Book Review: All-new X-Men. Vol. 1, Yesterday's X-Men by by Brian Michael Bendis (Author), and Stuart Immonen (Illustrations)

During Avengers vs. X-Men,Cyclops, leader of various teams of the X-Men for, oh, forever, possessed/was possessed by the Phoenix force. He went from slightly obsessed with preserving the remaining mutants to flat-out crazy dark in no time flat. After the Phoenix force was dealt with, he was briefly penitent, but because the world hates-and-fears mutants, he was pushed back into darkness in record time.

Now he's teamed up with Magneto, who is back to being evil again, and is declaring a mutant revolution. In order to stop him, Beast imports the past X-Men with the idea that the young, idealistic Scott will be able stop cynical, evil Scott, or at least make him feel good and guilty.

It's an interesting idea, but there's not much room for it to grow here. Yesterday's X-Men is very much a stage-setting volume and what comes after might or might not develop into something character-driven and fun, but for the moment, I'm left wondering. I have liked X-Men stories in the past--devoured them in fact--but I'm starting to wonder if the series and I are going to get along very well this time around. Maybe I should go back to the independents again.

As with the whole Avengers vs. X-Men series (or at least, all I've read of it; there seem to be an uncountable number of side books) a good many things happen "because plot." I know the "hates and fears" thing is part of the whole X-Men schtick and has been from the beginning, but there's very little refinement here. Three different teens, two with completely non-scary power manifestations (one is a healer), are surrounded by the authorities the moment their powers show. Their parents disown them. Their friends don't like them any more. Really? Come on. I know people are weird, scary, and unpredictable. They're also disorganized, prone to letting things go, and actually capable of loving their children, friends, and relations. It's been years since "the mutant gene" first manifested, and I have a hard time thinking that most of the world still panics at the thought of non-explody mutants. See what I mean about me and the series?

Also, I have to take a moment to whine about Cyclops: I rather liked the idealistic version, and I've been frustrated by various writers working over the years to make him more interesting, usually by adding a lot of angst and anger to his character and subtracting any and all thought and planning from his skill set.

As I mentioned earlier, the bulk of this volume is spent setting the scene and bringing the old team forward. There's not much time for present X-men to interact with their past selves, or for the past selves to see the world and try to cope with how it has changed and how they--their future selves--have responded. It'll be interesting to see how that develops, and whether the various writers can handle the oversized team(s?) that will result.

Until next time!

Links:
Yesterday's X-Men on Goodreads
Yesterday's X-Men on Amazon

Did you write a review I should add? Know of one? If so, contact me and let me know!

Book Review: Avengers vs. X-Men by Brian Michael Bendis, Jason Aaron, Frank Cho, John Romita, Ed Brubaker

Basically this was an excuse to work through all those "Who would beat whom in a battle?" questions.

Minor spoilers follow, though I doubt anyone will be much surprised.

The X-Men and Avengers, displaying all the conflict resolution skills of toddlers, decide to argue over the best way to deal with the coming Phoenix and its potential host. After about five minutes of talking, they start fighting. It's actually quite hilarious at that point: Scott goes out to talk with Captain America, and the rest of his team stands back and chats about how cranky he's been lately and how unlikely he is to negotiate. Once the fighting starts, they shrug and join in.

Eventually, the Phoenix comes and renders all the smashing moot, and it all comes down to Hope.

The second half of the book has a collection of individual A vs. X fights, some of which are funny and some of which are indulgences of various fantasies.

The collection actually kind of fun in its own colorful, brainless way, but one would hope that Earth's Mightiest Heroes and the world's scariest and mostly-benign-except-when-they're not mutants would have a somewhat better grasp on diplomacy. I found Storm and Black Panther's divorce particularly egregious. I mean, it's not that I have anything in particular invested in their marriage--the last time I was regularly reading X-Men, Storm was breaking Forge's heart by taking a little to long to say "yes"--but presumably they had a friendship, a courtship, some love, some reason to marry. Here, they side with their respective teams without so much as a second thought. There's a certain amount of pathos in the "Storm vs. Black Panther" fight in the second half of the book, but, like much of the rest of the book, things happen "Because plot" not because the characters are really showing any signs of moving events along.

I will say I appreciate the Marvel writers (or the collection's editors?) opting to provide short annotations about significant items and characters in the book. Some things I know from "back when," others, I had either forgotten or never new, so the one- to two-line inserts were quite helpful.

Reviews:
Goodreads Reviews
Got a review I missed? Let me know, and I'll include it!

Links of interest

Avengers vs. X-Men on Amazon

That's either too few or too many. Got a link you think I should include? Contact me and let me know! I'm especially interested in any list of how the multiple collections of A v. X are meant to be read! This is only the main plot.