X-Men, Vol. 2

X-Men (2021)

by Gerry Duggan (Writer), Pepe Larraz (Cover Art), Javier Pina (Illustrator)

In the long and eventful months since Charles Xavier’s founding of the mutant nation of Krakoa, two facts have become indisputable. Mutantkind is, at long last, more respected and recognized than it ever has been. And the newly elected team of Krakoan X-Men has quickly become the planet’s highest-profile heroes. Unfortunately, both of those facts just make mutants a bigger target! And despite the X-Men’s best efforts, there’s no shortage of foes lining up to take their shot. Fan-favorite writer Gerry Duggan continues to send the newest squad of X-Men in all-new, all-different, all-uncanny directions! 

COLLECTING: X-Men (2021) 7-12

Genres: Comics, X Men, Marvel, Graphic Novels, Superheroes, Graphic Novels Comics, Comic Book

176 pages, Paperback

Published September 27, 2022

Reviews

[Baba · Rating 3 out of 5]

The X-Men mess-up big-time when one of them is publicly killed; how will they manage to keep their big secret, especially they now also have the attention of the Daily Bugle's Ben Ulrich? Caption Krakoa debuts! In the background Orchis and their ally Dr Stasis continue their anti-mutant agenda and machinations. As the flagship X-Men title of this era Duggan has managed to make it one of the better books, but that's not saying much in this quite unremarkable era. A 7 out of 12 Three Star read.

2024 read

[Sean Gibson · Rating 4 out of 5]

It makes me so happy to have Cyclops back to not being a douche bag.

[Tiag⊗ the Mutant · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok, we need to talk about this Hellfire Gala thing, I get it, it's a fun concept on paper, having a mutant gala every year, allowing readers to vote for a new X-Men team, it sounds fun, I give them that, even though I'm not a fan of the whole vanity parade, it just makes mutants look like Hollywood attention-seeking celebrities, shallow, and not flattering, at all, but I get that people like that sort of thing.

Now, here's the problem with these galas, they mess up the Marvel timeline really bad, because they force writers to advance the story one year, each year. There's a reason why Marvel never allowed their writers to use dates on their stories, because if they did, they would need to explain why superheroes never seem to age. Take Scott Summers for example, in 1963, he was a teen in his first appearance, but in modern comics he's basically what, forty, or fifty years old, and I've always taken the Marvel timeline with a grain of salt, but when you start telling me that one year has passed by from Hickman's Gala to this new one, you're ruining it for me.

It's already messing up this series, Gerry Duggan is only twelve issues in, and he's already closing chapters and removing characters from his team, because he's trying to meet up with the new Hellfire Gala deadline. Are we suppose to believe this X-Men team only had a couple of adventures in the period of one year? Sunfire and Rogue barely had a chance to speak in these last two books, and they're already leaving, makes no sense to me whatsoever.

I think Marvel needs to think this through and end this gimmick as soon as possible, and not just that, they need to start giving their writers more time and freedom to develop their own runs and storylines, instead of pushing them towards this constant wave of events that made the Marvel universe stale, predictable, and boring.

It's a shame really, I think this had the potential to be one of the best X-Men runs in years, Gerry Duggan totally gets X-Men combat, I love his team and these characters, and I really wanted to love this volume, but everything felt so incredibly rushed that I just didn't feel it, three stars.

[Subham · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reread: 11/06/2024

I am loving the reread. The series is written in a way where each issue stand on its own but thereis an overall larger story being told and its really done well here, I love the way its structured and then the focus on characters and their interactions are awesome be it the Laura issue vs Lady Deathstrike or them facing off against Modok and his nutiness and he is such a funny character to the ORCHIS, PLUS I love the story of what happened with Cap Krakoa and how he came to be and it plays into the conundrum of the resurrection reveal and how its done is just brilliant and provides such a great twist that as a reader you get more excited to see what comes next.

The battle on Gameworld vs Cordyceps Jones was so fun and closes out one loop with this series thats been going on and I love how its done. Seriously shows how powerful and dominating the X-Men are! Dr Stasis reveal knowing what happened to him makes it interesting! Powerful volume overall yet again and I am excited to keep rereading!
________________________________________________________________________
This was so good!

Wow what a read this was ! So it continues the X-Men facing off against random threats and we see different stories like X-Men taking on MODOK which was so fun and then one issue with Polaris and then the other one with Laura trying to save Lady deathstrike and that was a fun change of pace meanwhile the big story with Dr Stasis and Orchis continue and Cyclops goes to confront this new villain once and for all and Jean goes to stop Cordyceps Jones who had made Earth his home ground and its epic and the battles on both sides lead to great revelations and it changes so many things and has hints of things to come and with that comes change and its just perfect! <3

Plus the art was so good, really makes you love the whole thing even more!

So yeah definitely one of the best reads of the summer! This whole 2 volumes (12 issues) by Duggan really showed him taking Hickmans plans and using it really well and making great stories out of them and he does well to introduce new villans and does a great job with characterizations!

[Chad · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gerry Duggan turned into a great successor to Hickman's X-Men. I actually liked this better as it focused solely on the current X-Men team in New York. Most of the stories revolve around Orchis. You can feel their threat growing each time they appear in an X-title. As part of the Orchis stories, Dr. Stasis's identity is revealed and it's interesting. If you were confused by Cyclops turn as Captain Krakoa in X-Men #6, it's explained in issue #7. I really liked the story on Gameworld too. Cordyceps Jones was an interesting villain. This volume also serves as the lead in to Immortal X-Men.

[Jesús De la Jara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Este volumen empieza explicando cómo así Cyclops murió (no me gustó la forma) y por qué tuvo que asumir el manto de Capitán Krakoa, que es ese héroe que figura en la portada. De otro lado Sync toma una decisión sobre el periodista Ben Urich tratando de ayudar a proteger la identidad de Scott.
Conocemos un poco más a Orchis con sus elementos: Abigail Brand (¡), Feilong, Dr. Stasis, Alia Gregor y Killian Devo. En el final del volumen se revela finalmente quién es Dr. Stasis. Y para rematar una gran revelación al mundo.
Creo que Duggan lo está haciendo bien y estoy emocionado por saber que tendrá a Magik para futuros proyectos. Viendo estos dos volúmenes a su cargo creo que ha arreglado las cosas dejadas por Hickman para el evento que se viene contra los Eternals.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Par for the course for a Krakoa-era X-book: I hated the story but the artwork was great. Averaged out, it just scrapes a 3 star rating.

[Khurram · Rating 4 out of 5]

I do like the X-MEN the stories are good and so is the artwork. I think for me the problem is there is just so much going on in the X-Universe right now, it us hard to devote enough time for everything.

The X-WOMEN lead a mission to take down the gambling world bent of Earth's destruction. Gambit and Rogue are given some unwanted advice from Gambit's mother in law. Cyclops confronts his "killer". Then there are a number of other political maneuvers going on. Way too much to keep track of for me.

I am interested to see what is next for the X-MEN, a number of things seem to be coming to a head now.

[Marco · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh.

[Rory Wilding · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you struggled getting into X-Men comics, especially during the Krakoan Era that has produced so many titles, Gerry Duggan’s X-Men run is a great jumping point to get into the Marvel mutants as it focuses on a superhero team, comprising of seven mutants whose goal is to save the world, whether or not the world itself accepts them as heroes. Picking up the narrative threads from the previous volume, including the mysterious superhero Captain Krakoa.

Introduced in the sixth issue, it is revealed that Captain Krakoa is actually Cyclops, of which we get the origin at the beginning of this volume. Battling with some of Doctor Stasis' creations, publicly bleeding out in a New York alleyway, only to be quickly resurrected by the Five. To allay suspicions that mutants could return from death (something already worked out by Daily Bugle reporter Ben Urich), Scott would temporarily adopt the mantle of Captain Krakoa. Given the political ramifications of the Krakoan Quiet Council and Urich's memory of his discovery of resurrection being erased by Synch, using Marvel Girl's powers, it continues an interesting internal conflict for Cyclops.

As before, Duggan shows a playfulness with his characters and whilst not everyone of the X-Men gets to shine, such as Polaris and Rogue, we get some time with Synch and Wolverine (X-23), who are compelling characters in their own right, as well as having a complicated relationship with each other. By this point, the only time that Rogue is having fun is with his partner Gambit as their scene together in this book shows they should have their own book together again.

While there is still the villainous human element in the shape of Orchis, as well as the fun recurring presence of MODOK, Duggan is having more fun is the cosmic adventuring in how the Gameworld conflict is resolved. We even get a cameo from the likes of Mojo and Rocket Racoon. Leaning more into the cosmic angle allows Pepe Larraz to dazzle with the crazy alien designs (including the cyborg slot machines), as well as the female members of the X-Men to shine in stunning outfits. We do get fill-in artists Javier Pina and C.F. Villa that nicely fit into the aesthetic that Larraz established, but Larraz’s work alone is what visually stands out.

The stories that Gerry Duggan is telling with his run may be a lot of fun, but certainly feels small and not interested in the grand world-building that Jonathan Hickman was doing. With the brief presence of the Quiet Council makes me excited to see what Kieron Gillen has in store with Immortal X-Men, though Duggan still has some continuing narrative threads that will hopefully make his X-Men run a continuous read.

[Frédéric · Rating 3 out of 5]

I actually like overall plot but I’m not too keen on Duggan’s disjointed way of going on with his subplots. It’s somewhat confused in an already confused gameplay. His dialogues arent’t too great and his captions are for shit. So subpar on this side.

On the art side on the other hand we get a top notch team. Pepe Larraz is the leading star but Javier Pina and CF Villa proudly stand on their own and there’s no visual discrepancy between the three of them. Marte Gracia’s subdued color chart graciously unites the whole.

[Rylan · Rating 3 out of 5]

idk this book just doesn’t really click with me i can see why people would enjoy it but it doesn’t really have much that makes me interested

[Brandon Daniels · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was definitely marketed as the flagship title of the post Hickman era, but it wasn’t quite that. But Hickman’s xmen never quite felt like the flagship either really. This continues the small team, fun superhero spectacle that much of Hickman’s xmen book had, arguably to a greater effect. It’s more focused and doesn’t try and do too much. The new villains are fun, but none feel like they’ll have real staying power. The plot line of mutant immortality is the main through-line, and though it feels a little small scale at times, it keeps things grounded and does poke at some interesting ideas that had been left on the table and had been taken for granted during the dawn of x. I suspect that these first two arcs will read great as trades or together in one sitting. They just got a little overshadowed by the events.

[Dakota Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't click as well with Gerry Duggan's X-Men volumes, I think, because they're very episodic compared to the other X-books. Each issue follows a handful of heroes on some adventures, often to very different places with very different villains. Orchis flows in and out of issues in this volume, but I'd be hard-pressed to tell you why I'm supposed to care (Oh, I guess a Mr. Sinister clone is Dr. Statis, that's big news - though I don't know why.).

The art is largely gorgeous and each individual story is pretty fun, at the very least. The gals taking on Cordyceps Jones in Gameworld is a good time for sure. I just get lost in the tangle of sub-plots. Do I need to care about the tiff between Destiny and Gambit? Or the resurrection of Lady Deathstrike? Too much to follow - or not follow if it's actually just a one-off.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's good and not at the same time. It's really lacking character development and interaction with each other. That's when the X-Men are most interesting. Drama.

[Vaughn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was better than volume 1. It completes Duggan's Gameworld storyline and continues the plot surrounding the threat of mutant resurrection becoming public, as well as the story with Orchis. The mystery surrounding Dr. Stasis's origins went up a notch and I'm excited to see where that goes. We also have Lady Deathstrike show up, as well as an amusing story involving MODOK.

The main flaw in this title continues to be the lack of team development. This current X-Men lineup just doesn't click and there still doesn't seem to be any strong relationship-building between characters. Another problem was that this team feels like it's just barely formed, and now they're breaking up. There's about to be another Hellfire Gala to determine the new team before we got any momentum going with the current one. It's an obvious marketing ploy that hurts the title. Apparently a year has passed in-universe now, which just doesn't make sense. Or it means that Gameworld's attacks on Earth lasted a year and the X-Men just didn't do much (at least on page).

Anyways, it's a fun book and I'm finding the plots around mutant resurrection, Orchis, and especially Dr. Stasis pretty engaging. Eager to see where this goes.

[Mr. Stick · Rating 3 out of 5]

"You know, Remy... when I learned Rogue married a bumpkin from the bayou... I asked them to kill me again."
- Destiny, recently back from the dead, to her son-in-law, Gambit.

Beneath a particularly evil part of New Jersey, Mr. Stasis... correction, Doctor Stasis is doing all sorts of evil shit with his army of intellectually deficient chimeras.
The repeated stabs at his native New Jersey are almost the only humor Gerry Duggan graces us with in this series. While X-Men ain't Deadpool, our skillful wordsmith is known for arming our favorite merc-with-a-mouth to the teeth with a plethora of one-liners. And a humorless Duggan is like Rob Liefeld drawing proportionate breasts. Difficult to accept anything but a joke.
It's not that this was so poorly planned or executed, the art is quite excellent, I just want this series to end. Three stars.

[Sean · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the biggest problems with the Krakoan age of books is that more so than ever before, it always feels like you're missing something if you aren't reading every book when they come out. Reading the stories in a collection like this, that should never happen but it does. Here, Gerry Duggan does a good job of showcasing different threats, Orchis, Gameworld, even M.O.D.O.K. but the book still feels off. Like there pages missing every so often. The Captain Krakoa but was dumb. Ben Urich stuff good. Dr Stasis good. Feilong pointless. There were also a handful of different artists and they were decent from the most part but Pepe Larraz's work looked unusually rushed. Overall, a mixed bag which seems to be status quo in this time frame.

[Micah Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Still fun. Still a bit disjointed—with events told out of order for no apparent narrative reason—but definitely finding its footing and direction. I’m disappointed this volume ends with so many characters leaving the team, it really wasn’t enough time to get a great feeling for the team… especially when they are haphazardly scattered in each chapter. But all in all, the series is heading in the right direction and Duggan has done something no other writer has managed: made me like the character Cyclops.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thankfully, a huge improvement over the atrocious monster-of-the-week writing of Duggan's first volume (albeit, still not up to the quality of his best work, such as Marauders).

We finally get continuing stories! We finally get stories of relevance to Krakoa not just superhero hijinks! And we get some characterization (though I would have liked more)!

A huge relief.

[Bekka · Rating 4 out of 5]

An all female team of X-Men taking down a space casino, with occasional appearances from Rocket, what's not to love?
Also, the parts with Rogue, Gambit and Destiny were so much fun - their dynamic is fantastic!
TW for violence, hints at mass murder, imprisonment, kidnapping, mentions of death, xenophobia

[Matthew Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really fun stuff with the Chimeras, MO.D.O.K., and Gameworld. The Ben Ulrich story was my favorite part of this volume and I love the spin that was taken on it.

[Aisling · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Alex Sarll]

The first volume felt like a sop to people uneasy with the new era of X-books, a straightforward superhero title based in New York and starring familiar faces not too far off the versions of old. If so, I feel sorry for them here, as all of that largely goes by the wayside in favour of carrying linewide plots about humanity learning the secrets of mutant resurrection, the plots of Orchis and the identity of Dr Stasis, plus multiple off-world rescue missions. Even for those of us who approve of the new dispensation, though, the transition isn't wholly successful, with promising ideas like Cyclops having to masquerade as 'Captain Krakoa' after a very public demise barely glimpsed before they're superseded. I think part of the problem is that Duggan, even on a good day, is a much more conventional superhero writer than Hickman, so the prismatic storytelling by vignettes which worked in the previous run just feels hurried here.

[Rahul Nadella · Rating 2 out of 5]

A reasonably enjoyable finale, incredible art as usual from Larraz and the closure of the Ben Urich plotline is properly satisfying. As to the big idea... I like the idea of the X-Men roster being a thing that changes annually, but it's hard to really get invested in the idea the way I'd like because most of these characters haven't really done anything except be warm bodies for the obligatory action scenes, so it's hard for their decisions to move on to really feel like anything other than a generic bureaucratic shakeup. This team hasn't really been a family so much as just a group of amicable co-workers, so what does it matter that they're being transferred to other departments?

As for the volume in itself this was fine, but as the end of a 12-issue arc it really shows the limits of Duggan's storytelling skills. At the end of year one, Duggan's X-Men has been bare-minimum adequate, and only rarely more.

[JCRD]

A nivel gráfico es de lo mejorcito de Marvel ahora mismo. Pese al baile de dibujantes todos tienen una calidad sobresaliente, y gracias al trabajo de Marte Gracia todo queda muy uniforme.

Pero es que encima Duggan está escribiendo unas aventuras muy divertidas y entretenidas con un reparto de personajes que entra solo. Esta etapa quiere que veas lo que molan los mutantes y es puro blockbuster. Fuego Solar no tiene tanta cancha, pero el resto van sobrados de escenas memorables y momentos guays. Lo malo es que con la Hellfire Gala tiene pinta de que voy a tener que decir adiós a algunos de los miembros del grupo. Solo pido que Scott, Jean y Laura permanezcan más tiempo juntos.

Tenía yo mis dudas, pero con Gerry Duggan aquí y Kieron Gillen en 'Immortal X-Men' (más lo que esté cocinando Al Ewing en 'X-Men Red'), los mutantes están en buenas manos tras la marcha de Hickman.

[Billy Jepma · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m really enjoying this soft relaunch. It’s got a ton of superhero derring-do, it focuses on cool characters I’m only casually familiar with (seeing Cyclops kick ass rules so hard; I finally get why everyone loves the guy), and the story is told in a smartly serialized format that lets the team go in one-and-done missions while still fleshing out the world and bigger story around them. It’s nothing groundbreaking or iterative as Hickman’s run was, but it uses everything he did as a killer springboard.

The art from Larraz is the not-so-secret star, too. His style lends itself perfectly to the classic superheroism Duggan’s scripts are enjoying. When Larraz does take a break from the art, Garcia’s colors make for an easy transition by ensuring the book maintains its visual identity. Really great, really enjoyable stuff!

[Jiro Dreams of Suchy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn’t care for the captain Krakoa storyline-

Game world is full of possibilities and cordycep jones is a funny gangster villain made of mushrooms- but he falls much too quickly for the damage he was causing!

[Michael Church · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three stars is probably a little harsh. I think I took off almost a whole star just because of the weird time dilation happening. On one hand, they try to make it sound like Krakoa was only founded a couple of months ago, but now we are coming up on another Hellfire Gala, a supposedly annual event, that also means a new X-Men team roster. Unfortunately, I really liked this lineup, and I feel like they didn’t get enough time to really shine like they should have. Plus factor in that they pulled Rogue out of Excalibur, where she was a great character, and Polaris out of X-Factor, where she was also a great character in a book that ended too soon, and it makes the whole experiment not feel worth it.

That said, I did enjoy these stories. The first arc with Captain Krakoa (which is an awful design and a dumb name, but I kind of get it) was sort of spoiled for me by Immortal X-Men. I’m super curious to see more of Synch and what’s happening with his powers, plus the storylines they’ve set up for him.

There’s some interstitial stories with Sunfire and Rogue that are both good. They seem to be attempting to set them up to go into another book, but when they’re only 8 issues into their current book, I don’t understand why they needed the middle point here in X-Men instead of just jumping over there. Laura also has her own solo story that’s fine, but involves Lady Deathstrike, and with it being a one-off, I don’t know if I have enough background on the character to appreciate what all was going on.

The Gameworld story is probably the highlight. Cordyceps Jones was an interesting villain, and there are some cool feats used to wrap up the conflict. There’s not a ton of characterization, but there are little moments from Rogue and Polaris that I especially liked. It helps that I liked all the women on the team already (I mean, it is X-Men after all). I also find it interesting that this story is the lead up to the next Hellfire Gala and they were recycling last year’s looks. I guess get your money’s worth out of them, but just a strange juxtaposition in my mind.

The art was standard. I worry that I’m becoming accustomed to Pepe Larraz’s art because it has stopped amazing me, and I almost take it for granted now. It was still great, just nothing that blew me away (though his Scott Summers remains an absolute smoke show).

Overall this was underwhelming. It doesn’t feel like it’s building toward anything at this moment, and instead feels like it’s being held back by this insistence on a rotating cast of characters. There are minor developments, but hardly any real progression of a story.

[Winter Arcane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I always love seeing MODOK, but otherwise there wasn't anything exceptional about this trade.

The Captain Krakoa stuff could have been interesting, but the book didn't do much with it before negating the whole purpose of it. The Gameworld resolution was a boring end for such an interesting premise. It was cute seeing a Rocket Racoon appearance, but you could have literally swapped him out with any other space character and had to change nothing. The Doctor Stasis identity reveal was an eye roller that dumped ice water on my interest in that plot.

The book did warm me to Synch as a character, so there's that, though I wonder if I'd have liked the book more if it didn't feel like he was the central character holding the whole thing together. The only memorable scene that didn't involve him was Rogue and Gambit having to deal with Destiny being a bitch of a mother-in-law.

Polaris might as well have not even been in the book, as she didn't add anything except eye candy. The most memorable moment she has in the book is putting on a sexy dress for no reason in the middle of a mission involving the fate of multiple worlds.

Sunfire doesn't contribute a lot more, though at least what little we see of him is interesting, even if it doesn't matter much to the rest of what's going on in the book.

Wolverine (Laura version) is great as usual. You'd think with the original Wolverine being my favorite comic character, I'd hate Laura using his costume and codename and taking his place on the team, but it's literally the opposite. I love Laura and I get plenty of Logan in other X-titles. She's used well in the book.

Cyclops is Cyclops. He's his usual iconically bland self here, but I did enjoy him and Synch playing off each other. Cyclops is at his best when he's being used as a springboard for other characters to bounce off of.

Rogue and Gambit don't feel like they're on the team at all. I never hate seeing them, but I don't understand why they were put on the X-Men to hardly have anything to do with the rest of the team. They don't do anything that couldn't have been done by any other team member. The aforementioned scene with Destiny was entertaining, but felt shoehorned in and certainly wasn't necessary for the plot.

All in all, a lot of the book felt pretty pointless and disjointed but I still got enough enjoyment out of it that it didn't feel like a complete waste of time.