All New X-Men #18 is an excellent example of entertaining, balanced storytelling by Bendis. This book in particular is a great jumping on point for new readers. Aside from Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, readers can point to this series as Bendis at his best. I still wonder how long the young X-Men can continue to stay in the future, but given what happened here its probably going to be a while. Get comfortable because Bendis isnt done with All New X-Men. Read Full Review

As ever, a fun, breezy script by Brian Michael Bendis, and fantastic art by Stuart Imonen and Wade Von Grawbadger - there's a lot to like here, and I'm curious to see where it all goes from here. And I can't help but hope that the team sticks around for a good long while. Read Full Review

All-New X-Men #18 is the perfect example of why Bendis is great on the X-Men. The issue is fully of character and humor; I laughed out loud in several places. The characters and their drama are compelling. I am far more interested in seeing them work out this relationship drama than I am in seeing them punch super-villains. And the art by Immonen is some of the best of his career. Everyone looks so dynamic, especially in the faces, with vibrant colors and expressive body language. Read Full Review

All-New X-Men #19 is an excellent comic from a superstar creative team. Bendis & Immonen are on fire and I am excited to see where they are taking this series. Battle of the Atom is in the rear view mirror and the All-New X-Men are here to stay, count me in for the long haul. Read Full Review

Yeah, what is a relatively tame issue is beautiful in its characters and small moments. Read Full Review

It’s a refreshing issue that’s light enough to let readers regain their footing after Battle of the Atom while not letting itself fall into a lull either. Read Full Review

Simple and good jumping on point for All New X-Men which sets them on a new journey. They are on their own now with the aid of Kitty and together they have a lot more potential than they did at the Jean Grey school. With the focus back on them we can now address things that were forgotten when the issue of sending them back to their time was still a concern. Good things are coming for this team and we all know what that means for those who kept track of the next event to unfold for this team. Read Full Review

All-New X-Men gives new and old readers of the X-Men titles more of what we'd expect — drama and conflict. The team will have to overcome love squares, the modern world, villains, and its own membership. In comic book terms, it's a tremendous list worth checking out on a month to month basis. Read Full Review

After the let down of ‘Battle of the Atom' this issue was refreshingly enjoyable. It wasn't perfect and I still have issues with some of the decisions that were made without any clear explanations quite yet, but it was a fun read. We're clearly not done with the ‘All-New X-Men' quite yet and won't be for awhile, but if the stories can remain this enjoyable, that's fine! Read Full Review

It's great that Bendi decides to add Magik to the case. She has always been an interesting character, but not too much chance to shine. I also really like it when the original X-Men received new costumes. ”I feel like an All-New X-Men.” Cheesy. Read Full Review

Overall this was a really good comic post Battle of the Atom and a perfect place for new readers to jump on. Read Full Review

It's time for the next chapter for the original X-Men. Brian Bendis and Stuart Immonen are taking the team (and Kitty Pryde) in a new direction and there's no telling what will happen next. Bendis moves the story forward while continuing to flesh out these characters, adding to what we already know about them. These are no longer simply the "original" X-Men. Bendis is evolving them further due to the new experiences they are facing. The setting may have changed for the characters but we're still going to get the same old fun that Bendis has been delivering since this series began. Read Full Review

When it comes to the story, I like where this is going. It'll be cool to see how the original X-Men interact with the new recruits down the line. Especially Teen Scott meeting Emma. That should be interesting. Read Full Review

The first issue after the major cross over was a huge success, and it will be interesting to see where Bendis and Immonen take this. There is a lot of tension built up this issue, and it should lead to good story telling. Bendis and Immonen score again. Read Full Review

I couldn't be happier that Bendis is on these X-Books as he's able to capture all the drama and character moments that I loved about the X-books in the past. Read Full Review

Stuart Immonen remains on board in the aftermath of Battle of the Atom. Naturally, his work is clean, engaging, and visually dynamic even though the script involves little more than talking heads. His art is as much responsible for differentiating this series as any other element. It's good to have a less stylized and more traditionally superheroic look at Cyclops' faction of mutants to offset the art in Uncanny X-Men. Read Full Review

"All New X-Men" #18 is marketed as a jumping on point for new readers, and in that regard it is mostly a success. The main plot points of the series and of the "Battle of the Atom" are distilled to the bare minimum, and the exposition is not overdone. If readers are new to the X-verse entirely, there will be some head scratching surrounding characters like Magik and the Stepford Cuckoos, but the abundance of familiar faces, minus Wolverine of course, should be enough to get the audience on board. Brian Michael Bendis does a good job crafting a story that will appeal to new and old readers, even if it is mostly setup, and Stuart Immonen's art is as enjoyable and emotive as always. And there are spiffy new uniforms! Read Full Review

Though this isn't a really game-changing issue, its a nice bit of talky dramatics going into the next chapter for the Original Five. Read Full Review

So the X-Men have a new look, and now they just need a new direction; it's hard to care about characters when you don't know why they're behaving the way they are, but Bendis is normally good at making motivations clear so we'll have to trust that he'll clear some of this up in due course. Read Full Review

"All-New X-Men" is a book that, even more than most comics written by Bendis, is clearly paced for greater enjoyment in a collected format. There's no doubt that I'll enjoy this a great deal more when paired with all of the other issues around it. But as a single issue, it's just all right, primarily because of the stunning art from Immonen and Von Grawbadger. I appreciate what Bendis is trying to accomplish here, but 18 issues into the series, at some point the pace needs to pick up a bit. Read Full Review

I guess taking a breather after a big event makes sense. But the result is another standing-around-and-talking issue where there is a good amount of soap-opera character moments and expository conversations, but very little else. Immonen provides great character acting, especially with faces. But I did notice that he seemed a bit averse to depicting the young members of the Uncanny team. They were almost always shown at a distance, in shadow, or from behind. Maybe he's not comfortable with those characters yet. This begs the question, what's the difference between the Uncanny book and All-New when both groups have merged? Essentially, Bendis is now telling a single story that ships 3x a month. I'm not at all impressed with the 90's-reminiscent costume designs (what's with the X symbol on their bellybuttons?) Taking away the original costumes removes the nostalgia factor that made the characters so attractive to begin with. And this is a nit-pick on top of the larger critique, but if you're going to color-code them, why make the two men of the same approximate build and hair color have costumes of a barely discernible color difference? At the end of the issue we have a Cerebro alarm, so maybe next issue (or rather in the next Uncanny X-men) we'll get into an actual story arc of some variety. more