Coming off of the opening arc of the series and leading into the upcoming crossover in ‘Battle Of The Atom’ leaves this issue of “X-Men” in a weird place. Thankfully, Brian Wood and new series artist David Lopez know how to make it work and keep the issue engaging.
Written by Brian Wood
Illustrated by David Lopez
• After the game-changing events of PRIMER, the women of the X-Men must contemplate the future of their makeshift team.
• Are the X-women ready for the BATTLE OF THE ATOM that’s right around the corner?
• Meanwhile: Jubilee may still look like a kid, but she finds herself burdened with some very adult responsibilities. What kind of plans can a mutant vampire teen mom make for her own future?
It should really be no surprise that this issue of “X-Men” work more than it doesn’t. Brian Wood has proved that he has the clout to handle a title lead by the X-Men’s fiercest women with grace. With most other writers, the worry would be the some characters would overshadow others and that they’d sink to the lowest common denominator when it comes to have multiple women in a book and pit them against each other. But Brian Wood isn’t most other writers. Right?
Well, unfortunately, this review must go against the flow and open with what doesn’t work with the issue. What doesn’t work here is Wood’s creating of a moral rift between Rachel Grey and Storm which leads to them arguing for the majority of the issue. Taken in the larger context of the issue and the events of the previous, it hardly comes from nowhere, but the problem doesn’t just stem from this issue, unfortunately. It’s more of a media problem where if more than one woman appears on-screen they must argue over something and, unfortunately, Wood feeds right into that. Now, that isn’t to say this team should exist like the Super Friends and that there should be no inter-character conflict. However, this series was touted as a celebration of the X-Men’s female cast and to this humble reviewer it seems disingenuous to that notion to focus on two women arguing.
Thankfully, like I said, this issue still works more than it doesn’t largely because of two reasons. One, the narrative doesn’t entirely focus on the forced moral debate between Storm and Rachel Grey which felt like a whole series worth of character conflict and growth forced into one issue. There are two other side stories going on in this issue with one focusing on the rest of the team, Kitty Pryde, Pyslocke and Rogue, working together with Rachel Grey and Storm to stop a commercial air liner from crashing in the mountains while the other has Jubilee and Logan visit California. The other reason this issue works is largely because the issue is a stand alone bridge between the opening arc and the ‘Battle Of The Atom’ crossover.
While the issue touts a rescue scene that really, desperately wants to be the train scene from the first issue and mostly pulls it off, the real heart of this issue comes from the story involving Jubilee and Logan. It’s a simple story that focuses more on giving some background to new readers about Jubilee’s past and her relation to the X-Men (although, oddly enough, it seems her time dealing with the Vampire storyline was too much to bring up), but it’s where the issue really shines. The narrative brings up some questions about teen pregnancy and whether someone so young could handle that pressure and it’s just nice to see an X-Men book tackle real issues again as opposed to punching people in spandex.
Brian Wood definitely brings a lot of heart to the issue in his writing, especially of Jubilee, but what really brings this book together is the art by David Lopez. Lopez takes over here from Olivier Coipel and, while it’s clearly a matter of taste, I think his work is better suited here. Lopez’s sense of storytelling and his lines are much cleaner and clearer making scenes like the plane rescue scene much easier to convey on the page. While he may not garner any praise for inventive or unique panel layouts, sometimes it’s better to do something right than do something new and Lopez definitely gets it right here.
Continued belowThe only other major complaint that arises from this issue is that there seems to be little in the way of conclusion. Now, obviously, this issue is to serve as a lead-in to ‘Battle Of The Atom’, but even in the narrative dealing with the X-Men saving the plane the comic feels like it just stops. It feels almost like they ran out of pages and were forced to put a ‘To Be Continued’ stamp in the bottom right corner of the last page they had and called it a day. It’s the one thing, even more so than the unnecessary Storm vs. Rachel Grey scenes, that comes closest to tipping the scale on whether the issue works or not. Thankfully, Wood filled the issue with enough small character moments, especially from Jubilee, and had David Lopez on hand to make it all work.
Overall, this issue doesn’t exactly stand up against the opening arc in many aspects, but scrapes by on pure personality alone. Wood clearly gets why these women are popular enough to warrant a team and a title dedicated them, but too often falls in the trap of feeling like a ‘man writing about women’ instead of just telling his story. It’s a shame because when he does tell the story, it works. Especially now that he has an artist as capable as Lopez to bring all together and make this issue enjoyable, despite everything.
Final Verdict: 7.0 – While it should, and has, been better than this, this issue is still enjoyable enough for a buy recommendation from me. Now, let’s hope ‘Battle Of The Atom’ brings back the magic of the opening arc.
