Well shut my mouth, a Bendis storyline that wrapped up in a mere two issues instead of the requisite six!  After the previous issue got me all riled up, I think the best one can say for this unremarkable, by-the-numbers story is that it didn’t outstay its welcome.

We begin with our teen X-Men still lounging around in the same sunlit field, basking in the warm glow of sexual tolerance and acceptance.  Their happy-times are interrupted by the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier looming above, followed by what I think is my favorite part of this issue: Maria Hill descending from the helicarrier in the most nonchalant arrival I’ve ever witnessed from someone wearing rocket boots.  (Also, please note Teen Beast’s contribution of the word “Precisely!”  That’s a smart-sounding word, because he’s a smart guy!)  When Teen Iceman asks how she found them, since he thought they had a thing that blocked spy satellites, she points out that that’s how she knew to look there — “Hey, what’s that thing blocking our satellites?” — which I thought was moderately clever.  Anyway, Maria tells them that a S.H.I.E.L.D. unit was brought down by mutants on the former X-Men island headquarters of Utopia, and rather than having the helicarrier fly in and make things worse, she, reasonably enough, decided to ask the X-Men to drop by and defuse the situation.

Magik teleports the team to Utopia, and they confront this motley crew of tertiary X-characters.  Do you guys remember technopath Madison Jeffries, longtime member of Canada’s premiere superhero team Alpha Flight, as well as a more recent member of the X-Men’s science team?  How about young healer Elixir, who I’m happy to see was not, in fact, killed by Siphon during the muddled, perplexing events leading up to Wolverines?  Or our old friend Masque?  Yes?  No?  Well you may as well forget ’em, because out of the six renegade mutants holed up on what’s left of Utopia, these three do nothing to demonstrate their powers, contribute to the story, or even offer more than a perfunctory line of dialogue.  So I hope none of you got too excited at the thought of hanging out with them again!  Bendis isn’t here to please you nerds, after all!  Random asserts that they came to the island to live in peace, and that they don’t fight anybody unless they make a move first.  Rather than discuss their ideological differences like civilized mutant revolutionaries, stupid Teen Jean instead telepathically forces all of them to fall asleep, except for Karma apparently, who telepathically possesses Teen Cyclops and X-23 to attack the Teen X-Men, prompting not one, but two of them to literally tell X-23 to “cut it out” as this unstoppable assassin attempts to kill them with her deadly adamantium claws.  (Haha, “Jeez!”  You guys should really be more worried about this.) (Also, please note Teen Beast’s use of the word “compound!”  That’s a smart-sounding word, because he’s a smart guy!)  While Boom Boom presses the attack,  Teen Jean reaches out to Karma telepathically and asks her to call this off, prompting a nice little montage of Karma’s history that shows someone must have done their research, if not Bendis himself.

Cut directly to the Teen X-Men telling S.H.I.E.L.D. that they got away, then relocating the renegade mutants to their own hideout in the Canadian wilderness so they can truly be left in peace and solitude.  Have we learned anything?  Maybe, I guess.  Have any of our characters changed as a result of this story?  Well, apparently Teen Iceman is gayer now than he was at the start, that’s something.  And so, par for the course for a Bendis comic, the issue ends with Teen Jean asking a bunch of unanswered questions about how every story they’re in is the same story over and over: “We’ve all been through hell.  Why is it still like this for us?  What are we doing wrong?  What can we change?”  TO BE CONCLUDED… IN UNCANNY X-MEN #600 AT SOME UNDETERMINED POINT IN THE FUTURE!  And so I’d like to invite you, dear reader, to ponder these same questions with me: why is it still like this for us?  What are we doing wrong?  What can we change?  The obvious answer, of course, would be for me to stop reading as many Bendis comics as I do.