All-New X-Men, Vol. 5: One Down

All-New X-Men (2012) (Collected Editions)

by Brian Michael Bendis, Stuart Immonen (Illustrator)

The future Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, last seen in "Battle of the Atom," is back — and they're still gunning for yesterday's X-Men! But even as the Brotherhood takes its next devastating step against the time-tossed teens, the mysteries surrounding Jean Grey begin to unfold!

Jean came back from her Shi'ar trial...different. What does this mean for her future, for the past of the woman she's supposed to become and for the rest of the X-Men? Past, present and future collide when the Future Brotherhood exacts its final judgment on the All-New X-Men!

Collecting ALL-NEW X-MEN #25-29

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Marvel, X Men, Superheroes, Graphic Novels Comics, Comic Book

144 pages, Paperback

First published August 19, 2014

About the author

A comic book writer and erstwhile artist. He has won critical acclaim (including five Eisner Awards) and is one of the most successful writers working in mainstream comics. For over eight years Bendis’s books have consistently sat in the top five best sellers on the nationwide comic and graphic novel sales charts.

Though he started as a writer and artist of independent noir fiction series, he shot to stardom as a writer of Marvel Comics' superhero books, particularly Ultimate Spider-Man.

Bendis first entered the comic world with the "Jinx" line of crime comics in 1995. This line has spawned the graphic novels Goldfish, Fire, Jinx, Torso (with Marc Andreyko), and Total Sell Out. Bendis is writing the film version of Jinx for Universal Pictures with Oscar-winner Charlize Theron attached to star and produce.

Bendis’s other projects include the Harvey, Eisner, and Eagle Award-nominated Powers (with Michael Avon Oeming) originally from Image Comics, now published by Marvel's new creator-owned imprint Icon Comics, and the Hollywood tell-all Fortune and Glory from Oni Press, both of which received an "A" from Entertainment Weekly.

Bendis is one of the premiere architects of Marvel's "Ultimate" line: comics specifically created for the new generation of comic readers. He has written every issue of Ultimate Spider-Man since its best-selling launch, and has also written for Ultimate Fantastic Four and Ultimate X-Men, as well as every issue of Ultimate Marvel Team-Up, Ultimate Origin and Ultimate Six.

Brian is currently helming a renaissance for Marvel’s AVENGERS franchise by writing both New Avengers and Mighty Avengers along with the successful ‘event’ projects House Of M, Secret War, and this summer’s Secret Invasion.

He has also previously done work on Daredevil, Alias, and The Pulse.

Reviews

[Baba · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's a huge warning for the Beast, will he take note? There's the small matter of the Shi'Ar trial of young Jean Grey; there's a young Jean vs Emma confrontation...as in big Emma Frost! Bendis' realistic dialogue and great storytelling manages to sell the idea of the time displaced X-Men really well, even though I find the core idea ridiculous! 8 out of 12, Four Star read.

2018 and 2016 read

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

This had moments of shining brilliance (read: fun stuff), but for the most part it was just another trip down Time-Travel Lane.
I can't fully express how much I truly hate it when they do that never ending loop of go-back-in-time-warn-yourself-not-to-do-the-same-shit-and-then go-back-again-and-stop-this-or-that-and-then-go-back-again-because-you-found-a-note-your-future-self-wrote-to-your-past-self-and-had-it-delivered-by-a-pizza-guy-and-this-cycle-never-ends-because-some-else-also-wrote-themselves-a-note-but-they-put-it-under-the-fake-hide-a-key-rock thing.
STOP IT!



And that's the majority of the plot. Beast has a talk with {spoiler} about how badly he's screwed up by bringing the original X-men from the past into the future present.
Begin rambling monologue...
Well, Beast, it appears that you've screwed the pooch! Maybe. Or maybe everything will be ok. Not sure. I mean, everyone could have had a happy ending. Well, not everyone {insert chuckle}, but most everyone. Or not. Everything could turn out ok anyway. But it could all go to hell because of you interference! But that part isn't certain. Nothing is certain. Time is broken! Or maybe not. Fix it! Fix it quickly! Or just take your time? I mean what the hell can you really do at this point?! The damage is done. Or is it? Yeah, no.
Go ahead and try to fix it.
BTW, you disgust me, Furball!



Then the X-men fight all the crazy dudes from the future. AGAIN. Didn't I just read about these Future X-Men? Yes, I'm pretty sure I did. And I'm pretty sure they were beaten already!



Oh. Wait.
They wrote themselves a note?!
Well, then it all makes sense now!

Great. Moving on...

Like I said, there were a few shining moments in this that made it worth reading.
X-23 and Warren flying off into the sunset was pretty cool. I never in a million years would have pictured them together, but it worked. I'm adding Angel to my hottie list, so back off ladies!



The Jean vs Emma SmackDown was awesome! Emma totally hits below the belt, and shows Jean the one memory guaranteed to simultaneously piss her off and totally gross her out.



It was great to see Little Miss Crazypants taken down a notch, especially after spending 5 volumes watching all the poor X-boys get their hearts trampled on by the lunatic redhead.
Then again, it was also great to see Jeanie blow Emma through a snowdrift!
But the best part was what happened after...



I didn't like this one as much as I did the previous volumes, but it was still worth the read.

[Sesana · Rating 3 out of 5]

If much of the story weren't basically a rehash of X-Men: Battle of the Atom, I would have liked this a lot better. Because seriously, that just happened. I didn't need to read another story that was so incredibly similar. Yes, there were some scenes mixed in there that clarified the evil future X-Men more than in Battle of the Atom, but come on, Bendis. That just happened. And I'm ready to move on.

But hey, it isn't all bad. There's Laura and Warren having a thing, and I can't even tell you how nice it is to see one of those boys get the hell over Jean. There's Emma and Jean finally having it out, with a somewhat unexpected end result. And there's the first issue, adult Hank being made to face the new futures he's created and the futures he's destroyed by bringing the original X-Men to the present. Of course, the ending is weak, almost cringe inducing: The Watcher scolding Hank is just so, so over the top. But until the last few pages, it's a really interesting issue.

As a whole, this is kind of a weak volume. It kind of feels like treading water, waiting for something real to happen, while almost replaying a very recent story because- I don't even know why. Bendis really liked he concept and wanted to make sure even readers who skipped Battle of the Atom was familiar with it? I don't know, but I'm ready for something a little different.

[Terence · Rating 2 out of 5]

The future Brotherhood is back to cause some trouble and Beast is having sleepless nights over what he's done and can't undo.

One Down is the epitome of what I expected All-New X-Men to be, time travel slop. Surprisingly All-New X-Men has been better than that so far, but the time traveling Brotherhood built by Xavier's son (who looks like a freaking clone and has the exact same powers) using the envelope system to be more efficient is pure annoying as hell time travel slop.

Some additional information is revealed that I won't mention makes this volume one pigs would thoroughly enjoy.

There were some good parts though. Seeing Beast anguish over the ramifications of what he's done is absolutely one of them. The hard part with that is it seems like someone reminded Bendis that time travel has consequences and he loaded them all up in one issue.

One Down didn't do anything for me and left me groaning, hopefully the next volume is better.

[Nicolo · Rating 5 out of 5]

In case you were wondering about the expansive credit list, included in this collection was an anniversary issue that had a ton of guest artists, some are familiar names to franchise and others are less so.

This was a lot of fun to read. The art is always a strong point but the story is a sequel to the the crossover event Battle of the Atom, or at least, the part that introduced a future Brotherhood of Evil Mutants led by Mystique's two sons.

This story expands on the origins of the aforementioned two sons and their novel way of abusing the time-stream. It was bound to happen, they had a Hank McCoy on their team.

The reader truly enjoyed himself because it is well-illustrated story.

[Ｆｒａｎｋｈ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Previously in All-New X-Men...

Composed of issues #25-30, the sixth volume of this series is officially my LEAST FAVORED collection because of the unbelievably irritating bullshit that occupied its wasteful space. I was just coming around from that equally unsatisfying crossover story with Guardians of the Galaxy entitled The Trial of Jean Grey, which is also an obvious rip-off from Claremont's stellar Magneto issue in the eighties that has the same concept, but Bendis simply just failed to deliver something just as memorable and purposeful as the former. It's heartbreaking in a sense.

But whatever, let bygones be bygones. And yet this volume was just...subpar. Clearly, I have a lot of respect and talent for Bendis and I've instantly fallen in love with All-New X-Men from the start. But, like most whirlwind romances, I'm just not content with the cheap thrills and mercurial pace and direction of the narrative at this point. It was captivating in the beginning but now that it's time settle down, I would like something more substantial than what I was served with this volume. It was downright insulting, actually, for a reader like me who only expected all the best from Bendis' solid line-up concerning the original X-Men. Somewhere along the way in the aftermath of Battle of the Atom, this series started losing some of its magic touch. With the exception of the special issue #25, the remaining issues were just...stale.

Yes, that's the best adjective to describe everything about the sixth volume. I think the failure stems from the fact that after several issues of focusing too much on Jean Grey (SEE PIE CHART FOR EVIDENCE), Bendis neglected other characters in the OCF like Warren, Bobby and Hank who became supporting background characters, depressingly fiddling their sad violins while Jean relentlessly takes the center-stage with a few moments of Scott actually having some important scenes here and there. But now Bendis dropped Scott, opting to make him travel with his space dad instead, and I can only hope this will allow other OCF members to step forward and start having more assertive roles in the story than just passive spectators or occasional pawns during fight scenes and whatnot. From what I've seen in this volume, it looks like Bendis is re-calibrating his priorities so what we got instead is a rehash about the fucking Brotherhood from the future which was a really drawn out arc that I can't count how many times I rolled my eyes as I pushed through finishing it.

It made me uncomfortably upset that I had to pour all my frustrations in this scintillating piece of review which unearthed negative feelings I never thought I've been suppressing since issue #26 began.Is it possible to love something you're also beginning to hate just a teensy bit because the relationship you have with is is stuck in a certain place you don't want to be in? Well, All-New X-Men has answered that question with a resounding, "Fuck, yes, bub" since it made me endure that useless crossover story of The Trial of Jean Grey. Once I've opened my eyes to its weaknesses, I can never close them again, not when it hasn't improved with its current arc about the Brotherhood from the future making yet another strenuous comeback....TO KILL JEAN GREY.

Honestly, I never thought I'd say this but... AGAIN WITH JEAN GREY ? Anyway, I've stated before that we need to focus on Bobby, Warren and Hank next time and just put Jean in a corner somewhere, preferably in a self-imposed comatose, if that's the only way we can have access to the other OCF members who should have their own character-centered issues by this point in this series. This is, after all, All-New X-Men and not All-New Jean Grey. It's bad enough teen Scott left and we will never find out the adventures he's having with his dad Corsair. Other than Jean, he gets some character time at least and I'm really going to miss him. He hasn't interacted meaningfully with his older self yet which defeated the purpose of putting him in the same timeline as radically changed adult Cyclops. I was expecting some great moments between these two dorks and I got nothing in the end.

Instead, we got that creepy moment with adult Cyke and teen Jean which was uncomfortably AND NO ONE ASKED FOR since it was almost crossed that line. Thankfully, adult Scott didn't let his lust get the better of him or he may have just ended up making out with a sixteen-year-old version of his dead wife. Thank god this isn't Ultimate X-Men or anything because we all know that shit would probably happen in Ultimate. I mean, in Ultimate, the Maximoff twins got their incest on as their bio-dad Wolverine watched in the shadows...so it won't be a leap if that title got a thirty-something Scott hooking up with sixteen-year old Jean. So, basically, what I'm saying is FUCK ULTIMATE X-MEN.

No, wait. That's not my point. Jesus fuck, I'm too irritated to type a review logically at this point. All you need to know is that ''baby Xavier" is an asshole who wanted to avenge his father's death and...I don't know. I'm not really sure I understood his character motivation and twisted intentions. I cared little about his internal struggle because it was barely nuanced. All I really know about him is that he looks exactly like Charles Xavier, he's a powerful telepath too, he has daddy issues, he hates the X-Men and he wants to kill Jean Grey. That's as one-dimensional and cliché as you can get from a villain. In Battle of the Atom, Jean Grey and Xorn Jean from the future where zeroed in amidst the chaotic battles around them, and it was great. Now we have Charles Xavier II as the lead villain of the story arc, with events told from his perspectives and flashbacks, and he is everything that was wrong about Professor X in those off moments that X is an asshole himself. So far, Charlie II possessed grand posturing and self-entitlement that are only rivaled by his half-brother, the shape-shifting, and Wolverine-clawed Raze who is the love child of Logan and Raven, understandably. That was weird but not entirely impossible. I can totes see them having angry, cathartic sex, then never speaking about it.

What did shake me to my core is how this arc opened with a pregnant Moira MacTaggert about to give birth. Only it wasn't Moira. It was Mystique disguised as Moira. And she was impregnated by Xavier himself. I had to stop reading for a couple of minutes just to wrap my head around that revelation. In an earlier issue, Mystique told teen Scott that she respected and admired Charles and that in his death, she felt there was no purpose to fight for mutantkind. So I know she has developed fond feelings for Chuck somewhere along a comic book I have never read. Besides, I like the movie-canon version of the two of them being stepsiblings and growing up together. I really thought Bendis was going for that angle too. But nooooo. Apparently, Mystique became Moira and fucked Charles, and now she had his baby but she has to give away because it hurt too much to see the kid because Charles is dead and she was in love with him all this time. Whut? Whut? Really, WHUT?

Worst of all, I DON'T EVEN SEE MAGNETO AROUND FOR THIS STORY ARC to react to the fact that his late best friend had a son who looked exactly like him and is now in murder rampage. Goddamn you, Marvel and Bendis. Wasn't there a memo since Claremont days that specifically dictates that Professor X and Magneto and anything related to their relationship must have some page time allotted to their piles and piles of angst and unrequited "friendship"? It's a crime not to sprinkle some Cherik when it's a necessary ingredient.

It just doesn't make sense why Magneto is not a part of this arc! He's the only member missing from Cyke's Dream Team. Where the hell is he? What X-title did you conveniently put him in while this attack on the secret bunker is happening? It would have been so interesting to see him react to the second-rated version of Xavier. The more I type out my opinion in this review regarding what I just read, the more annoyed I getting by now. Look, the issue wrapped up some glaring plotholes from Battle of the Atom by revealing that Xavier II was behind all this. Jean (OF COURSE IT HAD TO BE JEAN) managed to knock him out long enough for them to send him to S.H.I.E.L.D (but oh no, that wouldn't be the end of it yet because his version from the future will time travel again and again and again and again....). And then they sent back the rest of the future X-Men to their own timeline. Wait...how are they able to do that AND NOT SEND BACK OCF to their own timeline as well? Why is the time-space continuum suddenly showing favoritism over which group of mutants get to go home and which ones can stay? IT DOESN'T MAKE FUCKING SENSE!!! How come they're not stuck in the present timeline like the OCF either? They time-traveled multiple times already and that should leave not just a tear but a gaping wound in the continuum--

--fuck this! I'm done trying to analyze crap. At least Doctor Who tries to come up with a creative explanation for their time paradoxes! I have nothing more to say. Read this with caution.

PASSABLY RECOMMENDED: 5/10

DO READ MY REVIEWS AT:

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK, so to recap: young Cyclops has gone off with the Starjammers, young Jean Grey has manifested an entirely new power (the power of MAGENTA!), and we're about to embark on the discovery of who Jean falls in love with next (because what would be a progressive storyline without a nice regressive moistening of the featured girl, even though every other character in the book is just as likely to want some cuddlin'. Just my prediction.)

Ohferfucksake, here Bendis goes with another indulgent, pointless art-jam issue that doesn't advance the storyline any further than without it, but gives him a chance to commission a bunch of splash pages by fave artists, all on Marvel's dime. At least he had some amusing anecdotes along the way:


Beyond that there's more messy fun with time travel, alternate-reality mutants and some screwy psychic politics that makes your head hurt if you think too hard...so make the choice to just don't.

Fun is fun. I get distracted a little wondering if these future reality threads are canon or not, and which of them will come back to haunt us later. Protip: none of the time-travel shenanigans in comics are ever canon, and almost none of them will ever haunt us later.

Older Jean Grey meets younger Jean Grey and didn't know how it would turn out? Fine by me. Wolverine meets his kids who turn out to be his grandparents? Cool. Hulk fights an amoeba who will one day become the All-Father? Bring on the one-eyed bugger.

It's all good fun, lots of tales of swash and merriment and blood spilt and great machines built. If we didn't get a chance to play god (or watch through her eyes) once in a while, this planet would make a helluva lot less sense.

And holy shit I called it but didn't call it. Turns out X-23 (Wolverine's sociopathic female "clone") is the hidden features female in this book, so of course it's her who we get to see embark on a journey of discovery of the power of her loins to make boys do their things.


Or wait, is it Kitty Pride?


Dunno, don't care that much. It's a filler issue, nice character moments, but ultimately a placeholder to let Bendis' other X-book catch up.

[James DeSantis · Rating 3 out of 5]

X-men, X-Men, X-Men. I was on a roll awhile back reading the whole Bendis run of X-men. To my surprise I enjoyed quite a bit. Especially volume 2-3. Sure 4 was a miss, but then months and months later I decided to jump back on to finish it. Volume 5! Here we go.

So you thought it was confusing bringing the old x-men back with the kids version huh? Let's add in future x-men coming to current time to kill the current time (though wouldn't that have a chance of killing their future self?) SO yeah, confusion 101. We have the son of Xavier and I believe Mystique/wolverine? And they hunt the X-men!

What I liked: Loved the fights. Cyclops has a perticular badass moment even. The dialog between some characters, especially Jean, Kitty, Scott, and Iceman are all solid. The quiet moment with Angel/Laura was sweet and really played to both characters in positive ways. The art is still solid and a lot of great moments in action.

What I didn't like: Why is cyclops suddenly good? Not reading a cross event to find out. Also, holy hell, what in the fuck was that design for Xavier? Why was he bald like his father? That was dumb. Also some of the dialog, while fun, can drag and some characters talk more than they should, doesn't fit their characters.

Overall, All-New X-men has been fun throughout. I didn't really hate any. Sure, some of it is wonky and confusing, and writing can be iffy, but it's atleast never BORING. That's a plus for me. Well on to Uncanny volume 4!

[Jesse A · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started out pretty fun with a bunch of different art types. Just fun. Finally fell back into the meh of the rest of this series.

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume regained some of the allure from the previous volumes that I enjoyed. It was fun seeing some further stories about the future evil Brotherhood as well.

[Donovan · Rating 2 out of 5]

That was a clusterfuck.

This starts with a Watcher showing Beast possible futures for what seems like thirty pages, both the good and the bad. You know those television episodes where they A. Just show flashbacks the whole time to a theme and B. Have those fuzzy edged theoretical flash forwards? A huge chunk in the beginning is like this and in random art styles and it's inconsequential. I was reading this thinking, what the hell is the point here? By the time the actual story came in it was so confusing with its jumping around the present, flashbacks, and flashforwards I had no idea when or where I was. What began as a unique and fun time travel story devolved into a messy and predictable series of battle royales. One group of mutants fighting another group of mutants because group B did something group A didn't like? Shocker. And in three time periods no less. Well, that series quickly spiraled out of control and burst into flames.

[Eli · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.75 stars

This was the best in the series so far (in my opinion, and that I can remember)! It didn't have a seriously major event in the plot like some of the others, but it was really funny. And there is quite the cliffhanger at the end. Can't wait to read the next one!

[Sud666 · Rating 3 out of 5]

The weakest vol so far of what was a great series. I will have to see if All New X-men ended with issue 30. Thats where this story ends. A lot going on with time travel. But again the ending is somewhere else. Grrrr. No idea what just happened.

[Ronald · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh, that was bad, like bad bad. Bendis did another one of his trademark "Oh you know what is going on now? Well bleep that! Change! Ta DA!" There is a whole issue here that is just Evil Future Professor X is tormenting the Beast in the future. It is done in weird incomplete short (often just a page) stories of the X-Men getting killed off or sometimes not. I had stopped with the single issues before then because I would have been pissed to pay extra for an oversized 25th issue just to get bad.
The rest is just another fight against the evil future Brotherhood of evil Mutants (X-Men). Like a lot of bad comics it starts with our heroes having learned nothing in the last 25 issues having zero security and the evil X-Men just waltz in and all but kill everyone. But suddenly the good guys win and a bunch of the evil X-Men were not actually evil for some reason.
The best bit (and why this is not a one star review) is when Emma is going to train Jean. It is all set up like it was going to be this big fight between hotties, Emma is even wearing that weird black outfit I think belongs to Magik that essentially exposes her body (the only thing more sexist - oh I'm told it is artistic - was the full page spread from issue #25 of Jean Grey sitting seductively (I guess?) on a throne of naked men). But instead of there being some massive girl fight the two women bond and become friends. It was so set up that this was expected from the writer thinking he is clever.

Anyway, I'm done with the trades I got from the library for this series and I think I will wait a bit to finish it off. It is such a shame a comic that had a great idea just sort of petered out with bad "events" and cross-overs. Bendis has great ideas and can write great but the long haul is not his strong suit.

[Gavin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Because red is the colour of psychic battles apparently...

Following up from the Trial of Jean Grey (GotG crossover) we find the kids back on Earth, with Scott long gone to join Dad Corsair in the Starjammers.

X-23 isn't too happy, on account of she was into Scotty the Body...luckily, another one of the boys will pay attention to her instead of Jean.

Oh, and do you remember the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants from the future? The one headed by Charles Xavier Junior? Ya, well he's back. Again. And...again...and possibly...again.

Time travel not your thing? Stay the fuck away from this one.

Beast has nightmares about all the meddling he's done with the space-time continuum, and an other-worldly figure gives him a lecture about it.

Then there's a rundown of possible futures, all done by different artists (kinda fun, a little funny, but in the middle of an angsty sandwich, it gets lost).

The team gets attacked again, only this time, they've got regular timeline Scott's Uncanny X-Men backing them up. Lots of fighting, lots of dark black and red, lots of psychic battles, lots of Yawn, been there, done that.

Eventually, things get solved Wolverine style, even though he's not involved.

The aftermath is maddening, because it feels like this will happen again and again...

We find out that perhaps Xavier Jr. is the real baddie, and the rest of the gang might be here against their wills...well XJ and his brother, a Wolverine/Mystique offspring.

That's a little bit interesting, but not enough to save this.

The only good part is that at the end, the insufferable Jean Grey/Emma Frost ice-vagina-contest is over for once.
Oh that and X-23 gets to be happy, with someone who might actually be good for her.
Oh and we get to see further development of the Star-Lord/Kitty Pryde relationship...but not enough.

So plot wise this is a disaster, and feels like a really long recap of what already happened, but in fact, it just happened again...ugh.

Character development was a bit more active this time around, especially the almost pedophile-y Old Scott young Jean part...not that I actually thought it would, but Kitty sure was there to flip out about it.

Oh, and the real end? The modern X-Men from Wolvie's school show up to tell them it's Prof X's will, and time to read it all at the school together....DUH DUHHHHH!!!!

So technically, if I'm keeping count, there's 3 different Hank McCoy/Beasts here (young from the past, current Blue and mutating who brought the past to the present, and future McCoy, who's gone feral and has horns and was with Xavier Jr.) There's also 3 different Icem(e)n? (Past Bobby, present Bobby, and crazy future shell Bobby Ice Monster)...but we only have one Scott (present, while past is in space with Present Dad, and no idea of future Scott) Jean (past, present is dead, and future was killed by past last volume...) and Warren (past, present is still around but mindwiped and clueless after the Apocalypse shit with X-Force, and no sign of the future...)

so I would be happy if I was Bobby or Hank, since we don't seem to die!

Whew. I just feel like this was a misfire, that there would have been a better way to develop and move characters forward than psychic fights and shit. Time travel and the X-Men is just overdone...ugh.

[Aaron · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wish a future version of myself would come back in time to warn me not to read time travel comics stories anymore. They are always so convoluted, and the solution at the end of most of them is "let's just prevent the story we just watched from ever having happened." They're almost always inherently free of conflict, pushing towards a zero sum of action and plot progression. That's how Bendis's All-New X-Men is starting to feel.

With this volume, we're back to the stupid X-Men from the future, who last appeared in the terrible X-Men: Battle of the Atom crossover, which never bothered to explain half of what was going on. Well, don't expect this volume to suddenly clear anything up. In fact, all of the backpedaling Bendis tries to do here to make Atom make sense actually makes things worse, fully removing the fear of an imminent threat that Atom pulled most of its suspense from. Instead of conflicting ideas about how to save the world that result in the future X-Men coming to the past, it turns out some of them are just whiny little assholes with a grudge against the present-day X-Men for... some reason. It doesn't make any sense and barely even tries to. It's also pretty hilarious that Bendis is basically retconning an event that happened, like, 8 issues ago?

Pair this with the poorly-plotted Trial of Jean Grey, and you've got like 20 straight issues of zero plot movement for the All-New X-Men. Beast keeps hinting in every volume that there must be a reason he's not able to send the past X-Men back to their own time, but no one is doing a damn thing to explore that plot wrinkle. At this point, it is the only thing that feels important in the entire storyline, and they basically just mention it once or twice per book and forget about it. Wrap this junk up and move on, Bendis!

Anyway, at this point, I really can't recommend this series at all. With each passing volume I've felt more and more like I've wasted my time. Another great premise squandered.

[Zack! Empire · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good, but I definitely want to see some different villains. We just saw these guys. I like how the description of the book says "Last seen in battle of the atom" like that was so long ago. It might as well say "last seen last volume".
I continue to enjoy this series, but this volume only gets 3 stars because it just felt lazy to me.

[Tomás Sendarrubias García · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bueno, voy a resumir aquí los arcos posteriores a Hijos del Átomo y hasta "Abajo", para no hacer minireseñas en cada uno, lo hago todo del tirón en este, que además me parece el mejor de los tres arcos argumentales que vinieron tras el encontronazo entre las Patrullas-X de diferentes tiempos. En el primero de los arcos, Todo Nuevo, nos encontraríamos con los días inmediatamente siguientes al descubrimiento de que los jóvenes X-Men ya no pueden volver a su tiempo y tienen que comenzar a integrarse en la Escuela Xavier. Y para este arco, Bendis recupera a dos viejos conocidos de la Patrulla-X. Por el lado de los aliados, los chicos se encuentran con X-23, que tiene problemas de memoria y no recuerda a la Patrulla ni a sus viejos aliados. Y por otro lado, vamos a tener a los Purificadores, aunque ahora están dirigidos por el hijo del reverendo William Stryker. En este arco, vamos a tener el encontronazo entre los nuevos (viejos) X-Men y todo el odio generado por Stryker, que además es uno de los personajes más insidiosos de X-Men, debido a su carga religiosa. Ojo, no es la mejor interpretación de los Purificadores que yo he visto, pero bueno, sirve para introducir a X-23 como nuevo elemento en el grupo.

Acto seguido, los jóvenes X-Men van a tener un encontronazo con la raza espacial que todos los mutantes tienen que conocer: los Shi'ar. Y es que parece que por un lado Bendis no había quedado satisfecho con todo lo que había tratado al Fénix en Vengadores vs X-Men, y por otro, necesitaba una excusa para unir dos de las colecciones en las que estaba trabajando y que tienen poco o nada que ver, estos Nuevos X-Men y sus Guardianes de la Galaxia. Lo primero que tengo que decir es que no creo ser muy objetivo en cuanto a los Guardianes, para mi tuvieron su mejor época en la etapa Abnett y Jennings, y no estoy seguro de que me convenciera mucho la etapa en la que Bendis se puso al frente de la colección. Pero bueno, el caso es que los Shi'ar, al descubrir que Jean Grey está de nuevo viva en la Tierra, deciden llevarla a juicio por los delitos cometidos por Fénix y la destrucción de la estrella D'Bari, etcétera. Y es que parece que Bendis no termina de entender que aquella no era Jean, pero bueno, da igual. Porque aunque lo fuera, la Jean Grey a la que quieren juzgar no es la que hubiera cometido ese delito, y así se lo hacen saber algunos de sus aliados galácticos. Los Guardianes de la Galaxia deciden ayudar a los terranos, pero llegan demasiado tarde y Jean Grey ya ha sido aprisionada por los Shi'ar, así que Kitty coge a su equipo y se va al espacio, buscando a Jean. Lo más interesante del arco, la verdad, es el encuentro entre el joven Cíclope y Corsario, su padre, ya que el joven Scott no tiene ni idea de la relación entre los Shi'ar y su familia. Y mientras Scott liga con X-23 y se reencuentra con su padre, Jean es sometida a interrogatorios por parte de los Shi'ar, demostrando una vez más Bendis que se podía pasar el trasfondo y la personalidad de cada personaje por donde le fuera viniendo bien, y no hay más que ver para ello el comportamiento infantil y rencoroso de Gladiador contra Jean. En fin, que después del viaje, Cíclope decide quedarse en el espacio, Jean desarrolla una especie de nuevo poder que la vuelve morada y aúna telekinesis y telepatía, y Kitty empieza un rollete (vaya tela) con Starlord, aunque va a tener que ser a distancia .

Y después del paseo cósmico, llegaría Abajo, un arco en el que la Patrulla trata de adaptarse a la ausencia de Scott, y se produce un nuevo ataque a los X-Men por parte de la Hermandad de Mutantes Diabólicos del futuro, dirigidos por Charles Xavier y el desconcertante Asuelo (en este caso, Bendis si que hace que el hijo de Lobezno y Mística de auténtico miedito psicópata). Y aunque seguimos sin saber por qué leñes tienen ese empeño en mandar atrás a los niños X en el tiempo, sí que nos sirve para entender un poco la formación de la Hermandad... y por qué Molly Hayes estaba con ellos en plan malota, que no tenía sentido ninguno.

En fin, la verdad es que Bendis se marcó algunos arcos llenos de altibajos, con momentos muy chulos y otros... reguleros (lo de la Patrulla-X amenazando a los Shi'ar... en fin...). Interesante a ratos.

[ellis · Rating 5 out of 5]

questions are answered! kitty gets pissed! laura and warren are cute! (yikes that won't end well, tho...)
and also, jean and emma are friends and sara pichelli has such good art.

[Michael Church · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honestly, I wanted to give this 5 stars, but there are a couple of things that objectively held it back. The first issue collected here is not at all new reader friendly. While it is pretty great for people who know the history of the X-Men, there were even a handful of references that I still don't understand. There is also still the issue of using time travel so much as a plot point. While this is a different approach than has been used recently, it still has the same pitfalls. Lastly, Bendis continues to rely on making odd changes to classic characters. Specifically, Jean Grey. I don't know if she was always this obnoxious, but I remembered her original self as one of my favorite characters. This teenage version is pretty awful, and she's being loaded up with random powers that never presented in her other versions. Sure, different timeline = different possibilities, but it's a stretch, and why reinvent classic characters when there are new ones like Tempus and Triage who have already exhibited some pretty exciting potential?

As a side note, since when has there been such a ridiculous reliance on telepaths? This book has more than 5 and there's another X-book with a practically a whole team of them. It's growing stale, and Jean was primarily telekinetic in the early days. And on the reverse side, there was at least one example of a telepath using telekinesis. I'm not positive, but I didn't think the two were automatically linked.

Anyway, I digress. All that being said, that was only enough to dock 1 star from the book, so that tells you how much I enjoyed the other aspects of it. Overall, I do enjoy these characters. I like how they are fitting into this new school and the character interactions are getting better as they all become more familiar with each other. What had me the most excited, though, was that the Brotherhood of Evil X-Men made a return as the villains. Even better, we got a great look into their past and origins. I loved this angle in Battle of the Atom, and I'm still enjoying it. Can we get a spinoff book about their timeline please??

The action is fast-paced, if a little predictable. The story arc is what has me so interested. I like a lot of these characters, but at this point it has become so interesting to see what is going to happen with all of this that I just want to keep reading. There are some nice moments, but it really has some elements of being a spectacle. The book is fun to read and I loved every minute of it. Especially the opening issue. It had great nods to different timelines and events, and was an excellent showcase of a wide sampling of artists.

Series regular, Stuart Immonen, continues to produce consistent, top notch work. I love the look of these characters and knowing what to expect from each issue. Sara Pichelli also does an excellent job on issue 30. It's a slightly different look, but it's a style I very much enjoy. I did notice some inconsistencies that may have come more from the colorist, but it was pretty minor.

This is a truly exciting title and one that is easy to be a fan of. I'm already looking forward to volume 6. The X-Men's corner of the Marvel universe continues to thrive and shows no signs of slowing down.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

The continuing adventures of our fresh-faced original X-Men from the past trying to deal with a present in which they have to coexist with their future selves, their future friends, and their future enemies.

There are still a lot of romantic triangles and other complicated arrangements going on here, like Kitty Pryde with her new galaxy-traveling boyfriend, with whom she is in the ultimate long-distance relationship. And the White Queen, who has issues with teenage Jean Grey.

Jean, the little minx, actually comes on to the older, adult, Scott Summers - who very firmly shuts her down, and then gets a tongue-lashing from Kitty anyway for being alone with her in her room.

The main story in this volume, though, is the return of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants from the future. Led by the evil son of Charles Xavier and the evil son of Wolverine.

I was not really fond of their first appearance - I thought the idea of future Jean Grey and future Beast going dark was insufficiently explained, plus I still find the motivations of Mystique's two evil kids don't go much further than "We hate our parents so let's kill the X-Men." But some of the other issues were addressed in this volume. There was a big battle and then the Brotherhood was (for now) disbanded. Of course.

I liked this volume a bit better than the previous one, which featured a cross-over with the Guardians of the Galaxy, as I think the new X-Men do best when they are on their own, not being eclipsed by either the regular X-Men or other Marvel teams.

Continues to be a decent series as the characters try to work out all their relationships and go down paths that their other selves in the main Marvel continuity we all remember did not.

And yeah, it must be really weird for Scott to keep bumping into his dead ex while she's still young and adolescent, right at the age when they first fell in love. And his other ex is trying to train her. And his younger self has a thing for X-23. Someone's going to get cut.

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad. Lots more time travel stuff, and it seems it was just yesterday that the X-men from the future were fighting the X-Men from the past and the X-Men of the present in the, well, present. The book starts off with the Watcher being a bit of a jerk to Beast, in an issue that had a lot of guest artists who drew alternate realities where the X-Men were either bad guys, good guys, etc. The the future mutants arrive and then Angel and X-23 have a moment, as do younger Jean Grey and Emma Frost. The book ends with what will be another cross over with Uncanny X-Men, so I need to get caught up on that book first.

Stuart Immonen's art is great, and Wade Von Grabinger-whatsit also drew an issue, just as nicely done. Bendis's dialog is still kinda clunky to my ears at times, but it works. There are some nice moments of humor and sweetness, which is kinda cute.

[Brent · Rating 4 out of 5]

Works for me.
I particularly like Bendis' dialogue, especially for young people. Issue #25 (or first chapter here) uses an anthology of art contributors to portray a set of alternate takes on the X-Men in alternate timelines, including at least one cartoon parody. That works.
The timeline going nuts theme is well done here, with more about the villainous Brotherhood from a possible future.
Recommended.

[Artemy · Rating 3 out of 5]

5 stars for the first and last issues, 2 stars for the middle arc.

Well, that was some massive piece of shit. The main story of this volume is so, so, SO stupid and boring I could barely get through all this train wreck. Although I am glad I did, because the last issue was awesome and featured bonding of Jean Grey and Emma Frost and also a really cute portrayal of the relationship between Kitty Pryde and Peter Quill. That was a nice, redeeming story after such a steaming pile of crap.

[Judah Radd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good.

I didn’t find the whole “Brotherhood/Future X Men thing to be very interesting, but I loved everything having to do with Laura and Angel, as well as Jean and Emma. That was some good shit. I also love Kitty and Quill. Lot’s of great character interaction, and the fights were pretty badass. I just didn’t love the plot.

The art was stellar. Also, the cliffhanger at the end of issue 30 was mega intriguing! Can’t wait to se where it all goes.

[Norman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked it. Time travel Hank McCoy mumbo jumbo who cares really. It's a fun read. Lots of action packed superhero fun with easy-to-understand relatable characters. The hardest part to understand is why 18 year old Baby Xavier is bald.

[Get X Serious · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay, so all of this time travel stuff is really starting to hurt my brain. But that's okay, because this story is still very compelling and worth reading.

[Shannon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mostly vignettes of certain stories with focuses on learning the basic history of X-Men. If you know enough about the X-Men I'd skip this one even if the artwork is pretty.

MY GRADE: C.

[Joshua Buhs · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unexpectedly innovative. Until it isn’t.

Note that this review actually covers the first 7 volumes of the series.

Although X-Men is all about chromosomes—the very stuff of inheritance—I never thought this title was Marvel’s extended family drama. That honor goes to The Avengers, and associated books, with their marriages and their grandfather and father and son melodramas. (The Fantastic Four is clearly about the nuclear family.) The X-Men and associated titles are about friendship, especially as it is enforced, which is to say, school—when because of biology—either genes or time of birth—and institutional structure, people are forced to be together. There’s a reason the whole thing started with a Professor and his students. This is a book about the wonders and horrors of high school.

The setting makes particularly acute a problem common to all serial fiction, but especially super hero books. The readers don’t want the characters to age. And the authors don’t either. It’s one thing to write about a 20-year old super hero. But a 70-year old one? Fiction set in high school has this same problem. Graduating the characters breaks down the things that forced them to deal with each other. And so Archie and Jughead are perpetual adolescences. And superheroes—the X-Men—have fifty years’s worth of drama packed into their short lives.

Authors of the various X-books have finessed part of the problem through time travel. The Days of the Future Past story-line allowed the reader to jump ahead many years in the X-Men timeline to see what would happen. Cable and Bishop relied on time travel to various extents. But all of this, while sometimes freeing, ended up making the storylines, already cramped, even more convoluted. Not only does each character have many lives’s of trial and tribulation, they have many incarnations, many possible futures and pasts that they are resisting or trying to re-start. I think writers probably like the confusion, since it gives them chances to tell different stories: there are so many characters, so many permutations. But it can get eye-glazing, and one understands why DC has repeatedly blown up its fictional universe in an attempt to simplify the continuity.

In this series, Brian Michael Bendis uses the old trope of time travel, but hits on a variation that opens up whole new vistas. (Until he closes them down.) It is logical and character-driven, but also a smart plot point. In the wake of the X-Men V. Avengers series and the way that Scott Summers has alienated most of his fellow mutants, Hank McCoy chooses to bring the original X-Men, fresh-faced, naive, and young, to the fictional present to confront Scott. But the motivation is layered more deeply than that. The presence of the former X-Men, so idealistic, so full of the young and beautiful Jean Grey, is meant to both inspire and punish Summers, reminding him of the beliefs he had, and the woman he lied; it also is a bit of self-hatred and Beast’s part, punishing himself for his failures, and maybe even an attempt to reinvigorate himself.

Suddenly, there are new vistas in the X-Men’s universe. The previous stories need not have the same weight. It’s possible for new relationships to grow, new roles to be assumed. Maybe Hank and Jean—both from the past—will get together. Maybe Kitty Pryde will become as adept as Professor X. Maybe the whole Phoenix story need not have happened, and maybe Warren can have a different future two. The first twelve issues or so revel in this new freedom, and the books seem fresh in a way few old titles seem fresh. I especially liked the development of Hank McCoy young and old. There is also a lot of humor in the books, even as they close in on themselves, and lots of knowing winks at the angsty Marvel style, which I quite enjoyed.

Soon enough, though, the title finds its way into a familiar groove, and claustrophobia starts to set in again. There’s the problems of cross-overs, where large chunks of the story are told in other books. These “events” are irritating for the reader of the titles as the come out, but they should not be for readers of the TPB reprints. The whole point of the reprint is to present a complete story, so it is frustrating as heck that Marvel refuses to bring in the other titles and make the stories complete—especially when the company is happy to round out the books with fluffy, unrelated material, such as the anniversary X-Men book included here. There’s no reason the TPB needs to be restricted by the titles of the comics. They should tell the whole damn story.

But that is only a minor irritation, comparatively. There’s also the reversals. And so the original X-Men and they allies decide to join up with Scott Summers and his troop anyway, which never seems realistic and also has the effect of making the stories more compact, the possibilities fewer. And then there are the new time travelers that bring back in (a version of) Professor X. The old storylines reassert themselves. Jean Grey still loves Scott Summers. She is still too powerful and shadowed by the Phoenix. She remains a teen boys’ wet dream: beautiful, smart, kind, redheaded, but too modest to know she’s beautiful, only completed by the gaze of the right slightly nerdy boy. Sigh. Kitty continues to be under-used, made into a genius and an administrator, but the full effect of her powers never explored: they really are incredible and, by lights, undefeatable.

The sixth volume here momentarily reverses the shrinking universe, when the original X-Men meet a mutant who sends them to different parts of Marvel’s far-flung mutliverse. It’s fun to get to see the different characters on their own, in unfamiliar settings. It’s probably the most character development we get of Bobby, who is otherwise here just a smart-mouthed comedy relief. Until Bendis tries to redeem the jokes by making him—spoiler?—gay. Which just doesn’t play at all, and a lot of special pleading goes on for the point to make any kind of sense. By the seventh volume this freedom is lost, and the book goes in uninteresting directions, with stories that feel like filler, even if they are not.

The art through the books is uneven. In the early issues, they are excellent, with the various artists using variations on what I think of as Frank Miller’s 1980s style: a darker palette, the figures blocky and not always perfectly inked. That sounds denigrating, but its not. It makes the characters feel solid, real, but also part of some closely-related-but-not-quite-our-own universe. In later issues, the art can be just off, the expressions on faces not matching the action or the dialogue. There are a few chances for the artists to really stretch their wings and experiment with a lot of different styles, befitting the mix of eras, and these work well. But throughout the books there is a tendency to make the art during the battle scenes abstract, to the point where it is difficult to follow the action. (This is not a Hollywood track to borrow: poorly choreographed action sequences.) The seventh book, fittingly enough, has the worst art, grainy and pallid.

I really liked where this started. I have trouble seeing that I will care where it ends.

[Dakota Morgan · Rating 2 out of 5]

After Guardians of the Galaxy/All-New X-Men: The Trial of Jean Grey, One Down was a big let down. We're back on Earth, back in Canada, back to the boring time travel storyline from X-Men: Battle of the Atom. Those rascals in the future Brotherhood of Evil are at it again!

The future Brotherhood's backstory is sort of explained, but in a convoluted manner that doesn't help an already convoluted time travel narrative. It feels pretty silly that we're fighting these guys again. Where's that charming, low-key "life with the All-New X-Men" book I feel like I was promised? There are hints of it here, but never enough to satisfy.