X-Men 2021 project continues!

Previously:
House of X/Powers of X ⭐⭐⭐
X-Men, Vol. 1 ⭐⭐
Marauders, Vol. 1 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Excalibur, Vol. 1 ⭐⭐⭐

Honestly, Chip Zdarsky did good. This miniseries takes us on the journey of the tried and true Everyone Fights Because Nobody Wants to Sit Down and Actually TALK fights, and it's even more heightened because the reason the fighting starts makes complete and total sense on Sue Storm's part. Charles Xavier and Magneto just show up and say, "Hi Sue, we're taking your teenage son to Krakoa now" and she's just expected to say okay? I'd be fucking enraged too.

Add onto that the fact that Franklin's powers are fading away and Reed does what Reed's big dumb smart head always does and unwittingly pushes his son away, and you have some nice family drama to add to the mix.

Things happen, the F4 spy on the Krakoan council, Kitty and Franklin and Val end up with Doom who claims to be able to help Franklin, and more fighting ensues! Doom's a bad guy and tricks them all, F4 and Mutants alike!

I do love Doom in this, if only for this poke at Xavier:


(Link to full image)

Which pretty much puts all of the Dawn of X era into perspective and why it feels so weird to have Xavier doing all of this.

In fact, this whole BOOK is about the hubris of all these great powerful men and how their hubris gets not only in their own way, but in the way of those they claim to be doing their best to protect.

Then there's the end, where Xavier and Magneto put Reed in his place in a way that feels really disgusting and I hope comes back in some big way down the road. Granted, Reed essentially found a way to ghost the mutant gene and make mutants not read as mutants which is awful. But the way Xavier and Magneto lorded over Reed the fact that Xavier took away Reed's ability to ever remember how he did it in the first place...hubris, baby. It must come back to bite them all in the ass. That could be the seed being planted for some great plot in the future, and if it does, I'll be here for it.

Franklin Richards is the son of Reed Richards and Sue Storm. They’re members of the Fantastic Four who were changed into superhumans by cosmic rays. Franklin however, is a mutant born with omega level abilities. Lately, he has been having troubles with his powers and no one seems to know why.

On Krakoa, Charles Xavier believes it’s time to bring Franklin home to live with the other mutants. The professor and a few of his X-Men show up at the door of the Fantastic Four and try to convince Franklin’s parents to surrender the boy over to Krakoa, where he belongs.

As you can imagine the Richards’ aren’t too keen on letting Charles steal their little boy away from them. It all goes south quite quickly. Franklin doesn’t even have the opportunity to voice his opinion on HIS life and wishes. Katherine Pryde, who has a special place in Franklin’s heart, urges him to do what he wants.

That is all I will leave you with for plot, as anything further would be major spoilers. But believe me when I say that you’ll want to pick this up. Even if you haven’t been following along with the rest of the X-Men relaunch, this is still a great and easy to follow read.

The writing on this is absolutely wonderful, but I am biased, I absolutely adore Chip Zdarsky. Nothing about his writing ever seems forced or feigned. I especially find his dialogue to be authentic and true to life and it’s an important quality in a comic to me. I’m not familiar with Terry and Rachel Dodson’s art or Laura Martin’s colors, but the art was absolutely gorgeous. Honestly, all the work on the Dawn of X relaunch has been incredible, and that’s something no one can discredit from all these creators' work.

4.5/5 stars from me and a heavy suggestion to go pick this up!