Surprisingly Sturdy Timestream
The main driving force behind this crossover event begins in this issue as the X-Men of the future arrive in the present. There's some very interesting choices, and I must profess a general fondness for this type of thing. I love seeing alternate futures, to see how the characters I know and sometimes love have developed. I'm a little confused as to why Iceman is basically an Ice-Hulk (more about his seeming lack of intelligence than his size), but most of the choices here are pretty good. It's also a little weird that we already find out who is under the Xorn mask. It only works remotely well because of how far in advance this story has been teased, but anyone who's jumping on right here or anyone reading the story later will feel confused as to why 'Xorn' was even wearing a mask in the first place considering we find out who she is within minutes of her showing up.
Something else that really bothers me is that, for lack of better phrasing, time travel seems too basic here, too easy. The past X-Men were already here, but the future X-Men just arrive in their time machine no trouble. I feel like things should be more wonky considering that the Marvel Universe completely broke time like a month ago IN A STORY BY THE SAME WRITER. But that's a problem in the now, reading this later that won't be an issue.
I'm also a bit disappointed in what seems like a wasted plot point. Last issue was such a fascinating one because of how different things were getting. For me, Jean Gray kissing Beast was THE moment where things had truly broken, where there was genuinely a chance that the past X-Men had gone beyond the point of no return, where Bendis was really freeing them to explore new ground of that version of the characters. But then here, Beast is given the chance to run away with Jean, but of course its her and Cyclops again. A whole bunch of uniqueness has been rewound back to historic status quo.
In Conclusion: 4/5
For as many complaints as I had, most of them were more long term or speculative. The plot for Battle of the Atom is moving along at a nice steady pace, with some small surprises here and lots of generally solid storyline building. I'm waiting for something truly big to happen though; but of course there's still 8 more issues to go.
