All New X-Men 10 review (and speculation)

All New X-Men 10 is sort of a penultimate issue in the series. Cyclops is coming to Wolverine’s school to openly invite students to join his new Xavier school. There’s a lot of arguing between Wolverine’s staff and old Cyclops’s squad, and a lot of discussion between the original five X-teens and their supervisors. It also ends with a classic style cliff-hanger that will surely make some fans angry, which kind of made me laugh. This was a great read.

While there isn’t much character work for the O5 X-Men, save for Cyclops and Jean Grey, old Cyclops is explored a lot in this issue. Whether he’s putting on a show or not, he denies any true feelings of guilt over what he did to Xavier. That and the name of his new school only increase the tension between him and the bulk of the X-Men, which makes this issue even more fun to read. There’s also a bit of story development regarding Mystique and Sabertooth’s new Brotherhood and their antics to sabotage Wolverine’s public image. As usual for this series, the art is also great.

While the big reveal as to which of the original five is joining the Xavier school isn’t revealed in this issue, it’s still a great read for X-Men fans; ANXM 10 is an easy recommendation. For the most part every character feels spot-on, there are several very amusing moments and the tension between Wolverine and Cyclops has rarely been more intense.

The rest of this is more speculation than review.

If I had to guess, I’d say that either Jean Grey or Beast is joining Cyclops’s team. On the one hand, young Beast has openly disagreed with old Beast’s methods more than once, and he was even considering leaving the X-Men just before they were pulled into the future. On the other hand, Jean Grey might intend to join them as a double agent. With her telepathy, she might have the misguided confidence to think that in Cyclops’s base, she can read their thoughts and perhaps sabotage them from within – without being caught by Emma Frost. Jean Grey leaving would also explain why Wolverine looked so shocked on the last panel in this issue.

It’s almost definitely not going to be Cyclops, because he’s not only arguing with his older self, but it could be a bit confusing to have two versions of the same person on the same team. It’s also probably not going to be Iceman, because not only does Brian Michael Bendis seem to enjoy making jokes about them standing beside each other, but his character hasn’t been explored at all in this series. I could see it being Angel, but I can’t think of any reasons why he would switch. Then again, this is just speculation.