All New X-Men #7

Here’s my tip for reading All New X-Men: chances are, your panel is going to spread to two pages. It’s confusing as hell, and apparently seven issues in, I still haven’t learned. Here’s hoping you can learn from my fumbles.  
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis | Artists: David Marquez & Marte Gracia
Cover: Stuart Immonen, Wade Von Grawbadger & Marte Gracia | Publisher: Marvel  
I’m surprised you guys are still letting me write about this. Or do you really enjoy what’s slowly going to turn into less of a review and more about the emotional griping of an x-fangirl.
 
Overall, I’m enjoying the series, but the paneling is driving me nutty. You’d think I’d learn from previous issues but I haven’t and there’s actually an increase in panels that spread across the two pages. I guess it’s just something we’re going to have to get used to. Other than that the art is solid, young x-men, older x-men, Mystique taking on a variety of personas, great stuff. I even struggled with deciding between the regular cover (in which Mystique looks ridiculously alluring, I think) and the variant (because Bachalo).
 
So this issue is a huge focus on younger-Cyclops and it’s a rush of feelings over just how precious he can be. Admittedly it was Mystique who belies it all, and while she definitely has ulterior motives, her conversation with Scott is sweet and almost endearing (and I really wanted to believe everything that she said even though I knew better) and serves as a nice reminder of the Scott that you could actually find yourself liking. (I’ve been in love with Scott Summers since I was four; I am not a good indicator of this). Scott’s been getting a lot of flack lately, and while he’s not totally undeserving, it’s nice to let him have someone who he at least thinks is sort of on his side. Plus she gives him that push to maybe finally get things rolling a little bit more. I’ve been waiting for more of a Cyclops-Cyclops confrontation for a few issues now.
 
Thanks Bendis for adding yet another thing into the pot without ever giving conclusions to anything yet. This can either spell messy disaster in the end, or something akin to epicness. There’s the present Cyclops (whatever he’s up to—and yes that’s all going to happen in Uncanny but with one or two pages about them in the first few issues, I’m missing my dosage of other present-day X-Men Emma Frost), past X-Men (all of whom have some pretty dramatic confrontations to meer, either with present selves or learning what becomes of them), and now Mystique.
 
I’m hoping for some more action coming soon though, beyond Kitty kicking Bobby’s ass, as great as that was.
 
It’s a Scott-centric issue, so it was emotional for me (I admit, I teared up a smidgen at the end there), but it could also be slow for everyone else. At least we know Mystique is up to something. That’s it. That’s the whole point of this issue.