Comic Review: Wolverine and the X-Men #8

Issue: Wolverine and the X-Men #8

Name: A Little Impossible
Published: April 2012
First Look: Beast is a…Beast

Blurb: 

Creators:

Writer: Jason Aaron
Artist: Chris Bachalo
Inker: Tim Townsend
Letterer: Rob Steen

Characters:

The Good: Beast, Abigail Brand, Wolverine, Interdimensional Gremlins (Bamfs),
The Bad: Sabretooth, Kade Kilgore, Hellfire Club
The Undecided:

My Reading:

Last issue saw Wolverine get zapped by some kind of ray as he and Quentin Quire were running to escape from the casino on Planet Sin. Apparently that beam messed up the integrity of the adamantium in his leg bones and the guards twisted them all outta shape – he looks pretty bad and is in a wheelchair. In an attempt to fix his legs, Beast heads to The Peak, the orbital HQ of S.W.O.R.D., to pick up a matter transmuter from Abigail Brand but he arrives just after Sabretooth has attacked the station. Sabretooth and Kade Kilgore have decided that in order to bring down the Jean Grey School, they need to attack Beast and to attack Hank, they need to take his girlfriend, Abigail, captive.

In the meantime, Idie’s hair is back…but more to the point, Angel hatches a plan and enlists the rest of the students who take off into space.

Back in orbit we see a pretty intense fight between Sabretooth and Beast. Sabretooth is ready to kill Abigail but Hank arrives just in time. So instead, he disembowels Beast and destroys his space suit. Heading back to assault Abigail, Sabretooth suggests Beast is more powerful and smarter than Wolverine but he has too much heart to be as fierce as Logan. Beast proves otherwise as he flys into space without a helmet to save Abigail. For Hank, heart is necessary to do the impossible.

As this is going on we learn about Angel’s plan as the students show up on Planet Sin and start causing chaos. Angel has decided they need to get the matter transmuter that was used to hurt Wolverine. Kid Gladiator loves the punching, Genesis enjoys blowing people up, and everyone is pitching in to take out the guards. Clearly they’re to powerful for the casino personnel and as they fight a weird bond emerges between Angel and Genesis. With both not knowing who they are, they connect over that commonality and it should be an interesting friendship.

In any case, the students get the transmuter but they’re in pretty deep trouble when they get back to the school and the issue ends with the Hellfire Club meeting to review the failure of Sabretooth. They decide that in order to take down the school they should target the students rather than the instructors.

What did I learn:

• Abigail Brand is the director of S.W.O.R.D.
• Beast and Abigail are dating
• Magneto is working with Scott Summers

My Thoughts:

So the Hellfire Club took a few issues to recover from their last escapade but are back to mess with the school by sending Sabretooth into action. He does a good job but Beast proves too heroic to succumb to the evil attack. This issue really shows Beast in a light I’ve never seen him in before. He really is a beast but Sabretooth is no match for him. The students are also great in this issue. They showed what they can do with proper leadership and it was interesting that Angel was that leader.

The art was back to the same we saw with the Hellfire Club previously and it’s easy to tell this was Chris Bachalo again and it’ll be interesting to see who draws the next one since Bradshaw and Bachalo both do great work. The other thing that’ll be interesting is how they incorporate the school into the Avengers vs X-Men storyline which starts with the next issue.

My Rating: B

This comic can be found on Marvel Unlimited, Comixology or at your local comic book shop, and right now, it’s available on Comixology Unlimited so you can borrow it from there.