X-Men #5 Review

This week marks the first installment of Battle of the Atom not written by Brian Michael Bendis, allowing readers a better sense of how well this crossover will function as a cohesive story. So far, there seems no cause for concern. Brian Wood is able to keep the story moving along without any abrupt change in voice or tone.

This is despite the fact that Wood's writing is generally more serious and naturalistic than Bendis or Jason Aaron. Wood doesn't go out of his way to inject banter into this script, but he is able to pack in a fair amount of amusing moments (such as Wolverine's "What did I do?"). Wood focuses mainly on inter-character drama in this installment. There's some great interaction between Young Cyclops and Young Jean Grey as the two go on the run, as well as signs of growing tension among the rest of the X-Men, past, present, and future. In some ways this third chapter is very typical of the first act of an X-Men event. The heroes are scattered and racing against the clock to track down an elusive mutant (or mutants, in this case). But the character dynamics are enough to keep the spark of life about this story.

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