It should be fair to start out that I have still only recently become an X-Men reader. When the "Schism" storyline broke the X-Men into two teams led respectively by Cyclops and Wolverine, I was given the perfect opportunity to jump on to the mutant books and get two flavors of X-teams. There was "Wolverine and the X-Men" and Cyclops' team in "Uncanny X-Men." As I continued reading both titles, I found myself enjoying Wolverine's team over Cyclops' dickishness, especially during the "Avengers vs. X-Men" crossover. I made a point to myself to drop Uncanny once AvX ended, though it was helpful that the title was ending anyway as part of Marvel NOW. After that, "Wolverine and the X-Men" became the sole X-book on my pulllist. Though that doesn't mean I wasn't aware of other big things happening for the X-Men, particularly the original five X-Men coming from the past to the present in the "All-New X-Men" book. Since that concept obviously would not last long, I did not see any reason to throw myself into it. Then the announcement came for the X-Men's 50th Anniversary crossover, "Battle of the Atom", where future X-Men come back to send the past X-Men back to avert a disaster. The crossover would span across several X-books, including "Wolverine and the X-Men." So since my main X-book was involved, I got the rest of the crossover.
The first past of the crossover started out strong. The highlight that happened was the past Cyclops almost being killed in battle, nearly creating a huge paradox. It was at that point it was decided to send the past X-Men back, but then the future X-Men, who later turn out to be the future's Brotherhood, arrive and tell the same thing. In the second part, past Jean, like the teenage girl that she, is freaked out when she couldn't read the minds of the future X-Men and runs away, convincing past Scott to go with her like the whipped boyscout he is. At this point, I thought she definitely overreacted. Besides that, at this point, I didn't really understand why there was such debate about sending the past X-Men back. I mean, at some point they're gonna have to go back. The almost death of past Cyclops proved that if they didn't, it's gonna cause major problems with the timeline. So imagine my surprise when one of the future mutants in a Xorn mask turned out to be the future version of the past Jean who never went back. Not exactly sure how that worked out without creating a paradox, but whatever.
For the most part, the story takes awhile to get anywhere, but when stuff happens, like big battles, mental and physical, it seriously goes down. Trust me, all the talking that happens is worth going through to get to those moments, particularly in parts five and ten. That doesn't mean the talking points aren't worth reading. There was one moment when future Deadpool, who had many funny moments in this crossover, makes a speech with the point that the future is so bad, that they let him join the X-Men. He would get complemented for it, but he would then say to himself, "Too bad it was all a lie." At first I thought Deadpool just pulled the speech out of his ass like you'd expect him to do, but then we find out that they're not even the real future X-Men. Aside from that, we see more debates between Cyclops and Wolverine (to which I always find myself agreeing with Wolverine), not to mention how future past Jean's presence is affecting them. Another nice moment between the action comes from Wolverine when he realizes that one of the future Brotherhood that was posing as a future Kitty Pryde turned out to be Raze, a son he will have with Mystique, to which he said "I'm never having sex again." I personally found that line hilarious. In addition, one of the relationships of the storyline was between Jubilee and the future version of her son, Shogo, who grows up to be part of the real future X-Men; they have a nice moment together in one of the story's epilogues.
As the future Brotherhood's plans begin to fall apart by the arrival of the future X-Men to the present, they try to send the past X-Men back but for some reason are unable to, that something is keeping them there. Now the whole reason the future Brotherhood came back in the first place was to send the past X-Men back, even though Wolverine was already planning on sending them back already. I can't help but wonder though that maybe if the Brotherhood didn't come back, the present X-Men would have been able to send the past X-Men back no problem. I mean, with all the time travel happening in the Marvel universe at the moment, the future Brotherhood coming back to make something happen that was already being attempted and Magik bringing the future X-Men to the present probably didn't help things. Hell, maybe the past X-Men could have gone back if all of the future mutants just stayed put. Guess we we'll never know.
While the story goes on for awhile, the final issue definitely wraps things up nicely, paying homage to the past (in the form of the past X-Men fighting future past Jean similarly to their first battle with Magneto), the continuing trials of the present (with future past Jean blaming Wolverine and Cyclops for screwing everything up), and looking toward the future (as future Iceman, who looks like Gandalf for some reason, telling present Iceman to not focus on the bad times that may come but look forward to the good ones, to which I assume he's referring to the upcoming resurrection of Nightcrawler). Now part of me was thinking that one of the results of this crossover would be the unification of Cyclops' and Wolverine's X-teams, but that did not come to pass, especially based on two things:
1.) Future past Jean revealed first-hand that SHIELD had Sentinels at their disposal, though it appears that Commander Hill had no idea about it, to which I question since she runs the damn place. For Cyclops, this helps his revolutionary cause in the way that even SHIELD is ready to attack mutants. For Wolverine, this brings about some sense of betrayal, and based on solicits for "Wolverine and the X-Men", he's going to get to the bottom of this.
2.) Kitty feels betrayed by her team for not trusting her or the past X-Men with their actions, and she feels so betrayed that they all even jump ship to join Cyclops' team. The past team say they don't want to stay where they aren't wanted. All Wolverine's side was trying to do was send them back HOME. You know, the past. Where they belong. What is so wrong with that? And Kitty even hugs Magik, which made me think "when the hell are they so buddy-buddy?" I understand that she felt under-minded, but that doesn't mean you change sides so drastically, especially when the other side is run by a revolutionary who killed the founder of the X-Men. Honestly, it felt kind of forced, just to shake things up, not to mention it gives Marvel an excuse to keep the "All-New X-Men" concept going longer. In the end, Cyclops even gives Wolverine a kind of troll face, knowing that this would piss him off, along with me.
The story may feel like it drags on, but the moments that are led up to definitely pay off. As a stand-alone story, I feel one needs to be familiar with what was happening beforehand to gain a full understanding of the story. For the X-Men's 50th anniversary, it could have been better, but I deem it acceptable.
STORY RATING: 6/10
RECOMMENDATION RATING: 4/10
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