We're into the home stretch now as Battle of the Atom nears its conclusion with Uncanny X-Men #13, the 8th chapter in the Event . The bad future mutants that everyone suspected were evil since their first appearance turned out to be evil in the last issue and they've managed to secure the Jean Grey School which is now under their command. Meanwhile, the rest of the X-Men, present and future, take on the School's defences in an effort to stop the evil future X-men from sending the past X-Men back to their time. I feel like I need one of Hickman's diagrams to accompany each issue of this series - Bendis plays around with X-Men from all across time, who keep changing allegiances, that it's a very tangled web! But for the most part the series hasn't been bad and has even picked up a bit in the last couple of issues. Comparing this to Bendis' last Event, Age of Ultron, by issue #8 that series had gone to hell while Battle of the Atom is still going more or less well. This issue though? Kind of average at best. Most the good mutants get swallowed up Krakoa, taking them out for most of the issue, while future Colossus and present Magik have a brother and sister team up, both armed with Soulswords, and storm the School, stabbing bad guys left and right. The main story is pretty straightforward your usual superhero fighting but Bendis throws in some interesting tidbits to keep the reader awake. Future Jean/Xorn's comments looking on her younger self before sending her back are quite cryptic and touching, while an intriguing future event the Avengers Tower/Baxter Building war is teased, and the visual of Peter and Illyana both wielding Soulswords is awesome (as is Peter's handlebar moustache!). Also, another of Wolverine's kids shows up whose mother appears to be Mystique (see the cover) and, once again, the boy hates his dad! It seems every one of Logan's offspring grows up loathing their hairy Canadian pop. Those Hugh Jackman movies were bad but they weren't that bad... The problem with this issue is the problem with this series as a whole, which is that it's a good 5/6 issue story that's been streeeeetched to 10 issues. The first few comics felt slow with little happening in them while this comic and the last have felt overlong to get to the finale of this issue. This one felt like it could've easily been incorporated into the last without the story losing anything important. But the finale is an interesting twist on what I felt previously was a forgone conclusion. Interesting but really confusing and if Bendis goes down this route, I have no idea how he's going to reconcile it with any kind of logic comic book logic anyway. Battle of the Atom #8 is not one of the best issues but has some good moments that make it a decent read, and with 2 more issues to go before the series wraps, I'm still compelled to find out how it's all going to end.
Published by Marvel, Uncanny X-Men #13 (Battle of the Atom #8) by Brian Michael Bendis and Chris Bachalo is out now