New X-Men? #94

All-New, All-Different X-Men #94

“The Doomsmith Scenario!”

Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum

Summary

After all of the original X-Men (and Sunfire) leave the team save Cyclops, Professor X gets a call from Beast (currently surviving with the Avengers). Count Nefaria is back, and he’s taken over NORAD.

Rolling Commentary

Wow, it’s Page 2 and Sunfire has already quit. Apparently helping Chuck out at Krakoa was a one time deal, even though when initially asked to help out Charles was all “Dude, I could use a hand” and Sunfire was all “Sure, I’ll join, for no good reason at all!” Meh. He’ll be back eventually.

And Page 5, the original X-Men are leaving (for now. I bet we’ll see them all by Issue 100. *wink wink*), except for Cyclops (I’m totally going to add the phrase “Killed by my EYES! My cursed, mutant, energy blasting EYES!” to my vocabulary). Wolverine and Cyclops have their first power struggle (Yay!), and I guess Scott and Jean are breaking up. For now. Until she comes back to the team. Or something.

Page eight, and I guess Charles is taking me up on that complaint about the team not having any training. Cyclops is still a tightass, but at least he’s acting like a leader. And Thunderbird is apparently just insecure, which is why he’s such a jerk.

And now we start Chapter Two at NORAD. I really wish that if they’re going to do these chapter things they’d be consistent and start with Chapter One.

Page 14. Man, Count Nefaria… I mean, yes, he’s on the cover and all, but shouldn’t he be fighting the Avengers or something? And Nightcrawler makes a friend. Yay! And Beast cameos! I think he’s in his grey form, still, because he looks… off. Just a little bit. I like how the Avengers are too busy to handle saving the planet from nuclear armageddon, though.

Page 16. Ah, the confidence and bravery of the United States Air Force. Your tax dollars at work, boys and girls. Shouldn’t a doomsday weapon be, like, impossible to get to? The military really should lock down on those things, you know? And really, Nefaria, are the X-Men truly your greatest foes? Truly? They’ve only fought you, like, once before. I’d be a little more worried about Captain America, honestly.

Last page, the Blackbird’s toast and all, and wow, Claremont gets in a “rising from the ashes line in from the very first issue. But why the hell didn’t Nefaria use that disrupter beam from the very beginning, huh?

Post-Mortem

Thus begins Chris Claremont’s first 200 issues of X-Men. And it begs the question:

How the hell did that work? I mean, the X-Jet is just gone, completely disintegrated, and the X-Men are perfectly fine? What’s up with that? Nefaria should know better than to leave a tiny chance of survival for them, seriously. Plus, Nefaria’s kind of a bland character. Vandal Savage-Lite. Baron Zemo without the history or the cool costume (I know I’m the only person on the planet to like it, but still). So I’m kind of “meh” about the whole bad-guy plot.

That being said, I liked the X-Men interactions and the team workout. They’re starting to bitch at each other a lot less. Did Colossus have two lines all issue, though? Grr. And Sunfire leaves because he can, I guess. Since I know what’s about to happen, I’m glad Thunderbird is getting as much screen time as he is, all things considered. And Wolverine seems to have quite a few one-liners thrown in that have been surprisingly humorous. So my official stance is “hoorah” to good characterization and “meh” to bland villains. For the record. Up next! Someone dies! And Nefaria is going to get his ass handed to him (probably)! Don’t miss the X-Citing conclusion (and how many times to you think I’m going to have to write that in my life? A lot, probably)!