a long talk on why he tries to explain why he’s in the right and there’s no reason for this to escalate Captain America falls back on what I believe will cause friction with the students down the line. He tells Scott that he’s under arrest for the murder of Charles Xavier which all of the students seemed a bit surprised about.

At this point things escalate and what will clearly be a battle begins. Though with the new mutant in tow that can freeze time the battle ends about half a second later as The Avengers are frozen in time and the X-Men go on their merry way. Not before Cyclops addresses the crowd with another pro-X-Men propaganda statement though.

After they head back to base Magneto takes credit for The Avengers getting there so fast as a carefully orchestrated plan on his part. He claims he didn’t want anyone to know so if someone tried to read their minds they wouldn’t give away his plan. Now that the government will trust him, he believes he can use that trust to gain critical information to supply to the new X-Men.

Emma is in full support of Erik’s plan while Cyclops is questioning if he can trust him. Another rift that comes up is Cyclops mentioning that he’s in charge while Magneto asks when exactly that happened. It looks like we’re going to have a power struggle on our hands here but that gets postponed as they find that The Avengers are still locked in time and Cyclops takes the team to make a bold power play.

He brings his Uncanny X-Men to Wolverine’s school for mutants and announces that his X-Men should come to him. Any mutants who weren’t turned off by his misuse of the Phoenix force or what he’s done since will quickly have a chance to join him next issue. It’ll be interesting to see who decides that he is actually in the right if any do at all.

As much as many of the current students and teachers may have followed him before he did (unintentionally or not) kill Charles Xavier.