X-Men Schism 1 – 5

Schism is an epic X-Men story that has been built up by Marvel as one of those ‘nothing will be the same again’ stories.  X-Men comics have a fantastic history of great stories and this one doesn’t disappoint. It starts off with Logan and Scott attending an arms control conference in Switzerland where Scott hopes to talk world leaders into deactivating their Sentinel programs. Scott brings Logan along with him because he wants someone that he can trust and rely on. They have a bit of a heart to heart which seems a bit out of character for both of them but its done so that the ending of the story is that more shocking.

A mutant Quentin Quire turns up at the conference and uses his power to get the world leaders to admit their worst secrets to the world. Political carnage ensues and some Sentinels get unleashed in the process. This leads to some excellent classic scenes of Wolverine and Cyclops versus the Sentinels.  The main bad guy turning the screws in all of this turns out to be a kid called Kade Kilgore. Surely his parents knew he would be a super villain with that name. Apparently not as in his first appearance he kills his father and goes on to take over his arms company. Kade has a bunch of brat friends who are being set up as the new Hellfire Club.

So now the X-Men have to deal with countries all over the world who are now activating their stock pile of Sentinels for some reason. Meanwhile Logan is struggling with how much involvement the young mutants at the X-Mens’ school should have in all of this. Scott is all for getting them involved as early as possible as he thinks that being  X associated  mutant they’re going to have to fight sooner or later. Logan thinks they should have a childhood.  This I find very believable from these two characters. Logan while vicious and the best at what he does has always had a soft spot for students at the school while Scott has been hardened by making all of the X-Mens difficult choices over the years. It’s this difference in philosophy that causes a rift between the two and causes a split in the X-Mens ranks.

How the story gets there is the fun part and this story reads like a great action movie. There are some very tense scenes at the end of the story but I won’t spoil it for you. I highly recommend picking these comics up.