I'm Looking At Myself Again
The Good
I am very much enjoying this plot, the idea of these over-the-line X-Men meeting their young and innocent counterparts is pretty cool. In fact, it's these young X-Men that steal the show. We have Cyclops, who has travelled to the future to realise that he is the nations of the world's enemy No. 1 who has killed his father figure in life, we have Beast, who is trying to stop his future, almost completely unrecognisable self from dying, and we have Jean, who has realised that she is a telepath, and that she, in the future is dead. I feel as though Iceman has nothing really to complain about, but that kind of fits, perhaps he'll be the one taking charge because his comrades are all so shell shocked. I also really hope that there is some interaction between past-Angel and future-Angel. What would you do if you grew up to be a genocidal megalomaniac, only to be reborn with absolutely no memory of your past life?
The art is decent, purely comic book, no complaints there.
The new mutants that Cyclops's team has adopted show some promise too. How are they going to react to being fostered by terrorists? I hope that their characters do get some time to be properly flushed out.
I love seeing character development, even if it is in a direction that is completely opposite from what readers are used to. Dying McCoy and evil Scott are far more interesting to me than they ever have been.
The Bad
A lot about this issue really annoyed me. I have so many problems with the Uncanny X-Men roster. Why is Emma Frost back with the team. Her and Scott are finished, she's now a wanted criminal, I feel that a better direction for her would be to revisit her roots. Maybe bring back her family a bit, have her try and seek redemption by teaching (her one true love) at Wolverine's school? Also, why is Magneto with Scott? Didn't he have second thoughts about the Phoenix, isn't he finally a hero? Why is he a wanted man? He allied himself with the Avengers at the end of Avengers vs. X-Men, didn't he?
You'd think that Scott would be hardly suprised with seeing himself 15 or so years ago. With all the ridiculousness that happens in comics, time travel isn't exactly far fetched. His train of thought was interesting, but I'm surprised at how stunned he was.
The Verdict
A mediocre issue. More good than bad but the only thing keeping me on this book is the dynamic of the time travelling X-Men team. Pick it up if you are an X-Fan.
