All-New X-Men #3

By Dennis Hopeless, Mark Bagley and Nolan Woodard

One of the biggest topics since the All-New, All-Different Marvel books got re-launched is the mystery of what happened to many of the mutants. They seemed to have just disappeared or are speculated to be dead. Perhaps the most important missing mutant is Cyclops and the effect he left before he disappeared. All-New X-Men has the advantage of giving us a Cyclops of sorts, as he deals with trying to restore his reputation and help mutants gain back the public’s trust.

Dennis Hopeless finishes up this first story arc on a relatively high note. What Hopeless does that works for this book, is that it feels completely different from the other X-titles out right now. He makes this book fun and youthful, which is a nice change of pace from several of the other books. Hopeless is also making it a priority to have young Scott differentiate himself from his older and hated counterpart. This has been one of the driving points for the series in it’s first two issues. It’s also nice to see friendship and camaraderie between the original members of the X-Men. If you follow any of the current books, almost none of the original members get along. One of the misses in this issue, and series for that matter, is the inclusion of Kid Apocalypse and Idie on this team. They have pretty much been glorified wallpaper through three issues.

The pencils this issue are handled by Mark Bagley with colors by Nolan Woodard. Bagley has a knack for drawing books that seem to be youthful and fun. His run with Brian Michael Bendis on Ultimate Spider-Man had a similar tone and feel, even though at times it was a serious book. The best way to describe the art in this issue is: everything is fine. Bagley does a good job of making every panel look well drawn, but there isn’t any one panel that will stick out to you. Having said that, there aren’t any bad panels or head-scratchers either. Bagley does make this book feel light and youthful with his clean art, but again, there aren’t any risky panels that will immediately demand your focus. The colors by Nolan Woodard are very fitting to the pencils. He uses a lot of red in this issue, not just on Cyclops related stuff, but the sky is often red too. Overall the art was decent, but nothing that hasn’t been seen or done before.

All-New X-Men is the lightest of the re-launched titles. It’s a fun story that focuses on the younger students as they try to survive in a time that isn’t theirs. Dennis Hopeless has made this an enjoyable book so far, but should try harder to get everyone involved more. The art is good and adds to the playful tone of the series. This is the X-Men book that anyone can pick up and enjoy.