I do love a Villian issue! We see that 3K’s alliance is on very shaky grounds. Chairman Beast of Krakoa has been gone a week, giving Cassandra Nova and Astra (with Joseph) time to plot the other’s death. Cassandra Nova has her own Pixie, Myraid. Wyre and his X-Men just want to see who wants leadership more. Cassandra Nova puts the leadership to a vote. Joseph dons his helmet, but Myraid takes off the helmet, and Cassandra Nova is on the verge of winning, when Beast shows up! He is full Beast mode, but all white to match his Age of Revelation body. He was in a synthetic body, which I still feel like wasn’t fair for the home audience’s guessing game. He reveals the plot of Age of Revelation. We get one splash page of the events, so if anyone is interested, they can check out Amazing X-Men V3 for Cyclops’ journey, The Last Wolverine for Logan Death, and Laura Kinney Sabretooth for her adventure. We get this page, and earlier, we get a few panels of him and Animalia .
They are going to use a virus to turn all humans into mutants, succeed where Doug got the job mostly done.
Beast also knows one other thing, that Schwarzschild will eventually join Cyclops, so he has Wyre’s X-Men kill him, and they don’t even hesitate, so we have successfully splintered from the AoR future.
Issue ends with us seeing their base, which is a cool looking flying saucer above a nice mountain range. Are they near Alaska?
No Magik, but I’m getting the Clayton Crain variant cover, so this issue is a keeper.
It also feels like a big step in the direction this series is going in. Maybe not the franchise as I don’t see X-Men United dealing with this, but maybe? They have Armageddon to hopefully dodge, and whatever the 2026 Comic Giveaway issue is. (so silly of a name)
I’m glad Jed MacKay doesn’t write the X-Men this way, but then again, his Age of Revelation was a pretty epic story, told over multiple pages, and issues. This issue is the Avengers talking at Kang, as he’s up to one of his classic Kang attacks. I think, I was looking for Storm, and any X-Men appearing. Storm gets a cool, “What is the meaning of anything, Kang,” with her hands on her hips. Kang, you are so lucky she isn’t stabbing you with all of her knives.
Scarlet Witch brings up friendships.
Screenshot
We see Juggernaut and Quentin Quire playing baseball, and jerk me, immediately asks, “these two are who you show for the X-Men?!” But right below that panel, we see Magik talking to FalCap, and the rest of the X-Men and Avengers. I want to know more about those two talking? Does Magik keep bringing up his “boy / girl thing” that he said to her in Civil War II? Then she teleported him to Hollywood, and out of the fight? I bet she brings it up.
Avengers appear to defeat Kang, but then he asks which one of them will survive the death of this universe, so we’re still rocking Kang stories for the next two issues.
. . .
Writer Brian Michael Bendis
Penciler Mark Bagley
Inker Scott Hanna & John Dell
Colorist Frank D’Armata
Letterer Cory Petit
For this big anniversary issue, Brian Michael Bendis, and Mark Bagley, one of my all time favorite creative teams, came back for a fun little backup story. We get the Big Three – Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor, chatting it up. Fighting Viper, who I’ve liked ever since she married Logan, that one time. My one problematic fave. Hulk shows up. Captain Marvel shows up. Beast, having a big start to the year. Scarlet Witch, and Wasp. We get just the best final page ever, as it is the Avengers Anniversary, in-universe, and everyone shows up!
Screenshot
Including Kitty Pryde, asking Logan, “uh, Logan? Is this an X-Men thing, or an Avengers things?” She’s the best, and we get our first Kitty Pryde of 2026!
X-Men I see : Sunfire, Sunspot, Namor, Cannonball, Logan, Kitty Pryde (not an Avenger, yet, maybe?), Quicksilver,
The People’s Princess, Crystal, is there, Tigra too. Moon Knight, She-Hulk, Monica Rambeau.
Future Scott swaps minds with Present Day Scott. He does optic blast Doug, BUT! Doesn’t even cause him a concussion. He figures out pretty quickly that Future Beast didn’t swap with him. I guess the plan was that Future Beast was supposed to deliver the death blow? Seems not like Cyclops to train for X years, just to fail at this crucial moment. I do like how he had a plan to attack the X-Men, and he succeeds at that rather well. He takes out Quentin Quire first, then Psylocke, who he was most concern about.
Screenshot
He dodges Juggernaut, realizes how he must succeed, optic blasts Magik, takes her soulsword, rude!,
Screenshot
He knocks down Glob Herman, and Beast tackles Future Scott.
In prison, and I like how this was teased in Age of Revelation Finale, so we think this is the end of the story, Future Scott is in The Brig. He explains the situation, but no one wants to kill Doug, as there must be a better way.
I really love that Doug and Bei the Blood Moon are creating their own sign language, that’s very cute. Oya reminds Doug of her time on Krakoa, which I appreciate that we haven’t forgotten she was a prisoner during that time.
Future Scott breaks out, and chats with Magneto, who sticks to his story that he is powerless, so which is it? Is he faking it? Is Age of Revelation already a splintered timeline that will be shredded from memory?
Psylocke shows up, and Future Scott is back in The Brig. Doug goes to talk to him, and dumb Future Scott just tells Doug how he’s going to take over the world by simply telling people to obey him, and geez Scott, just give him the directions to rule? This isn’t the Scott I know, which of all of the AoR characters, he is the one character we don’t know.
Issue ends with Doug, Bei, and Warlock simply leaving.
I like how Magik clearly had the thought that she wasn’t going to fight Scott, and after his attack, she grabs her soulsword, and leaves the issue. My head cannon is that she got attacked by him, and decided to go hang out with her brother, Colossus.
I also really like how this issue doesn’t try to sell you on the Age of Revelation crossover. There’s not even an editor box to tell you to read the crossover. Are you interested in where this Future Scott is from? Go check out Age of Revelation. He’s simply a Cyclops from the FUTURE! If you are interested, you can look it up. That is very new reader friendly.
I said earlier in the day, whoever has content from the panel, will get a follow from me, and that’s what I did.
So the big BIG announcement was that the Post-Krakoan Era is going to be called “From the Ashes” – which I still don’t love, as that’s a sacred title associated with my all time favorite fun of X-Men, the Paul Smith/Bob Wiacek era, but here we are.
We are getting three main teams –
Gail Simone & David Marquez on Uncanny X-Men, the clear main team
The Roster is going to be – Rogue, Gambit, Nightcrawler, Logan, and Jubilee.
So a pretty classic lineup, and if any fans of the new X-Men 97 cartoon, want a comic, this is the comic for them.
This team’s adventures will be set in Louisiana, so we can expect some Thieves Guild, but what I’m really excited about is the family dynamics of Rogue and Nightcrawler together.
plus, Gail Simone is clearly the head writer of this new era, and I love fun in my comics, so I’m hoping this is a fun new era. I’m sure there will be dark and dreary moments, but I’m hoping there’s at least an element of fun.
Marquez is quite the artist as well, so we’re in good hands.
The only problem is that . . . besides Nightcrawler and the creative team, its a team I don’t have any stakes in.
Also, how great that Uncanny is back! Especially now that we have issue 700.
. . .
The second team is my second favorite.
X-Men, written by Jed MacKay and drawn by Ryan Stegman.
The roster is Cyclops, Magik, NuOld Beast, Psylocke, Magneto, Juggernaut, Oya, and Kid Omega.
I really wish we got Magik on the third title, but then this title would be missable for me as well, but I do love it when Cyclops and Magik are together, those two are great together.
MacKay is on a career high with his Avengers run, a beloved Black Cat run, and an upcoming giant vampire theme company wide crossover, Blood Hunt. Which Magik has a one shot involved, but that is being brought to us by Ashley Allen and Jesús Hervás. But I had the thought it would be a good place to see MacKay handle Magik, but we’ll get there.
I find it interesting that Magneto is in a chair, we’re to make the connection to Xavier in a chair. Cyclops and Magneto are also a great pair, we are only missing Emma or this would be a reunion of the Bendis’ Uncanny X-Men team.
Juggernaut with a giant X on his helmet, I guess so you know where he’s hitting you when he’s charging at you?
Oya being on a main team feels like this is long overdue. Changing her name to, Temper, seems like a horrible back step, for multiple reasons. One obvious one, is that she went from a very unique name to a very copyright unfriendly name, but there’s plenty Marvel’s Temper like characters, so that’s an easy fix.
Quentin Quire is my least favorite character in all of these lineups, but I do like him when paired with Oya, so I guess they already figured that out.
This team will take place in Alaska, so that’s great for Scott, maybe he’ll visit his grandparents more often now?
. . .
Then we finally get to my absolute favorite title of the relaunch :
Exceptional X-Men!
Written by Eve L. Ewing, who I’m not familiar with, but have been recommended her Champions run, and Black Panther runs. As well as her poetry is supposed to very good.
Drawn by Carmen Carnero, who I’m also not familiar with, but from what I’ve seen, is very talented.
I also adore that this is a female creative team writing a mostly female lead roster, so that feels great too.
The Roster is – Shadowkate, Emma Frost, and three new mutants, but not New Mutants – Bronze, Axo, and Melee.
two of those names the copyright office must have really loved – but its hard to come up with original names.
took a new twitter friend to point out that this new design for Kate Pryde is very X-Men Evolution coded.
I kept saying its her original basic yellow suit, but blue, as a homage to her Excalibur coloring . . . but just writing X-Men Evolution is so much faster. That, and I never thought about her Evolution costume being her trainee uniform, but blue.
but it totally is, and just being blue, makes me not even think of it as a trainee uniform, but instead, her own unique uniform.
We’ve seen it before in the Women of Marvel V5 1 comic as well :
and it looks great every time I see it.
When Emma Frost comes to Fortnite, I hope they use that hoverboard of hers as her glider. Seems so silly to include, that there’s only one explanation for it, she’s coming to Fortnite.
There was a fan survey sent out recently that asked which X-Men people would be interested in, and the options were Cyclops, Magneto, and Colossus. Two of those makes sense to me, and I’ll probably play Fortnite again for a season if they even brought one new mutant to the game, or even one New Mutant. I love this joke.
If I had to get Colossus, I’ll probably make a series of videos, using each one of my emotes, and have him land somewhere, and emote until he was eliminated. Maybe that’ll make for a better live stream?
Issue starts with Kate becoming a barista (really putting that Mekanix bartending skills to good use), trying to get away from the mutant nonsense (that will only last for the first few pages of the title), then has to protect these three new mutants, and then gets assistance from Emma Frost.
So it is nature’s best friends, Kate and Emma, teaching, which I’m already sold on.
I really wish Lockheed had made it to the promo art, or any of the promo art. It is the only thing giving me pause, but also, I’m fully committed to Exceptional X-Men.
Also, a very fun new adjective for the X-Men to have.
Their stories will take place in Chicago, so I love how the X-Men are scattered, and I imagine that is because the X-Office wants to make it so you don’t feel compelled to get every single title, you can get what you want, and there’s no pressure to get everything.
. . .
Which is great, as we’re not just getting three titles, we’re getting all of the titles!
Phoenix, Storm, and Wolverine are all getting solos. From the Women in Marvel oneshot, it appears Storm will be going on a press tour, so no more Queen of Arakko – which really, anything would be a step down from Queen of Mars so a press tour is at least something.
I really love the return of those classic logos.
NYX is a confusing title to bring back, as I only remember it as Joe Quesada’s comic he wrote himself, that was Laura Kinney’s first official comic book appearance, and he made the ‘brilliant’ choice to make her a sex worker who cut herself.
So instead of bringing those memories back, a more friendly District X title could have been nice, but maybe it is a copyright issue? That’s why we got so many New Mutants miniseries and such, as Marvel has to keep that title published x amount of years or lose the rights to it.
I’m going to guess that this is going to be the New York team of X-Men, with maybe Laura as the lead, and maybe Ms. Marvel too? Or is her time with the X-Office over?
I made the comparison to the Avengers Initiative, where they have an official Avengers team in every state, and this launch is like that, but with the X-Men, they could actually make 50 titles (most of them one shots), and I wonder which X-Men will be on the Arizona and Montana teams.
Arizona – Rachel Summers and Betsy
Montana – Outlaw
were the first ones to come to mind
I had to look it up :
Avengers Initiative Arizona was the Desert Stars – Two-Gun Kid, Komodo, Blacksmith, Johnny Cool, and Supermax.
Avengers Initiative Montana was Freedom Force (heck yeah!) – Challenger, Cloud 9, Equinox, Think Tank, and Spinner.
Then we have X-Factor and X-Force, and a slew of all star X-Men that are still unaccounted for, so at least 16 to 20 mutants will make up those two rosters.
July 2024 is when the three flagship titles come out, then maybe the rest in August?
Free Comic Book Day 2024 is May 4, 2024, and will be the second look at this new era, after the epilogue in X-Men V6 35, which is also Uncanny X-Men 700 (for some reason – should have just called it Uncanny X-Men 700)
So I’ll be taking the family up to Kelly’s Comics in Great Falls, ideally early, and devouring the comic.
which of course, ends the Krakoan Age, and hopefully, not the last we see of Lockheed.
. . .
From the trailer, Jubilee starts a hand gesture with what looks like Mercury, who does a response gesture :
I cannot get my middle fingers to want to do the Jubilee M, and I can barely do the response one, so I have to get better at that as I want to be a mutant ally.
I also like how we have co-opted the Spider-Man web fingers. He’s had it uncontested for too long.
Also from the trailer, the Xavier Mansion is rebuilt, and this time, is a prison for someone in the basement, Inmate X. Who has to be Xavier, right?
. . .
What are you, dear reader, most excited about?
I’ll be curious to see how long we get these titles before there is a crossover, issue six? issue twelve?
The first run of Krakoan Age comics all had great lengths, so I’m hoping we get to at least issue 25 before we get new number ones.
Shadow and Flame with Magik 