X-Men

• Title: Uncanny X-Men #26
• Comic Vine: link
• Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
• Artist: Kris Anka

In an attempt to fulfill the final wish of Charles Xavier, the unlikely force of Rachel, Cyclops, and Wolverine go after an Omega-Level Mutant whose knowledge of his immense powers Professor X wiped from his mind. With the professor gone, those memories are returning making the man a potential danger to every living being on the planet.

Without getting specific about just what powers the man controls, Uncanny X-Men #26 sets up the mutant as a major threat who S.H.I.E.L.D. will gladly take all the help it can get to neutralize before things spiral out of control.

The issue brings up two subplots worth keeping an eye on in Iceman‘s boiling rage against Scott Summers for Xavier’s death and in the conflict of Cyclops’ young mutants when discussing the reasons for the existence of a training program pitting them against the Avengers. Both foreshadow potentially messy situations for Cyclops and possibly his entire team. Worth a look.

[Marvel, $3.99]

• Title: All-New X-Men #31
• Comic Vine: link
• Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
• Artist: Stuart Immonen

With the instructors busy with other business, the time displaced X-Men along with the returned Angel and X-23 (whose new relationship is cause of great interest for the entire school) set off to find and rescue a young mutant just coming int her powers. However, what the group doesn’t yet know is the type of her mutation and how her uncontrolled ability to open doorways to alternate dimensions will leave on member of the team stranded in the Ultimate Universe.

Although I think it’s very possible for these characters and this comic specifically to get time/space dimension fatigue beginning so quickly after wrapping up a storyline involving villains from the future, Brian Michael Bendis’ choice to bring Jean Grey into a universe he knows so well (he did help create it after all) does open the door for some intriguing possibilities as long as the arc doesn’t overstay its welcome (a problem the title has had issues with in the past). Worth a look.

[Marvel, $3.99]

• Title: Magneto #7
• Comic Vine: link
• Writer: Cullen Bunn
• Artist: Gabriel Hernandez Walta

Magneto‘s vagabond mission across the globe to unearth who is behind the rise of attacks on mutants leads him to Hong Kong based on the intel provided by his new friend Briar Raleigh. Allowing himself to be taken prisoner, Magneto wakes in a prison where he is put into combat against a Predator X for the enjoyment of paid spectators whose thrill of the fight swiftly evaporates when they discover just who they’ve let in the building.

Although the mutant-hunting creature is harder to deal with than at the peak of his powers, Magneto uses the Predator X’s strengths against it before turning his fury on those in charge of the operation. Despite the fact that the reasons for Cyclops and Emma Frost‘s power loss was explained a month ago (a finale which involved our lead character), Magneto’s power loss hasn’t been fixed (or apparently even yet explained) in this issue. In the overall scope of things Magneto seems to be lagging behind the other X-books. Of course that may be why Marvel has put two issues of the series out in less than a month. Worth a look.

[Marvel, $3.99]