Ok, I wanted a chance to re-read this before posting my thoughts.
Yeah, Bendis' de-compression strikes again. I agree with
Admiral_Young about Bendis, I AM a fan. Really. But this is getting ridiculous. And
Allyn Gibson's comparison to
Justice League #1 was spot on.
The characterization of Hope was waaay off and it was irksome. But there was one bit that I liked-- when Hope asked if this is how Professor X trained him, and Cyclops answered, "absolutely".
And that brings up a related point. Cyclops seriously overreacts to the situation as presented for no discernible reason. The only thing I can figure is that the visor he's worn all these years has cut off the circulation to his head.
That was actually my first reaction as well (and I even said that he was being a bit of a jerk in the other thread), but upon a re-read and remembering the ending of the recently concluded
Avengers: X-Sanction, I can forgive it. You see,
Cyclops knew this was coming. In
X-Sanction, Cable showed Cyclops a vision of a wasteland future and told Cyclops that this is what would happen if he let the Avengers take Hope. And he definitely told Cyclops that war with the Avengers was coming. But they convey none of that here, not even on a text page, which is unfortunate for new readers. (Maybe if the story wasn't so de-compressed, they could've told more story.)
This was a problem I had with
Schism as well. It seemed totally OOC for me that Wolverine, the man who trained Kitty Pryde to be a ninja at 14 and similarly took Rogue, Jubilee and Armor under his wing, would suddenly be so opposed to letting the older, Danger Room trained kids fight the Sentinel on their own free will. Now, as I later came to find out, this all spun-out of recent developments in Wolverine's solo book, where he killed several of his own illegitimate children before actually finding out that they were his kids. O.K. Fine. That explained a lot. But
none of this was brought up in Schism
itself. Annoying.
It reminds me of what authors always say in the Lit. forum-- you shouldn't have to read book A to understand book B, because book B should recap all of the pertinent info from book A that the reader requires. Story-telling fail.
The X-Men think that the Phoenix Force is going to usher in a new age of mutantdom. I'm not sure that they're justified in thinking this; if they are, Bendis doesn't lay any groundwork for that.
Not so much the Phoenix Force by itself, but the PF in conjuncture with Hope. This again goes back to what I said about not giving the reader all of the info. After the Scarlet Witch all but wiped-out Mutant-kind, there weren't any mutant births for two years-- until Hope. Hope was the target of every anti-mutant group in existence, including those who had access to information from the future. She was later taken into the future by Cable for her protection. Cable raised Hope, and brought her back to the present when she felt that she was ready. Upon her return and the activation of her powers, new mutants started registering on Cerebra again. Seven, so far, and they all have required Hope's touch in order to stabilize their mutation. So, the X-Men have every reason to believe that she is the future of mutantkind.
Random thoughts--
Wolverine might say that Scott is too close to the Phoenix situation to impartial, but the same definitely holds true of Wolverine himself. Cap should have consulted with Scott as well before just unilaterally making the decision and bring the full-force of the Avengers down on Utopia. Cap's "experts" may have given him some bad advice.
I loved the grin on Namor's face when he said that Cyclops was going to force Cap's hand. Seems like he's ready for a little "Imperious Rex-ing".
Interesting that there was not a single sign of Storm in this issue. Not even on the battle-lines page, where she should be next to Wolverine and Beast. In this
un-lettered preview page from New Avengers #24, we see bailing on the Avengers in what would appear to be the pre-mission briefing on the Utopia invasion. If the Avengers somehow kept her from returning to Utopia or warning Cyclops, then that's going to put me more in the X-Men camp than I am currently already leaning.
Overall, like Rich said in the review, not a great comic, but not really a bad one either. I am still looking forward to seeing how this all plays out.
