Who would've thought that what essentially amounts to a history book could be so charming? Ed Piskor's retelling of the X-Men's winding, whimsical continuity is an absolute pleasure. Read Full Review

I believe X-Men Grand Design will become the definitive Cliff's Notes version of the X-Men Universe. Read Full Review

Piskor doesn't hold back from some of the stranger elements in the X-Men's backstory, including the Stranger and (finally) Lucifer. The only truly objectionable thing here is that the second issue abruptly stops and the back of the issue states that more issues of X-Men: Grand Design won't be coming until "late 2018." That just stops the momentum of this series dead in its tracks. Read Full Review

The art continues to be excellent and the story weaves in so much, but a lot of it is so obscure and strange it's hard to get excited. Read Full Review

Fantastic second chapter that reads well combined with the first one but also leaves you wanting more and that's a good sign. Too bad we have to wait a long time.
Art is great and fits the book well.

Still awesome, but this issue will need to be part of the bigger whole. Not a great stand alone or jump on point. It abruptly starts and abruptly ends.

Ed Piskor grinds through 1964-1970, ending with some of the darkest and dumbest days in the X-Men canon. The team goes to the Savage Land, twice, and beats Sentinels, twice, and defeats Mutant Master, twice, and beats Magneto - thrice! Variety! Xavier fakes his death for the first time and Nick Fury responds by breaking up the team. I respect the way Mr. Piskor grapples head-on with frankly weak material. He strives to create a unifying story by tying as many points as possible into Phoenix foreshadowing. This theme just isn't as strong as the biographical look at Professor X in the last issue, though. The art remains endearingly distinctive. I'm less enthused with the increasing vocabulary glitches (using "rampage" as a transitive verb, confusing "adorn" and "adopt," etc). Whether they're honest editing oversights or stylistic faux-indie put-ons, I just don't like them.

An interesting question: Mr. Piskor's mentioned in interviews that this issue obliged him to summarize material by his "least favorite writer in comics history." Do you reckon it was Arnold Drake? Or might Mr. Piskor have a mad-on against Roy Thomas? Or perhaps even Gary Friedrich? My money's on Drake. But then this was the golden age of blah X-Writers. Claremont up next, hooray!
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As good as the first issue, but... part three will be released in 'late 2018'??????

How is that huge time gap even possible??? I'll have to re-read the whole thing again by then.