Uncanny X-Men v3 #31 Review and Spoilers

[AgentFelix]

We open with the preview pages and things progress very quickly from there. (I mean it's a Bendis wrap up issue amirite?). A few pages of the new kids sitting with Xavier talking about what to do while the Cyclops hologram tells them to board the Blackbird to the JGS. Xavier asks where the JGS School is. I guess he doesn't like the answer because they never go. Which is good tbf because Mathew Malloy is throwing his toddler temper tantrum all over the lawn, continuing to say he didn't do things and didn't mean to do things while his powers act as a passive defense force.

We see Rachel tell the kids to gtfo and head for the tunnels, while Storm is pushing him. All of a sudden Beast turns and yells "NO!" as the kids failed to follow instructions and instead charged the lawn. Storm summons her inner Descartes and ascertains that the best course of action is to try to strike Malloy down with a single big ass bolt of lightning before the children can get close enough to cause any problems. Matthew Mallow's personal ADT system then kicks in and zaps the students and staff with green lightning turning the entire JGS into a cruise missile crater.

Now we flash to the past where we see Eva and young Xavier preventing Malloy's parents from ever meeting. They jump forward to the day Xavier first met Malloy and visit his house to find a different family living there. Deciding their work is done, Eva transports Xavier back poolside and starts to question him about possible butterfly effects. He brushes her off in a bluntly honest "it's too late for that bullshit lady, you started this" kind of way. In the second most beautiful exchange of the story arc we get

You are either the greatest or worst mutant in the history of mutants.

Right back at you Professor.

Eva then talks to Xavier about Cyclops and tells him that she can't blame himself for it, that Scott is a grown man and responsible for his own actions....but that she'll take care of it. She reassures Xavier that his dream still lives and uses Magneto's turn (again) to good as an example. She then departs for the present as he warns her that there will be a cost for what she's done.

We then jump forward to the present at the Will reading and see She-Hulk read that Scott has been left the school and Ororo is the alternate. Eva appears on the lawn, where Scott rushes out to meet her. She tells him what went down and that he caused the death of himself, and "countless others". She tells him all of these things that happened in this original (alternate?) timeline. He then tells her she's out of the school. She retorts with "I know Summers. I just graduated." She time hops away, and Scott walks back in and tells the others he's leaving the JGS to Ororo, and asks her to take in his students at the NXS. He walks out to a silent room and a bewildered Kitty and Magik.

/scene

Of note for continuity geeks, the editorial elongation of this story was fixed in a silent way. Wolverine who was present in issues #23-#27 and then ostensibly disappeared after the probable ending time was changed makes no appearance at the will reading. There's probably 2 paragraphs worth of rambling to be had here but I'll move that to my Timeline geek thread.


Thoughts:
Entertaining arc, probably BMB's best on UXM. But far too long, even if it was editorial's fault. It suffers from the same thing most of his X-Men books do. They're entertaining as you read them, but when you go back and look at them in hindsight you go "that's all that happened?" Eva was clearly the mark he sought to leave on the franchise but being that this is his swansong, it has yet to be seen if she becomes more Kitty or more Armor.

[Kieran_Frost]

SPOILERS IN MY POST; DO NOT READ IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE SPOILT!!!

LOVED IT!!! Such a great issue; and some really major surprises I was not expecting. I was not expecting that much of a "time reversal", I was not expecting Xavier and Eva to make that choice, I was not expecting Scott to shut the school, was not expecting Eva to "graduate." I know some will hate it, I know some will feel cheated; but truthfully... how could this story have ended? Mallory was unstoppable, he couldn't be killed and he couldn't control it. How would you have ended it? It's a HUGE step forward in character growth for both Scott and Eva. It's not "and nothing happened." SHE REMEMBERS! It was a complex story, with a frankly impossible choice (and one that ultimately was monstrous; it was murder).

I loved it, I loved nearly every issue of it; it was a fantastic character study, and seeing choices and actions (even if all undone) that I was not expecting, but loved. Emma's utter grief at Scott's death, Illyana's sound judgement, Ororo (for all her words) taking on Mallory in revenge for Scott's death. So many wonderful moments... I'll treasure this arc, it's been my favourite of this run, and possibly one of my favourite X-arcs of all time.

For those who say: nothing happened. The same is true of Days of Future's Past or Age of Apocalypse. Didn't stop them being beautiful stories.

[Fokken]

I'm sorry but THIS review/summary makes the issue sound exciting.
Well done. And NOW I'm looking forward to getting my copy.

[Beezzi]

I'm shell shock by how anti-climatic this turned out to be...

Eva Bell's involvement, proves that Bendis knows how to play the long game. She was solely created for this moment and to solve this problem. And that's not how mutant powers are suppose to be use by a writer. They are not a "get out of jail free" card.

Basically nothing in Bendis' run has lead to anything. Not Xavier, not Mystique, not Malloy, not the "revolution", not the new school, not the Kitty stuff, not BoTA, not the new evil brotherhood, etc.....

Every writer leaves a mark or a legacy when they end their X-Men run. Sometimes it's good one and sometimes it's bad. But what's Bendis' legacy? Nothing he did has really stuck or has had any lasting impact...

[AcesX1X]

all those months of hard work just to have cyclop give up. wtf

[AgentFelix]

I'm shell shock by how anti-climatic this turned out to be... Eva Bell's involvement, proves that Bendis knows how to play the long game. She was solely created for this moment and to solve this problem.

Basically nothing in Bendis' run has lead to anything. Not Xavier, not Mystique, not Malloy, not the "revolution", not the new school, not the Kitty stuff, not BoTA, not the new evil brotherhood, etc.....

Every writer leaves a mark or a legacy when they end their X-Men run. Sometimes it;s good and sometimes it's bad. But what's Bendis' legacy? Nothing he did has really stuck or has any lasting impact...

That entirely depends on if anyone picks up Eva as the Kitty/Jubilee/Armor+Pixie/Hope+Idie.

But if history proves itself, everyone wants to make their own "Kitty/Jubilee" and that's why Fraction never wrote an Armor panel after Whedon to instead emphasize Pixie and why Aaron made Idie his star female at the JGS, intentionally separating her from the rest of the 5 lights.

[Beezzi]

all those months of hard work just to have cyclop give up. wtf

Yip, you got it...that's the climatic ending to Xavier's will. You know the thing that was suppose to change the X-Men "FOREVER!"

[Beezzi]

That entirely depends on if anyone picks up Eva as the Kitty/Jubilee/Armor+Pixie/Hope+Idie.

But if history proves itself, everyone wants to make their own "Kitty/Jubilee" and that's why Fraction never wrote an Armor panel after Whedon to instead emphasize Pixie and why Aaron made Idie his star female at the JGS, intentionally separating her from the rest of the 5 lights.

True... good point. Eva might be his lasting mark. Although I hope not, her powers are way too ripe for exploitation by future lazy writers...

[DurararaFTW]

Can we talking about what's really important? The survival of Sir Bennet du Paris, Agent of SHIELD?

[Hariel0079]

Well Eva didn't kill anyone technically unlike logan in AoU... so there's your loop hole to the butterfly effect I guess!?

[AgentFelix]

Well Eva didn't kill anyone technically unlike logan in AoU... so there's your loop hole to the butterfly effect I guess!?

Wolverine obviously already permanently broke time, duh. Tempus just took the shattered remains and threw them in the garbage disposal.

[DurararaFTW]

Well Eva didn't kill anyone technically unlike logan in AoU... so there's your loop hole to the butterfly effect I guess!?

Yeah, but changing the daily intinerary of Charles Xavier, a guy who directly or indirectly decides the fates of many mutants, and often the whole planet even slightly is gonna change a lot. Earth could've easily not been there anymore.

[Beezzi]

Well Eva didn't kill anyone technically unlike logan in AoU... so there's your loop hole to the butterfly effect I guess!?

Wolverine obviously already permanently broke time, duh. Tempus just took the shattered remains and threw them in the garbage disposal.

Yeah, but changing the daily intinerary of Charles Xavier, a guy who directly or indirectly decides the fates of many mutants, and often the whole planet even slightly is gonna change a lot. Earth could've easily not been there anymore.

I don't think Bendis thought that in-depth about it...He just needed Eva's powers to be a quick fix to a problem he had. The implications of this is gonna drive canon geeks crazy for years to come. Wait...maybe that's Bendis' legacy.

[Narasinha]

One more "Deus ex machina" solution used to nullify large changes (the death of many main characters) and trivial ones (Xavier's wedding with Mystique which we now know was just introduced for trolling). That's lame...

And what to do with Eva now? She now know that she can travel in time to affect major, specific, changes without any side effects or consequences. Why stop at preventing Matthew from being born? Why not go and "fix" a lot of other problems? Guess it will never be resolved or Bendis will use another cheap way out to prevent that from happening.

[Beezzi]

One more "Deus ex machina" solution used to nullify large changes (the death of many main characters) and trivial ones (Xavier's wedding with Mystique which we now know was just introduced for trolling). That's lame...

And what to do with Eva now? She now know that she can travel in time to affect major, specific, changes without any side effects or consequences. Why stop at preventing Matthew from being born? Why not go and "fix" a lot of other problems? Guess it will never be resolved or Bendis will use another cheap way out to prevent that from happening.

So eloquently put - you took the words right out of my mouth. This is precisely the problem with this issue and Bendis' whole run on Uncanny and ANXM. :-)

I'm really hoping Bendis' kills her off (he most likely won't, because as Felix stated, she's his Kitty now). Her power's are too much of a poisoned chalice or fruit of temptation for future writers. She can nullify anything - she's the solution to every problem dressed in a mini-skirt.