"Give him the works, Gambit!" - Storm, X-Men #9

     That line that the Storm I know would never utter pretty much sums up Victor Gischler's ( @VictorGischler ) run on the now-1-year-old adjectiveless X-Men title.  Gischler seemed intent on changing the X-Men into vampires and lizard-people, and telling a story in which he need not know the character's true "voices".  I was not a fan.  I'll forgive the "Lizards in the Sewers" story because it's Bachalo. I LOOOVE Chris Bachalo.  Even as i enjoyed the sumptious art, i was assaulted with dialogue such as:

     "Guys, i don't think we're to the wisecrack part of the encounter yet." - says Spider-Man to the X-Men after Emma falls in a puddle and quips about it. Gischler tries to reach that almost-meta-yet-still-telling-a-great-story realm where people like Brian Bendis, Matt Fraction, and Peter David hang out.

     Out with the Victor, in w/ the Christopher ( @yost ).

     Yost brings the X-Men back to sanity with X-Men #12 (and before that, Giant Size X-Men #1), and the introduction of The Evolutionaries, who, like Paul Jenkins' creation  The Sentry, have been around a long time, but nobody remembers.  They seemed so much like a classic X-Men foe that i had to do the research to see that I had not, like the X-Men, simply forgotten about them.  Touche, Yost. 

     The new story arc also brings in the Eternals for a guest spot, and making me think of Kirby is always welcome.

      Yost continues to expand upon the recent revelation (Deadly Genesis by Ed Brubaker) that Prof. X was a bit of a dick, and that his "dream of mutants living in harmony w/ humans" is increasingly naive. The Evolutionaries want to save mutantkind by destroying us normal people (well, we did build a bunch o' Sentinels, after all).  In the mostly-forgotten past, the X-Men vainly attacked these creatures upon encountering them, seeing their agenda as evil, but current day Cyclops, upon remembering his missteps, appears to now be taking a different approach.  Peace, love and understanding look great on paper, but the real world is vicious, and wants to send giant robots to kill you.  It's been done before, but Yost handles it well. 

     The flashback scenes are written in the clumsy, overly expository and somewhat adorable fashion of 60s comics, which is fine when it's done on purpose (ahem, Gischler), and again skirts that meta cliff without fear of falling off.

     There are callbacks here to Genosha, Legacy Virus, House Of M, etc. that serve to further relax me...I'm back in the hands of a writer who has actually read what's come before.

     Yost's dialogue is enjoyable, and a nice change from the previous writer:
Dr. Rao: "Will you slow down? Explain!"
Madison Jeffries: "If i explained, you'd want me to go faster, woman."

     Overall, i was impressed.  An X-Men comic with plenty of the X-Men I know and love, a cool new villain, and a classic mutant morality tale.  The art by Paco Medina (now) and Dalibor Talajic (then) is not Bachalo, but it is adequate.  Talajic's style is more dated looking, and does not have the sheen of Medina's linework, creating a nice then/now contrast.

     Damn fine stuff