Part 1 of X-Men: Schism was a fantastic setup to what I believed was a more interesting event-type story than Marvel’s big dog, Fear Itself. Issue #2 expanded upon the first book but in a more deliberate way that I had expected. Now we have issue #3, a book that pushes aside much of what the first two issues focused on and centers on the opening of San Francisco’s Mutant History Museum. Cyclops sends a host of his most powerful X-Men to the opening in a public relations attempt to repair the strained relationship between mutants and the citizenry. This is exactly what Kade Kilgore and his fellow adolescent Hellfire Club compadres want as they put their plan in full motion.

With the exception of two panels, writer Jason Aaron focuses entirely on the museum and the conflict that breaks out there. On it’s own it’s a solid, well constructed issue featuring a crisp, fluid pace and for the most part some really sharp dialogue. His story does break down a little in the final few pages particularly in the scenes between Scott and Logan. I’m still confused about a part of their conversation and the last page really had me scratching my head. I won’t give away any spoilers but here I felt Aaron could have been clearer and more precise in his storytelling.

My bigger concern is with how this issue moves along the greater story. Schism is supposed to lead to a huge split within the X-Men team. We’ve been told that Cyclops and Wolverine’s relationship will boil over. We’ve been teased with images of the two fighting (just look at the cover art for the next issue). But the problem is that we haven’t seen anything in these first three issues that would warrant such a split. They’ve thrown a few verbal jabs but nothing much more than we’ve grown accustomed to seeing in other X-books. With only two issue remaining I can’t help but wonder if Aaron can pull this off in a satisfying way.

Leading up to this particular issue my biggest concern was with Daniel Acuna’s art. For some reason Marvel went with the revolving artist approach and since I’m not a big Acuna fan, I was worried that this issue would change the entire tone of the story. Thankfully Acuna doesn’t do that. In fact his work is better than I expected. Much like in his work on Aaron’s Wolverine series, he gives this issue a cinematic feel at times even with his relatively simple panel layouts. It’s no surprise that his sharpest looking character is Wolverine but he also draws a good Cyclops. Unfortunately some of this issue’s visual flaws are found in the other characters. The attention to character detail really suffers the further into the background they are and some of the facial expressions lack consistency. I also couldn’t help but notice that Iceman looks like either a ghost or a marble statue. This lack of detail is an element to his style but I found it to take away from the overall look of the issue.

With only two issues remaining, things really need to pick up. On it’s own merits this is a well done issue but with a few hiccups in the art and story. It seems to be lacking the feeling of importance that it should have at this point in the series. But I’m keeping my faith in Aaron and his storytelling abilities. I’m hoping he pulls no punches next issue and everything amps up. It better.