Writer Brian Michael Bendis
Penciler Stuart Immonen
Inker Wade von Grawbadger
Color Artist Marte Gracia
Letterer VC’s Cory Petit
Cover Dated July 2013
The cover asks who of the Original Five X-Men will join Cyclops. Also, Magik is on the cover, that’s pretty sweet!
I really like Immomen’s choice to pan out with the camera. If you look at the first panel with Jean and the last panel with Kitty, you can see how far back Jean is. Everybody but one member of the Original Five is upset.
Warren is leaving the Jean Grey School for the New Xavier School, good for him. He wanted to go back to his timeline immediately and was outvoted then Jean has been messing with his mind. Why would he want to stay?
No one wants Angel to leave. The Original Five need to stick together. So funny now with how Scott is the missing member of the team, as he is in space. Cyclops is more than happy to have his decent friend among his new team. Jean is being bombarded with more thoughts.
To stop all the thoughts, she drops everybody but Warren. Jean directs Warren to go back into the school.
No one is thrilled with Jean, with how she keeps resorting to mind control to get her way. Good thing the Cuckoos are there to give her a taste of her own medicine so she can learn how bitter it is.
Jean goes down and Kitty catches her. Wolverine tries to step in but Magneto just tosses him aside, which is awesome.
Jean tries to fight back but she isn’t use to having to fight another telepathic, much less, three of them. Storm doesn’t want mutant on mutant hate crimes happening on the school grounds. I like how the Cuckoos want to be impressed with Jean but take joy in how lacking this Jean is.
Warren starts coming out of his mind control. Storm yells at the gathered students to go back inside. Scott shouts for the Cuckoos to stop. Cyclops also wants them to stop but Emma sees a teaching opportunity here. I like Emma standing up to both Cyclops and Wolverine, good for her!
Warren reexplains that he is leaving. Warren tries to end on a positive note by telling Scott that he likes Scott’s adult self.
There is an ad for the Inhumans Motion Comic that gives life to Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee’s amazing run on that title. I need to own it one day.
Magik teleports the Blue Side away. Jean faints, like how her 90s cartoon self seem to do every time she tried to be useful.
Scott carries her to the Infirmary. Kitty isn’t happy losing one of her students so early. She’s also mad at Beast for even creating this situation.
Resilent Headquarters, Seattle. Pepper Potts wants some guy to access Tony’s personal accounts. This is the all too obvious attempt to try to force Iron Man into the comic as Iron Man 3 is coming to theaters. The guy finally sets up the account and there is a giant explosion. It looks like Wolverine and the Original Five X-Men are attacking. She doesn’t transform but Pepper Potts was Mystique in disguise. Once these two pages are over, there is an ad for Iron Man 3. Well done, Production!
Jean is crying on the basketball court. She clearly never watched, Love & Basketball, no tears on the court! Such a good movie!
Kitty shows up to try to lend some support. She tells Jean to stop mind controlling everybody! Too bad that they were pulled from Uncanny X-Men 8, or Jean’s behavior could just be explained away as her being the perfect student of Xavier’s.
Kitty asks if Jean has met Spider-Man, she hasn’t. She would have in Uncanny X-Men 27, when Mimic returned. Jean hasn’t even heard of him. Kitty’s description is pretty funny – full body stocking, never stops talking.
Kitty explains that with great power, comes great responsibility. Hopefully we one day review the issue where Spider-Man tells Kitty this – that would be fun. It would be a safe assumption to believe that Spider-Man has told every costumed hero, his personal philosophy. Kitty tells Jean that she is always available for chats. Kitty really is the best friend, anyone could ask for. Kitty wants Jean to stop acting as horrible as she has, and to get it under control. Kitty also wants Jean to apologize to her teammates.
Jean shares that she can’t believe the team breaking up. At first, I thought she meant with Scott but she means the team. She references how the Original X-Men are replaced with an All New All Different team and they eventually gather to form X-Factor. Kitty explains that they have already changed history, so anything can happen. Jean is so full of rage. This really is the first time I’ve been a fan of Jean’s. Kitty wants Jean to learn to focus her rage. Jean suggests Mystique and Kitty is all for it.
Jean promises to get under control. Jean feels the need to hug Kitty and they do. That’s a lot of hugging in such a short period of issues.
I can’t help but notice the big panel on the left and the bottom one, how different their costumes really are. I gripe about Kitty’s uniform being just her original trainee uniform but it really has been modified to be unique.
Later. Gracia treats us to a page and a half of the X-Men bathed in red light – which I totally adore. They don’t really state where they are going. To investigate the X-Men sighting in Seattle, perhaps? On the X-Jet is Wolverine and Kitty and her Original Four X-Men.
Then Thor knocks the plane out of the sky. We are going to get ourselves a little X-Men v Uncanny Avengers. Which are Havok, Thor, Captain America, Scarlet Witch and Rogue. Also, Wolverine is on the team so this shouldn’t be too big of a deal. And it really isn’t. I’ll review issue 12 one of these days.
Shadow and Flame with Magik 