The From the Ashes era has officially begun, and we have Jed MacKay with artist Ryan Stegman giving us the opening salvo. Right out of the gate, we have the “new” Beast, introducing the town’s sheriff to the “factory”, the X-Men’s current base (which used to be a former Sentinel factory in the middle of an Alaskan town). Meanwhile the X-Men find themselves in over their heads as they save Wolverine from this new faction of ORCHIS, as well as a handful of new mutants who registered on Cerebro, but not everything is what it seems!

It’s the first comic in the X-Men line to launch this new era under Tom Brevoort’s guiding hand as its new line editor, and he came out with guns ablazing. Jed MacKay has quickly become one of Marvel’s fastest rising stars. He first caught my attention with his epically fun and funny run on Black Cat. The series was full of humor, action, and character, and that’s something that he’s brought to all of his other Marvel properties, and he’s done that here as well. One of the biggest eye popping characters MacKay is putting the characterization focused on is the Beast.

The Beast shown here is a Beast from a point where he was a member of the Avengers from the late ’70s. This Beast happens to be one of my favorite takes on the character, because he’s just loads of fun. Beast lost a lot of what made him such a fan beloved member of the Avengers when he rejoined the X-Men world, because he quickly went from a small fish in a big pond of geniuses, to the only fish in the X-Men pond, where we’d lose him to his focused research on trying to combat and cure the Legacy Virus. From there he became focused on saving mutants from the Decimation era, to saving them from the Terrigen poisoning from the Inhumans. MacKay’s portrayal of the Beast here seems full of personality, and looks to be his breakout star. If Jed can deliver, he would be the first writer since before Morrison that made me not dislike Hank, which is saying something.

Unfortunately not everyone received the focus Hank did. The biggest victims are Kwannon, and Magik. Kwannon and Magik were two of the biggest stars of the Krakoan era and some of my favorites, so seeing the duo here was my biggest draw. Unfortunately we didn’t get enough of them in this issue. Of the two, we at least got a quick glimpse of a personality here, but all it did was leave me wanting more. Especially with her budding friendship with Cain. Their time on panel was just the chef’s kiss of the issue, and it left me wanting it more. I can’t wait to see what Jed’s going to give us with these two as his run continues.

Joining Jed is superstar artist Ryan Stegman. Stegman’s been an artist who has graced almost every corner of the Marvel universe. We’ve seen his artistic stylings on the Spider-Man books, to the Inhuman title, to the Uncanny Avengers. His star really took off when he joined Donny Cates on Venom. The book would take the fandom by storm, and culminated in the company-wide crossover King in Black, where the duo would tie up Cates’ loose ends that he’d been cultivating in all of his Marvel titles.

Ryan’s style tends to run hot and cold with me. While I’ve greatly enjoyed his Spidey related books, it’s his greater MU that leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth. Knowing this, it made me rather nervous seeing that he was going to be one of the artists for one of the two flagship books (with Gail Simone and David Marquez’s Uncanny being the other—releasing next month), but I was pleasantly surprised with his work here. Especially his old school Beast, and Kid Omega. Stegman gave us some Perez inspired linework with his Hank, nailing the small details, like the lines in the hair on his head, or the black around his eyes, and it won me over. Not everything was a hit. Still don’t like his take on Idie, but that has more to do with my dislike of the character. I’m also not a fan of Quentin, but his design here was two thumbs up. Here’s hoping that Stegman will continue to prove me wrong.