Return of the King
Opening Remarks: I liked this issue a lot better than I probably should’ve because I’m a huge Magneto fan. I fell in love love with him ever since watching the first episode of the 90’s X-Men cartoon show on a vhs I got as part of a Book It! deal that Pizza Hut had back then. He’s my favorite comic book character, hands down, so I was thrilled to see him having some stones in this issue as it seems he’s been sidelined/not written to his strengths as of late. Oh yeah, this series is much better than Avengers vs. X-Men by a long shot. This is in no small part thanks to the wonderful writing of Kieron Gillen who’s also done an outstanding job on my favorite Marvel title, Journey Into Mystery. Ok, now that that’s out of the way, on to the review.
There’s a lot of interconnectedness that this issue has, not only with the Avengers vs. X-men event, but also just in terms of starting to introduce how a number of characters' situations will drastically change. Perhaps the strongest point of this book is that it takes characters’ relationships and groupings and furthers their development in the light of what happened in Avengers vs. X-Men. In the beginning we see Iron Man pay a visit to Cyclops. He seeks to scientifically understand more about the Phoenix Force by studying Summers, as he’s recently been depossessed of it. As expected, the initial exchange between the two is noticeably unfriendly on Scott’s end, but then Tony shares a crucial bit of knowledge with him that changes the whole dynamic between the two. He reveals that he knew that the Phoenix Force would end up birthing more mutants. This understanding establishes a bond, however frail it may be, between the two and Scott agrees to submit to the tests.
This interaction both helps resolve some prior conflict between them as well as progresses the overall story. This process repeats with a number of interactions in the book (Storm, Colossus, and Magneto & Wolverine and Scott) and the same feeling of both resolution and progression permeates them all. Of particular note, it was both nice, albeit overdue, to see Wolverine pay his proper respect to Cyclops. I still can’t believe his reaction in issue two. I mean, come on! Really Logan?! There’s even a scene that features Hope, who was noticeably missing from Avengers vs. X-Men, and Namor that was quite well-done and gave us more insight into Namor’s point of view.
There are a lot of small touches here and there such as the rock-face that Colossus sculpts into Illyana’s face and the last lines of the exchange between Brand and Magneto that tie everything together quite nicely. The writing, characterization, and art come together quite well in this issue to give the reader a good, solid experience. Final score: 4/5. Definitely pick this up if you have the money. If yo've been following this series thus far the last two pages will get you really excited. At least I hope so. Now, excuse me while I shell out 20+ bucks for the Magneto variant cover because I had no clue about it until today : / ...
