GENERATION X #2
Writer: Christina Strain
Artist: Amilcar Pinna
Colorists: Felipe Sobreiro with Jay David Ramos & Chris Sotomayer
Letterer: VC’s Clayton Cowles
Cover: Terry Dodson & Rachel Dodson
Variant Cover: David Lopez
Release Date: 06/31/17
Rating: Rated T+
Price: $3.99
The X-Men emerged from their battle with the Inhumans with a new mission. They now realize that not everyone is meant to be an X-Man. To better fulfill the dream of Professor Charles Xavier, the current headmistress Kitty Pryde has renamed the school The Xavier Institute For Mutant Education And Outreach where the new Generation X will learn to be more than the next generation of X-Men. The students will be taught to their strength, some to be the next X-Men, so to be ambassadors to humanity, and others to just control their powers. Kitty has assigned a former student who has been through it all, Jubilee as one group of student’s advisor. When new student Nathaniel Carver arrives for orientation he almost doesn’t stay after meeting some of the students and the school being attacked by a group of Purifiers.
Plot: The school faces against the Purifiers, but can they face what the future may hold for them as students of The Xavier Institute For Mutant Education And Outreach.
Story: The book picks up right where the last issue left off with the school being attacked by the Purifiers, while Quentin is piecing back the room he destroyed in the last episode with his fight. Kitty jumps into the thick of it shooting out orders to some students to leave and others to join the fight. This was a dividing scene for me, on one hand you get Kitty as that field leader we seen her be in X-Men Gold, which is awesome, but that’s it, she tells some students to get the visiting humans to safety, some to stay in the library and others to find her after while she performs the lockdown protocols. Meanwhile there the Purifiers are shooting up the students. When would Kitty leave that be? She should have stayed in the fight and ordered Jubilee to initiate the protocols.
Quentin joins the fight which then prompts Jubilee to stop him, because he goes way too far by telling the Purifiers to beat themselves up then to shoot themselves. Jubilee rushes in and stops Quentin but they all forget one Purifier who makes his way to the library where the protocols have obviously not been put into effect since the Purifier got in, and because Nature Girl is tending to the plants in front of an open window, yeah way to go with those protocols Kitty. Jubilee and Chamber break in and save the students and humans just in time.
The ending scene may have been the worst, Jubilee, who had pretty sucky useless powers tells the students about the new school’s mission statement, where not everyone will become X-Men, and tells them that they are just being taught to use their powers while reading Quentin the riot act for the umpteenth time. It seems like every time Quentin is a part of a book it is the same exact story. He comes to the school, he hates everyone, everyone hate him, he becomes trusted and an X-Man, then it is all forgotten and he reverts back to where he started. This is super tiring, and boring. I hate the character because of this pattern, give me something new with him. I also have a problem with Bling being in this group, she was an X-Man and proved herself capable and now she is deemed not capable, and has to prove herself worthy of even being considered to be trained to be an X-Man now. That is just dumb. I can see with some of the students, but not Bling.
I also had some other moments that stood out like Quentin being able to put together the room brick by brick with his mind and would mean he would have to be maintaining the wall telekinetically since he didn’t use mortar to bond them together. Also out of nowhere he puts YOU SUCK on the wall in black letters with no paint, he just telekinetically does it. Then something else that he would have to telekinetically maintain is that he flipped all the furniture on the ceiling. Then we have the ending where the furniture is being dusted and everything while being up on the ceiling the whole time Jubilee is dressing down Quentin but never tells him to fix that. The story just didn’t mesh, there were plot holes so big the entire Mutant race can walk through them. Too many tropes done here, and all done poorly.
Art: The art I will sat did one good thing, make Jubilee look Asian. For years Jubilee looked like a generic white girl, and she isn’t. I don’t know why but this is a consistent problem with Jubilee in comics is that the artist always makes her look white, so to see her look Asian is great. But the rest of the characters looked the same. They all looked like they were the same characters in different clothes etc. Kitty is indistinguishable from Trance and other females while the males fall into the same problem with Morph and Nathaniel being interchangeable, and if Quentin didn’t have the pink mohawk he would be right there with them. The facial features are also really unattractive.
Verdict: Overall this issue is a disappointment because I don’t feel like this book actually has a firm grasp on the characters in writing or art. I am very disappointed because this book gave me hope for another new student centric book that I could enjoy, and I am not. I wanted more from this book and I just felt so let down.
Rating: 1 stars.