All-New X-Men #25
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by David Marquez and Justin Ponsor
Guest art by Bruce Timm & Laura Martin, Art Adams & Justin Ponsor, David Mack, Skottie Young & Jason Keith, Robbi Rodriguez & Justin Ponsor, Lee Bermejo & Marte Gracia, Kent Williams, JG Jones, Ronnie Del Carmen, J. Scott Campbell & Nei Ruffino, Maris Wicks, Jason Shiga, Dan Hipp, Max Witter, Jake Parker & Matthew Wilson, Jill Thompson, Paul Smith & Bob Wiacek & Jordie Bellaire.
The short of it:
Beast can’t sleep, but he’s having a conversation with a shadowy Xavier looking figure who is telling him it’s because he played with time travel and screwed up royally. That he’s now responsible for any direction the future takes. Like Jean Grey may have been saved from a horrible fate, but now without Xavier she has the potential to be worse than Magneto. A future Cyclops burned at the stake, alone. Iceman turns into a monster as he pushes his powers without guidance, and Warren…a fate that makes Archangel seem tame. A scarred Colossus that has lost himself to the war, a White Queen who lost the ability to shut the voices out of her head. Where Beast succumbes to his savage side, becoming little more than an animal in the Savage Land.
But those are just the negative possibilities, the ones that Hank should understand as a more likely reality than the future he wants. Where the X-Men are loved as heroes by all, Kitty and Yana apparently couple up, X-Men IN SPACE, and then…it gets weird. A story of Kitty and Peter from day one until death do them part, Old Logan and Old Senile Scott having dinner, a REALLY weird Jean and Logan couple sequence, Yana: Sorceress Supreme, a new take on the iconic Giant Size cover, there are so many possibilities in so many realities…and Beast realizes that these aren’t possible outcomes any longer. Because Hank, in his attempt to prove a point to Scott, has destroyed countless possible realities, and left horrible futures before them all.
But the person he’s talking to, most definitely not an Xavier, and most definitely an expert on these sorts of things, leaves Hank to his sleepless night. His sins weighing heavily upon his soul.
What I liked:
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Great use of guest artists! Opening with Bruce Timm doing so many Jean’s was a great touch and really, there were a LOT of gems in the group. David Mack’s Cyclops, Skottie Young’s Iceman, J. Scott Campbell’s X-Men IN SPACE, and a lot of love for Ronnie Del Carmen’s Kitty/Yana spread.
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Yana: Sorceress Supreme.
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The Kitty/Colossus mini comic was brilliant. The first page is their entire romantic history in eight comedy driven panels, and the second is just the craziness of comics being unleashed upon the two.
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Beast actually feeling guilt over how horribly he screwed everything up. With how much gloss over has happened, it was easy to think that he didn’t feel any remorse.
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Lee Bermejo draws one hell of a badass Colossus.
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Hey, it’s Ka-Zar! I remember Ka-Zar!
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The two pages of Jean and Logan living together and having a moderately dysfunctional relationship, and the end result is pretty amusing. Admittedly, Jean is wearing her Jim Lee designed 90’s gear that I grew up on, so bonus points were achieved.
What I didn’t like:
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Man, talk about filler. This was the Justice League #0 of X-Men issues. All these possible outcomes, maybe one or two might actually be referenced again.
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By the end it kinda fell apart. At least to me. I mean, there were Skrulls, that’s generally the sign that you stretched too far.
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Not enough X-23.
Final thoughts:
At first I felt I had a handle on the artists, and then at the end all of it sort of went to hell and I lost track of who did what. So many artists…and after a point, I hadn’t heard of any of them.
And now I realize that I totally overlooked an entire row of guys in the credits and it all makes more sense.
If Future Past Jean had come back looking like she does in the throne of humans panel, and not just in her Xorn look, that would have been interesting. She’s half naked, I want her teenage self to react to it!
I wish David Mack had more pages to do. He’s a great artist, and I have a friend who just gushes like made over his work, and I totally could sell her on this book if he does more than just one page. Even if it is one hell of a page.
I want this future for Warren. I want to see what’s crazier and more messed up than Archangel, yet looks just like Archangel.
Hey kids, it’s Uatu! Talking about Sins! Now Beast can feel guilty slash be a suspect when Watcher dies in a few weeks.
Remember when milestone issues were 12, 25, 50, 75, and 100? Remember when books took over two years to get that milestone double sized twenty-fifth issue? It was an accomplishment, it meant that a book had a following. Now it just means Marvel hasn’t reset the clock yet. I miss real milestones, not relaunch #1’s, and the fake #1’s that Marvel currently deals in.
How long until Marvel relaunches this book?
Beast as the unintentional villain works for me on many levels. This book launched with him deciding he needed to teach Scott a lesson, so he went and screwed with the time-space continuum to do so. No worries about ramifications, he just wanted to give Scott a middle finger. This is all his fault, just like the actual broken timestream can be blamed on Logan, and it’s nice to not only see someone call him out on it, but him to acknowledge that…yeah, he’s an asshole.
