Posted in: Comics | Tagged: marvel, marvel comics presents, return of wolverine, uncanny x-men, wolverine, x-men, X-ual Healing - The Weekly X-Men Recap Column

The X-Men Have Disassembled… Was it Worth It? [X-ual Healing 1-16-19]

Ten weeks after the return of Uncanny X-Men, the first big storyline, X-Men Disassembled, concluded in this week's Uncanny X-Men #10. We saw the ending of all of the X-books from the ResurrXion era, as well as newer titles like X-Men Red, canceled to make way for this. Was it worth it? Are you happier with the state of the X-books now than you were 10 weeks ago? Let us know in the comments (after reading this week's recaps, of course), and also in this poll:

Sworn to sell comics for Marvel executives who feared and hated the fact that Fox owned their movie rights, The Uncanny X-Men suffered great indignities, but with a corporate merger on the way, the X-Men can finally get back to doing what they do best: being objectively the best franchise in all of comics.

Uncanny X-Men #10
(W) Ed Brisson, Kelly Thompson, Matthew Rosenberg (A) Pere Perez (CA) Giuseppe Camuncoli
From the Age of Apocalypse to the end of the X-Men…and the dawn of the AGE OF X-MAN???
Rated T+
In Shops: Jan 16, 2019
SRP: $4.99

The X-Men's multi-issue battle with X-Man and his Horseman of Salvation comes to its conclusion in this issue. Omega Red, Magneto, Blob, and Storm, all mind-controlled by X-Man, who is also currently inhabitting the body of Legion, face off against every mutant ever to be a member of the X-Men. Cannonball goes for the early knockout, but it turns out that nigh invulnerable when you're blasting isn't the same thing as totally invulnerable when you're blasting, and X-Man deals him some pretty serious injuries. Psylocke, with the help of Angel, stabs Storm in the head with her psychic sword, freeing her from X-Man's control. Storm immediately goes after X-Man with her full goddess fury, giving Jean Grey and the other telepaths a chance to separate X-Man from Legion, the shock of which also frees the other Horsemen. They go after X-Man now, but that's not good because Jean is now trapped in his mind. Inside, she shows him all the pain he's caused, which convinces him that he's been on the wrong path. He doesn't decide to drop his crusade, however. This just convinces him that the only solution is to get rid of all X-Men, so he erases everyone at the scene of the battle from existence. In an epilogue, a back-to-life Cyclops provides exposition with an inner monologue. The world was happy to be rid of the X-Men and the government released the mutant cure to the public. Things are looking grim for mutants, and now Cyclops will have to fix everthing.

We've got Cyclops coming back in next week's X-Men Annual and then in Uncanny X-Men #11 to rebuild the X-Men from the ground up alongside Wolverine. Meanwhile, all the other X-Men will spend the next few months as part of the Age of X-Man alternate reality event. The future of the X-Men is filled with possibilities. Hopefully, Marvel won't screw it all up.

Here's the poll again, in case you don't feel like scrolling up:

And here's the Wolverine's Weiner X-Pick of the Week award, which this issue wins, though there wasn't much competition.

Congratulations to the creative team.

Return of Wolverine #4
(W) Charles Soule (A) Declan Shalvey (CA) Steve McNiven
Can Logan handle the truth of what he's done?
Parental Advisory
In Shops: Jan 16, 2019
SRP: $3.99

Wolverine wakes up in a hospital with no memory of his battle last issue with the X-Men. Luckily, his companion Ana is there to explain that his claws got super hot and he wrecked the city, causing the X-Men to flee. Also, seeing there was no point in fighting a guy with hot claws, Soteira released Ana's son, Peren. She then tries to have sex with him, but Wolverine is such a prude that this shocks him into realizing something is very wrong here. Ana tells Wolverine a story about how most people live boring lives and then die, but they're effectively dead their whole lives. Not like Wolverine, who's a super potent, virile man with really hot claws. Then she shoots Peren. As it turns out, she's not really Ana. She's Persephone, the leader of Sotiera. And everyone in the city is dead, including Ana and Peren, and Persephone is able to control their bodies, but no matter how hard she tries, she can't make them truly lifelike enough to fool herself, even if they fool everyone else. She reveals that she convinced the X-Men to flee lest she make Wolverine murder everyone in the city (the X-Men didn't know everyone was actually dead either). Persephone invites Wolverine to come find her on a rocket ship and learn the secret of his return to life.

Well, if we can say one thing about this series, it's that at least it will be over next issue. Plus, it will have Steve McNiven, the originally announced artist for the comic, back on the book. Then Wolverine can move on to Uncanny X-Men with his best friend Cyclops to rebuild the X-Men again.

Marvel Comics Presents #1
(W) Charles Soule, Ann Nocenti, Greg Pak (A) Paulo Siqueira, Tomm Coker, More (CA) Arthur Adams, Federico Blee
THE CLASSIC MARVEL SERIES RETURNS FOR MARVEL'S 80th ANNIVERSARY!
Three titanic tales celebrating the first decade of Marvel stories! First – an all-new tale of the man they call the Wolverine begins in the 1940s! Then comes Captain America, the first Avenger of World War II still fighting for freedom today! And finally, the untold tale of Namor and the atom bomb!
Rated T+
In Shops: Jan 16, 2019
SRP: $4.99

While not truly an X-book per se, Marvel Comics Presents features a serialized Wolverine tale as its lead story. Set during World War 2, Wolverine joins some soldiers in trying to save a French witch who is being forced by Nazi soldiers to call forth a demon. The demon incinerates everyone except the woman, her daughter, and Wolverine, and unfortunately, she's too injured from the battle to control it. Luckily, Wolverine is there to keep it busy while she recovers, doing what he does best: tanking. The woman manages to banish the demon, but it costs her her life. Before she dies, she tells Wolverine to take care of her daughter because the demon will be back one day and only her daughter can stop it.

The next story features Namor, also set during World War 2, after the surrender of the Germans but before the end of the war with Japan. American generals want Namor to help them out some more, but he's tired of war. They convince him to go stop some Nazi scientists who survived and went to South America to build a giant killer robot, but it turns out that was just a distraction so they could bomb Hiroshima. When Namor finds out, he heads there and witnesses the destruction. He figures out the Americans have another bomb they plan to drop, and he heads to Nagasaki to stop it, catching the bomb in mid-air, though it still explodes. The Americans don't know if he survived (spoiler: he did), but they're not sure he would be on their side anymore after this.

The final story features Captain America, set in the present day.  A young girl named Kelly, riding a bike, witnesses Cap, on a motorcycle, performing some superheroics. He talks to her after the battle, and she offers to bring him home to her house, where there are some tires he can use to fix his bike, which has a flat. Cap agrees, and wants to fix up her dirt bike as repayment. When he mom gets home, the mom is mad because her daughter is going to use the dirt bike to perform stunts, spurred on by Captain America. Cap agrees to talk to her, and when he finds her about to perform a jump over a landfill, he doesn't talk her out of it. Instead, he appreciates that she's taken safety precautions and he does the jump with her. Later, he tells her mom that she needs to let her be herself.

It's a serviceable if unremarkable start for the relaunched anthology series, though with just one serialized story and two one-shots, instead of two serialized stories like the old one used to have. In addition to the serialized Wolverine story, each issue will feature a story looking back at political issues from history (like the Namor story), and one spotlighting a Marvel hero in general (like the Cap story). It's unclear whether this will last more than a year, but if it does, it could provide an opportunity for Marvel to try out new things that wouldn't work right off the bat as their own series.

Next week, Cyclops returns in Uncanny X-Men Annual, an event so important, it's the only X-book coming out that week. See you then!

Read more X-ual Healing here:

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