All-New X-Men #27

By Brian Michael Bendis, Stuart Immonen, Wade Von Grawbadger and Marie Gracia

The Brotherhood of Evil X-Men from the future make a surprise visit to the HQ of the Original X-Men from the past. The Brotherhood creates confusion using mental and shape shifting abilities to assault the X-Men. The confusion isn’t confined to the attack. Brian Michael Bendis starts to unfold the Brotherhood’s origin that also relied heavily on two of the founding members shape shifting and mental abilities.

Bendis is making it difficult for readers to trust what’s being presented on the page. Just like the confuse and conquer tactics that the Future Brotherhood use to attack the heroes, Bendis does the same to readers. A lot is unfolding in this issue and it may cause the reader the same confusion felt by the book’s protagonists. All-New X-Men #27 feels like an early episode of Lost, there are moments of action broken by flashback / flash forward scenes showing the readers brief possible character motivations. Bendis skillfully places these action breaks giving the book intrigue and making it quite the page turner. The full panel on the last page ends with a question that might be on the minds of readers as well. And just like an episode of Lost, the final page gives the reader a reason to tune in next time.

In order for this issue to be successful, the art has to be able to keep pace and change with the character developments interjected in between the main moment of danger. Stuart Immonen art lives up to the challenge. Immonen employs the use of silhouettes to animate action scenes and it gives an eerie conspiracy-like feeling to the flashback scenes. Immonen also compliments Bendis’ scripting and pace with beautiful double page spreads that are purposely laid out nicely. Inker Wade Von Grawbadger and the colors by Marie Gracia help to emphasize the darkness where needed and brightness needed to grab reader’s attention.

The complexity of the plot is delivered in such manner that makes it readable and quite enjoyable. The art switches seamlessly with the pace of both action and drama scripted sequences. This is due to the synergy shared by all the creators that all well crafted comics have in common.