I’m still having fun reading through the earlier incarnations from the past being stuck in modern Marvel time. I’m not going to beat around the bush, there is just something satisfying about seeing a young Beast, Iceman, Angel, Cyclops and a young living Jean Grey. It’s the same old crew from when I was buying trades trying to catch up the first time around on reading the X-Men and at the same time it’s not.
I love being able to see how a team we’ve already seen go through the learning curve and come together have to go through it again in a completely new manner. Relationships we’ve seen develop are developing once more, and in some instances going completely haywire.
We begin the issue with Kitty Pryde having taken over the original X-Men’s training running them through the Danger Room. Honestly it feels like it takes most of the issue just from being lost in how beautifully each of the ‘fight’ scenes are rendered.
Entertainingly enough, Iceman comments that in their time the Danger Room was mainly a giant red rubber ball flying at them. Going through the training scenario it’s very quickly apparent that the original X-Men aren’t quite ready for the dangers of the modern world as their day it was still a little more peaceful.
We get a lot of character focus and aside from the villains, we don’t get to see a lot of actual progression. We’ll get to them in a moment though.
After the Danger Room Scenario, Kitty tells the young X-Men to review what they did but as everyone is leaving Jean quickly scans Cyclops mind with her new found powers and wants to know who Mystique is. As Cyclops storms away from her we flash to Maria Hill of S.H.I.E.L.D dropping off Sabertooth at ‘The Raft’ and if anyone for a moment didn’t put two and two together to realize this was Mystique in disguise shame on you!
After going off on a rant on how she’s no longer giving a damn about mutant rights, she admits that she just wants to break someone out to make a ton of money and retire into luxury. The big spoiler on whose being broken out? Lady Mastermind.
While I for the life of me can’t remember why or how she is on The Raft, I’d like to say I love the single panel they show using her powers to stop the guards who are trying to prevent their prison break. The full page panel is of zombified X-Men eating through all of the guards.
Awesome! What can I say, I like Marvel Zombies still.
Moving on we see Angel having a conversation with Beast about the mutant genocide he’s trying to prevent and how Angel doesn’t see any evidense of it. It’s actually a well put together scene and gives a lot of valid points from Angel’s point of view.
Sadly it’s rudely interrupted as are the rest of the school’s activities in this issue ends exactly where Uncanny X-Men #3 ended – With modern day Cyclops and the core Uncanny X-Men showing up on a recruitment drive.
There’s been a lot of build up in this book so far and I’m glad to see the next two issues of All New and Uncanny are going to finally see at least part of the plot line coming to a head.
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Artist: David Marquez
