If Brian Michael Bendis has proven anything with his run of X-Men so far, it’s that BRIAN KNOWS X-MEN! ‘All-New X-Men’ #13 both started and ended with a bang and it’s been a long month waiting for this issue to come out and find out exactly what happened. Jean Gray started and ended the issue appearing to be releasing the Phoenix on Mystique and her merry little band of misfits.

Yes, THAT Phoenix who was supposedly gone from our Universe has appeared to return once again. You can’t seem to keep a good primal force of resurrection and change for the entire Universe down.

With the Phoenix on the loose again, that means one thing and one thing only. Wolverine knows that in his soul he needs to put Jean down before she can kill everyone around them. As he moves to strike down the one woman he’s always loved, something unexpected happens. The flames disappear!

Jean could tell that the Phoenix is the one force everyone in the room who knew her feared and immediately had tried to project that vision into the minds of their enemies! The problem? This is still the young Jean and she’s still new at these powers so it hit the X-Men too. This becomes a fun little back and forth between Jean and Lady Mastermind which is extremely fitting with her future self dealing so much with Lady Mastermind’s father down the line (or should I say in the past?)

The majority of the rest of this issue is a truly epic fight that takes place between the All-New X-Men and Mystique’s band of mutants. Stuart Immonen finally gets to cut loose and show off the talent that he is known for by displaying some truly fierce epic battles!

Truly, this is one of the best drawn x-Men fight sequences I have seen in a long time. The art on the pages is absolutely spectacular and really gives you a feel of the action.

The ending of the issue is a fun three-fold piece. The first is The Avengers showing up to berate the X-Men for having not gone straight home! Wait, no, that’s just Lady Mastermind trying to make a getaway. It doesn’t work. However what does work is The Avengers show up to berate the X-men for having not gone straight home! This time though it really is them (which a young Iceman doesn’t believe until he tosses a snowball at Thor’s head. Oops!) Havock and young Scott have a very touching high give moment and the mutants get to go home.

Things appear to have worked out well until the last part of the issue hits. Mystique finds a way to get herself out of prison (it looks like she really was just trying to make a lot of money after all) and the last page we focus on Jean. Jean remembering the projection she had cast into everyone’s mind of the Phoenix with a look on her face I couldn’t quite decide on. Fear? Worry? Or is there a bit of the Phoenix already embedded with her that traveled to the future that is just waiting to be unleashed upon our world?

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ALL NEW X-MEN #14
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Artist: Stuart Immonen