This review contains some spoilers for The X-Men #3, on sale now from Marvel Comics
There's an old cliché when it comes to comic book crossovers, where you ask yourself, “How 'important' is this tie-in issue to the overall crossover?” and that is, “Is the tie-in written by the writer of the main crossover series? If so, then there's a good chance that the tie-in will be an important tie-in to the overall crossover story” (with the tie-ins written by Jonathan Hickman and Grant Morrison, during the Infinite AND Final Crisis crossovers, respectively, being 100% NECESSARY to fully understand such crossovers).
With Jed MacKay now writing both the main Avengers title and one of the three main X-Men series (and the one that has three issues on the shelves before the first issue of X-Men Exceptional came out), following his work has become a key way to get a feel for important events in the current Marvel Universe, and this continues in The X-Men #3 (by MacKay, artists Ryan Stegman, JP Mayer and John Livesay, colorist Marte Gracis and letterer Clayton Cowles), in which MacKay echoes his current Avengers storyline with a story about the dangers of inaction when mutants were attacked by Orchis in The Fall of X.
Related
Every Original Member of the X-Men, Ranked
The original X-Men, such as Cyclops, have continued to lead Marvel's mutants, along with some of the team's earliest recruits, such as Havok and Polaris.
Why did Cyclops turn against the United States of America?
In the current Avengers story arc, Captain America and Captain Marvel have both been haunted by the fact that the Avengers were unable to do enough to protect Earth during the Blood Hunt crossover (also written by MacKay, of course), and while Captain America had some guilt over Blood Hunt being quelled by a chat with Storm (while trying to see what a well-known hero leader thought on the matter), it only made him feel MORE guilt over how the Avengers hadn't done enough to stop the rise of Orchis, the anti-mutant organization that ultimately made a major push against the X-Men at the end of the Krakoan era. During the actual Fall of X, Orchis held the lives of billions of humans in its hands, and thus the X-Men couldn't actively fight back until that was resolved, so it made sense that the Avengers hadn't stepped in THEN (and by the time the X-Men had that problem resolved, the Avengers had jumped right into battle against Orchis), but Captain America rightly noted that the Avengers probably could have stepped in sooner to stop Orchis BEFORE he was powerful enough to hold an entire planet hostage.
In this issue, Cyclops has the same, but harsher, complaint against the US government. They could have done something about Orchis much sooner, but not only did they NOT do anything about Orchis, they tacitly SUPPORTED Orchis, in favor of the whole “The X-Men became so powerful after founding Krakoa, maybe we want to give some support to a group that can keep them in check” thing. The “From the Ashes” era of the X-Men takes place a few months after the end of the Krakoa era, and as a result, we obviously missed a lot of important events; MacKay hinted at some of these in the early issues of the series, such as an “Iron Night” in San Francisco, and now we see that Cyclops had some sort of tentative agreement with the government that he decided to ignore in favor of having the X-Men set up home in a former Orchis Sentinel factory in Alaska (the factory had previously been destroyed by the Avengers once they were given the green light to get involved in the attack on Orchis during X-Fall).
The highlight of the issue is definitely Cyclops's talk with government agent, Lundquist, as Lundquist reveals that the public now knows that there are ADULTS who are experiencing an expression of the X-Gene, and it appears that this happens when they come into contact with other mutants, leading the public to believe that the X-Gene may actually be CONTAGIOUS. Cyclops, however, explains why Lundquist should be happy that Cyclops has kept his X-Men as isolated as they are, especially when Cyclops notes that his roster is filled with such powerful people, especially those who have had a history of antisocial behavior, that his X-Men could easily be a “Brotherhood of Evil Mutants” in his place.
Why does Temper have a new code name?
As they speak, however, Lundquist has sent agents to block the X-Men from accessing Cerebro (so they can't search for new mutants, like the powerful mutant the team secretly secured in the previous issue), and that's where Stegman, Mayer, Livesay, and Gracia really get to let loose in a series of epic fights between the X-Men and the agents. The art in this series so far has been really dynamic and everything pops off the page in a meaningful way (Gracia's colors really accentuate Stegman's artwork with some bold color choices).
There's a large cast of characters in this series, and MacKay gives them room to grow, including the team's lesser-known member, Temper, who is notable for being the only member of the team who had a bad experience on Krakoa (she was thrown into the X-Men's punishment pit for breaking one of Krakoa's central rules, which was to not kill humans). MacKay has her explain her new codename, “Temper,” in this issue in a chat with Magneto, one of Krakoa's central architects…
MacKay also created a conflict between Cyclops and Rogue in this issue, as the leader of one of the other major X-Men teams in The Mysterious X-Men has a different view of things than Cyclops, and obviously we'll see that come to the fore in the future. This was a strong issue that continues MacKay's exploration of the negative effects of inaction when Orchis began his anti-mutant operations.
The X-Men Issue 3 is now on sale.
Source: Marvel