With wrter Jason Aaron off and Jason Latour in his place, one might be concerned how the story that is taking place at The Jean Grey School stacks up over Summer. Well, its no summer vacation here as the school is still full of students who haven’t graduated and call the school their home! The tone of the story really feels like it’s progressing from the tale that Bendis had weaved together as we are getting both a continuation of the groundwork that was already laid as well as characters speaking in the same voices we’ve been enjoying. As for Mahmud A. Asrar’s art, all I can say is that you don’t feel like you are starting a new book as a certain other ‘X-Men’ title did this month. Change can be good but for this set of books I’m glad the style felt right for the title.

What I’m trying to say is that at the very least, the first issue of this book is a pretty solid successor to the last run in this series. While it is a great as continuation, I think as a jumping in point it only did alright. It is a very solid start if you are familiar with the newer X-kids, but for those that aren’t? It might still have been a bit much.

So, with some of the students having graduated where does that put us now?

First up, Wolverine isn’t hanging around the student grounds! No, it’s not in continuity of ‘Wolverine’ #1 as I previously suspected but he is actually out pretending to be Patch again and is tracking down a surprise future teacher for the students. Primarily for one student, Kid Apocalypse.

This fits in well with a scene that we are teased of a future Idie being angered in front of a gravestone dedicated to Logan while Phoenix Quire and Apocalypse do battle overhead. Are we being set-up for another alternate future? A tease of what is to come? Or is this possibly just the fantasies being played out in a young man’s mind who isn’t sure if he wants to become the man he has seen himself to be? This could be a quite amazingly put together coming of age story for Quire that started in the first set of books and the longer the series is running, the more I’m feeling that with everything else going on, he is the center point of this series.

Speaking of the other teachers, Beast has Broo and a few of the other students and with Kitty gone that primarily leaves Storm in charge. Thankfully she’s not alone as Eye Boy and Quentin Quire are both there to help welcome new students and keep the chaos at a minimum. So while Eye Boy is helping out one new student, Quire is letting the other students run mad in a minor Battle Royale styled tournament! At the same time, we flip between scenes with Quire and Idie having alone time that allows us to see how uncomfortable he is with the role he has fallen into, knowing that in the future there is a good chance he’ll become The Phoenix.

Speaking of The Phoenix, that is our cliffhanger as it almost seems like we’re being thrown right into that story even though it feels too soon. A ruse? We’ll have to find out starting next issue!

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WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN #1
Writer: Jason Latour
Artist: Mahmud A. Asrar