All-New X-Men #10

Writer: Dennis Hopeless
Penciller: Mark Bagley
Inker: Andrew Hennessy
Colorist: Nolan Woodard
Published by: Marvel

We are now four months deep into this seemingly infinite X-crossover and I'm both annoyed that there is still one more month to go and excited that there is only one month left. Sure, I appreciate that each series has had a separate storyline so far, I think that approach works better compared to something like Spider-Women, where the plot completely eluded me because I didn't get every issue. I probably would have dropped all the X-titles if I had to buy Uncanny. But as far as All-New X-Men is concerned I feel like Hopeless has abandoned the most interesting characters on this roster (Idie, Wolverine, young Cyclops) to focus on only two characters, Beast and Evan Sabahnur (worst name). I could see that working in theory but I'm not sure whether those two had previously spoken to each other, they hardly have a great rapport.

In this issue, Evan Sabahnur (worst name), clone of old Apocalypse, meets young Apocalypse in the flesh and is awed by his cheerfulness and kindness. This has the same themes every Evan Sabahnur (worst name) plot has dealt with, where he wonders about whether his fate is determined and he is doomed to repeat the actions of Apocalypse. We have gone over this a few times and it's just not that interesting in the first place. The one aspect of this character that I would really like to see more in depth is his childhood. He was first introduced in Wolverine & the X-Men and we don't really what he was up to before showing up at the school. We got some of that on last issue, where he travels to a small, perfect All-American town where he believes he is from and suddenly we realize those are false memories and the town is desolate. Listen, it didn't make a whole lot of sense but it was more interesting than this. There's also a B-plot with Beast, it wasn't the best, there is some new character who speaks a lot. I really don't know what else to say about it. It ties into issue #8, which was actually kind of great so shout out issue #8.

The art is solid, Bagley is really good with facial expressions and the few panels we get with the Eye of Horus, a device that projects magical beings over the real world, have great colors by Nolan Woodard. That being said the monsters look really awkward imposed over the world in this issue, Paco Diaz did a much better job meshing the two worlds together in issue #8.

Overall this still had some positives, it wasn't so bad that I would drop the series entirely but maybe I'll skip next issue. Apocalypse Wars has gone on for too long, In hindsight, I would recommend skipping All-New X-Men for the duration of the crossover unless you are a fan of either Beast or Evan.