X-Men #1 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

I honestly don't have too much to say about this issue, though that's not really a bad thing. The idea that John Sublime has a Cassandra Nova-esque sister out there, with the ability to infest technology instead of people, is certainly bound to deliver an interesting story for this introductory arc.  (My main question at this stage is how Jubilee's baby transfered the virus to the train, given that he appears to be human and not robot, but Wood makes it pretty clear that the child is supposed to be an enigma at this stage.)  However, the main challenge of this issue was to show, as Wood himself acknowledges in the letters page, that the all-woman cast wasn't merely a gimmick.  Wood does that well here, in part because he wisely decides to ignore the issue entirely. Perhaps alone among team books, the X-Men have always had one of the strongest rosters of compelling and powerful female characters.    It therefore makes perfect sense that Kitty, Rogue, and Storm would respond to a distress call without having a male member of the team with them, just like it makes perfect sense that Psylocke and Rachel can handle John Sublime on their own.  By making these developments feel entirely natural, Wood plays to the X-Men's strengths, namely their diversity and their relationships.  It's not exactly the most spectacular first issue of a new series that I've ever read, but it definitely gets the job done (and gives us a fine looking John Sublime to boot).