By Brian Michael Bendis, Chris Bachalo, Kris Anka, Marco Rudy, Tim Townsend & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-609-0
When the teenaged “First Class†of Charles Xavier’s X-Men were brought into their own future and our Now (see All-New X-Men: Here Comes Yesterday) they initially stayed with the teachers and students of the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning.
However after the tragic events of X-Men: Battle of the Atom, Hank “the Beast†McCoy, Bobby “Iceman†Drake, Warren “the Angel†Worthington, Scott Summers, young Jean Grey, teenaged female Wolverine clone Laura “X-23†Kinney and the School’s Head Professor Kitty Pryde defected to the mutant terrorist band known as the Extermination Team.
During the cataclysmic events of Avengers versus X-Men the staunch and steadfast elder Cyclops – transformed and possessed by the overwhelming Phoenix Force – had killed his beloved father-figure Xavier.
In the aftermath Old Summers united with old comrade Magik and former foes Magneto and Emma Frost in a hard-line alliance devoted to preserving mutant lives at all costs: even, if necessary, by sacrificing human ones. This new attitude appalled many of their former associates and created a schism in the ranks of Xavier’s many protégés.
Discarding Scott, his surviving team-mates Beast and Iceman sided with second generation X-Men such as Wolverine, Psylocke and Storm: staying true to Xavier’s dream and opting to protect and train the coming X-generation of mutant kids through his traditional methods at the Jean Grey School.
The two opposing sides of the mutant question clashed constantly, as the modern world experienced constant challenge and attack from all quarters. Amid the rising chaos new mutants began appearing in increasing numbers, all with more impressive talents than ever before.
Through careful orchestration, brilliant media massaging and by avoiding visibly unprovoked acts of violence, Cyclops’ Extinction faction began winning the trust and respect of many oppressed sectors of humanity: the poor, the disenfranchised, the rebellious, the young…
Following a very public humiliation of the Government-sponsored human/mutant team Uncanny Avengers, the internecine mutant conflict heated up when Summers – utterly convinced of his species’ inevitable eradication at human hands – offered a place to any Grey’s School student wishing to join his own academy – the New Charles Xavier School: a covert college dedicated to training mutants to fight and survive rather than placidly wait for mankind to turn on them…
The bold ploy succeeded in luring away Angel and the psychically conjoined Stepford Sisters – Celeste, Mindee and Phoebe, before the situation was further muddied when both X-Men and Brotherhood of Mutants radicals from the future travelled back to address the issue of the time-displaced First Class.
As a result of that “Battle of the Atom†Cyclops found himself offering sanctuary to his youngest old friends, his callow earlier self and the girl who had given her life for him… twice…
With Uncanny X-Men volume 3, #14, 15.INH, 16-18 (January-May 2014) scripter Brian Michael Bendis and primary illustrators Chris Bachalo & Tim Townsend take a deft turn into a lighter tone, beginning with ‘Initiation’ (offering additional inking by Jamie Mendoza, Al Vey, Mark Irwin & Victor Olazaba) as the new kids bond with the extraordinary other students through the shared pain of Elder Cyclops’ draconian physical training regimen…
In a quieter moment Emma takes the unprepossessing Benjamin Deeds under her wing; fascinated by his seemingly feeble ability to make himself physically and psychically likable and trustworthy…
For a field test, she unleashes the nervous lad at a gambling palace in Atlantic City before setting a more risky task: waltzing into a high security S.H.I.E.L.D. facility to hand-deliver the mutant band’s ultimatum to America’s paramount paramilitary peacekeeping force…
Kris Anka then limns issue #15.INH – an offbeat tie-in to the then-ongoing Inhumanity Publishing Event. During the previous blockbuster Infinity, Thanos invaded Earth and battled the Inhumans’ ruler Black Bolt to a standstill.
As a last resort the embattled king released the Hidden People’s mutagenic Terrigen Mist into the outer world’s population where it would create millions more super-mortals, proving that human and Inhuman were not necessarily different races…
When Frost and Pryde accompany the academy’s girl contingent on a sybaritic shopping-fest in London, they encounter Latverian tourist Geldhoff just as his Terrigen-triggered transformation completes. However, whilst trying to convince him to return with them to the New Xavier School, they succumb to the panicky trans-human’s explosive new power, allowing obsessive A.I.M. geneticist Dr. Monica Rappaccini to swoop in and add Geldhoff to her rapidly expanding collection of potentially profitable specimens…
All along Magneto has been playing a double (or even treble?) game; regularly betraying the mutant outlaws to S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Maria Hill, whilst also telling Cyclops at least some of what he’s doing for her.
Now (with art by Bachalo & Co), after meeting with S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Dazzler, he is lured to the island of Madripoor to discover that Machiavellian shapeshifter Mystique has created her own mutant utopia in the former rogue state. He never returns to the New Xavier School…
Undaunted by the loss of a faculty member, the tough-love/education continues as the kids are dumped in the middle of a hostile nowhere and told to survive the monsters residing there. However one of the kids makes a huge mistake and even Nick Fury Jr. and the Avengers cannot save him from Cyclops’ harsh and very final judgement…
The drama concludes in psychedelic style (courtesy of Marco Rudy & colourist Val Staples) as Cyclops and his appalled team return to base and discover that Jean has been abducted by the alien Shi’ar. Also missing is Kitty Pryde and the rest of the time-tossed First Class…
This triggers a brutal flashback to the recent moment when Scott and Kitty lethally “negotiated†the terms under which she and her charges would join his group and his subsequent painful conversations with his teenaged-again One True Love and baffled and betrayed younger self.
And now he has to face the fact that they are gone and he cannot save them…
To Be Continued…
With cover-&-variants by Bachalo & Townsend, Anka and Alexander Lozano, plus another photo-cover featuring TV sensations from Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., as well as the usual digital extras accessible via the AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which give access to story bonuses once you download the free code from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet, The Good, the Bad, the Inhuman is a smart, sassy and amazingly engaging read: a fun-filled, fury-fuelled saga which craftily combines incredible adventure with clever characterisation and a mere modicum of furious Fights ‘n’ Tights action that no comics fan could possibly resist.
™ & © 2013, 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.