The Creators – Ed Brisson – Writer, Carlos Gomez – Artist, GURU-eFX, Joe Caramagna – Letters

The Players – Cyclops, Cable

The Story – Cyclops recently rose from the dead. This is the story of how that happened.

The Take – As seen in the Extermination miniseries, Cyclops is back from the dead which should not come as much of a surprise as nobody in the X-Universe ever stays dead for long. So it is that Ed Brisson gives readers the story of just how that happens and it involves the newly-young Cable, that being the version of the character who sent the original X-Men back to the past where they belong and wrapping up one of the longest and most banal storylines to pepper the titles of the last few years. So how does Cyclops come back? To sum it up without giving everything away, it is all thanks to the Phoenix Force which makes sense given that Cyclops once held that power for a while. How that comes to be is all thanks to a little planning from Cable and a bit of time jumping and it is not long until Cyclops is back among the living. It is a fine story, not so much exciting as it is interesting, but as little happens other than that with a bit of his personal history coming into play to help the tale along, it is not the best read one might come across out of a week’s worth of books. Suffice it to say, the story had to be told somewhere and whether it was worth an annual with an increased price tag to do so is debateable. Will anyone miss anything without reading this book? Not so much, but it does tie into all the events that are happening in the ongoing Uncanny title and for those that like a smooth narrative; this will be a must-buy. For the average reader, the book will just come across as an average tale of the X-Men, Cyclops in particular. What will be most intriguing is just how things will unfold with the rest of the X-Men now that Cyclops is back and while he might not be so militant as he was just before he died, or at least that is how it seems at the moment, there might be some who are not so willing to follow the man anymore. Come Emma and Jean, one can only imagine what will happen there. Altogether, this was a good book, written and drawn well, but it could have been so much more and just feels like it was a wasted opportunity to do something really great with a character that was sorely missed.

Worth it? – Yes and no.