Blog

Publisher: Marvel
Writer: Craig Kyle & Chris Yost
Artist: David Finch
Cover: Adi Granov

Minor Spoilers!

“Second Coming ch. 1”: Cable and Hope have been hopping through time since she was an infant in the hopes of  trying to stay one step ahead of former X-Man and their would be assassin, Bishop.  He’s determined to kill the child, fearing that she will bring about the horrific future timeline that he grew up in.  Now, 17 years (for Hope and Cable) of time traveling and near death experiences have culminated to this event, as they have finally made the leap home back to the 616 Universe.  The problem is that home is a much different place than it was when Cable left, and there are still others in this current timeline who want Hope just as dead as Bishop does.

The X-Men are currently recovering from the events of Necrosha, and Cyclops is updating the team on the deaths of three mutants.  This is significant due to their already low numbers, and as of now there are only 181 mutants left on the planet.  After everyone has left the briefing room, Cyclops allows himself a brief time to grieve by blowing a hole in a wall, right before he’s informed by the Cuckoos that a new signal has been detected by Cerebra; it’s Cable.  Cyclops quickly gets the X-Men mobilized across various parts of the country, but sends his Alpha roster straight to the remains of the old X-Mansion where the signal was picked up.  At the same time, Cable and Hope are under attack by The Right (anti-mutant hate group), which has been supplied with advanced tech and weapons.  Just when our two time traveling X-Men have disposed of them, some idiots from the Sapien League (yet another anti-mutant hate group) show up. Coincidence? Hell no!

Cyclops’s Alpha roster arrives on the scene and things get extremely dangerous.  After capturing two members of the Sapien League, Wolverine begins to interrogate him while his partner looks on.  When one of them is a little hesitant to give the X-Men any info, X-23 decides to pop the claws to the surprise of the other members, who then want answers from their teammates because somebody knows something and they ain’t talkin’…yet.  We leave New York and go to Washington D.C., where we are introduced to our lengthy list of bad guys who want all mutants extinct at all costs; the guy in charge of it all is a familiar face that’s been a pain in mutant kind’s rear for a while!

Now X-Men: Second Coming has been hyped for quite some time, and during that time we were just flooded with more and more questions and we’re all hoping that the answers come with this event here.  I will admit that this issue played out better than I anticipated, and Kyle and Yost have a good handle on the characters, which made for several interesting conversations.  Having Scott “manipulate” Namor was pretty clever in showing that Scott probably knows his team better than they know themselves, and also made for a funny moment.  The story itself  is a nice set up and just fun to read, which is why I read it twice!  I did notice some hints of the X-Tinction Agenda storyline from 1990, and I’m not bothered by it too much, as long as the writers of Second Coming forge their own path making it worthwhile for the fans.

David Finch brings his talents to us in this issue, and delivers page after page of quality visuals, but I’m noticing that there is something about the way he draws Namor that’s just “off” to me and I’m not sure why.  At the end of the book we get a brief dossier of the major players in X-Men: Second Coming done by various artists, and though it barely scratches the surface about the characters, they are nice intro pieces. And is it me, or is Adi Granov’s regular cover just way better than Finch’s variant?

This cross over has poetential to be better than the recent Messiah Complex and Messiah War stories, as well it should since it’s the final act in the trilogy.  Let’s hope it doesn’t start with a bang and end with a fizzle.

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