Well it's out it's done. What did you think?

Overall I did enjoy the story but there were a couple things.

Kinda pissed about the whole Cyclops and the Phoenix 5 are still badguys. I've always been under the impression the Phoenix influences you. At no point when the 5 were possesed did I thik any of them acted like themselves. Wolvie loves Jean the original Dark Phoenix and she was a victim, but Cyclops is going to prison?

Cap conceded Cyclops was right and it was basically his fault but still blames Cyclops.

I love the idea of Cyclops becoming the bad guy this just didn't seem like the right way.

From my point of view Cyke was the bad guy from the start. First Agresser, refused to listen to Cap, and used they Phoenix powers too aggressively in the beginning. The Phoenix can only control you if you use the powers to much, or allow it too.

Would have loved to have seen Cyke get killed instead of Prof X, but hey what can you do :/

My impression was that both Cyclops and Cap were right in a way. Hope did end up saving mutant-kind, but thing would not have gone that way if it wasn't for the training she received and Scarlet Witch. I thought there was some nice political and philosophical themes throughout, but I'm curious as to their reasoning behind (basically) retconning House of M.

Probably similar to Hal Jordan's "not really" destroying the GLC as Parallax. There's a lot of parallels between Scarlet Witch's going insane with power and Hal's. About the only thing missing was the yellow space bug (which, I guess Doctor Doom was the stand-in for?)

The story was not well told enough for me to give a damn either way. Left me feeling incredibly flat.

I have some problems with the presentation and story (poorly written characters through half of it. Things not matching up with the tie-in books in places and vise-versa. Half of todays artist can't draw a comic fight scene to save their lives so instead give me a movie storyboard of a fight scene, etc).

However, I do feel like the ending is a great "game changer" for the X-Men and their corner of the Marvel U. The X-Men in my opinion have been stagnent for awhile (since House of M ... and even that didn't "change things" for the main X-Men. So before that too I suppose). But coming out of this we get:

- New Mutants (as in new mutants being born, not my beloved team of X-Characters)
- Cyclops now a "villian"
- Utopia pretty much done with
- The "Phoenix 5" all outlaws (and Magneto too for some reason. I guess for continuing to side with them?)
- Marvel finally intergrating more mutants into other areas of the Marvel Universe and a lot of "background characters" getting a chance to shine. I've always thought that if you're not using a character, why not move them to a different team or have them do something else? The Marvel Universe finally gets to play with some X-Characters, and that's a great thing. Sunspot, Cannonball, Rogue, Havok and others being Avengers? Heck yeah.
- Storm and the Black Panther's marriage "ending" (which is stupid, but okay).
- Xavier is dead. This is a biggie for me, but Xavier hasn't been relevent to anything since the 90's sadly so it's impact is lost.

So yeah ... lots of interesting things on the horizon for Marvel's Merry Mutants. Which is a good thing.

Meanwhile, the Avengers come out unscathed. Anyone else notice how Marvel and DC are going in opposite directions with their premiere super-teams? The Justice League is very much an elitist group in the new 52 while the Avengers literally just keep on getting members. Interesting ...

I thought this entire plot was garbage.

I think Marvel should stop trying to WOW us.

They have a few good ideas (I'll admit, using Hope to mimick Scarlet Witch, combine the two sources of power, and get rid of the Phoenix was good), but they implement them all wrong.

Killing Professor X was just plain dumb.

Also- They need to catch up and really pay attention- they didn't use the Vision at all during this whole event, despite his big reveal right before it and his opinion during AVX#0. They also didn't use Cable at all, and didn't make mention of his final thoughts to Cyclops at the end of X-Sanction.

I had no idea he was alive. And he was around too quickly to make much of an impact.

That said, I've learned to not even flinch at "death" in Marvel books. I give Prof X's death a few months. Tops.

He actually was running around in X-Men Legacy after Messiah Complex for a while, which was a really entertaining read. How he dealt with the Juggernaut was just priceless.

And then... yeah, they just stopped using him for anything. Which is a shame, really, because especially with his own personal reboot he was a really interesting character.

Also, Hickman should have been the one to close out the series, IMO.

Well, it allows them to re-introduce characters who were sidelined when they lost their mutant powers.

More over this is the Marvel equivilent of DCs N52.
Big world altering event & the pointless cancelation then pointless reboot of all their main titles. Again.

As for what I thought of the story? Some potential. But very poorly told.
Ended almost exactly how I thought it would.

Xaviers death? Not even phased by it. Give it a few years, he'll get better.
Infact, he probably just transfered his psyche into another bald guys body at the last moment anyways. Or will return & it'll be revealed that the dead one was a really well disguised skrull.

As for the words "No More Phoenix"?
If you believe that.... Then I've got a certain bridge to sell you.

Woof. Just popped over and read Marvel's plans for MarvelNOW!. Wild. Just wild. X-people everywhere. Scary and interesting all at the same time. Will probably prove to be every bit as transient as every other big comic event.

I'm excited for Mark Waid's Hulk, but the rest looks like Joe Quesada saw his kid/grandkid playing in the tub with all his Marvel toys and said "Hmmmm...team?"

You mean I'm not the only one that was looking at the Uncanny Avengers (huh???) and thinking they were min-maxing for a Heroclix tournament?

Ooooh. I've been out of the comics loop for a bit, but this sounds promising.