Basement X

WAas it just me, or was this really... well, not very good?

It started out pretty strong, but then it completely lost focus. It never really was explained exaclty why the future Brotherhood wants those kids back to the past, the deaths were uninteresting and Kitty's move seemed a bit overdramatic.

It was a big pile of steaming crap and I'm glad we're done with it. I agree with all your points.
The only change is that Kitty is now with Cyclops (what the fuck?) which pisses me off but also means Bendis is off the Jean Grey School so there's still that.

I enjoyed it for the most part, but felt it could have done so much more. The finale did leave a stale taste in my mouth. It put up on a pedestal as "most shocking to X-Men" yet it completely fell flat. They teased us with DEATH!!! yet they only killed future X-Men we don't really care about yet. They properly worked up Kitty getting pissed at everyone in the first half, but the second half it was almost ignored and I completely forgot about it, confusing me as to why Kitty left at the end. They should have built it up in the issue itself, with Kitty showing anger earlier instead of "oh yeah, by the way, fuck you!" she did out of nowhere.

Overall, I really enjoyed it. I do agree the first half was stronger, but I disagree on not touching on Kitty's reaction in the second half. I felt it more pushed us through the second half, but was left aside during the big fight scene of the last two issues or so. Her leaving was pretty much a dead give away, based on solicits, but I was still a little surprised to see her go with them. I'm expecting some kind of bait and switch where she's trying to bring Scott down from the inside. Magik is her only real friend on that team. She dislikes Emma and Magneto enough I'd say, and most likely doesn't trust Scott anymore so it doesn't really make sense but we'll see.

The only thing I really didn't like in the story was the art in the final issue. Battle of the Atom #2 should have had some of the best art of the whole story, having been the last part of it. But instead it had some of the worst art I've seen in X-Men comics in awhile. I feel like that detracted from the story for me more than anything else.

I still really liked it, but I do agree the best part was the first half.

Only two points from me for the moment:

1.
Why did the Future Brotherhood feel that sending the Sivler Age Kids back would solve everything? Wasn't this their key motivation? How did they feel this would solve their future problem of President Dazzler's death?

2.
The big kicking point of the series is supposed to be Kitty, functional daughter of Wolverine defecting.
Anyone really convinced the comic sold you on this?

I liked the idea of the comic and enjoyed various parts of it, but the main premise just doesn't hold together and accepting the conclusion that the kids had to go back wasn't hard to reach.

Kitty leaving the JGS makes sense after having Storm, Logan, Beast, etc. not trust her to handle the kids. However, her leaving to join Scott doesn't work. She's on the list of people who don't trust Scott post-AVX, she and Magneto have never been solid allies even when he brought her back from space as far as I could tell, and while she has her best friend/I'll kill you if I have to moments with Magik, the real thing that stands out to me is that Emma is still on Scott's side, and Kitty will never truly trust Emma. Her going there doesn't make much sense, unless she's trying to go there to bring them down for Logan (which I could see). I could have seen her take the original students on their own as a sort of 3rd party but not take them all to Scott.

Yeah, taking the kids on her own would make sense. In fact, I would even see it as justifying its own book.