All-New X-Men #4
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Stuart Immonen, Wade Von Grawbadger, and Marte Garcia
The short of it:
What will Cyclops do when presented with his younger self? With the younger versions of his friends, and the sight of the love of his life right when he fell in love with her? Well, first thing, he assumes Emma is screwing with him, second thing he thinks Xavier faked his death to screw with him, and third thing he just flat out creeps out Jean Grey and her newfound telepathy. I mean, totally creepy, and she smacks him around with TK, and everyone starts fighting. Eventually Scott and Mags have to bail out, and the original five are left having to react to the future they were dumped in. The two mutants rescued in the first issue bond a bit at Scott’s secret evil base before the rest of the group returns, and fights ensue. Needless to say, they don’t like Hank’s surprise one bit.
Hank, meanwhile, is still knocked out on a table after his seizure, and nobody is answering their phones. Kitty and Bobby banter before we cut back to the originals and their digestion of the situation…which includes Jean having to view Scott in a brand new eye after getting a mindful of present day Scott’s mind. Lot of little moments from then out until the originals return to the mansion so Hank can inspect his future self, but things are at a critical moment.
What I liked:
- I laughed hard when I realized that everybody forgot all about the new mutant that was the cause for the entire meet up. Funnier still was Bendis poking fun at it.
- Magneto hitting Iceman with a bike.
- Iceman freaking out anytime he sees his younger self.
- Young Hank is pretty fun, especially how they keep bringing up that he thinks exactly like his modern self. Odds are growing of him sticking around to replace a dead modern Hank. Not sure if that deserves a mention as a like….
- The art, on the other hand, is most deserving of a like. It’s exactly what you’d expect after the first three issues
What I didn’t like:
- Jean’s telepathy. In issue two she didn’t have it until someone said she eventually would, and now it’s so extreme and crazy that she’s showing the Alpha level powers that her adult non-Phoenix self had, but without that kind of control. Nothing gradual about it, just wham, done.
- I also didn’t like how easy it was to break Scott Summers. One look at teenage him and Jean and he goes completely useless.
- On top of that, his inner monologue was absolutely painful to read. I fully understand what Bendis was trying to do with it, but it was AWFUL.
- Magneto with the power nerf may be an interesting character development, but man, it makes fight scenes painful. Scott and Magneto barely managing to escape from five teenagers that they both would know inside and out is pathetic. The team needs a tank.
Final Thoughts:
Man, I bet if Bendis could have omitted Angel from this he would have. Not saying that he has anything against Warren, but Warren is pretty historically thrown to the background and this series has so far proven to be no different.
Scott essentially mind humping a seventeen/eighteen year old version of his dead wife was just….I wanted a cold shower. He didn’t sound like a guy who was awe struck by something he never thought he’d see again, he sounded more like a guy sitting at his computer in the dark and looking at ‘things’ on the internet.
I really think Scott’s lack of control with his blasts is more of an excuse to have the artists go crazy with the look of the beams than it is for any story purpose.
I really don’t want modern Beast to die. If anything, just mutate him back to his human look and have that be the end game.
If Angel died I don’t think I’d care. He’s the only member that hasn’t met his counterpart, and modern Angel lives at the school. I imagine it will happen sooner than later, and given modern Angel’s status of completely being wiped, I can’t imagine it lasts longer than three panels.
So far Wolverine hasn’t bothered me in this book, Bendis has used him just enough and gotten some comedy out of him. Really, he’s the same version that we’ve seen in Avengers for the last several years, where he never really felt overkilled. I can dig it.
Not the strongest issue of the series, I mean, the first few pages were just utter pain with the horrible dialog and narration from Scott, and the rest was pretty standard, but still a damn enjoyable book.
Overall: 8/10
