I’m annoyed, my retailer didn’t have the Skottie Young variant… I always buy the Skottie Young variant!
Anyway, as for the comic itself, it’s… interesting.
Instead of layering the reader with a lot of backstory, we get two pages of light poetic exposition then we’re dumped ‘in media res’. Jubilee is heading ‘home’ with a baby she ‘adopted’ but is being followed so she calls her X-Men friends to lend a hand. John Sublime shows up at the school just in time to warn everyone about five minutes too late that he has a psychotic sister who is apparently much worse than he is.
I kinda can’t help being a little disappointed that the all-female X-Men team is going to be fighting a female for their first enemy. It seems to be a trend lately that in female team books they have to go after a female villain. Such as Le Fey and the Doomaidens in Fearless Defenders. I don’t read any of the current female solo books so I don’t know if they have the same issue so it could just be the team books. In any case, I would have much rather seen the gang fight Sublime himself than creating a ‘sister’, basically the equivalent of a “Lady Sublime”, instead.
That being said, the writing is very well done. Often writers, when trying to make strong female characters or a female team, go too much out of their way to say ‘this is a strong character/team’ instead of just letting them exist organically. With the exception of Jubilee who has perfect characterization to be where she is with adopting the orphan, all the other women are were they are simply because they are. No muss and no fuss about it.
Characterizations are quiet good as well, no one is acting out of character or even worthy of a raised brow moment. I was worried that Wood might put Rogue in line with how Remender is writing her but thankfully Wood has Rogue as sassy (note: not bitchy) as always. Though the train part I didn’t quite understand, I mean, if she trashed the first three sections wouldn’t the back half still keep going towards the other train? Did she move the sections with the people off the track? I have no idea but apparently the day was saved so I’ll go with that.
This title has a lot of expectations on it being that it’s from Wood, an all female cast, and has some heavy hitters in it who carry a large fanbase. It was a good, solid opening act… we’ll see where it leads from here.
X-Men: The (fan fic) Series 