Review: All-New X-Men #19 by Brian Bendis and Brandon Peterson

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ALL_NEW_X-MEN_19

All-New X-Men #19

Written by Brian Michael Bendis

Art by Brandon Peterson and Israel Silva

 

The short of it:

A girl in some torn jeans and a hoodie is walking through Miami when she gets the feeling like she’s being followed, she tries to run, but the fanatics find her and tell her that mutants are abominations of the devil. She denies being a mutant as they begin to open fire, but that’s when the All-New X-Men show up! Flanked by Professor’s Kitty and Yana, the sharp dressed teens from the past are ready to take on….the Purifiers? The Purifiers?! This should be good. Scott takes the lead, as he should, and his team tries to take down the small army of mutant hating religious freaks, but as they tend to do, they take shots and X-Men hit the ground. So Jean makes those asshats hit the ground. It’s kinda glorious.

Kitty goes in to save the girl that they initially came to save, but one look at her, and she recognizes the girl insisting she isn’t a mutant. Laura Kinney. X-23. She bolts and Kitty gets confused. Meanwhile, Yana is furious and attacking armored bigots with a giant sword. Warren flies one up high and plays the “I’m an Angel” card, to no avail. He does something relatively dark, too, but nobody seems to notice. Scott tries to interrogate their leader, but Jean does it for him and learns about what they’ve done dating back to New X-Men. Blowing up the bus of former mutants, the massacre in Alaska to start Messiah Complex, everything Kyle and Yost did. Jean is horrified. The cops show up, Scott wants to give a statement, Yana wants to get out of there. The cops want the mutants on the ground and surrendering.

Kitty, meanwhile, still chasing after Laura, because apparently she needs to chase after her and tackle her and…I’m not totally sure why Kitty is being so damn aggressive with “I’m your friend, let me help”, but she has cops to deal with too. Speaking of, Scott tries to explain the situation to the cops on his end but they just flat out ignore him and open fire because he has his hands up and tries to offer an explanation. Yana pulls them out and tears Scott a new one about not listening to direct orders, like time to leave. This world isn’t the one they came from, and things are far more dangerous than they would believe. Jean agrees…she’s still horrified by what she was in the mind of the Purifier.

Kitty and her cops, that’s a different story. She name drops Captain America and they don’t bother her again. Her and Laura on the other hand…..well, let’s just say that the X-23 that returned from Murderworld isn’t the same one that left.

 

What I liked:

  • Man, Warren is finally back in the cast and he’s a very welcome return. His speech to the Purifier in midair about religion, angels, and how the guy’s conviction should have rattled by now was great. So was him dropping the guy and looking down waiting for him to go splat. Warren should have a dark side, because it’s not like Apocalypse created it.

  • Bendis does a lot of callbacks, well, a splash’s worth at least, to the Kyle/Yost Purifiers. Love it, love it, love it. I loved their X work, and they made the Purifiers into scary freaking bad guys instead of generic religious nut jobs. This issue very clearly carries that over, otherwise they wouldn’t have gotten their shots in. I hope this means more by them, though they’ll need a new leader with Stryker and Risman dead.

  • Yana in a main role? I like. I like a lot. Kitty and one of her BFF’s in charge is a perfect setup, and was unfortunately not exploited enough before Battle of the Atom. I mean, that BFF was Scott and Jean’s daughter, so more confusing, but still!

  • Brandon Peterson! This is the work I think of when I see his name on a cover! This is what I’m used to! This isn’t that awful Age of Ultron crap! He’s no Stuart Immonen, but this issue looks pretty damn good.

  • Scott the optimist. Forever the optimist. I’d have been disappointed if he didn’t try to be a good guy and help out the police. Doesn’t mean he’s any less dumb, but that’s exactly what he should have done.

 

What I didn’t like:

  • Wasn’t Beast going on about his atheism earlier in this series? Now he’s talking about being an amateur theologian. Yes, the line works in the situation, but it still comes across like…well, as something Hank wouldn’t be doing.

  • Jean Grey’s power levels. These have been irking me for a while, and it’s continuing. She’s just too powerful given her age, she has the abilities she grew into over the years, but they’ve all fully manifested at full power because she knows they do eventually. It’s just…kinda forced.

  • Eventually you get tired of incompetent cops and SHIELD agents, you know?

 

Final thoughts:

Israel Silva is not an easy person to research, but I had to. Exterior credits said “Da Silva”, interior said “Israel Silva”, google gave me soccer players, and Comic Vine gave me “Izrael Silva”. I opted to just go by interior credits and hope for the best.

Given how many times Logan has had to regrow everything, and how the hair always comes with it, bald Laura means she’s either shaving it down repeatedly, or no more healing factor. Given what she went through in the end of Avengers Arena….she has her healing factor. Otherwise she’d be dead.

I dig that Iceman ices up to classic Iceman over his costume, though it does further my general stance of “new costumes for Iceman are a waste of time”. Mutant X had the last really cool one, because it meshed the ‘spandex and tights’ look with ‘he’s freaking Iceman’.

Man, what is it with the All-New X-Men and oddly dressed teachers? They went from Headmistress Storm and her Super Mohawk to Yana and her…do me boots, only there to appease the censors bottom, and epic boob window. And don’t even get me started on Emma! She didn’t even need to appear in this issue for me to picture her as the slutty teacher.

Cops in the Marvel Universe are awful and don’t deserve their badges. It’s like the police academy teaches them to shoot first and then ask if they should ask questions.

Angel has some darkness to him, and that’s only going to make things more interesting. I really want to see Warren dig into his future and how awful it’s supposed to be, and then rather than get away from it he makes it worse.

Has Kitty not heard about Murderworld yet? Is there going to be an issue where they sit back and watch the videos Arcade posted? I really want that to be an issue.

Overall: 8/10

A lifelong reader and self proclaimed continuity guru, Grey is the Editor in Chief of Comics Nexus. Known for his love of Booster Gold, Spider-Girl (the real one), Stephanie Brown, and The Boys. Don't miss The Gold Standard.