Sigh. When Uncanny X-Men ended and all of Marvel's mutants were targeted during "X-Men vs Inhumans" I thought I was done with The X-Men. When "RessureXion" promised to bring The X-Men books back-even if the books didn't have to go anywhere-I thought I was done with The X-Men. And when X-Men Gold had an artist with anti-semitic messages in his art, I thought I was done with The X-Men. But then Cullen Bunn was given another X-Men book. A book so good, it was too good to be true. And it was.
Current Issues presents X-Men Blue.
Writer: Cullen Bunn
Artists: Jorge Melina
Before this book, Dennis Hopeless had been writing about this team in "All-New X-Men", a title Brian Michael Bendis established when he had Beast travel back in time and bring the original five X-Men to the present in an attempt to help Cyclops come back to the side of good. Each of the X-Men have gone through some serious changes that we'll talk about, but I'd to reiterate my happiness to see Cullen Bunn on another X-Men book. If you read my post on Uncanny X-Men you'll know that book was my saving grace, sadly-like all modern X-Men books-the book was bogged down by crossovers and art changes and an overall monkey wrench thrown by Editorial. So when X-Men Blue turned out to be even better than Uncanny my fears only grew. How long until this book gets attacked by Marvel's unnecessary shake-ups and collaborations? How long until this team-focused story becomes overstuffed. The short answer is: not long.
The initial premise to the book was that Magneto was training the time-displaced X-Men and helping them track down and arrest several mutant supervillains, a pretty pro-active mission on Magneto's part. The obvious play-off are the OG X-Men working for their first villain, but in secret Magneto is preparing a way to send them back to their time period. Meanwhile, we get a few changes to characters, some that are based off personal experiences. The best kinds of changes in my opinion. Beast, for example, realizes in this current timeline he isn't the smartest guy on the planet anymore and if he caught up to guys like Tony Stark and Dr. Doom he'd still be nothing special, so he trained with Doctor Strange is now an aspiring sorcerer. A version of Beast who's smarts are in magic? Okay. In the most recent arc he is actually turned into a beast monster unlike his previous forms because he basically sold his soul to a demon. This would have been the perfect echo for Beast, to be turned into a monster by his vanity, this time through magic instead of science. Unfortunately he does not keep his new beast form. Angel now has fire wings because of some cosmic stuff that happened involving The Phoenix, Iceman has come out as gay (even though he never was), and Cyclops has a chip on his shoulder since his older self became a villain, killed Professor X, and then died fighting The Inhumans. So, yeah, pressure is on. Jean Grey-accepting of what her future self did-is a more powerful telepath and has taken lead of the team when they're out on missions.
Magneto is still there, Danger and Polaris were added as mentors too. And a Wolverine was added. Not Laura, not the new X-23, not Daken, not Old Man Logan, not original Wolverine, no this is another new f$%king Wolverine who is the son of Wolverine from The Ultimate Universe which is supposed to be destroyed and hey this Wolverine-Boy is Jean's age HOW CONVENIENT. As if that wasn't confusing another version of Storm-named Bloodstorm because she is a vampire-is also part of the team now. Christ, if Bunn's goal is to make a team of time displaced and universe displaced X-Men he should have pitched an Exiles book! I cannot stand a Wolverine being added, the thing I loved about the book before was that is was clearly focused on the five founding X-Men, but when issue five (f$%king five) showed his claws on the cover I was ready to quit the book.
But okay, the story. First The X-Men claim to hunt down X-Men villains. Second, they fight a Sentinel that has evolved to the point where it wants to protect mutants so that they can multiply and the Sentinels can kill more of them. Third, Wolverine is here now. Fourth, Secret Invasion Tie-Ins. Fifth, they fight the demon who's been manipulating Beast. And currently they are having a crossover with X-Men Gold involving Mojo. All of this in the span of fifteen issues with the longest arcs being the tie-ins and crossovers. When the story focuses on the characters and their growth I'm invested, but the other 70% of the time when it's all about the new Wolverine and interdimensional demons and other events that don't even need to involve The X-Men, I loathe this series. I liked the art, but it's hard to like when so many substitute artists have come come in and finish the pages. I like the story, but it drags on and becomes a headache when you through other dimension bullshit in the fifth issue. Literally, I read four issues of this series thinking "Oh, hey this is really good. This is like my modern X-Men. I like these characters" and then issue five comes out and I'm like "Welp, couldn't leave well-enough alone, huh!? Had to make it the same BS as every other X-Men book".
This was supposed to be my X-Men. This was my team, the book I praised. Champions was my Avengers book, Renew Your Vows was my Spider-Man book, and this was my X-Men book. But now 5/7 of the team is from the 1960's, and the other 2/7 of the team comes from TWO. DIFFERENT. UNIVERSES. One of which was destroyed and the other is so obscure Bloodstorm was the only thing remembered from it! I just wanted Cullen Bunn to tell the last story of these characters, to have Magneto come full-circle as a villain-turned-hero, and to send these characters off better than they were. But all he has done is complicate the story more. As if explaining X-Men from the past wasn't hard enough. All he has done is allowed his previous mission statement to be washed out by complicated plot threads and tie-ins. I don't know if I'm going to read this title anymore, I'm sorry Cullen Bunn, but if this is what you were planning for these X-Men? Maybe The X-Men are dead.
What? Tom Taylor is writing an X-Men book with Nightcrawler in it? I'm in.
Thanks for reading!
Current Issues presents X-Men Blue.
Artists: Jorge Melina
Before this book, Dennis Hopeless had been writing about this team in "All-New X-Men", a title Brian Michael Bendis established when he had Beast travel back in time and bring the original five X-Men to the present in an attempt to help Cyclops come back to the side of good. Each of the X-Men have gone through some serious changes that we'll talk about, but I'd to reiterate my happiness to see Cullen Bunn on another X-Men book. If you read my post on Uncanny X-Men you'll know that book was my saving grace, sadly-like all modern X-Men books-the book was bogged down by crossovers and art changes and an overall monkey wrench thrown by Editorial. So when X-Men Blue turned out to be even better than Uncanny my fears only grew. How long until this book gets attacked by Marvel's unnecessary shake-ups and collaborations? How long until this team-focused story becomes overstuffed. The short answer is: not long.
The initial premise to the book was that Magneto was training the time-displaced X-Men and helping them track down and arrest several mutant supervillains, a pretty pro-active mission on Magneto's part. The obvious play-off are the OG X-Men working for their first villain, but in secret Magneto is preparing a way to send them back to their time period. Meanwhile, we get a few changes to characters, some that are based off personal experiences. The best kinds of changes in my opinion. Beast, for example, realizes in this current timeline he isn't the smartest guy on the planet anymore and if he caught up to guys like Tony Stark and Dr. Doom he'd still be nothing special, so he trained with Doctor Strange is now an aspiring sorcerer. A version of Beast who's smarts are in magic? Okay. In the most recent arc he is actually turned into a beast monster unlike his previous forms because he basically sold his soul to a demon. This would have been the perfect echo for Beast, to be turned into a monster by his vanity, this time through magic instead of science. Unfortunately he does not keep his new beast form. Angel now has fire wings because of some cosmic stuff that happened involving The Phoenix, Iceman has come out as gay (even though he never was), and Cyclops has a chip on his shoulder since his older self became a villain, killed Professor X, and then died fighting The Inhumans. So, yeah, pressure is on. Jean Grey-accepting of what her future self did-is a more powerful telepath and has taken lead of the team when they're out on missions.
Magneto is still there, Danger and Polaris were added as mentors too. And a Wolverine was added. Not Laura, not the new X-23, not Daken, not Old Man Logan, not original Wolverine, no this is another new f$%king Wolverine who is the son of Wolverine from The Ultimate Universe which is supposed to be destroyed and hey this Wolverine-Boy is Jean's age HOW CONVENIENT. As if that wasn't confusing another version of Storm-named Bloodstorm because she is a vampire-is also part of the team now. Christ, if Bunn's goal is to make a team of time displaced and universe displaced X-Men he should have pitched an Exiles book! I cannot stand a Wolverine being added, the thing I loved about the book before was that is was clearly focused on the five founding X-Men, but when issue five (f$%king five) showed his claws on the cover I was ready to quit the book.
But okay, the story. First The X-Men claim to hunt down X-Men villains. Second, they fight a Sentinel that has evolved to the point where it wants to protect mutants so that they can multiply and the Sentinels can kill more of them. Third, Wolverine is here now. Fourth, Secret Invasion Tie-Ins. Fifth, they fight the demon who's been manipulating Beast. And currently they are having a crossover with X-Men Gold involving Mojo. All of this in the span of fifteen issues with the longest arcs being the tie-ins and crossovers. When the story focuses on the characters and their growth I'm invested, but the other 70% of the time when it's all about the new Wolverine and interdimensional demons and other events that don't even need to involve The X-Men, I loathe this series. I liked the art, but it's hard to like when so many substitute artists have come come in and finish the pages. I like the story, but it drags on and becomes a headache when you through other dimension bullshit in the fifth issue. Literally, I read four issues of this series thinking "Oh, hey this is really good. This is like my modern X-Men. I like these characters" and then issue five comes out and I'm like "Welp, couldn't leave well-enough alone, huh!? Had to make it the same BS as every other X-Men book".
This was supposed to be my X-Men. This was my team, the book I praised. Champions was my Avengers book, Renew Your Vows was my Spider-Man book, and this was my X-Men book. But now 5/7 of the team is from the 1960's, and the other 2/7 of the team comes from TWO. DIFFERENT. UNIVERSES. One of which was destroyed and the other is so obscure Bloodstorm was the only thing remembered from it! I just wanted Cullen Bunn to tell the last story of these characters, to have Magneto come full-circle as a villain-turned-hero, and to send these characters off better than they were. But all he has done is complicate the story more. As if explaining X-Men from the past wasn't hard enough. All he has done is allowed his previous mission statement to be washed out by complicated plot threads and tie-ins. I don't know if I'm going to read this title anymore, I'm sorry Cullen Bunn, but if this is what you were planning for these X-Men? Maybe The X-Men are dead.
What? Tom Taylor is writing an X-Men book with Nightcrawler in it? I'm in.
Thanks for reading!
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