Marvel released two anthology issues to mark “Divided We Stand,” the next phase of X-Men comics after the “death” of Professor X and the “disbanding” of the X-Men by Cyclops. Each issue had multiple stories. This post is just on issue #1.
Story #1, by Mike Carey and Brandon Peterson, had Cannonball visiting his family and taking out his anger about the X-Men breaking up on locals, during a bar fight. Meh.
The second story had Gentle returning home to Wakanda with Storm.
Like most of the stories by Craig Kyle and Chris Yost about the X-student body, it’s excellent. Gentle finds himself unwelcome in Wakanda because he is half Russian and, apparently, Wakandans don’t like foreigners. I didn’t know they were this biased, though. At the end of the story his own mother tells him he shouldn’t have returned, and he sits alone missing his friends.
The third story, by Skottie Young, is about Northstar checking up on Anole. I haven’t cared about Northstar since the days of John Byrne and Anole is a barely developed characters so…Meh again.
Chris Yost writes another script for the fourth story, wherein Hellion wakes up from his coma to find that the X-Men are disbanded and the school is closed. Feeling angry and abandoned, he seeks to join up with Magneto and get revenge on the X-Men.
Magneto tells him to calm the f–k down and wait a bit. Because Magneto, like all of us readers, knows that the X-Men will be back.
Finally, Matt Fraction writes (his first?) X-Men tale. Nightcrawler tracks down Scalphunter and forgives him for his role in trying to wipe out the X-Men. It’s short, but well done.
Overall, I give this a C+. There are a couple average tales but a few strong character pieces that work well in a collection like this.
English (US) · 