Review: All New X-men #15

All New X-men #15

Another enjoyable installment of the time displaced old (new ?) x-men chronicles. The story had a light feel/tone complemented by the artwork and seemed to be centred mainly around how the new (old?) x-men are still coping with being in the future (present?), particularly Jean.

RECAP (skip if you read the issue)

The starts with Rachel returning to the school from superhero-ing and having an awkward encounter (the first of two) with the young mommy dearest while on her way to the showers. Cyclops is wrapped up in his age old predicament (it seems) of how he’s gonna tell jean... what exactly?.. well he crushes and discards the letter before we get to see. Iceman, not being able to handle seeing his future self making out with that godawful Ms. Pryde decides to go out on an adventure with Cyclops, stealing wolverine’s car in the process.

While training to use her telekinesis with old (blue) Beast Jean manages to completely dismantle Wolverine’s motorcycle displaying a feat that Beast later explains to a riled Wolverine as showing a “level of telekinetic aptitude she only hit while she was in phoenix mode” and doing it “as a pure mutant.” Wolverine just wants his bike fixed though and his car back from the delinquents ‘clops-ice duo, who, by the way, end up impressing a bunch of girls at a carnival with their time travelling stories and mutant prowess.

While working on fixing the headmaster’s bike, Jean overhears beast thinking about how much he was in love with her when he was young and wondered what would have happened if he had the guts to tell her. This sparks her confronting young beast (who’s studying his future mutations) about and kissing him in the process.

The rogue old (new?) x-men manage to further impress the ladies  by assisting in a police car chase, just before the get busted by the headmaster but with time to spare to exchange numbers with the ladies ;) . There’s a panel where we see Dazzler (well Mystique disguised as Dazzler) watching from a distance.

Back at the mansion Jean get’s in a second awkward, wordless encounter with Rachel, then goes into her room, sighs and looks at the wedding invitation for her and Cyclop’s wedding before putting it under her mattress.

WHAT I LIKED ?

Just about everything. Even without much action, contention or (melo) drama taking place it was a wonderful bit of storytelling; a solid and satisfying issue that moved the story nicely along.

The new (old?) x-men are seemingly a little better adjusted to the future and the situation they are flung in. But even so they still have things to deal with. Things that Bendis brought to the forefront (particularly for Jean) in this issue.

Bendis plays expertly on the lighter tone in the storytelling while still managing to be profound in his themes. There were three separate pages with no dialogue whatsoever and yet it still felt like a full part of the story, none was necessary because the panels said enough. Two of such panels had very awkward encounters with young Jean and Rachel (both, interestingly, time displaced) and the third was all about some Jean-Beast smooching. It all is quote telling of how Jean is handling everything she now knows about her future (or what was supposed to be her future). It can be quite awkward as we’ve seen as well as troubling to think that somehow all of this was supposed to be “destiny”. I’m sure at this point Jean just wants to feel like she’ll have some control of her life and how it’ll turn out in the long run. Things can be different. She doesn’t HAVE to end up with Scott or die or do anything that she’s heard she’s done.

It’s evident that all the old (new?) x-men are thinking about how their future selves turned out and how disconcerting some of it is. Iceman doesn't quite like that his future self is dating Kitty, Scott couldn't possibly like that he killed Xavier and Beast is caught up studying his future mutations. This all makes for a nice theme and great story to follow and its carried out in such a manner that it doesn’t seem to get boring.

Bendis also does well with the subtle hints of things to come, raising questions of why is Mystique STILL on the case of the youngins and why Jean’s power seemed to have taken such a quick boost upon arriving in the future. I’m sure these elements are to play out later and in the story on a whole and can’t wait to see what’s next.

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE ?

I pretty much liked it all. Just a little confused about Jeans power boost and see’s the obvious cliche in it (because, come on, when HASN’T and out of control, far too powerful Jean been and issue?). Yet still I eagerly await to see how it plays out.

I give it an 8.5