X-Men #5

By Brian Wood, David Lopez, Cam Smith, & Laura Martin.

This Battle of the Atom tie-in features the ladies of the X-Men team attempting to track down Jean and Scott after the two decided to run from the present and future X-Men teams. This is the first issue in the event not written by Brian Michael Bendis, and we start to see some really great character development within its pages.

While this book does not lack for action, the meat of the issue lies with the interactions between the characters. Wood does a fantastic job of illustrating how divisive this event is going to be through the interactions of the X-women cast. A lot of what we see in this book stems from the conflicts in the last issue, but Wood works these moments of conflict into the story without slowing down the main plot line. Woods use of the characters gives a humanizing aspect to the story, and drives the point home that this event is splintering the X-Men further than they already are.

The tone of the book is matched well with David Lopez’s art. The simple style really does go far to illustrate the key moments in the book. Lopez does a terrific job of illustrating the moments of  inter-character drama, and really captures the emotion. He has a spark for capturing the emotion on the page and doing so in a simple, non-cluttered way.

This book fits in well with the action from the first two issues and does so without sacrificing the characters for the action. Wood has one more issue to pen in the crossover event, and I hope that it turns out just as well as this one.