We’re continuing with what happened in ‘Wolverine And The X-Men’ #39 and getting a two part story here, one that focuses on Wolverine and Cyclops while the other follows the viewpoint of the students. With the S.H.I.E.L.D. Sentinels trying to take out our two heroes and spies sent by Mystique trying to take down the school, it’s clear thread that the plot line will have to be dealt with soon with only a single issue left! It’s only a matter of time before Mystique’s influence in S.H.I.E.L.D. can continue before she’s found out, so you have to wonder how much damage she can continue to do?

I suspect this may be the plot that carries over into the next round of books.

Wolverine and Cyclops have never been close friends with their mutual love for Jean Grey  between them and mixed views on how mutantkind should move forward. They have, however, been through war and have developed a bond that in a way transcends friendship, even when they want to tear each other apart. What they have could be viewed as being akin to the relationship once shared by Professor X and Magneto. This issue really pushed those concepts as it brought them together in a fight and together in a brief rest period after.

The two share a moment here that I think will be important for the mutants on the whole moving forward (assuming Wolverine isn’t fully taken out of the limelight when he goes on his silly solo adventure of being a two bit criminal) in that even though the two don’t agree they can come to an understanding. Logan says it best when he mentions that Scott needs to be the man Jean fell in love with and not the one that would have scared her.

Things aren’t perfect between these two but they aren’t going to be quite at each other’s throats for the foreseeable future. Writer JAson Aaron has really outdone himself with how Scott and Logan communicate here and Pepe Larraz has gone out of his way to make sure it’s illustrated in a way that does it justice.

This is quite possibly my favorite book of the series to date and would have been a perfect closing chapter, which really makes me hope that the actual closing chapter can stay just as strong!

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WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN #40
Writer: Jason Aaron
Artist: Pepe Larraz