WOW! What…a great issue. After an exciting and exhausting opening arc, the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning decided to take it easy for some at home R and R (Recoup and Repair)…which of course never goes QUITE as smoothly as everyone hopes. Additionally we saw the school’s brand new additions, which are all but guaranteed to shake things up (in the case of Krakoa literally). All this and a glimpse into the future we’ve never seen!
Let’s start off with some new additions first shall we? Well we already knew about Krakoa from last issue, but it’s nice to know that the living landmass (which is a bit more accurate than the Island That Walks Like a Man) is settling into its new surroundings so well. You have to marvel (heh…marvel) at the writers decision to put the New X-men’s very first foe as a student at the new school. And speaking of old foes as new students, say it with me everyone: Apocalypse! Yeah fine, we’ll call him Evan if it makes you all feel safer but let’s be real here people. It’s teenaged Apocalypse with no memory. Unfortunately for him, he looks like a villain that he’s never even heard of (but everyone else has) and that basically makes him the mutant equivalent of the school Goth kid (as opposed to Kid Gladiator’s jock). And let’s talk about Angel… Wow. I mean we got a brief glimpse of his condition over in X-Force, but…I mean…just Wow. It was one thing to just bring him back to life with no memory, I was already down with that. But this? Healing power is reinstated…check! New combination of skin color and wings….check (he’s never been white colored with metal wings)! Oh and he thinks he’s a real damn angel! All this adds up to Warren Worthington III being a student once again at the school he helped build for years. I think we can safely say that these new additions to the school will make for some very interesting stories in the months to come.
Today’s lecture by guest teacher Deathlok gave us some amazing insight into the future of the X-men. Over the years we’ve seen many different version of the “future X-men” and they always include some staples. Old Man Wolverine. Sorceress Storm. Rebellion leader Cyclops. Even evil Nightcrawler. But this time we got a view of a whole new and different team. We always picture the future of the X-men being led by one of the New Mutants or even Generation X, but what if the team leader in the future was Omega? Or Gladiator? Or how Ironic would it be if the next brilliant Beast character to head the science squad was alien mutant Brood, one of the X-men’s deadliest foe, Broo? And I’m sorry but was that a Phoenix emblem I saw on Quentin Quire’s uniform? Screw Hope Summers, what if Quire was the Phoenix host of the future? And of course, what incarnation of the X-men would be complete without an Apocalypse of their very own to fight? Unfortunately this time Apocalypse will take on the form of a dear friend and team mate. I think this most recent look into the future of the X-men was one of the more insightful and creative takes on the future team we have seen in a very long time. Bravo! Now let’s just see if any of it ever happens…I mean Sam Guthrie and Dani Moonstar are full-fledged X-men now so why couldn’t they be?!
This title just keeps getting better and better. It’s so wonderful to see the heroes that we have known for years acting as mentors and teachers rather than super heroes. Even Iceman, who is historically THE wisecracker and joker of the entire X-men structure, has taken on no small measure of responsibility as not just as a teacher but as the caretaker of one of his oldest friends. I definitely got a huge laugh at Husk (who I didn’t even recognize under that hood until my second read through) still being all crispy and healing during the faculty staff meeting. These new sides of our old favorites, as well as the new students of this increasingly more exciting and populated school, tell me that we are in for quite a semester at the JG School for Higher Learning. Oh and did I forget to mention Kitty Pryde is pregnant with god know what? Yeah...that happened too.
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