I was on the fence for the past few issues regarding Hope's little team of new-found mutants. This issue helped push me right off that very same fence! I hate it/them!
I haven't really been able to put my finger on what it is about this new concept that doesn't sit right with me. The introduction of the character Teon in issue 529 helped make it crystal clear. Hope's new team is Gen 13!
For those of you unfamiliar with Gen 13, they were a team of teen superheroes created by Jim Lee and published by Image (Wildstorm).
The very first page of this issue was the magic light bulb for me. Teon is Gen 13's Grunge. Sure Grunge had a better grasp on language but other than that... I can't wait until they publish a picture of Hope's team all standing together, so I can post it side by side with Gen 13.
I'm sorry, but I hated Gen 13. And I hated it for all the same reasons I hate Hope's team. Maybe I'm just getting old, but paying to listen to teen angst just doesn't cut it for me anymore.
I hope I am wrong, and am reading too much into this. Rest assured, I will give her new series a shot. I just have a feeling it won't be a long relationship between me and her new team.
The secondary story in the book was slightly more intriguing. It featured a more intimate look inside a couple of taboo relationships on the island of Utopia. Emma Frost's little repartee with Fantomex was up to the standards of all of Frost's sexually laden conversations. The writers always seem to do a good job building up the sexual tension between her and her male counter parts. And when Frost wasn't flirting with Fantomex regarding the fate of Sebastian Shaw, Dr. Jefferies was uncomfortably asking the robot Danger to join him on a picnic.
It will be interesting to see where this storyline goes. Danger's role in the Shaw abduction is intriguing. Other than that though, I have to say that this book is dangerously close to becoming irrelevant in my eyes.