War Correspondence - The All Old, All Different X-Men

I glanced through IGN and Kirk's reviews of Manifest Destiny, and they made me sad. I hope the Iceman story gets a lot better. He really needs a good story. He seems to be the only one of the originals who hasn't evolved from who he was during the original run of X-Men. The other four male characters have - and are all in a really cool place right now.

Professor X first appeared as a strict no-nonsense schoolmaster, but we soon came to see that he cared very deeply for his students in particular, and mutants in general. But he had this mean streak in him - mind wiping people, including his own students, without as second thought; and on one occasion leaving them to mourn him for dead whilst he worked in a secret project in the basement. For someone trying to protect mutantkind, he made a lot of questionable decisions. It didn't quite add up. Until he lost his memory and started investigating why he founded the X-Men in the first place. We now know that he had been manipulated by Mr Sinister from a very young age. Sinister placed part of his own DNA into Xavier, which appears to account for Xavier's mean streak and his tendency to want to control others. The Professor's journey of self-discovery is not over, and it promises to be a fun ride.

Cyclops was chosen as the leader of the X-Men by the Professor, yet he was often undeceive and unsure of himself. He spent a lot of time hoping to be 'cured' - not a trait one especially wants in a leader of mutants. He had also been manipulated by Sinister when young, and, I hate to say this, but it is possible that his love for Jean was purely a product of Sinister's machinations. That would certainly explain him abandoning his son and wife when he heard Jean was alive. Professor X was right, though, as not a trace of Cyclops former self remains. He has broken free of Sinister, and even Xavier, and stepped up to be the new leader of the X-Men. He's with Emma, where he wants to be - in House of M he was married to her, not Jean. He is at peace with his dangerous power. He has the confidence to make tough decisions - abandoning the mansion, sending Cable and the baby into the future, organising a black ops team. Or so it seems. We've seen his nightmares, and him building a crib in the middle of the night. And while I may not agree with some of his decisions, at least he's making them (and sticking to them) for the right reasons.

Lets be honest, Angel was a spoiled brat with the worst power of the lot. But boy has has grown up. Yeah, he's still a bit of a playboy who likes fast cars, but it takes a lot of maturity, knowledge and intelligence to run something like Worthington Industries. And he's definitely not selfish, putting his entire company at the disposal of the X-Men. Plus he seems to be able to switch between his angel and archangel forms. He hasn't been this cool in years.


Its both easy and hard to demonstrate the Beast's change. He's changed the most physically, but because he was always so intelligent and confident, he doesn't seem to have changed much in that respect. But looking at the original stories, he was a showoff - very overconfident. He also used to use big words a lot more. These day's he is far more subtle - he's far less likely to leap before he looks, making him a better fighter, and his speech is more restrained, and yet he sounds just as intelligent. But now he's blue and furry. That's just awesome.