X-Men #4
Feels nostalgic, the best way to feel about any book right now during Marvel NOW!. While every other book is bouncing off of the shared world Marvel has created, X-Men has found a way to break free and stay grounded. Back to old school heroics as Woods pointed out we’d get and it made for something chill from the ladies of the X-World.
The one thing we were told to expect from this story was tension over how the team approached certain situations. That is what we saw here as Ororo has taken control of the team and words are exchanged on how things should be handled. This is what I wanted to see because this is still the first time most have been together since the schism of the X-Men and each have gone their own way, and have changed as well since they last saw each other.
The biggest plus I’ve seen so far to this book is that Woods is having fun with these characters. Between their interactions and just their reactions to the situations they find themselves in. This is mainly pointing to Rogue who for a while now we haven’t seen anyone really take advantage of her powers. It’s nice to see her trying something new and on the front line. Then we have Wolverine and Jubilee who we have not seen together since she was trying to control her vampirism, something which had held back her character from being as happy as we can remember. With the baby, that is now possible again and it is even heartwarming knowing how young she still is. Woods took the opportunity to give her some depth again since this allowed Jubilee to look at her past compared to where she is now.
We have definitely been taken back to school. And while that’s all we’ll get of this experience as X-Men heads into Battle of The Atom, we can only hope that Woods shifts back to this kind of storytelling because no matter how far the Marvel Universe expands or grows, no school is better than the old school.
