X-Men: Battle of the Atom has been one of the best X-Men crossovers that the franchise has had in recent memory. The creative teams behind this crossover have done an excellent job bringing together past, present, and future X-Men teams together for one giant story. Now with Uncanny X-Men #12, Brian Bendis returns to write another chapter of Battle of the Atom that will fully integrate Cyclops X-Men team into the crossover. How will Cyclops X-Men presence affect the direction of this story? Let’s find out.
Creative Team
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Artist: Chris Bachalo
Inkers: Tim Townsend, Mark Irwin, Jaime Mendoza, Victor Olazaba and Al Vey
Colorist: Marte Gracia
Story Rating: 5 Night Girls out of 10
Art Rating: 6 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 5.5 Night Girls out of 10
Synopsis: On the S.H.I.E.L.D Helicarrier one of the S.H.I.E.L.D agents informs Maria Hill about some temporal displacement readings coming from the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning. Maria knows that Hank McCoy is responsible though Dazzler tries to calm her down by saying that she shouldn’t jump to any conclusions. Maria says that she knows that it is Henry and orders Agent Colson to send those that don’t belong to this era back to their own time period before the X-Men blow up the moon. Dazzler wonders what she means by that and Maria says she had a dream that the X-Men blew up the moon.
On Utopia Past Cyclops and Past Jean Grey are telling Present Cyclops about their current predicament. Some of the students of the Xavier Academy are stunned to see past and present versions of Cyclops talking to one another while the Stepford Cuckoos question Past Jean on her power-level. Emma Frost is quick to point out that Past Jean isn’t that powerful and tells the Cuckoos and Past Jean to set up mental links with all of the X-Men.
Emma, Past Jean, and the Cuckoos use their powers to link all of the X-Men minds so that everyone can learn about the situation with the sudden appearance of the Future X-Men team. Magneto wonders if that could really be Xavier’s grandson and Magik says that it is because she has seen them first hand. Before Magik can elaborate further she decides to teleport away from Utopia. After some further discussion on the situation at hand Past Cyclops and Past Jean ask the Uncanny X-Men for help.
On the Pacific Coast Highway Xavier’s grandson is trying to track down Past Cyclops and Past Jean with little success. Even though the other X-Men disagree with them Kitty Pride and Rachel Grey continue to believe that the original X-Men should decide whether they should stay or go back to their timeline. Kitty then asks Wolverine for his opinion on the matter. Much to the dismay of Kitty Wolverine says that he still believes that the original X-Men should go back since they never belonged here. This does not sway Kitty’s opinion but before the X-Men can argue further Xavier’s grandson says he still can’t locate the two runaways. Future Beast tells Xorn (Future Jean) that they should change their method. Xorn says that she suddenly hears something.
Back on Utopia, everyone is waiting for Present Cyclops to make a decision about what to do with Past Cyclops and Past Jean. Present Cyclops says that he’s decided to help the two runaways. Emma disagrees with this decision, believing that Present Cyclops still has a soft spot for Jean Grey. Magneto also voices his own disagreement with this decision, saying that Present Cyclops is letting his feelings for Xavier’s death and lost innocence being the driving force behind the decision. Past Angel suddenly speaks up and says that since learning about what the Future X-Men says that they should go home. Past Cyclops and Past Jean wonder what caused Past Angel to speak up all of a sudden.
Just then Xorn and all the other X-Men appear which causes Past Jean to freak out. Past Jean tries to tell Past Cyclops that they have to run away but Xorn has used her powers to freeze everyone. Xorn then quickly overpowers Past Jean with her psychic abilities. Before Xorn can knock Past Jean out Emma and the Stepford Cuckoos appear unfazed from Xorn’s initial attack. Emma then challenges Xorn to a psychic battle. End of issue.
Commentary
The Good: Uncanny X-Men #12 is an awkward middle chapter for X-Men: Battle of the Atom. While this latest chapter introduces more players into this conflict between the past, present, and future X-Men it never went past the introductory period for these characters. The truth is that we don’t really get any new material until more than halfway into this issue.
If there is one thing that I am continuously impressed with Brian Bendis run on the X-Men franchise it is his understanding of the voices for each character. No two characters sound alike which gets you to buy into the different opinions that are shared between the different groups of X-Men. Even when Emma, Magneto and Past Angel are basically saying the same thing Bendis gives them character-specific dialogue that keeps you invested in their opinions.
This also highlights one of the most interesting parts of Battle of the Atom being that there are divisive opinions within each X-Men team. Bendis gives each side of the argument time to voice why they believe that the original X-Men should stay or go. This helps make up for the fact that we haven’t been presented with a true bad guy in this story. Instead of being a battle between good and bad this is a story about our heroes having to choose between the lesser of two evils in what they should do with the original X-Men.
As someone that never thought of Cyclops in a bad light, I continue to enjoy how Bendis is using this story to paint the character in a much more positive light. Seeing Cyclops decision line-up with Kitty and Rachel’s opinion adds an intriguing wrench into this conflict. This now brings in the possibility for Cyclops, Kitty and Rachel to lead another X-Men team since we did see how Cyclops and Kitty got along in the first part of this story.
Making things even livelier was the fact that the decision that Cyclops makes was the final breaking point in his relationship with Emma Frost. Even though Emma has continuously questioned Cyclops decisions in their post-AvX status quo she has always done it in private. This is the first time where she clearly calls Cyclops out and firmly disagrees with his decisions. It was refreshing to see Emma return to her more aggressive White Queen persona as she is finally done taking orders from others.
With this issue involving characters just standing around talking Chris Bachalo youthful artwork helped push this slow issue forward. Bachalo’s artwork actually helped to make the awkward attempts at comedy tolerable as he is able to provide the characters with the right expressions that fit their dialogue.
The Bad: The biggest problem that Uncanny X-Men #12 had was the fact that it took 15 pages to actually get into the meat of the story. Even when we got some new content it never felt like Bendis was trying to give us something new. Instead, Bendis seemed happy stalling until he got to the last page where he delivered the hook ending that leads us into the next chapter of this story.
Bendis had a great opportunity to show us some different character interactions with Past Cyclops and Past Jean Grey talking with the Uncanny X-Men. Instead, Bendis seemed satisfied with rehashing dialogue from previous issues instead of taking chances with how this was the first time Past Cyclops and Past Jean interacted with other heroes without the Jean Grey School X-Men around to cover for them.
The same goes for the interactions between the present and future X-Men teams. There was nothing new given to the readers outside of Wolverine finally talking after silently following what others say. Even Xavier’s grandson’s failure to find Past Cyclops and Past Jean got old after the first time he said it. Instead of everyone just standing around listening to Kitty’s rant Bendis could have moved the story forward by letting the present and future X-Men interact with one another more. It’s something we haven’t seen in this story that could’ve helped break up the recap nature of this issue since the focus has been on Past Cyclops, Past Jean, Xorn and Kitty.
Overall: Uncanny X-Men #12 failed to provide us with any substantial development in the Battle of the Atom. Brian Bendis never seemed comfortable moving the story forward because he was saving most of his material for later chapters. It’s a shame because there are some genuinely interesting elements within this issue that are overshadowed by the recap nature of this issue. I am still invested in the Battle of the Atom but Uncanny X-Men #12 tempered my excitement for this story. Hopefully, Jason Aaron is able to revive my excitement in Battle of the Atom with Wolverine and the X-Men #36.