When a mysterious man known as The Future begins picking off the students at the Jean Grey School one by one, it becomes clear that he will stop at nothing to get to his child Shogo. With the help of Storm's daughter from an alternate future, the X-Men hope to use her insight of the events to come in order to outsmart the deadly assassin.
X-Men Volume 3: Bloodline collects issues #13-17 of X-Men written by Brian Wood.
As the concluding arc of Wood's tenure on X-Men, a lot of key events take place. Storm officially sanctions the team, resolving the tensions between herself and Rachel Grey, while the questions about Shogo's past are finally answered. Sadly, the execution of these revelations is marred by poor pacing, inconsistent characterization and a serious lack of tension. Much of this storyline relies on The Future and the readers taking him seriously as a threat. Unfortunately, he's lacking in personality and has barely any backstory to speak of. Once more we're seeing Wood flounder with finding a way to tell the stories of his villains. Furthermore, the revelations about Shogo are fairly haphazard and don't provide the closure necessary to make Wood's run feel complete. Adding to this is the presence of Storm's potential future daughter Kymera. For those who didn't read Battle of the Atom, her appearance will be extremely confusing and it's especially frustrating since she acts almost as a deus ex machina. Instead of the X-Men figuring things out on their own, they're basically led by the information they've gleaned from Kymera.
In spite of this, there are moments where it seems like Wood truly understands the material and his characters. There's an exchange between Storm and Psylocke that serves as the standout in this collection. In it, Psylocke pushes Storm to examine her behaviour and take responsibility for the team. This is reminiscent of the memorable girl talk Storm and Emma had way back during Matt Fraction's run on Uncanny X-Men. Additionally, the budding friendship between Monet and Rachel helps to flesh out these two characters. They two play well off of one another, which is a good thing since Rachel has thus far been incredibly dull.
Bloodline gives Brian Wood's run on X-Men a conclusion more akin to a whimper than a bang. While he is to be praised for understanding his main cast and creating a lot of memorable interactions, his failure to utilize his villains and create a tightly crafted action adventure really marred his time on the book. The tragedy is that all of the pieces were there for him to make his first three arcs brilliant, but it was all squandered and sabotaged by a crossover event (Battle of the Atom), the departure of two major characters (Shadowcat and Rogue) and not providing a more blockbuster adventure for his heroines. Instead of being written as a flagship title, it felt more like a middling book where nothing truly event worthy occurs.
Rating: C-
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