Amazing X-Men #1: Darkness Falls On The Merry Mutants Of Tomorrow

Just in time for the 30th anniversary of the original alternate reality event, the Age of Apocalypse, Marvel launches the Age of Revelation! As the Cyclops and the Beast’s minds from 2025 are thrust into their minds X (that’s 10 years) years into the future by the X-Men from that time. Can the arrival of these two turn the hands of time, and save their future? Or is it too late to turn the hands of time?

Set in a dystopian/future version of the X-Men universe, after a conflict with Revelation. The team is shattered, on the run, and gambling on one final mission. They head into the ruins of Graymalkin, with an unexpected ally, trying to find something that could change everything—if they survive. Jed’s built a pretty solid premise as this series begins to find its legs. His X-work is, while very entertaining, but has sometimes fallen flat. It tended to drag the book along with it. Fortunately it picked up the pace once the Graymalkin & Manhunt crossovers. Where those issues faltered, this issue was a marked improvement.

The issue nails a dark, urgent mood. The future under Revelation is grim, oppressive, and things feel very fragile. There’s real tension: characters are on the run, everything is decaying, danger is everywhere. MacKay really tapped into that feeling of despair and darkness that’s been a cornerstone of the franchise since the lead up to the Mutant Massacre, and it’s been getting darker, and more depressing ever since. They’ve dealt with a virus that was patterned after the HIV scare in the early to mid 90’s, to create a civilization, which exploded the population of mutants, to follow that with a decimation that nearly wiped every mutant in the multiverse. From there we were stuck in a pattern of permanent fear of being eradicated from the face of the earth. Even after Avengers vs. X-Men, where the mutant gene was returned, and mutants can once more be born, there was still a constant fear of being decimated.

Until Krakoa. Since Krakoa has ended, the mutants have returned to a world that hates and fears them, being displaced all around the United States, while their former school and home in Salem Center was transformed into a prison for mutants. MacKay has been focused on Cyclops, and his motley crew of mutants, who have been dealing with newly created adult mutants, while also dealing with the new terrorist organization 3K. The issue nails a dark, urgent mood. The future under Revelation is grim, oppressive, and things feel very fragile. There’s real tension: characters are on the run, everything is decaying, danger is everywhere. This bleakness displayed here has set up what looks to be an interesting alt-future dystopian future world.