Wolverine and the X-Men #5
Writer: Jason Aaron
Art: Nick Bradshaw [Pencils & Inks], Walden Wong [Inks], and Justin Ponsor [Colorist]
Somewhere between fending off an attack from the new Hellfire Club and doing some rebuilding after the emergence of the son of Krakoa beneath the school’s grounds, Wolverine used up all of his funds for the Jean Grey School. To make matters worse, the ultra-rich brats that make up the aforementioned new Hellfire Club weaseled their way into Worthington Industries board of directors, taking control and having the company’s amnesiac billionaire CEO Warren Worthington (aka Angel) deemed mentally incompetent.
Simply put, Logan needs to find more money soon or his tenure as headmaster of the Jean Grey School is going to be short-lived.
To remedy this, he takes Quentin Quire (aka Kid Omega) to space to find more funding. I guess space money is good on Earth in the Marvel Universe, as it seems like Wolverine could have just taken Quire to the home of someone like Warren Buffett and had him use his telepathy to secure funds. We’ll see where this goes next issue, I suppose.
Meanwhile, Kitty Pryde’s sudden-onset, ready-to-burst pregnancy from last issue turns out not to be a pregnancy at all, but a Brood infestation. Beast and the rest of the staff soon discover millions of microscopic Brood were released into the school’s ventilation system, genetically engineered with Kitty Pryde’s physiology in mind. Basically, it’s an elaborate assassination attempt, the solution to which is foreshadowed earlier in the issue when Beast shrinks down his entire class with Pym particles to take them on a field trip inside the body of the school’s janitor, Toad.
This issue moves really fast, and Jason Aaron throws in a lot of comic relief with the action. Among the best instances are Doop substituting in Kitty’s ‘Introduction to Religion’ course and the continued use of Toad in a slapstick role, lamenting his status as a janitor after spending years in Magneto’s “Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.”
Nick Bradshaw’s are extremely detailed, with more going on in the background than a quick read would allow you to see, and Ponsor’s colors really make these panels jump off of the page.
If you’re looking for an X-book that’s a fun read and easy to jump onto at the moment, look no further.
STORY: 9/10
ART: 9/10
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