Comics: All New X-men #6

So the original X-men have decided to stay in the present with Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat taking on the Professor Xavier role and guiding them. With all the decision making out of the way, its seems to be the time for the team to face their first big villain.

This issue shifts the focus to Cyclops, who is having some issues dealing with the fact that his future self killed Professor Xavier. Sick of everyone at the school staring at him like he’s a monster, he steals Wolverine’s bike and runs away. This obviously pisses off Wolverine who goes after him. Wolverine is incredibly inconsistent in this issue, switching from wanting to kill Scott to sympathising with him, often on the same page. Maybe it is intentional on Bendis’s part, trying to show how Scott sees him but it is incredibly unclear. Eventually Cyclops has enough and shoots him in the chest.

Meanwhile Jean is still learning how to use her telepathy while bonding with Kitty and Storm. It’s nice to see Kitty taking charge a bit more, helping Jean through her problems and truly taking on the training role. Storm is mostly just there to tell Jean she’s the leader now, not Scott but hopefully she will be more involved in the next issue. Angel meets his future self, but there isn’t much meat to this plot. It looks like this will also be dealt with more in the next issue, with Angel finally finding out just what has happened to him. 

David Marquez takes on the art duties for the issue (and I believe the next two) giving Stuart Immonen a much needed break, I mean he’s drawn five issues in two months. I really enjoyed Marquez’s work on Ultimate Spider-man and he does a fine job here. The opening nightmare sequence sets a great terrifying mood, expressing Jean’s fear of dying, a common trait of her character. The scene of Scott shooting Wolverine looks excellent and he does a great job distinguishing the younger characters from their older selves. 

The last page gives a great reveal of who the X-men’s next adversary will be, one of the few remaining classic X-men villains.