Age of Revelation enters its second month with a big reveal about why present-day Cyclops and Beast are in the future.
Amazing X-Men #2 is written by Jed MacKay, drawn by Mahmud Asrar, colored by Matthew Wilson and lettered by Clayton Cowles.
Binary #2 is written by Stephanie Phillips, drawn by Giada Belviso, colored by Rachelle Rosenberg and lettered by Travis Lanham.
Laura Kinney: Sabretooth #2 is written by Erica Schultz, drawn by Valentina Pinti, colored by Rosenberg and lettered by Cory Petit.
Longshots #2 is written by Gerry Duggan and Jonathan Hickman; drawn by Alan Robinson; colored by Yen Nitro, Mattia Iacono and Carlos Lopez; and lettered by Ariana Maher.
Tony Thornley: Only a month in, and I think I’m kind of exhausted from this event already.
Dan Grote: It’s the density. Every week is four books to keep up with, covering nearly every corner of the Marvel Universe. It’s like they’re trying to speed-cram an alternate future into your head so you have no choice but to remember it when they call back to it in some anniversary story five, 10 or 20 years down the line, like the thing people loved most about the original Age of Apocalypse story was the quantity.
Austin Gorton: Don’t worry, because even though we’re getting into just the second issues of all these series, they’re all already building to a climax because, somehow, this event is both exhaustively dense and surprisingly shallow. There’s both so much here, yet so little here here, you know?
Scott: Amazing (sorry not sorry) that they created an event that feels like it just started but also has been running for 84 years somehow. Speed running its way right into a solid “Oh yeah, that was a thing that happened” position in the X-Men canon.
Truth or Darkchild (Amazing X-Men #2)
Dan: So let me see if I’ve got this straight: The plan wasn’t to draw present-day Cyclops and Beast to the future to use their keen tactical minds to defeat Doug Ramsey, it was to send future Scott and Hank back to the present to stop him, while present Scott and Hank get tossed around and made fun of. So the stuff that’s happening that’s pivotal to Doug being defeated is happening off-panel in the present, AND WE’RE NOT EVEN SEEING IT?!?!
Y’all, what the fuck?
Tony: It’s literally what’s going to happen in X-Men #23 in January. I mean, that Tony Daniel cover reveal pretty much said it, and then this spoiled that.
It’s weird, yo.
Scott: Cyclops is the man with the plan. Scratch that, he’s the man with so many plans he doesn’t use letters for them because that would indicate he only has 26 potential plans.
What seemingly doesn’t have a plan is this whole event that feels like it’s a bunch of dissonant ideas stitched together and called an event. Every single one of these “reveals” that the books have done feels increasingly hollow and shruggable — this one with the future versions in the past being one of the most shruggable.
On paper, Cyclops and Magik/Darkchild engaging in a truth-off that hurts seems intriguing. In execution, it just feels sad. It all hinges on the lowest, already-been-well-picked-over fruits, such as “You left your wife and child.” Not to mention, Cyclops having to do an “I am the X-Men, I am stronger with them” speech for the millionth time feels cliche.
Austin: I dunno, I think it’s important to remind everyone how terribly out of character Cyclops was written in early X-Factor as much as possible.
Seriously though, we’ve complained plenty in these reviews about how few of these tie-ins have anything to do with the overarching plot of the event. I guess that’s because now we know the overarching plot of the event isn’t being depicted anywhere. This event has been likened to a reverse “Days of Future Past,” where the “altering the past” mission unfolds in the future, but it turns out it’s “Days of Future Past” but all we see is the doomed assault on the Sentinel base and nothing about if or how the future gets rewritten. What a choice.
Dan: Sometimes, the fireworks factory is the friends we made along the way.
Speaking of which, I love how Cyclops’ big-damn-hero speech (which Scott mocked several paragraphs back) convinces Psylocke to defect from Revelation in the space of two panels. Seriously. I love the way Asrar draws Psylocke reacting to Cyclops, completely stoic yet selling the joke through her unfolding arms. It’s good figure work.
Tony: This issue just revealed so many of the flaws of the whole event.
The “truth duel” is a fascinating idea, but there’s no chance in hell it was going to look good in a comic, despite Asrar (who’s amazing and did his damnedest). This easily could have been done almost exactly the same but with, I don’t know, SWORDS, and it would have been so much better.
Psylocke’s defection SHOULD have explored how many of these true believers on Revelation’s side really aren’t. Or the power of language — that Cyclops’ words broke the spell over her from Revelation’s words. Or something about the spirit of the X-Men. Instead, it was just “that speech you’ve given a million times was real good, yo.”
And not having Logan on their trail has made the story lose SO much narrative tension. Even if there had been, like, two or three panels cutting away to Logan trying to track them down, then appearing on the edge of Magik’s domain, it would have helped so much.
Hanks a lot (Binary #2)
Scott: There are a number of books that feel wholly unnecessary to this overly stuffed event. This series is 100% one of those books. Carol Danvers and Jean Grey’s time with the X-Men did not overlap at all by my recollection, so Carol being all “Oh no, Jean, my friend, what will we do without you” feels forced and hollow. Maybe I’m missing some past stuff that explains things or they’re going for off-screen “They’re essentially colleagues,” but it’s just not working for me.
Austin: This is all largely built on their interactions in the Phoenix “From the Ashes” series, in which Carol was one of a handful of key quasi-cosmic allies Jean relied on periodically. It was a bit forced there, granted, but this book is just building on that.
That said, I remain confused by what exactly happened to Jean in the opening pages. It seems like she sacrificed herself to keep the X-Virus on Earth, but then Carol spends most of the issue beating herself up for only being able to keep it out of her hometown. So if Carol’s “mission” was to contain it on Earth, what did Jean’s sacrifice accomplish?
Scott: Humans wanting to blow her up because they want to run into the X-Virus and Babels because of a shadowy party means nothing. It’s just a bunch of events thrown around that won’t mean anything to the books in the present. Just like with the Amazing X-Men reveal, the reveal of Madelyne Pryor feels so cliche and expected that it almost hurts.
Austin: By the end of that meeting, I was more or less thinking, “fine, they want out, let them out to get attacked by Babels and/or killed by the virus. There’s simply not enough room here to make me care about any of them (do they even have names?), and they clearly exist just for plot purposes (to push Carol’s power and draw her into contact with Maddie), yet still get roughly a third of the issue dedicated to them.
Tony: Hank. His name was Hank. Why are there so many comics Hanks? I’ve never met a real life Hank.
Dan: My first boss was named Hank.
But to Tony’s point, Marvel already has two famous Hanks who’ve been in movies and stuff. There are plenty of other H names you could use for angry townsfolk: Harmon. Hyram. Harry. Harlan. Hooper. Horace. Huck. Harvey (this one won’t work in a DC comic). Horatio. Herschel. Hap. It’s not hard!
Tony: Seriously though, this was SUCH a nothing burger. After the Babels broke through and beat up Carol a lot more than they should have, most of the town should have rejected the “let’s get out!” plan. Yes, the idiot ball is a HUGE plot driver in so much modern media, but this series is nothing but idiot ball. Carol is moping around. The citizens are not rational. And Maddie is here … just because?
I like Phillips, but her Marvel work has been so lacking. I don’t think it’s a Phillips problem though; this feels distinctly like her editors are just completely disconnected.
I did like Belviso’s art quite a bit though.
Austin: Same. This seemed stronger even than the first issue.
Dan: Yes, Belviso deserves a bigger Marvel book when this is over.
Just wait till your Blue Dad hears about this (Laura Kinney: Sabretooth #2)
Austin: This is the book of the week (grading on a curve) because, once again, it at least grounds all its alternate future plot nonsense with a strong sense of character. Laura is caught between the zealots who wholeheartedly embrace Revelation and the people who just want out/away from him, and everything in the issue reflects that.
I remain uncertain whether Revelation was forcing Laura to attack the refugees, but it’s also pretty clear we’re meant to be confused about that — because Laura herself is. The entire fight at the gate is basically a classic Wolverine “try to control the mounting berserker rage” scenario, except she’s getting it from all sides — her own people, who are killing instead of containing, and the refugees/her siblings, who refuse to accept her insistence that Revelation isn’t *that* bad. It creates sympathy for Laura in readers even as we know she is, ultimately, in the wrong (because Revelation is that bad, and things outside his territory aren’t as bad as he says/Laura believes).
It’ll be interesting to see if the wrap-up can keep that same laser focus on Laura, externalizing her internal struggles, when it seemingly becomes the vehicle for bringing Apocalypse into whatever is left of the overarching plot of the event.
Scott: Laura Kinney is one of my favorite characters. That’s why it hurts that this feels so bland in a lot of ways. I get what Schultz is going for here, but like most other books, there just isn’t enough for me to grab onto. Laura’s connection to an unseen child of Victor Creed and their subsequent marriage and childbirth are hollow. It’s future stuff that mostly doesn’t matter, other than the flashing red light clearly indicating that Zane Creed will be showing up in Laura’s ongoing series in 2026.
One of the faults of so many of these books is that the characters we know feel so hollow. Their connections are thin and their personalities are basic, if they exist. So much time is spent on new characters that won’t matter in many cases, leaving the known ones to just fill in niche spots.
Overall it’s fine, but yeah.
Tony: I agree that this was the book of the week, without a doubt. The points that I mentioned a bit ago that would have made Psylocke’s face turn so much more interesting? Schultz actually covered them here.
Zane was still obnoxiously a cipher, only existing to give Laura a kid. But I do think Scott’s right that he’s probably going to be a character in Generation X-23.
There was some weird pacing throughout the fight, too. There were no fewer than three times that I thought the art was pointing to Gabby jumping in front of Laura … and it didn’t happen. That’s straight up an editor problem. Why did editorial not step in to catch that? That’s literally what they’re there to do (among other things, of course).
I liked it, but wow this was aggressively confusing.
But with a GREAT cliffhanger.
Buy Laura Kinney: Sabretooth #2 here.
Nextwave 2.ECHH (Longshots #2)
Scott: I’m not sure how to even feel about this one.
There are some “jokes” that fall flat, some that are cringy as hell, and some that are at least chuckle worthy. There is nothing about this that really screams that it needed to exist, since it’s actively taking swings at the event itself and the books. And right now, these unevenly handled books can’t afford to be poking too many holes in themselves. The good ship X-line looks worse for wear and is probably taking on some water, but at least it’s still chugging along.
Dan: This comic has all the humor of an issue of What The — ?! That’s not a compliment.
Ever since Nextwave, Marvel and DC both keep doing this thing where they take a bunch of random heroes and make jokes of them for a few issues at a time. It happened with Deadpool’s Mercs for Money, it happened with One-Star Squadron, it happened with Mark Russell and Bob Quinn’s X-Factor, and it’s happening again here. The characterization is off, there’s barely any connective thread to the rest of Age of Doug, and worst of all, it’s not funny.
Like, you read this book, and you can barely believe it was written by two of the architects of Krakoa. EXCEPT they made a joke about “Galm,” the famous Krakoan typo from House of X #1.
(The sign on the door says, “Just knock twice,” by the way.)
Also, if Mojo’s making a meta joke about Galactus (who is in another AoD book, btw) being too big to appear in this comic because of Fantastic Four: First Steps, how does that joke work when this story takes place 10 years in the future? Was there another FF film reboot? Or was this book pitched/half-written before it was tied to this event? Or do we just not care?
Austin: To your point, what does any of this have to do with “Age of Revelation?”
Tony: Halfway through this issue, I realized that this series would have been so much better if it were a prime Earth miniseries. Shoe-horning it into Age of Revelation has done it so much of a disservice. It just needed to be its own standalone Longshot sequel, with maybe a bit more time to refine the dumb humor and weird dialogue.
Austin: It continues to look quite nice. I like Alan Robinson’s semi-polished style, which fits the premise nicely. That’s something.
Tony: I mean, I like the Galm joke. I liked the dig at reality TV editing to create fake tension (that one was more subtle). But I feel like this is a 9/10 concept getting 3/10 execution.
X-traneous Thoughts
- Per Binary #2, the X-Virus was out and about at least one year into Age of Revelation (i.e. one year from the “present day” books. Did we know that already? Is that consistent with what was said previously? It seems really early for that.
- Laura says Wolverine’s healing factor protects him from mind control (and thus she should be similarly protected from Revelation’s power), and that’s not even close to being true under any circumstance, but even if it was, does she legit think the mindless killing machine at Revelation’s side is a right-minded Wolverine?
- There is literally no character that could answer the question of who killed Bishop in a satisfying way. Gambit is the lead of Unbreakable X-Men, Cable is in Undeadpool. Who else could it possibly be? Shard? Fitzroy? Someone from Bishop: The Last X-Man?
- The ghosts of Malcolm and Randall, OUT FOR REVENGE!
- Don’t threaten me with a good time!
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Dan Grote is the editor and publisher of ComicsXF, having won the site by ritual combat. By day, he’s a newspaper editor, and by night, he’s … also an editor. He co-hosts The ComicsXF Interview Podcast with Matt Lazorwitz. He lives in New Jersey with his wife, two kids and two miniature dachshunds, and his third, fictional son, Peter Paul Winston Wisdom. Follow him @danielpgrote.bsky.social.
Tony Thornley is a geek dad, blogger, Spider-Man and Superman aficionado, X-Men guru, autism daddy, amateur novelist and all around awesome guy. He’s also very humble. Follow him @brawl2099.bsky.social.
Scott Redmond
Scott Redmond is a freelance writer and educator fueled by coffee, sarcasm, his love for comic books and more "geeky" things than you can shake a lightsaber at. Probably seen around social media and remembered as "Oh yeah, that guy." An avid gamer, reader, photographer, amateur cook and solid human being. Follow him @scottredmond.bsky.social.
Austin Gorton also reviews older issues of X-Men at the Real Gentlemen of Leisure website, co-hosts the A Very Special episode podcast, and likes Star Wars. He lives outside Minneapolis, where sometimes, it is not cold. Follow him @austingorton.bsky.social.
