Friday, December 7, 2012

All-New X-Men #3



Brian Michael Bendis continues his run on X-Men, this time changing focus over to Cyclops and his band of mutants. Brian Michael Bendis has been doing a fantastic job so far and this issue is no exception. 

We start out this issue with Cyclops revealing his plans to start a new mutant school. He plans to base it in the old headquarters of Weapon X. Then we see him and Magneto breaking out Emma Frost from prison. During this scene an important fact is brought up. It appears that mutants exposed to the Phoenix force from Avengers vs X-Men have had there "mutations broken" and thus can no longer fully control and use there mutations. After this we see a conversation between Cyclops and Magneto which demonstrates some more of that fantastic Bendis dialogue. In the end we see another new mutant showing up, Cyclops goes to try and convince this new mutant to join him in his "revolution". However when he gets there he comes face to face with himself.

This was a really strong issue. We get an insight into the mind of Cyclops and how he feels knowing that he killed his own farther. Bendis uses his fantastic dialogue skills to pass across this emotion. His take on Magneto is particularly good and could be my favorite rendition of the character yet. However you can tell that Bendis doesn't quite have a full grasp on all the X-Men's personalities yet. His Emma Frost seems a little out of character yet this is not a major problem. There is more action in this issue than there were in the past two. However it is not over-used and splits up long dialogue sequences to keep you interested. We see the story tie together with the previous issues in the final page. I look forward to seeing the story continue and finding out how Cyclops plans to regain his and Magneto's full mutations.

The art in this book is great, I was looking forward to seeing Immonen draw more action based scenes. In the previous issues his take on action has been great, you could see the emotions of the characters leaping out of the page. However, in this issue it all gets a little bit muddled because he uses too many explosions. His take on the characters in the book is once again fantastic. He does a great job of portraying emotion from the characters and blending it in with the background. His Magneto and Cyclops are particularly good and there powers look amazing on the page. 

Overall, another great issue! This is a very character driven book, the action takes a back seat while the characters and story are really explored. The cast is strong, displaying something for everyone out there. If that's the sort of book your interested in I would strongly suggest picking it up! 

Writing - 4.5/5
Art - 4.5/5
Overall score - 4.5/5

-Simon

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