In ‘Uncanny X-Men’ #23, we learned that Charles Xavier had a secret. Before he died he created a new last will and testament that was delivered to She-Hulk. Her job is to deliver the news to all of the X-Men but when she goes to do that, she can’t right off of the bat as one X-Men who is alive is also missing, Scott Summers. No one is happy that Cyclops has to be there as he is responsible for the Professor’s death.

Yes it may or may not have been directly as he was the Phoenix at the time and he may be a fugitive from the law, but apparently he still needs to be there for the will to be read.

That was the secret brought up last issue. In this one, we get a ton of others revealed that change everything! Or, at the very least, change a lot of things. A characters begin to come to terms with the fact that Xavier is dead, we find out a few important things that Xavier had to give out. We find out that Beast has a secret he’s been keeping from everyone, we find out a bit more of a relationship that has been teased in previous issues that resulted in him having a son, and we find out that Xavier had a dark secret of his own. Basically the issue plays out like a soap opera where hiding things from your friends just ends badly for everyone. However, it’s one that plays out great on page!

Lots of secrets in the mutant community are popping up here and we’ve barely scratched the surface!

Bachalo is killing it on art and is giving the perfect facial expressions to many of the characters as secrets are reveled and entertaining moments crop up. It’s a Bendis story so we’re going to have some humor mixed in with the depressing setting here.

If there was any surprise from a lack of reactions here, it was how everyone took Dazzler’s new look in stride. I feel we were robbed of the Uncanny X-Men seeing it initially for a proper reaction and none of her old friends in Logan’s camp said a thing.

Bendis is still building to something and clearly there is a lot that is about to happen to our mutants, and with a new character introduced that will be tied into all of it I can’t wait to find out what comes up next! The ending of the issue is a cliffhanger pure and simple.

There was a lot of build up and also of secrets starting to hatch. Also, if you remember at the start of this series you may remember that at one point Mystique cared quite greatly about what Xavier’s legacy was shaping up to be. That is partially explained here though it leads one to question why she went super evil once again. Or, is the reasoning something that we have yet to learn and will soon? The real question though is why they are billing this as an ‘Original Sin’ tie-in event?

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UNCANNY X-MEN #24
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Artist: Chris Bachalo