Technically the event started in January with the anthology book Age of X Alpha #1, And the crossover kinda suffered due to the month long wait between the release of AoX Alpha and the start of the actual story in these two issues. But they were definitely worth the wait.

4 Pages from X-men Legacy 245

The story drops us in right in the middle of the action with the mutants defending their homebase Fortress X (which is made up of dozens of New York City skyscrapers, including the Chrysler Building) from an invading horde of baseline human soldiers and sentinels attempting to wipe them all out.

The humans have gotten through to an area with the least mutant defenses and they've brought a Battle Wagon with them (which basically seems to be heavily armed gigantic tank). So Field Commander Cannonball sends in Tempo's squad to take them out.



I've got to say I really like this confident and a little perverted Pixie, or as she's known in Age of X Nightmare.

Tempo's team slows down the Battle Wagon while Warlock takes it out from the inside and the battle ends. Unfortunately Tempo takes a bad hit from the tank in the process and so Cannonball is forced to call in the Reaper.


Just a very chilling page.


There's just so many things I love about this page. The Force Warriors enter with a badass hero walk, Psylocke in her original British Body, seeing Legion and Hellion as respected heroes amongst mutants (Julian especially, he's been toeing the line of villainy lately), appearances from five New X-men students, more perverted Nightmare, and even the concept of the Force Walls. That's not a blue sky we've been seeing up until now, it was a combination of their forcefields.

BTW the brunette Force Warrior is Carmella Unuscione, known as Stand-Off. I'm a little disappointed since I was hoping she was Sofia Mantega. But this is pretty cool too.

And so we get an idea of the daily lives of mutants in Fortress X. The humans spend hours breaking through these Force Walls and the mutants fight to push them back and hold the line until the Walls are rebuilt. The mutants go back to their base and wait for it to start again the next day. This is a dire situation and they're slowly being picked off. It's mentioned that Rogue/Reaper has already had to take Nightcrawler and Madrox.

While everyone else leaves to unwind and rest for the night, Legacy is still trying to adjust to her latest absorption. So she stays on the battlefield where she encounters what appears to be a sapien soldier who has breached the barrier.

A strike team consisting of Gambit, Angel, Dazzler, Northstar and oddly enough Vertigo (who is not a mutant) knock the soldier out.



About 4 pages from New Mutants 22
( I cut out some panels off of two pages in order to make room for two panels that amount to about a quarter of a page, if it's too much Mods I'll remove it).

Basilisk (Scott Summers who has had his eyelids cut off and is forced to wear this mask at all times) has noticed something odd.

Our first hint of what caused this Age of X reality.

I'm really digging this Basilisk/Frenzy marriage, they make an interesting couple. Other seemingly random AoX couples include Storm/Namor and Psylocke/Iceman (there's a really great scene in Chapter 1 where Namor asks Psylocke if she misses being a Lady in London and she replies that's she's always preferred slumming it)

I also really like that since Scott was never leader of the X-men in this universe, Cannonball has taken up the leadership position, it's really interesting to see that everyone seems to have switched roles. There's another really great scene where Sam confronts Basilisk about using his powers recklessly and threatens to take him off the field.

Legacy, curious about what Kitty saw outside the Walls finds a camera that Kitty hid before she was captured. All that was on it was 247 pictures of blank space, Legacy can't let this go as an oddity. And so steals Madison Jeffries technopathic powers to sneak into the Brig in order to ask Kitty herself.






Legacy has been caught in the brig and General Magneto broadcasts to the mutants to apprehend her, using all necessary force

And so a team of mutantkind's most brutal killers are going to be sent after her.


Here's another look at the AoX New Mutants on the cover of X-men Legacy 246 Age of X Chapter 3



And that was the beginning of the Age of X storyline. There seems to be a mystery on top of this alternate reality X-men story. Clearly not everything is what it seems and a lot of the pieces don't quite fit yet. But I'm excited to see where Carey goes with this and how the Age of X is going to affect the 616.

This is the ind of X-men story I love. There's a huge cast and everyone is given a bit of spotlight and is treated with respect. Former Acolytes who haven't done anything in a while like Frenzy, Tempo and Unuscione and even characters we haven't seen in a while because they were depowered on M-Day like Jubilee and Chamber are all given a chance to shine. This is why Mike Carey is my favorite of the current X-Writers.

Also if anyone is curious about the alternate pasts of some of these characters, Mike Carey wrote a series of character profiles for CBR. It's an interesting read and it makes a nice companion to the Age of X storyline.

Magneto, Basilisk, Legacy
Cannonball, Gambit, Revenant
Berserker, Hellion, Nightmare
Frenzy, Magma, Cypher