𝕎𝕙𝕚𝕔𝕙 ℂ𝕠𝕞𝕚𝕔𝕤 𝔸𝕣𝕖 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔹𝕖𝕤𝕥 𝔹𝕠𝕠𝕜𝕤 𝕐𝕠𝕦 ℂ𝕒𝕟 𝔹𝕦𝕪?:

ɴᴇᴡ ꜱᴜᴘᴇʀʜᴇʀᴏ ᴄᴏᴍɪᴄ ʙᴏᴏᴋ & ɢʀᴀᴘʜɪᴄ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ʀᴀᴛɪɴɢꜱ & ʀᴇᴠɪᴇᴡꜱ

[ 𝙼𝚊𝚛𝚟𝚎𝚕 / 𝙳𝙲 𝙲𝚘𝚖𝚒𝚌𝚜 / 𝙸𝚖𝚊𝚐𝚎 / 𝙸𝚗𝚍𝚒𝚎 ] 10-16-19 X-Men #1

This comic is like meeting up with a friend you haven’t seen in a long time… Then you see some pictures of them that pop up somewhere in your social media. They look good. They look healthy. They don’t look happy though and every picture they have this weird forced grin. Then you meet up with this friend again in person and they’re just… Something off about them. You know this person. They’re your friend. This just isn’t quite in them. Then it gets weird because they say some things that are kind of racist. This is your friends and you try to give them the benefit of the doubt. “Maybe that didn’t quite mean what I thought they meant by that,” you think, but the more you talk the more racist they sound. Then someone overhears your friend and they’re mad about what your friend said. The thing is that person is racist too. So now you’re just watching a fight where you have no one to root for. Your old friend is a racist piece of shit and the guy he is fighting is a racist piece of shit. Also, your friend doesn’t look as good as how he did in his vacation pics. They don’t look bad, but those pics are obviously photoshopped.

Enough of this analogy. Basically, we are stuck with the crappy status quo left from “House & Powers Of X”. This is more of that except the art isn’t as good and all the fun little surprises are gone. Also, there’s no stakes because any of the main characters can be brought to life brought back to life at any time.

We begin the issue with a cringy version of the first time “Xavier” gives “Cyclops” his ruby quartz glasses. There’s some asshole remark about humans being blind and how he shouldn’t be like them or some stupid shit like that. We then cut the present day with the “X-Men” are fighting the people they were fighting in “House Of X”. The team on this mission is “Cyclops”, “Magneto”, “Storm”, and “Polaris”. They all talk like a bunch of assholes about humans as they fight their way through this compound that kidnapped mutants or something. Somewhere in the middle a bunch of the human soldiers turn themselves in the apes and this is such shitty on-the-nose writing that’s it’s embarrassing. Then they find some human child who was experimented on and given powers. She teleports away and the “X-Men” decide to not even bother trying to find her because they’re racist assholes now. They then rescue all the mutant kids and use their magic teleporting plant to take them all back to “Krakoa”. The magic teleporting plant being a nice super convenient lazy writing way of “fast travel” in all “X-books” now (except “X-men On A Boat”… I mean “Marauders”).

We go to “Krakoa” and there’s a cringy scene with “Magneto” and a bunch of mutant kids. There’s a pointless scene with “Cyclops” and “Polaris”. We then cut back to the humans and the main evil human guy literally says they’re “fighting the future” which is something no person would ever say unironically.

Then we cut to “Cyclops” in his house… Which is on the moon. He’s having a barbecue with the whole extended “Summers” family along with “Wolverine” and “The Starjammers”. There are attempts at humor with “Vulcan” and “Wolverine” and “Rachel Summers” and the cat lady from “The Starjammers”. They’re not terrible but not good. “Vulcan” being there is stupid and terrible and he’s a terrible character to begin with so that just sucks by default. “Rachel Summers” still has the code name “Prestige” which is about the worst code name ever. Also “teen Cable” is there, which might have been the worst idea ever. They had the opportunity to either forget this happened or retcon it but for some reason, they didn’t. Astounding.

Thought the extremely lazy information pages were just a part of “House and Powers Of X”? Nope! They’re now apparently a terrible part of every “X-book” now. Here we’re given the layout of “Cyclops’s” house. For some reason, “Wolverine” has a room there. Lots of people are speculating this indicates that “Wolverine” and “Cyclops” are either tag-teaming “Jean Grey” or just sharing her. Gross. “Wolverine” take sloppy seconds from no man! Then there’s a bunch of boring stuff between “Cyclops” and his dad.

Back with the evil human people specifically that scientist lady from “House Of X”. She says something about having a crystal that could bring back her husband that died during “House Of X”. Unfortunately, no one cares about are these characters so fuck em’.

Moving on, the artist here is Leinil Yu. I’ve never been a big fan of his work. I find he puts way too many lines on people’s faces and everybody looks old and kind of ugly. I think his art works better in non-superhero comics. Like crime comics. Stuff like that. I will say though this is the best his work has ever looked. It’s still nowhere near as good as the art is “House and Powers Of X” though. This entire status quo is terrible and this issue sucks. As did “House and Powers Of X”. This is actually a little bit worse. C-.

Recommendation: One Of The Lesser Books You Can Buy