I was reluctant to read this issue, to say the least. In fact, I think that I've been on my recent "Spider-Man 2099" binge in part because this issue was on the top of my new comics stack and I was essentially avoiding it. Kitty's abrupt departure from Logan's team at the end of "X-Men: Battle of the Atom" still bothered me; it was hard to get excited about an issue dedicated to the subject.
The good news is that I liked it better than I thought I would. I was pleased to see that Bendis is keeping the focus on Kitty and the original X-Men, treating them as a separate team and not integrating them into the Brotherhood itself; this issue wasn't just "Uncanny X-Men" from a different perspective. After all, the original X-Men have a lot of their own issues to process, from Jean's developing powers (and blind rages) to the burgeoning love-triangle between her, Beast, and Cyclops. I didn't want to see those stories hijacked by the Brotherhood's craziness and Bendis manages to avoid that problem. In fact, Bendis uses the Brotherhood to push the original X-Men into confronting their issues. Jean's argument with the Stepford Cuckoos seems unlikely to make her less prone to the aforementioned blind rages; Hank and Scott realizing that there are other fish in the sea is probably going to complicate the team's romantic entanglements. In that regard, the change of scenery seems to have worked in terms of shaking up the status quo without discarding the previous sub-plots entirely. Moreover, Bendis gets to return to building the bond between Kitty and the kids that he was building before "X-Men: Battle of the Atom" hijacked the title.
The bad news is that Kitty must've been lobotomized somewhere during this process. She seems to have completely forgiven Scott and Illyana for any problems that they've had in the past. Bendis even gets cute when it comes to Kitty and Illyana, with Illyana unexpectedly trying to hug Kitty and Kitty instinctively phasing and apologizing when Illyana falls through her into the snow, yelling, "You are not a hugger!" Although I once wanted nothing more than see these two characters get the band back together, it seems impossible to believe that Kitty can so easily look past the disagreements that drove her from Scott and Illyana in the first place. To be fair, Illyana seems a lot more penitent than Scott. She's re-developed some sort of capacity for emotion and I was glad to hear that she's continuing her tutelage under Dr. Strange. For this reason, I'd buy Kitty cautiously engaging with her, making it clear that she's willing to have Illyana re-earn her trust. But, instead, she just totally embraces both Illyana and Scott, as if Scott's crusade was the right decision all along. It disregards the fact that she's there because she thinks that it's the best for the kids, not because she thinks the Brotherhood is on the right side of Professor X's dream. It's a disappointing development, to say the least.
(Moreover, if she can forgive the two of them so easily, why is she still so mad at Colossus, as she seems to be here? Also, I was also beyond peeved at Bendis having her dismiss her relationship with Bobby as a low self-esteem moment. Why would that be, exactly? Their relationship seemed to be one of equals, of old friends viewing each other in a different light. After all, she made her decision about Bobby as an adult, as opposed to her relationship with Colossus, which she entered as an adolescent. Is she taking a page from Jean's book, ditching him (as Jean did Henry) the minute he didn't agree with her? I expect more of Kitty and, frankly, Bendis.)
In other words, it's a mixed bag. I'm glad that we're focusing on the kids (the new costumes are rad), but I'm worried where we're going with Kitty. We shall see. I'm giving it three stars since I'm invoking my right to ignore continuity and be happy to see Kitty and Illyana together, but I'm putting Bendis on notice that flexibility is only going to go so far.
*** (three of five stars)
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