Growing up on X-Men, when I started back in on weekly comics with DC’s New 52, I knew it was just a matter of time before I tried my hand at reading a monthly X title.

Not long after DC’s month of #1’s we got an announcement soft reboot on the X-men universe, and I couldn’t have been more excited. Five issues later, and I’m still reading Jason Aaron’s Wolverine and the X-men and still looking forward to getting to the next issue.

W&TXM is the perfect self-contained X-book (for now at least). I was worried that we’d be seeing so many cross-overs with Uncanny (both X-men and X-force), New Mutants, Generation Hope, etc, etc. While there’s been a little bit of that, this issue shows that you don’t really need anything else before diving into the Jean Grey School, it’s staff, and it’s oddball class of students. The Brood storyline seems like a classic 80’s/early 90’s X story, and combined with the direction of Wolverine and Quentin Quire, the book feels like it’s not aiming to fit into a big event but rather wants to tell its own stories. Considering this is the only Marvel book I buy weekly, I truly appreciate that.

While I belong to the school that enjoys Bachalo’s art, Nick Bradshaw is a nice fill-in and offers a different look from what you get in a lot of superhero books nowadays. Ironically, it really reminds me of Bachalo’s work on Generation X back in the 90’s. It’s cartoony, a little busy, but really jumps off the page.

I’ll keep buying Wolverine & the X-men as long as Jason Aaron keeps writing it. Or until they get Greg Land to draw it. Those are really my only two conditions for this book.