X-MEN UNITED #1
“Welcome to Graymatter Lane”
Writer: Eve L Ewing
Artist: Tiago Palma
Colour artist: Brian Reber
Letterer: Joe Sabino
Editor: Tom Brevoort

COVER: Well, that’s assorted X-Men standing around. This book is loosely the successor to the previous series Exceptional X-Men. Despite what British readers might reasonably expect, it is not about a football team.

GRAYMATTER LANE:

The name is obviously a play on “Graymalkin Lane”, the address of the original X-Men Mansion.

The X-Men’s new school is, shall we say, not very clearly explained. Emma describes it as a “mind palace”, which doesn’t really take us very far because a mind palace is a memorisation technique. There seems to be a co-ordinated time when invited mutants are telepathically contacted by Emma and invited in. (However, Juggernaut can get in, so evidently non-mutants can also be invited.)  We’re told that “a doorway attuned to your individual psyche will appear before you”, but it’s unclear whether this is a literal doorway or some sort of mental projection technique. Later in the issue, Mariama seems to get there simply by thinking, without any doors involved. Beast says that an “altered mental state” is required to get in, though everyone seems normal once they’re inside.

Some degree of time dilation takes place within the school, which presumably explains how people fit it around their lives.

The school has been built using technology recovered from Mr Sinister’s lab after Exceptional X-Men #10 – presumably involving the same psychic landscape that we saw in that issue, and amenable to Emma and Axo’s control. Supposedly, this technology provides impenetrable protection against “physical or psychic attacks” – which might imply that it physically exists – but we’re also told that it is “nowhere”. The school has an “Empathy Engine” – a Cerebro-like device linked to Rift’s powers, which Axo can use to search for young mutants in emotional distress – and we’re specifically told that it physically exists, unlike “Emma’s conjurations”. So apparently it’s some sort of psychic pocket dimension which has a physical existence but much of what’s there is created mentally.

Laura tells her class that if “you get hurt in here, you get hurt out there”, which seems to imply that it’s a mental projection of some sort (otherwise it’d be a statement of the blindingly obvious). But Melée exits the school by teleporting direct to France, which isn’t where her body was before – so apparently everyone does have their physical bodies there. There’s also an infirmary where Hank treats people as if it was a normal place.

THE X-MEN:

Emma Frost. Despite putting on the usual act while greeting the students, she regards the school as the X-Men’s “most crucial charge”, which is consistent with her usual preoccupation with her teaching role. She seems implausibly confident that the school is impervious. Helping the students to access the school seems to be her main role, but despite presenting herself as something of an authority figure, she’s turned down the title of headmistress, citing the need for everyone to work together.

Kitty Pryde. The official headmistress. She skips most of Emma’s speech to the X-Men just to be annoying, but seems completely on board with everything that Emma is saying, and accepts it as a responsibility. She accuses Cyclops of trying to run away from it in the same way that she was at the start of Exceptional X-Men.

She’s picked up a female clone of Lockheed that was found in Sinister’s lab (we saw her in Exceptional X-Men #10) and was going to call her Martin, but accepts Trista’s suggestion of Marigold.

Nightcrawler gets to exchange exposition with Kitty.

Cyclops. Essentially serving as the villain here, Cyclops objects to the school on the grounds that it’s bound to become a target. This is obviously a reference to past attacks on the school, Genosha and Krakoa, although he rather ignores the fact that this version seems secret. More reasonably, he finds everyone’s faith in the security of something built using technology stolen from Mr Sinister baffling. There’s a suggestion that he’s still rather sensitive about his relationship with Emma, and the rest of the Alaska team seem happy enough with the whole thing. The issue ends by implying that he’s responsible for some sort of catastrophe befalling the school (though it might be a coincidence) – this sort of story would normally end with him being persuaded that the school has proved itself and so on.

Prodigy. The “Dean of Curriculum”, presumably based on his time teaching in NYX. He still wears street clothes. Since his “starting essentials” are combat training, mutant anatomy, “principles of teamwork and leadership” and “history and philosophy with Magneto”, he clearly sees this more as a mutant training camp than a full academic curriculum.

Rogue. Much more co-operative than Cyclops but still sceptical. She believes that the school is safe from outsiders but worries about how much you can trust the people who are already inside.

Wolverine and Wolverine. As you’d expect, they’re running combat training classes in the usual drill instructor fashion.

Beast. Teaching “mutant anatomy”, and running the medical bay.

Storm. Teaching teamwork and leadership alongside Rogue.

Magneto. Doesn’t say anything, but he’s teaching a class, so he must be happy enough with this idea.

Glob Herman. Unusually keen to argue back to Cyclops in this interpretation, and unimpressed with his attitude to the school.

Assorted other X-Men also get cameos: Temper, Juggernaut, Gambit, Jubilee, Jitter, Juggernaut, Calico, Kid Omega, Iceman, Magik and Psylocke.

STUDENT MENTORS:

The recap page classes these five characters as “Student Mentors”, and the story describes them as “sophomores” or “2Xs”. Essentially it’s the Exceptional X-Men cast (including Rift, who only just joined) plus Axo’s girlfriend Sophie Cuckoo. It makes no sense for these characters, on the strength of 12 issues, to be treated as more experienced than background characters who have been around for years, and that does get pointed out, but that’s the way it is.

Axo. He seems to be particularly important to keeping the whole school going, as well as hunting out more mutants in need of help. He comes across as rather more experienced than he did before – there seems to have been a time jump – and Emma is presenting him to the other X-Men as something close to a peer. He calls her “Emma” rather than “Ms Frost”, but seems uncomfortable or unused to doing so. He deflects praise for what he’s created, claiming that it was mostly Emma’s work.

Thanks to the school, he’s now actually in the same place as his long distance girlfriend Sophie Cuckoo, who accompanies him and Kitty on a trip back to Verate to pick up more tech.

Bronze. She assists with the combat training class, and actually seems useful – she manages to subdue Wolf Cub by using her cables for a sleeper hold, rather than leaving Wolverine to punch him into unconsciousness. She’s excited that Axo gets to meet so many famous mutants in Emma’s briefing (clearly, the rest of them don’t). She seems to be responsible for greeting first-time visitors, calling herself “student ambassador and experience lead”. She insists on using confetti for this, glitter having been vetoed.

Melée. Despatched to leave an invitation to the new mutant that they discover. She’s now using her invisibility and phasing powers quite effectively and seems more inclined to stick to the mission.

Rift. Reggie has taken on his codename from Expatriate X-Men and now seems quite comfortable with his powers. He is, apparently, “always tethered” to “a constantly rearranging, constantly moving quantum stream”, though what that means in practice is anyone’s guess.

STUDENTS:

Mariama LaChance. The new recruit approached this issue is a 13-year-old French girl from Clichy-sous-Bois, a Parisian suburb. While it’s not spelled out here, it’s a relatively poor part of Paris with a large black population. Mariama looks mostly normal but has a tail, four spikes on her fourhead, and some purple marks on her skin. She’s clearly being bullied at school.

A whole bunch of characters of varying degrees of prominence show up in Wolverine’s combat class, all with speaking parts:

• Ben Liu and Animalia from the Alaskan supporting cast are both here to learn how to fight, and both are understandably a bit put out by being put in a class with teenagers.
• Dryad. Plant-manipulating background character who’s been around since 2004 without doing much of anything. This is only her twelfth appearance. She was last seen in Way of X #1.
• Flourish. Another plant-manipulating character. She debuted in 2014 and this is only her tenth appearance, but she’s slightly less obscure given her relatively prominent role in the Fall of X miniseries Dark X-Men. She showed up in the Hellfire Vigil one-shot as well.
• Loola. One of the Arakko mutants who started in X-Men: Red and moved to NYX. She’s very insulted at Animalia and Ben’s attitude to her, produces a knife and draws blood (though not much). She does seem to regret it.
• Galura. Karma’s girlfriend from the Krakoan era (and thus another full grown adult). This is the first time we’ve seen her in the post-Krakoan period.
• Wolf Cub. A werewolf-like mutant who’s been around since 2002, mostly as a background character. His last significant appearance was in X-Men Unlimited Infinity Comic #68 (part of the X-Men: Green thing), back in 2023.
• Woofer. A civilian who got deported to Arakko during “Fall of X”. He made a couple of appearances in Gerry Duggan’s X-Men and also showed up in Fall of the House of X. This is his first appearance post-Krakoa.

A bunch of other characters are also shown entering through the doors in the opening montage, some of whom might be students, but others can’t possibly be:

• Scout, currently appearing in Generation X-23.
• Forge, who seems to be back to a traditional black and gold uniform.
• Shark-Girl, whose last major role was drumming for Dazzler in Jason Loo’s stories.
• Bishop, looking very 90s.
• Random, of all people, who hasn’t been seen since the fall of Krakoa.
• Vulcan, which is quite a name to throw out there in a cameo. Again, we haven’t seen him since the Fall of Krakoa, and god knows who invited him.

REFERENCES:

• Debussy’s String Quartet in G Minor (actually, his only string quartet), was written in 1892-1893. Emma seems to be using the first movement to lull people in the right state of mind to enter Graymatter Lane. As Emma indicates, it does indeed get more lively at the start of the second movement.
• The Exceptional X-Men cast fought Mr Sinister, and got access to his Verate equipment, in Exceptional X-Men #6-10.
• Professor X asked the X-Men to re-start the school in X-Manhunt Omega.
• Rift talks about blue dashers (the insects) – this is what the alternate-future team called themselves in Expatriate X-Men.
• As Axo says, Kitty started as Sprite, then became Ariel, Shadowcat and (in the post-Krakoa Duggan run) Shadowkat.
• The song Axo is playing to himself is “Maria” by ¡Cazamos Cometas!
• Glob refers to Kitty having been killed; that would presumably be Marauders #6, during the Krakoan period when everyone just got better (though it took her longer than most).
• Glob refers to Emma having had to watch her own students die. The obvious reference there is the death of the original Hellions in Uncanny X-Men #281-282.