Continuing the back and forth found in the recent issues of ‘Uncanny X-Men’ and ‘All-New X-Men’, we see Cyclops trying to recruit students from the Jean Grey School to his New Xavier School. While we see a lot of interaction between the schools in this issue, it fits mainly as background noise for one character of the Uncanny X-Men. The character focused on in this issue is Emma Frost, and the following issue’s focus is said to be Magik.

The Stepford Cuckoos have always followed Emma Frost. They are the artificially created daughters of Emma Frost, so to say they didn’t’ have a normal mother/daughter relationship is an understatement. The daughters have long been rivals as well as students of Emma. You could never call them friends but with qualities such as being psychics and on the outside they’ve always had a special bond.

While Cyclops is making his recruitment speech to the students, Emma and the Cuckoos are having a conversation on their own. It quickly becomes evident to the sisters that Emma cannot read their thoughts on her own and are only able to when they allow her. They no longer held defenses in place against her as it had seemed a waste so they go on the offense. The sisters invade Emma’s mind out of years of hatred and find what happened.

They wanted to embarrass Emma, and also wanted to hurt her. They also found that Cyclops, the man she loved, had taken her Phoenix power forcefully and broke he own mutant powers in the process. This attack on weakness made them all feel ashamed for what they did.

Though even hurt, Emma has grown as a character. She still wants to have her pseudo daughters with her. She wants to teach them to not end up how she has and the three girls accept. One other X-Men accepts as well and it is one that is most unexpected. We’ll get to the mystery person who volunteered at the end of All-New X-Men #10. This conversation between Emma and the Cuckoos is probably the most open and honest conversation we’ve seen on page and I really feel it helps show how Emma has again been growing as a character over the years.

While the primary focus was Emma we also see a bit of the new students and what they do while they are gone and also (and more importantly for next issue) that Magik is finally showing that her powers were broken as well from the AVX ordeal. Twice in the issue she randomly seems to disappear into fire. Something is happening though what exactly it is will remain a mystery until next issue.

So who else decided that Cyclop’s new school was the way to go? Quite surprisingly it was one of the original ‘All-New X-Men’ from the past. While I felt Jean Grey would be the one who goes with them to try to hide her thoughts it turns out that Angel is going to go and learn from Cyclops. Quite an unexpected twist.

As much as I love this series, I don’t understand why every issue to be a cliffhanger. The last couple were great as they meshed with ‘All-New X-Men’ but now that we’ll have to truly wait to see what is going on with Magik you are just killing us here! (Good job!)

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Artist: Chris Bachalo