Welcome back to Marvel, Gail Simone! I’ve been eagerly anticipating this series for obvious reasons, but to say Simone made an immediate impression would be a huge understatement. Her character work was exceptional — this is exactly how you write character-drive stories that don’t need crazy plot devices to make them interesting. X-Titles are a superhero books, so crazy plots are expected You can tell she is deeply invested in these characters by how much care she put into their words — she wrote the heck out of Rogue!

The art David Marquez was equally as magnificent in his ability to convey emotions through facial nuances and body posture. Everyone looked amazing and his backgrounds and environments had great texture. Matthew Wilson’s colors gave it all an extra layer of depth that brought it all to life. Even for an issue without a ton of action, the panels were visually captivating and exciting.

The two nitpicks I had with the issue were small. The one that stood out most for me was that this issue felt more like a 4th or 5th issue than a debut issue. You can get away with diving in quickly when you have a cast of characters with decades of built-in history like the X-Men do, but I would have loved to see more set up for some of the new pieces that Simone introduced here. Several stories were introduces via foreshadowing scenes that I nearly forgot about because I was so invested in the main characters.

My other nitpick is Wolverine’s usage even if it’s not necessarily Simone’s fault. I wasn’t sure of the timeline between his appearance her compared to X-Men #1 as well as knowing he’ll also be showing up elsewhere shortly. Maybe I just need to keep my reminding myself that X-Men editor Tom Brevoort has said that ‘From the Ashes’ titles aren’t meant to be as tightly intertwines as those in the Krakoan Era. I just can’t shake the fact that Marvel loves to overexpose Wolverine across titles in any era.

While MacKay’s X-Men felt like a return to Morrison’s New X-Men, this series felt like a nod to Claremont’s best days on X-books in the best way possible. All in all this was what I had been hoping for out of this Gail Simone series. It’s easily one of my two favorite ‘From the Ashes’ series so far (behind only NYX) and I’m so ready for more! Don’t miss it!

Rating: 8/10