The ‘All-New X-Men’ annual actually is playing into the events of this week’s ‘Uncanny X-Men’ #29 as we focus on “The Secret Life of Eva Bell” and find out what she’s been up to when she disappeared during their student training mission in Tabula Rasa. This is the second part of her story that had begun in the ‘Uncanny X-Men Annual’ #1 from earlier this month.
Brian Michael Bendis has clearly wanted to tell Eva’s story in detail ever since it was hinted at and we’re finally learning of the life that she has had and lost in what was a second for her fellow students but years for herself. Seven years to be exact.
Love, life, a family, a timeline was all gone in the blink of an eye and it has shown exactly how powerful she truly can be. Freezing time is just the tip of the iceberg.
Andrea Sorrentino’s art is just on point in both characters and the surreal look he gives as Eva is traveling through the time stream.
Bouncing around through time again, Eva returns to 2099 and the Sorcerer Supreme is no longer Illyana but a goateed man that does not happen to be Doctor Strange. No, in an entertaining twist there is a new man wearing the mantle and one you would never expect to see with it. He cannot help her get back to her own time as he has been forbidden to use time travel, though explains that she should be able to head back on her own. This also gives us an interesting insertion of The Butterfly Effect now being in the Marvel Universe which almost seems to go against all of the time travel that has happened to date.
Of course, with how badly the time continuum seems to be breaking down we might actually see this plot device removed in the future. If we could only be so lucky! Of course removing it may mean we would have to have Eva’s powers nerfed or her removed from the comics as well.
We close the book with a much more well rounded character that absolutely no one truly ends up knowing anymore. She’s become a lot more powerful while she has been away and the extent of her powers and her secrets are not known by her professors, which is probably a good thing since she takes advantage of having not learned from the past in order to use her powers in quite an interesting way in the latest issue of ‘Uncanny X-Men.’
For the very first time, I have become interested in one of the new students that Cyclops has picked up in the ‘Uncanny X-Men.’ None of the others have really been fleshed out and in these two annuals we finally have an idea of who Eva Bell is and what she can do. Bendis is working his magic on her and I only hope it is to give us a solid character and not to make us like her before she ends up biting the big one.
‘ALL-NEW X-MEN ANNUAL’ #1
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Artist: Andrea Sorrentino
