Moving on from the events of ‘Wolverine and the X-Men’ #36, we are going to actually get a partial explanation of that cliffhanger on who the actual future X-Men are that Magik and the original X-Men found while travelling to the future. Not only that, we’re going to get some information on what happened to ruin the set of X-Men that have already come back.
Honestly, I was worried that we were about to get X-Men overload when they closed the last issue. As excited as I was, it was tinted with caution that we were going to have too many mutants to keep track of. I’m glad I was wrong because Bendis pulled it all off perfectly and giving us one great moment after another through the entire issue.
While we don’t have a lot of details on all of the future X-Men quite yet, we do know that it’s Iceman as a wizard (but then who’s the other Iceman we’ve already seen?), a version of Iron Man (with no news yet as to who’s in the suit, if anyone), Jubilee, Storm, Colossus, and Phoenix Quentin.
While none of them want to initially give them details, it doesn’t take long for Colossus to force everyone’s hand. This goes from a happy reunion that soon leads us to seeing a dark portion that happened in the future which brought up the other X-Men that we’ve already seen. Dazzler was made president of the United States and right as she goes to accept the office she (and all of the Madrox’s that were protecting her) are killed.
While the X-Men live to go another day, it changes the reality for Beast and once again he changes his views. It looks like that last instance was the straw that broke the camel’s back and in this future we once again have 2 factions of X-Men who are at odds with one another.
While the last issue gave me pause for concern, this one really just knocked it out of the park. Every single panel gave us more details and built up the story in a positive way. The interaction between Iceman past and future was classic and Jubilee’s changes looked to be extremely interesting though not really explored.
The issue closes with Magik bringing the second set of future X-Men back to the present. So now we have one team of original X-Men, 2 teams of present X-Men, and 2 teams of future X-Men in the mix. Things seemed to be much more easy going when there was only one team of X-Men without internal strife. Maybe that’s a hint on where they want to take the various X-Series by the book’s end. They want to show the mutants that they need to work together again.
Why do I have a feeling that is not going to happen? I can’t believe we’re at the half way point of this crossover and are still being introduced to new characters. In fact having just gotten over a small hump I think that they really upped the ante on what to expect once again. These issues have just been amazing and have completely taken over what I want to be reading of the X-Men. Legacy has consistently been my top go to with the X-Titles since the NOW! relaunch but this crossover event is the best in years. Not just for the X-Men but for Marvel on the whole.
ALL-NEW X-MEN #17
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Artist: Stuart Immonen
