Wolverine & The X-Men has been a great read since the launch of the title. Watching Logan’s teachers grow as teachers and his students slowly become a solid set of mutants have been entertaining and a great way to introduce us to a new set of characters.

It’s an interesting twist to see. In Uncanny X-Men, we see Cyclops recruiting mutants to his school. Cyclops is one of the original X-Men, a previous teacher, and one of the most well known mutant in the world even before his stint as one of the Phoenix Five. There the entire focus was on the actual mutants in charge whose powers have been torn apart by The Phoenix Force. The interesting part about the now mutant revolutionary is that he is spending almost no time actually teaching his children in the books.

On the flip side, as seen in Wolverine & the X-men, we’ve actually been able to see the students grow. There’s character development and the students are not only memorable, but you have a connection to them. Why am I mentioning the students so much here? Because this issue is all about them.

In Wolverine & The X-Men #30, we saw what has been being hinted at this entire series. The Hellfire Club has made a move against the X-Men. While this is old news, as they’ve been plotting to use the Phoenix for their own agenda for years, this new Hellfire Club has it’s own goals in mind, but we’ll get to those in a moment.

The true star of this issue is Quentin Quire. I never used to be a fan of Quentin but ever since he was forcefully enrolled into the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning, I have felt he’s become an extremely strong character. He isn’t just the arrogant brat he’s always been portrayed as in the past and the slowly evolving sense of purpose he has is refreshing.

As he’s now enrolled in The Hellfire Club Academy, we get to see how the school is run and who is teaching the classes. We have a slew of mainly B-Listers running the show, though Mystique is one of the teachers which could prove interesting. And remember Toad who betrayed the X-Men to help recruit students? Well, he fittingly is made the janitor.

The entire issue we see Quentin trying to find out why Idie left and when he realizes her plan, decides he’s going to find a way to get them both out of this mess with Broo. Oh, and stop things all by himself. He spends the rest of the issue trying to get in trouble to be sent to the “principal’s office” and sort things out his way.

The problem? The Black King has a way to prevent a telepath from reading or controlling his mind. Not only that but they’ve been able to read what he’s been thinking the entire time that he’s been here. Oops.

And the goals of The Hellfire Club that I mentioned above? Profit. The Black King basically spells it out to Quentin that he is just interested in having a little mutant terrorist group in order to sell more sentinels. Oh, and they have some kind of time/power mutating vortex that is going to turn Quentin’s power up a notch while putting him under their control.

I love the fact that we’ve had a reason to have a return of The Hellfire Club. I love that they were reintroduced in a way to make them fun and fresh. I really hope, though, that there is a greater meaning behind what they are up to and that we were going to have 4 more issues to figure out what that might be. If it’s just to sell Sentinels, it’s a huge waste of a storyline, though, I have a feeling we’re going to have another twist or two up coming our way. Also what exactly is Mystique doing here when she should really be super busy with everything going on in the All New X-men?

 

Writer: Jason Aaron
Artist: Nick Bradshaw