A Hopeful Start
I was uncertain when going into this. I've never been one for big, extravagant teams with a lot of characters that are hardly used (I'm looking at you, Marvel Now Avengers). But, I thought, "Hey, it's the X-Men, and so many people have fallen in love with this series, why can't I like it too?"
And to some extent, I do like it, I really do. But that team dynamic... it always gets me.
According to the rooster, conveniently in the back of the volume, there's a little under 40 characters present in this school. Of those, maybe 12 of them are utilizes, half of which are Wolverine, Kitty, Iceman, Beast, Rachael Grey, and Angel, characters who we've already known for a long while. It especially bothers me when there are claims that Rouge and Gambit work here, among others, but are NEVER SEEN, not even in the backgrounds.
Yet, those few that are used are great characters, albiet mostly one-sided. Kid Gladiator is cocky, Brood is gentlemanly, etc., etc. They are mostly one sided, at least at this point, and don't really do much as a whole, leaving a lot of the action to the adults, which I find to be a shame overall. The only character who really caught my fancy was Quentin Quire, who you may know from Schism and other such works. His character is nicely fleshed out, and honestly the best character this series has to offer.
As for the returning characters, most of them are pretty solid. Beast is still awesome, Iceman has some great time to shine, Kitty is still responsible (something of a downgrade from Joss' take on her). The only two I really have issues with are Angel and Wolverine. Angel I can't get much into for the sake of story, but Wolverine just feels like he doesn't belong in this setting. And yes, this is obviously intentionally done for story, but that doesn't negate the fact that after that plot point it still feels weird and unnatural. It also feels like he doesn't act much like himself, which may be an attempt at adapting him for the series. For me, it doesn't work all too much, but honestly I don't like Wolverine all that much to begin with.
The art is varied for sure, in the favor of Bachalo's hectic work, although sometimes his imagery was a little too chaotic, losing me in the imagery. Bradshaw, on the other hand, is very neat and proper, and makes most of the characters, specifically Wolverine and Beast, look really really freakin' weird. Luckily, Bachalo does most of the work, 3 of the 4 issues.
Our villain, the new Black King of the Hellfire Club I find to be a great character, having a lot of room to develop and shine. However, he doesn't make much of the first story arc, which ends up being a big ol' "welcome to school, let's see how much of it we can destroy day one". A lot of this feels like references and repeats of past events. Hell, Wolverine even makes mention that one of the villains was the first he ever fought in the original school. It almost feels like Jason Aaron is trying too hard to make reference to the original works.
However, all in all this is a fun piece. It's not the best, but it'll get you by, and it's a nice start to a hopeful series.