After dealing with the fallout from the Trial of Jean Grey Marvel Now cross-over with the Guardians of the Galaxy series, the All-New X-Men hit a milestone issue: All-New X-Men #25. It is an over-sized issue at a higher price point of $4.99 for 31 pages of art.
Of that art, the bulk are pin-ups, double-page spreads and a few “humor” pages. There are actually only six issues of actual consequential content involving the original Beast (the blue, furry aged one) and a mysterious bald man. The Beast has exacerbated Marvel’s “broken” timeline. These six pages tie together the disparate art pages from 26 pencillers/inkers.
Despite that, those six pages are illuminating about the Beast’s conflict of bringing the original teen X-Men from the past and trapping these All-New X-Men in modern-day. Those pages also appear to kick-off Marvel Comics’ Original Sin event. That last page is a doozy. Marvel Now’s Original Sin has begun.
Not only does Marvel do stealth kick-off’s to their events, but DC does too. Last week, Aquaman and the Others #1 (spoilers here) marked the kick-off to its New 52 Futures End event set to debut at Free Comic Book Day 2014 next month.
SPOILERS for All-New X-Men #25 follow.
In addition to revealing its covers, the preview pages released by Marvel also revealed the opening scene between Beast and his creepy guest; Beast is lying on his bed when visited.
We learn that due to Beast’s tinkering with time, he is responsible for all the permutations and alternate universes/timelines that were created as well. That includes a look at two not-so great such timelines as revealed in the preview (see two pages on below right). There are a lot more gloomy alternate timelines explored in the issue.
However, there are also some rosier timelines as revealed in the previews (see two pages below right).
So, who is the Beast talking to? Professor Xavier? Nope. It’s the Watcher Uatu. He appears to be the Watcher soon-to-be-killed-off to kick off Marvel Now’s Original Sin event series.
Well, The Watcher Uatu is alive now, but the next few weeks will be brutal for him as Original Sin begins.
Thanks for reading. All feedback welcome.
