Believe it or not, I haven't completely hated Second Coming as a complete story. Sure, there has been some glaring flaws with the way the story was being told and a few less than satisfactory art layouts, but I still didn't walk away from this with THAT bad of a terrible taste in my mouth. I will admit, though, that I am a pretty big fan of everything that is X, so that could have been a reason why I have enjoyed reading this despite everything. That being said, I try and divorce myself from the rampant X-fan that I am to try and see a story for what is is and how it's written, and so in the end, I'm at a weird limbo concerning this story. Second Coming wasn't so bad that it can be considered a failure, but wasn't good enough to be considered a complete success either.

I will say this, though: X-Men Second Coming #2 had all the character scenes that I was hoping to see through the entire crossover. The biggest flaw with the crossover was just how two dimensional it was, despite promising a three dimensional story. What was promised was that Hope was going to come to the present and that we were going to see the ramifications of her presence on the team. The first half certainly happened, but I feel that the only thing representing the latter half was Dani Moonstar screaming at Hope and Bastion sending a monsoon of killbots to kill her. Additionally, we are still completely in the dark about Hope and what exactly she is, as it was never explained why she was so significant.

However, in this issue, we learn that Hope IS in fact significant, but are never explained why. Now some may argue "Well this isn't supposed to be the place where Hope is explained", to which I ask the blanket question "Why did we bother with this?" Why did Marvel bother to make a grandiose story called Second Coming where the character, whose second coming it was, isn't a significant character but instead a MacGuffin to which other plots are being created? Why did Kyle and Yost bother to create such an impenetrable threat as Bastion and his dome when at the last minute Hope just annihilated everything in a poorly executed show of power (From a story standpoint)? And even though there were some decent action scenes, why did we bother continuing to read this when it became semi-apparent that nothing was going to be explained about Hope? Here's my answer: Because this story was nothing more than an elaborate cocktease. Sure, it was a cocktease with the occasional good character scene and action set, but a cocktease nonetheless.

But this review is supposed to be about the Second Coming #2 issue, so let me get to that. This issue is four epilogues that are each written by the creative teams behind this crossover. I was fearing that this book would be nothing more than a Coming Attractions type of book that would use this formula, but even though each story looks to the future of the X-Men line, it's luckily nothing too offensively blatant.

The first epilogue was written by Zeb Wells and focused on the immediate fallout of the final battle from the previous issue. Here, we get a look at those who were badly damaged during the story, including Karma and Hellion. It was nicely written for what is was, and featured an interesting exchange between Hope and Magneto.

The second epilogue was the best written one, which is no surprise since it was written by Mike Carey. The majority of it took place at Cable's funeral, and was perfectly put together in terms of scripting and layouts. Also, it featured an emotion connection between Scott and Cable that, even though it was brief, was something I was always hoping to see in both their character's history. However, I was a little put off concerning the verbal lashing that Scott gave to Rogue after the funeral. If Scott wants to consider her a loose cannon, that's fine. But to berate her the way he did seemed very puzzling, especially since it is because of her that Hope is alive.

The third epilogue took the two things that I like the least about the previous X-books and put them together: Scripts by Kyle and Yost and pencils by Land. Truth be told, however Land's pencils are probably the best here then they have been in any book I've seen him do. He did, however, draw an X-23 that didn't look remotely like ANY incarnation I've seen of her. As for the story itself, it deals with the X-Universe wanting to put the final nail in the X-Force coffin, Cyclops included. It makes me believe that Kyle and Yost did perhaps have a higher meaning for the existence of X-Force and their moral ambiguity. It was a good denouement for the series.

The final epilogue by Matt Fraction was well written for the most part, as it is the piece that looks to the future the most out of all the stories. The inter-personal dialog seems to be Fraction's forte, so this definitely played to his strengths. The last two or three pages, however, summed up all the problems that I have had with the Second Coming story. Emma sees a connection between Hope and the Phoenix force which is just as vague as last issue, and then Scott sees mutant sightings pop up on Cerebro, which are undoubtedly connected to Hope. It's this that cemented my feelings and thoughts about this story. Hope, who is supposed to be what this story is focusing on, is nothing more than a MacGuffin and Deus Ex Machina. Every bit of characterization associated with her came from her appearances in Cable's series, and so we come away with this learning nothing new about her, which I thought was supposed to be the point of this entire story.

So here are my final thoughts. This issue featured well written epilogues with decent art, despite me hating Scott's treatment of Rogue and the continued ambiguity of Hope. As for the story as a whole, I did in fact enjoy the high points and emotional scenes, especially concerning Nightcrawler. However, I understand that comics are a continuing medium and that most of the stories we read exist to push along the mythos, but when you have a story like this which is dressed up to be some sort of epic tale but has no sense of finality and feels like the only reason it is around is to cocktease the future, then can this be considered a full success of a story? I feel like it can't.