Morrison's take on the X-Men is pretty solid. After playing around with the nanosentinels early on, he goes into more traditional territory and I think it works a lot better. Lots of mutants with the levels of outlandishness you'd expect from Morrison; very nice angsty teens; some really great moments of humour. After an interesting, quirky but self-indulgent begining to his run, it feels like Morrison is getting into a decent (albeit slightly more traditional) stride and is really enjoying it. Quality mutant fair. ( )

1788 ( )

What in the world is with the "Here's Johnny." look Wolverine has on this cover?

This collection wasn't as tense as the first, but I still really enjoyed most of the stories here.

Highlights
-Jean...again. Still really loving her character and she had several awesome moments in this volume. I only wish that when she finally found out about what was going on between Emma and Scott that she hadn't focused all her rage/blame onto Emma. (Even though I understood why she did.)

-The whole Who shot Emma Frost storyline. It had some odd moments. Like the insertion of Beak and Angel's pupa babies. But overall I really enjoyed that entire storyline.

Emma's character development has also been fairly engaging. I like that Morrison shows glimpses of who she is once you get past the unaffected wasp queen persona. Like how shaken up she is over the death of one of her students and the Stepford Cuckoos' hostility towards her.

-The Hank is gay running gag. This really amused me. How everyone kept bringing it up to him. How Emma was reading a magazine where the cover was a picture of his face with the headline "I'm as gay as it gets." I also liked that was used very subtly to show the emotional turmoil he was going through after a break-up.

The Annoying Things:
-Bringing back Polaris. Polaris is discovered alive among the ruins of Genosha....that's about it. It was a "well that's something that happened" moment. This is the only part we see her in for the rest of the Morrison run. Was this supposed to be a hint to the readers that Magneto is still alive? Because if it was, it was a bad one.

-The entire Kick storyline The whole mutant steroid drug was rather "meh" for me. I don't think it especially added anything to the story. In fact, I think it would've been more interesting if the group of teenagers had decided to cause the riot and got as far as they did without the aid of the drug. It could've brought up some interesting questions and conflicts amid the X-men instead of just verging dangerously close into a PSA comic. ( )

Well, this trade was rather a mixed bag in my opinion. There were some really good parts (Jean finding out what Scott and Emma have been up to, pretty much everything with Xorn in it, Beast's "labor of love" at the end), but there were just as many, if not more, not so good parts.

The whole Scott/Emma relationship skeeves me out to no end. Yes, it was just "mental," but even Scott realized that he was "cheating" on Jean with Emma. I'm not invested in Scott and Jean's relationship, but I can't stand Scott and Emma. They slobber all over one another - TO THIS DAY, ten years later! - like puppies whenever they are in the same scene together. I can only take so many "dear"s and "darling"s before I start gagging. ( )