Tuesday, November 12, 2013

All-New X-Men #17 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

OK, if you can past the insanity that Dazzler could one day become President of the United States, this issue drops some important clues to where we're going.

First, Dazzler is killed on the night of her victory by a demon.  (The most affecting moment of this issue is a devastated future Hank sitting next to Dazzler, who he convinced to run for President in the first place.)  Future Hank tells future Colossus and future Iceman that Dazzler's death is proof that humans will always hate mutants.  It seems to be the moment that causes the schism in the team, with the original future X-Men taking a more Brotherhood approach, if you will, than the new future X-Men.  The problem, of course, is that I'm not really sure why Hank would draw that conclusion, since it doesn't seem to me that your average human could summon demons.  (Paging Magik anyone?)  But, it does seem to at least set up why we find ourselves with two teams of future X-Men.

However, even if the original future X-Men broke from the new future X-Men because they're disillusioned with Xavier's dream, it doesn't clarify why they would've come to the past in the first place.  We still don't know what they're trying to prevent.  Why are they willing to die (as Jean Grey was) to "save" their future, if their future doesn't look too shabby?

Next, future Quentin comments to future Iceman that, if original Bobby stays in the future, then he's going to have to watch Bobby hit puberty all over again.  It implies that original Bobby would've been in the present long enough for present Quentin to see him hit puberty, implying that future Bobby is actually future-original Bobby not future-present Bobby (similar to "Xorn").  If that's the case, what happened to present Bobby?  He doesn't seem to be Ice Hulk, since future-original Bobby implies that he created Ice Hulk with his powers.  In fact, thinking about it, it implies that the future we're seeing is the future if the original X-Men stay in the future.  But, we still haven't seen any of their present counterparts.  Where did they go?  Which Beast is future Beast?  Moreover, it seems to make clear that the goal here is to prevent both timelines related to the original X-Men coming to the present -- the original one and the future one -- from happening.  Is someone going to kill present Hank before he can make the trip?

Finally, can I say that Immonen is spectacular here?  The scenes of future Alison's victory speech and the chaos surrounding it are stunning, some of the best action and emotional work that I've ever seen.

We still have a lot of questions to be answers, but I'm still happy to be on this ride.

2 comments:

  1. Men.. you lost me with all that -new future from the present past- characters, I wil try to read it when the arc is over and see if I can understand it-

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  2. Dude, seriously, you're not the only one. My head hurts writing up these "Battle of the Atom" reviews!

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