2 Guys Comics Reviews: X-Men Schism #5 with Jason Aaron and Andy Kubert

Reviews, Top Story

AARON GLAZER:
Hey, Grey, X-Men Schism #5 is out, know what that means?

GREY SCHERL
That they had to cram the Hellfire Kids in one more time?

 

AARON GLAZER:
Sure. What else?

 

GREY SCHERL
That we’ve got yet another artist on this five issue mini?

 

AARON GLAZER:
Nope! It’s time for 2 Guys to talk about what has been our most contentious series!
What happens this issue, Grey?

 

AARON GLAZER:
Nope! It’s time for 2 Guys to talk about what has been our most contentious series!
What happens this issue, Grey?

 

GREY SCHERL
What happens this issue? Well, there’s a big fight, and it’s actually pretty awesome, and then the issue just sort of falls to pieces after it ends.

 

AARON GLAZER:
Who’s fighting who?  Let’s paint the nice readers a picture with some words.

 

GREY SCHERL
Scott and Logan have the bloodiest brawl you could imagine from the two. Wolverine gets his flesh blasted off, Scott gets claws through his hands, and the whole time they’re fighting a giant sentinel making it that much worse.
Really, it’s the X-Kids Logan cares so much about who save the day, as the next generation comes in to fight the bad guy.

 

AARON GLAZER:
Don’t forget, Wolverine is ready to blow up the island the whole time for no readily apparent reason.

 

GREY SCHERL
Yeah, despite that they made it very clear that there were no boats or planes or teleporters or ways off the island, he was going to blow it up to save the kids….who couldn’t get off the island.

 

AARON GLAZER:
Smart guy, he is not. So, the heroes win, then what?

 

GREY SCHERL
Really, the most flawed thing about this entire mini is that Logan spends so much time being a crusader for the kids while his actions put them more in harms way than Scott’s, since generally he’s either no showing or refusing to do something useful.
Logan quits, Scott says don’t, Logan gives a speech about how Idie thinks they’re monsters and Scott lost the way, yadda yadda yadda, he takes Iceman, Kitty, IDe, and some kids (and a kidnapped Quentin Quire), and they bail.
You know who I saw as the monster on the team?

 

AARON GLAZER:
Who?

 

GREY SCHERL
Logan.

 

GREY SCHERL
Logan who spent a full issue at a bar trying to get drunk instead of helping with the Sentinel issue.
Logan who tried to BLOW UP THE KIDS!

 

AARON GLAZER:
I like that Logan is totally freaked by Idie’s religious conservativeness.  He utterly fails to properly blame her point of view on that. It isn’t Scott’s fault she’s ultra conservative.

 

GREY SCHERL
Nope, she’s from an awful part of the world and was almost killed when she got her powers because they made her a monster. If anything, Logan is reaffirming those beliefs by trying to blame them on other people.

 

AARON GLAZER:
Scott, meanwhile, comes accross as absolutely correct.

 

GREY SCHERL
He’s rational, hell, he offers to hold free X-Men elections if it will appease Logan.
And this is after almost getting his hand cut off.

 

AARON GLAZER:
Logan continues his tantrum and leaves to Westchester.  The question is, why the hell does anyone follow him?

 

GREY SCHERL
Kitty out of loyalty, Idie out of editorial, and Iceman…he probably just missed Westchester. The kids were probably all like “Wolverine’s a badass!” and followed him.

 

AARON GLAZER:
It’s so badly done.  He comes off as such a jerk.

 

GREY SCHERL
I like how Logan is all about not putting kids in danger but he takes all the kids.

 

AARON GLAZER:
Does he take all of Gen Hope?  Hope is still with Scott, which is cool since she hated him at first and came to respect his point-of-view.

 

GREY SCHERL
He takes Idie, the rest of Gen Hope stays, but he does take a lot of former New X-Men members.
I saw Anole, Dust, and even Glob Herman from Morrison’s run.

 

AARON GLAZER:
Ah the forgotten kids.  They go to get some screen time away from Hope.

 

GREY SCHERL
I still prefer the forgotten kids, but New X-Men was an awesome book. Before and after M-Day.

 

AARON GLAZER:
I prefer hope, but like the kids plenty, as well.

 

GREY SCHERL
Prodigy, Hellion, Rockslide, Dust, Anole, X-23. Mercury, Elixir, and all the rest….I’d take them over Gen Hope any day. I loved that team, so many interesting characters.
And you know I love Gen Hope.

 

AARON GLAZER:
I like Hope being more tight knit with a stronger central plot.

 

GREY SCHERL
I liked having a strong cast that didn’t fully crutch on one character, as well as the variety granted by having a rotatable cast so long as you maintained some combination of the initial team.

 

AARON GLAZER:
They’re very different series, despite both being about young mutants.

 

GREY SCHERL
They really are, and anybody interested should check out trades of both titles as they’re all very much worth the read.

 

AARON GLAZER:
Now, the one thing we didn’t mention – the Hellfire Kids.

 

GREY SCHERL
I mentioned them. Their brief appearances are like taking an axe and murdering this title.

 

AARON GLAZER:
They’re sitting around being evil and one dimensional and terrible.  They’re supposed to make us think of what could become of the kids under Cyclops, but they’re just too over the top.

 

GREY SCHERL
Here’s how over the top they are; I hadn’t even thought of it like “This is what could happen to the kids!”, I just thought of it as “Here’s this horrible villain idea that is going to seem edgy and different but will lack execution.”

 

AARON GLAZER:
If you buy at all that these kids under Scott end up like that, well, you really, really don’t know children.

 

GREY SCHERL
The black kid sold his family into intergalactic slavery. That’s all I have to say about it.

 

AARON GLAZER:
Finally, the art. Did you like?

 

GREY SCHERL
I’ll complain that this book has burned through artists the way it has, but I won’t complain about most of the artists.
Adam Kubert returns to the X-Men, and it is everything I could have hoped for.

 

AARON GLAZER:
It was very good, very nice and clear, if a bit rushed in spots.

 

GREY SCHERL
Part of me wonders if they intended the art to go like this or if they gave him the job a month or so ago and told him they needed it bad.

 

AARON GLAZER:
I think it’s the latter. And he’s just really good.

 

GREY SCHERL
He’s still phenomenal after all of these years, just like his brother. And I’ll tell you right now that I feel like a kid again with the Kubert’s both pencilling big titles in this close of proximity. A month between Flashpoint and Schism.

 

AARON GLAZER:
If only DC didn’t waste them for so very long.
Rating?

 

GREY SCHERL
I’m going to give it a 6/10 for the strength of the fight, and the awesome art. But really, you can skip the second half of the issue and take a wild guess. You’ll most likely get it right.

 

AARON GLAZER:
I’m going 5/10.  The worst part of the issue is Scott’s totally right, but I can see Wolverine being a hothead about it.  Still, it weakens what was, last issue, a really strong conflict between the two.  The art really was good. Goodnight everybody!

Glazer is a former senior editor at Pulse Wrestling and editor and reviewer at The Comics Nexus.