Coming in December 2021 is School of X, a Xavier's Institute anthology in the Marvel line from Aconyte Books. I was given the opportunity for an advanced look in exchange for an honest review.

The New Charles Xavier Institute isn’t all it’s cracked up to be: the food is so-so, it’s cold eleven out of twelve months, not to mention the creepy bunker vibes with mysterious tech popping up all over the place. But for the next generation of X-Men, it’s home. Under the stewardship of Emma Frost, Cyclops, and Magneto, these new recruits learn to control their powers and defeat villainy. Yet, danger lurks within the academy and it isn’t just monsters or evil geniuses. Now, these fresh X-Men must understand what it means to fight not just yourself, but alternative shades of who they might have become in the past, present, and future.

Gwendolyn Nix is the editor for this anthology of seven short stories featuring the latest class of merry mutants. These are not your father's X-Men (or, in my case, the X-Men I grew up on in the 80's). This is a new breed of young heroes whose stories are presented by a varied pool of writing talents. In "Your Fifteen Minutes" by Jaleigh Johnson, movie night turns into a deadly re-enactment of 80's action scenes. In "Call Of the Dark" by Robbie MacNiven, Graymalkin must face his own personal darkness. In "Uncatchable" by Cath Lauria, Hijack discovers the secret behind a late-night street racing event. In "Eye Of the Storm" by Amanda Bridgeman, a trio of mutants is tested against man-made menaces. In "Of Dirt and Bones" by Pat Shand, a traininng exercise has an unexpected effect on Phoebe Cuckoo. In "Kid Omega Faces the Music" by Neil Kleid, the titled mutant takes in the past which has a major impact on his future. And, lastly, "Depowered" by Carrie Harris is a novella length story about what happens when the students are left unsupervised and a threat comes knocking at the door.

I myself happen to love anthologies, especially ones involving stories about super-heroes. My personal library includes many from Marvel and DC as well as all of the Wildcards series that is edited by George R.R. Martin. The short story format is good for delivering concise tales that can focus on characters and interactions. The stories in School of X fit that criteria as well. A number of these stories also seem to be laying the groundwork for future novels in the series.

This format worked very well, though some tales appealed to me more than others. I do hope that the publisher is able to do more anthologies like this one. I would personally enjoy seeing one focusing on villains from the Marvel universe as those stories always fascinate me.

About Marvel Entertainment

Marvel Entertainment, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company, is one of the world’s most prominent character-based entertainment companies, built on a proven library of more than 8,000 characters featured in a variety of media for over eighty years. Marvel utilizes its character franchises in entertainment, licensing, publishing, games, and digital media.

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“School of X”, edited by Gwendolyn Nix, the latest book in the Marvel - Xavier’s Institute series, consists of seven short stories set in the new Charles Xavier Institute which is located inside a disused underground Weapon X facility. It features the exploits of the next generation of X-Men under the tutelage of senior mutants including Emma Frost, Cyclops, and Magneto. The stories are written by, among others, the authors of the previous books in the series. These new X-Men must fight alternative versions of themselves, battle psychic visions, vengeful cyborgs and more, whilst also coming to terms with their own powers and identities.
The first story, “Your Fifteen Minutes” by Jaleigh Johnson, takes place on movie night in the Institute. After watching the exploits of a cinematic hero, Fabio Medina longs for his fifteen minutes of fame in which he can be the hero and save the day, and gets it. The story is fast-paced and twisty, with a surprising, feel-good ending. A solid start.
“Call of the Dark” by Robbie MacNiven is a tense, redemptive tale as Graymalkin strives to conquer his fear of the dark, which may also mean conquering himself, in the deepest, darkest parts of the underground Xavier Institute. It’s dark and brilliantly written, with hints of the larger X-Men lore. MacNiven also wrote the previous novel “First Team”, and this story has references to it as well as some recurring characters.
The third story is “Uncatchable” by Cath Lauria, and features one of the Institute’s oldest students, David Bond, AKA Hijack, who is able to control vehicles, wanting some “me-time” away from the Institute by taking part in a road race that turns out to be much more than it appears. This is a fun and exciting story with some great banter between Hijack and Alisa Tager, AKA Cipher, and well-written action.
In “Eye of the Storm” by Amanda Bridgeman, Iara/Shark Girl and Sooraya/Dust, under the protection (kinda) of Santo/Rockslide, are building a dam in a river at risk of flooding and exposing the Institute when Shark Girl’s curiosity leads them into a battle for their lives. This is very much a traditional story, solidly exciting and action-packed with a boo-able villain.
Fifth story “Of Dirt And Bones” by Pat Shand stars the so-called Stepford Cuckoos, psychic triplets Celeste, Irma and Phoebe. This is more of a visceral horror story than the rest, as Phoebe and Benjamin Deeds/Morph face nature fighting back. It also touches on the fact that mutants are seemingly born to fight their entire lives.
“Kid Omega Faces The Music” by Neil Kleid is narrated by the powerful but fun-loving and rebellious psychic mutant, Kid Omega. Attempting to steal the ultimate piece of memorabilia from his favourite actor, he instead finds himself transported to pivotal moments in X-Men history. But will he be tempted to change it? And is he really having a crisis of conscience? It’s a fun romp yet also a profound and redemptive journey and one of the longer stories in the book, along with the final tale, “Depowered” by Carrie Harris.
Left on their own while the teachers attend a meeting, the students have the worst party ever in the Danger Room which is interrupted by the arrival of unexpected guests who have a plan to fix the catastrophe of M-Day when many mutants lost their powers. Soon, however, an outside threat forces the students to finally bond as a team. This is a cracking story, with blistering action and strong character moments.
All the stories in this collection are very good while some are really excellent; they don’t drag and just get on with telling the story. The tales feature callbacks to earlier novels in the series but can be read and enjoyed as standalone stories; indeed, they invite the reader to check out the other books which will enhance these stories even further. Obviously, this is a vastly different experience from watching an X-Men movie, but shorn of glossy visuals, the stories are more character driven and are much better for it. As with all the novels in Aconyte’s Marvel range this book is well-written, pulse-pounding fun.

This book was fine.
This book has a handful of short stories by becoming authors and I think it was great to read some of the awesome stories within this book. However, I’m just giving this book 3 stars across-the-board as some stories were better than others and I feel as if three stars is the most fair. I felt like a few stories introduced to some really Interesting elements, but by the nature of a short story they can explore them and I didn’t feel like a few short stories left us on a cliffhanger. Overall, I’m usually not a huge fan of short stories so maybe this is just me.

I would completely recommend this book if you’re a HUGE fan of the X-Men series and enjoy short stories.

Loved comics all my life, and in particular, the colourful adventures of the X men with all the larger than life characters that sprang off the page like a movie on paper. But I've always loved reading, so this was a bit of an experiment, to see if reading about those adventures without the visuals to go with it would be the same.

It wasn't.

However, as with all good books, good visuals come in the details, in the prose, and so it was here. It's been some years since I was collecting the comics every month, so some of the characters were new to me, but I didn't need to know them to enjoy their adventures. Each of these was like opening a new comic at the end of the month and devouring the contents within.

Cheerfully, the focus of the stories wasn't just mutants beating on each other, as it often had been in years past, where "Good" fought "Evil" while the whole world continued to hate them both, these were interesting tales in and out of time, with teamwork and care for one another uppermost. I can't help but wonder if the direction of comics would have gone another way entirely if stories like this had been around at the beginning.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the free advance copy in return for the review.