All New X-Men #6
The original five X-Men have been taken from their time and put into the present. You know the drill by now. Things happen.
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis | Artist: David Marquez
Cover: Stuart Immonen | Publisher: Marvel
When Bendis writes a good issue, he writes a good issue. This wasn’t one of them. Bendis is known on occasion for some lazy writing. We’ve already seen more or less what could be described as a “filler” issue for All New X-Men, and this seems to be another one. For a title that claims to be “All New” it’s the same X-Men story we’ve seen time and time again. Maybe it’s great for those unfamiliar with the X-Men and the characters but not for this fan.
Jean struggles with her telepathy, feels on edge, everyone loves her. Scott escapes runs away, Logan chases him down and there’s a scuffle between them, they’ll never get along. Honestly the best part was a character focus that wasn’t on Jean or Scott, and in fact finally getting to the one that no one wanted to mention and still don’t want to. Warren. No one wants to tell him what his future entails, and the only one willing to, isn’t really the best source, seeing as he doesn’t actually know. Six issues it took for Warren to maybe get some answers while Jean and Scott are busy trying to deal with the future and not coping very well.
The past issues there was a good balance of all these characters, Bobby, Hank, we did see some more of Kitty this time around so that was acceptable. And not a lick of Present-time Scott. I’ll admit I’m intrigued by his new Xavier Academy but I guess we’ll have to wait until Uncanny X-Men comes out before I’m totally satisfied on that aspect. But even just a page of what our present-time X-Men are up to would have sufficed. (It doesn’t help that they put Emma’s name all over a page when Jean is losing control of her telepathy and here I was hoping for something with Emma in it). By now I was hoping for some more conflicts between past and present X-Mens (aka an epic confrontation with present-Cyclops) but alas, we’re not there yet. Who knows when we’ll get there.
My only consolation lies in guest artist David Marquez. Now I love Immonen’s work, but Marquez’s was great, especially for a story like this which involves the characters from the past because his rendering of their faces is so spot on. They have their baby faces. They actually look young. It’s easy to see that they’re young, naïve, and so very lost in this world. Marquez also gives a cameo to the cast of fan favourite Wolverine and the X-Men.
The writing and actual story may have been a bit disappointing but the art still made it interesting to get through, and I very much look forward to seeing what else Marquez gives us.
Ps. The variant cover celebrating the 50th anniversary is so very misleading. Brilliant because Bachalo never fails me, but it relation to the actual issue, there is none.
A Look Inside
Comments
Did you a problem following the layouts at all? There were two pages I had to go back and re-read because I didn't realize the top of the page went all the way across. Other than that though, I'm on the same page as you are: this was pretty much just a lot of filler.
The pannels with Jean reading everyone's mind were absolutely fantastic though.
Yes! Visually, just at a glance, it looks great, but when you start reading, it doesn't really register that it's a two page spread, so you read down instead of across and then it's just a lot of confusion for a few seconds.
It wasn't a HUGE detraction for me though, I noticed my blunder fairly quick and moved along, but if it keeps happening (it's certainly not the first time either) I might start having more to complain about though.
Yep that two page spread got me too! I had to re-read it. For me the highlight of the book was the pages with Kitty and Jean. Really well done.