So what’s going on in the big X-books lately? Spacetime chaos and teenage self-interest, that’s what.
We’re three chapters in to X-Men: Battle of the Atom, the X-event that brings to a head the lingering questions about the long-term ramifications of plucking your past selves out of the past and letting them live in the present. The big conceit when Brian Michael Bendis took over the X-books was that he had Hank McCoy go back in time and bring the original five X-Men forward to the future, ostensibly so New-School Revolutionary Cocksmack Scott Summers would look at his young idealistic self and be shaken out of his current path of being a killer and an asshole. That trick didn’t immediately work, but the O.G.X. 5 had seen enough of the fancy future that they decided to stay, and for some reason everybody thought that was a perfectly fine idea. What’s the spacetime continuum worth, anyway?
Once upon a time, there was an easy out for this kind of scenario. It used to be that when any Marvel character attempted to go back in time and mess with history, it instantly created a branching timeline that split off from the main one, leaving that one unaffected – hence stuff like the Council of Cross-Time Kangs, where versions of the time-traveling conqueror Kang from every different timeline he created got together and decided Kangy things. They used this trick in J.J. Abrams Star Trek, when Leonard Nimoy Spock went back in time and his younger self somehow became Zachary Quinto, to preserve the Old Trek continuity while giving themselves free rein to reinvent the wheel with New Kirkiness. Alas, at Marvel, this fundamental rule of the universe no longer seems to apply. Everyone’s got their own interpretations of how time travel works – and now, thanks to Age of Ultron, every one of them is valid, because everything’s gone haywire. If that’s what it takes to get me more Spider-Man 2099 action over in Superior Spider-Man, though, I’m all for it.
The initial impression that the first three chapters of X-Men: Battle of the Atom (the first two written by Bendis and the third by Brian Wood) leaves us with is that everybody’s being kind of selfishly irresponsible about the whole concept of screwing around with time. Admittedly, I haven’t been reading the BendX books, because my relationship to Bendis scripting is like a strawberry allergy – it tastes kind of neat at first, but prolonged exposure flares up some annoying adverse reactions. Therefore, I don’t know if he’s dealt with the Time Variance Authority (“timecops” recently seen in Avenging Spider-Man, much to Otto Octavius’ chagrin) or anything like that, but I’d bet that he hasn’t. We could chalk this conceit up to Marvel stuff, since folks like the Two-Gun Kid have jumped forward in time and hung out for a while, but this storyline keeps insisting it’s dangerous, and that everybody knows it’s dangerous, but gosh darn it, they like having the kids around and the kids like being around, so let time unravel all it wants!
Here’s the Battle of the Atom story thus far: An angry mutant named Animax attacks Phoenix, Kitty Pryde and the OGX5 (or the OGX4, since Angel defected to Old Cyclops’ Uncanny X-Men) go to stop her, Sentinels attack, Old Cyke and The UXM show up to help, one of the Sentinels briefly kills young Scott, which blinks old Scott out of existence until a healer named Christopher Muse brings young Scott back from the brink, and old Scott back from the blink. That freaks everybody out, and suddenly the Jean Grey School X-Folk get Serious about sending the OG5X back to where they belong. Of course, they don’t want to go back, because they are certain that Professor Xavier of that time will just wipe their minds to preserve the time stream and they won’t get to remember all of their good, fun times, and Jean Grey will be destined for Phoenixy doom. So the OG5X act like the teenagers they are, yelling “STOP TELLING US WHAT TO DO” and the adults are yelling “IT IS FOR YOUR OWN GOOD AND ALSO THE GODDAMNED SURVIVAL OF ALL EXISTENCE” and then suddenly a hodge-podge of weirdo X-folk come pouring out of the time cube to take the side of the adults – including an old Katherine Pryde, an old hooded Deadpool, an old one-horned Beast, a guy claiming to be Charles Xavier’s grandson, a grown-up Molly Hayes from the Runaways, a giant monster version of Iceman and a lady Xorn.
That first issue required three artists – Frank Cho, Stuart Immonen and the illustrious Wade Von Grawbadger. Cho manages to make himself stand out with a ridiculous Kitty Battle Booty shot, but overall, it’s pretty well done, although I still hate Old Cyke’s stupid x-face.
The next chapter is in All-New X-Men #16, from Bendis and Immonen, which is a big debate ended by Jean freaking out that she can’t read any of their thoughts, forcibly popping Wolverine’s claws to start a fight so that she and Young Scott can sneak out and steal the Blackbird to run the hell away (although it bears noting that she asked Young Hank first, since they are sort of a thing now, but he put science ahead of his lady). Meanwhile, Lady Xorn reveals she’s actually Adult Jean Grey. Alive again, or just the natural extension of young Jean in this timeline? It looks to be the latter, since Kitty Pryde is old-lady looking and this Jean looks like standard-issue adult woman – plus, she mentions a promise Kitty made her. Immonen’s art is very cool here, although I’m quietly dreading how obnoxious Bendis writing Deadpool will end up being. So far, it’s just a few quips in the background.
Part the Third is where Brian Wood and David Lopez take over for X-Men #5, following Young Jean and Scott’s run from their destiny, ditching the Blackbird, stealing clothes from a clothesline and taking off on somebody’s motorcycle, while the Hanks – Young, Middle and Old – reveal a second X-jet called The Dove to go chase after them. However, after catching up to them, Kitty and Rachel Summers flip away from the ‘forced return to the past’ M.O. and help the couple escape from their friends and the future X-Men… but that just means the only place they can think of to go is the husk of Utopia, to meet up with Old Cyke and his crew of revolutionaries. Lopez does a fine job as well, but might I say that the nearly-identical black thigh-high boots/underpants/boob window looks for Magik and Emma Frost seems rather unimaginative.
The whole thing boils down to one exchange in Wood’s book. On the motorcycle, even Young Cyclops admits that “We’re putting people in danger. We’re putting reality in danger.” Jean’s response is “Sure, it’s dangerous, but life is dangerous.” That is ridiculously reckless, and it makes you want to sneer at the kids, but at the same time, they are kids. By and large, responsibility and extreme selflessness don’t come naturally to teenagers, and this is likely going to turn out to be the story of how Jean learns it the hard way. And maybe Cocksmacklops learns it, too.
Then again, the whole spacetime flux thing isn’t going to be settled until next year’s rumored event where the 616 Marvel Universe goes up against the Ultimate Universe or something like that, and it’s bigger than just these five X-kids out of time. Wolverine jumped back and forth to kill and unkill Hank Pym and helped it along, plus there’s the Infinity madness with all the otherdimensional incursions and such. There’s a chance this will all end as unsatisfactorily as Age of Ultron did, and maybe another hole rips in the fabric of reality, and maybe this time another Todd McFarlane relic will show up in the Marvel Universe. My money’s on Tony Twist.
