Comics: All New X-men #3

Cyclops is starting a new mutant revolution; gathering new mutants to help the race grow. Fearing a mutant civil war and seeing no other option, Beast travelled back in time to bring the original X-men (Cyclops, Jean, Beast, Iceman and Angel) to our time. Upon arrival the original team decide they must confront Cyclops’ revolutionary team; setting off in the jet at once.

Unfortunately this issue proves a bit frustrating; instead of presenting this confrontation it jumps back to how Cyclops came to recruit Emma Frost and states that the team is having issues with their powers. They have been shown using their powers perfectly fine since the start of this series, and even before that. In fact in AVX: Consequences, Magneto seems more powerful than ever.  Its not exactly stated what is going on but Cyclops eye beams seem to be too strong for him to control. Magneto’s powers barely seem to work and Emma seems unable to read minds anymore. While an fresh idea, basically resetting their powers; I dislike how this frankly comes out of nowhere. 

Other than this the comic is still very well written but contains only one very well written scene, with Magneto confronting Cyclops about what he has done. One of the things I love about the idea of Magneto as a hero is the way he’s able to speak to Scott as a former villain. He discusses how he used to be filled with madness and he believed this controlled his actions; yet he now acknowledges that this was all him. It’s used perfectly here as a comparison to Scott’s possession by the Phoenix and I’m so happy to see a writer willing to place blame on Scott for all he has done; especially killing Professor Xavier.

I’m also a big fan of Cyclops’ new base of operations, Weapon X where man first tortured mutants and experiments on mutants like Wolverine were conducted.  It’s quite a simple thing but establishes his new aim, to bring justice for mutants.

Stuart Immonen’s art continues to look fantastic here; really standing out in the breakout of Emma Frost. I have mentioned before how well he energizes action scenes; giving the scenes a real sense of flow.  However, some of the problems with misunderstanding what is happening with the team’s powers do come from his artwork. Scott’s powers have gained a different sort of effect, which I interpret as them being less of a focused beam and more of an arc; but it is honestly very hard to tell. The characters look mostly fantastic with Magneto looking particularly menacing.  Emma Frost’s faces is a bit inhuman in certain panels where she is meant to look outraged and in others she doesn’t stick to her design.

The final page finally sees the two Cyclops’ interact and hopefully the next issue will provide a bit more meat than this one.