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Good script, art, and cast.

However with a lot of characters are in other books, as well. I really wish there was less character cross-pollination between Astonishing, Legacy, and WatXM. Character development wise they just fell scattered and unfocused, except for the few, like Shadowcat, Rogue, Frenzy, and Northstar, that are only in one book.

hmm, i felt the opposite, wasn't a fan of the art, the words were ok, but many were unnecessary. the issue opens with a little action scene of northstar trying to escape a "controlled?" wolverine and gambit while iceman holds them off. it's almost a rule when a comic starts with an action scene and flashes back to "earlier" that you're not getting any more action. the story's been plotted very end heavy, and as a first issue you don't want it to be all people on couches. so we flashback to the people on couches scene, except it's two of them! two separate scenes of x-men playing at domestication, "ooh we got apartments, how novel!" the first scene with jean-paul and his boy, made perfect sense, you're introducing northstar as the main protagonist to this story. we're introduced to his powerset and someone he cares about (a pawn for villainy! as shown at the end of the issue!) totally legit. but then we switch to remy and cecilia doing the same sitting around chatting about nothing, hinting that there might be some potential romance stirring [because the author didn't get to develop it more in her previous series, but i digress] then all this boring complacency is interrupted by the most mediocre state break, phone calls and knocks at the door. nothing says "EMERGENCY MISSION" like a ringing phone or a knock at the door. of course, we've almost run out of time at this point because we've dedicated so much to gambit and cecilia snuggling on the couch, that we get the briefest of introductions to wolverine, iceman and warbird (is that lilandra's sister, warbird? longtime x-villain warbird? a little confusion on my end. i feel i should know but each story should stand on it's own, and maybe it's not important if she Was a villain, the way it's not important to this story to know that wolverine had bone claws for a time, or that gambit sometimes loses himself to a darker as yet unexplained horseman of apocalypse side.)

anyway, late and rambling, but yeah. i really liked what liu did with X-23 and am curious to see how she can juggle a larger cast (especially one as awkward as this)

in this team, is gambit the badboy or is northstar? are they both the badboy? is this an issue of tigerbeat? does wolverine get to be the badboy too? no he's gotta be the leader, right? so maybe northstar's the badboy and gambit offers witty words to lighten the mood? wait that's iceman's role, right? what's warbird again?

oh wait, before we finish, jean-paul's motivator, his lovely boyfriend sticks his nose where it doesn't belong! felt a little tacked on, but ok. is it the same "threat" that we think the rest of the characters are dealing with? what ties in the final moments of the issue to the rest of the story?

am i being incredibly too harsh? probably not, right? i mean, avenging spider-man (avenging spider-man!) was awesome, and it was just one silly story about spider-man convincing captain america to geek out with him) ...but that was a one-shot, so of course all the story elements are right there, paced perfectly.

I enjoyed it but it did feel like something was missing. And Warbird got no development other than this will be the crazy bitch of the team.

Eh...it was okay. It focused on characters that I really don't know or care that much about, like Northstar and Cecilia Reyhes or even Gambit to a certain degree, and so far I'm not seeing a whole terrible lot of interesting stuff with them. The plot was really scattered and doesn't connect at all and it doesn't even set anything up, just throws some random shit at you.

I'll keep going for a little while longer, but honestly, for such a hyped release and a fairly big, well-praised writer, it didn't completely deliver.

P. Warbird is not Lilandra's sister, Deathbird. I wouldn't be surprised if she was her daughter, though.

Personally, I liked the home life/out of uniform stuff with Jean-Paul, Cecilia, and Remy. We don't get enough of that in the X-Books, outside of maybe X-Factor or New Mutants these days.

I will agree, I hate a manufactured "loved one makes a stupid decision and is put in danger" idea. It's an overused and lazy plot device. You should know better, Marjorie.

Did anyone recognize the villains that showed up?

Chimera was the green dragon lady. The rest were Maraudars (though I'm having trouble placing the fellow in the shades).

The structure was a bit odd, but I still enjoyed the issue a lot. The bits with Gambit and Dr. Reyes were particular good. "Did you steal that Picasso again?"

I'd guess the Marauder in the shades is Scrambler, mostly by process of elimination.

Although I never agreed with the exploitative thing, I must admit that comment made me LOL a lot. I love it.