Welcome to the Oblivion Bar where the first round is on me and the pretzels are free! Be warned: like the pickled eggs at the bar, this issue is going to get SPOILED rotten.

Ok, so this always comes off sounding bad.... and sometimes it can be... but this was a REALLY quick read. I’m going with 6 minutes max. That said, it was fantastic. The basic layout of the issue was set up with huge splash pages of art filled with old school X-men vibes. Taylor is hitting home run after home run with this book and anyone interested in an X-book really needs to add this to their pull list.

Let’s start with a quick overview of Red. So, Jean is forming her team together and their new base of operations is with Namor underwater. Casandra Nova has created nanotechnology that places nanite sentinels in the brains of humans and mutants alike to cause fear and hate towards all mutants. As awful as this is to say, it’s genius. She’s artificially spreading hate around the globe. Well, X-Red as figured this out and created suits that will keep them safe from the nanotech while they go out and attempt to put a stop to this once and for all.

This issue opens with Cassandra Nova getting the Polish President to sign a law basically making mutants public enemy number 1. He then sends the government to track down all mutants on his soil and round them up. We then jump to the man who shot and killed that little girl who was a mutant in issue 4 who was with Gambit. He’s in the hospital being treated.

Gambit breaks into the hospital to not only figure things out, but maybe to get some vengeance too. It’s not stated since he is unable to go through with any course of action because Jean and X-Red appear there waiting in the room. Jean linked her mind with Trinary and went into that man’s mind and found one of Casandra Nova’s nanobots. Together, Jean and Trinary were able to use both their abilities to basically turn off the nanobots in his brain. After doing so, the man crumbles realizing what he did. He never wanted to hurt anyone but the nano-sentinel forced feelings and actions into him that he would never have done normally.

Nightcrawler teleports them all out of there with Gambit, who I guess will also be joining the team, to a freshly painted new Sentinel-X with rainbows and pots of gold. This is basically a hollowed out Sentinel that X-Red is using to fly around as a team. The team loads up in Sentinel-X and heads to the borders of Poland to protect a large group of mutants trying to leave the country.

Taylor does a great job of showing a team of heroes working together. He’s been great at this for a long time now. If you don’t believe me, just take a look at Injustice. Some writers have a difficult time incorporating multiple heroes in a story... but not Taylormade! He shows Trinary using Sentinel-X as s shield, Jean stopping bullets with her mind, Nightcrawler teleporting Wolverine and Honey Badger in for combat, Gentle “Hulking” out to protect mutants, and Namor throwing around his diplomacy in order to save these mutant civilians. This shouldn’t be overlooked. It is hard to give everyone in a team book a job to do during a fight. It’s hard to give value to all characters throughout the story. Taylor does a fantastic job with that, which ultimately leads us to another reason why this is by far the best X-book out right now.

Since the battle was taking place on the ocean border, Namor basically tells the Polish government to back off while he gives these mutant civilians free passage through his oceans. He threatens them by saying if they don’t allow them to leave with him now, he will not let Poland fly over or use his waters ever again. Needless to say, the Polish government backs off allowing the people to leave. As the mutant civilians leave, Jean basically Vulcan mind melts the Polish humans and mutants together so the humans can feel and understand what their actions are truly doing.

Jeans logic is to use truth to fight hate. It was an interesting strategy to implement and I’m interested to see where that strategy will lead as we go through the series. If you knew how hurtful your jokes were that you said to your friends sometimes, would you continue to poke at them? If you could truly feel how much you hurt them, would you continue to hurt them? It’s an interesting theory that I hope Taylor continues to play with.

Jean is a leader. She may be THEE leader the X-books have been searching for all along. To me, this book is a “Fresh” look at the X-men that’s not confusing, straightforward, and easy to follow. Pick it up and add this to your pull.



If you like what you heard, love talking all types of comics, and are interested in joining a comic chat group, hit me up at dispatchdcu@gmail.com or @dispatchdcu on twitter. Catch you all later! Peace