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Beast’s old colleague Dr. Kavita Rao is working on curing mutancy. Deep down, Beast still aches to get rid of his blue fur and be more “normal” (something he’s wanted, perhaps, ever since his Amazing Adventures appearance in 1973) and he’s considering using an untested serum sample on himself. Meanwhile, an alien named ORD has just successfully reverted a mutant to humanity and now confronts the X-Men looking for a fight to safeguard serum development. When Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. agents show up it is, strangely enough, to protect ORD with diplomatic immunity. Precogs are predicting a catastrophe caused by an X-Man, but that doesn’t stop the team from trying to subdue ORD. (You’ll enjoy the inventive way Whedon manages his capture.) We’re left wondering what the connection is between S.H.I.E.L.D. and Dr. Rao’s operation.

The Big Surprise in the previous issue was that a character, long dead, has been brought back to life. Well, he was just never really dead. If you’re a long-time X-Fan, you’ll enjoy seeing this stalii chelovek again. This mutant was a secret research source for Dr. Rao and does not like being a guinea pig, and after escaping, expresses such in a fairly violent manner. A textbook denouement closes out the issue, along with a textbook teaser — and I mean that in a good way!

Whedon, known for creating and writing Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly, has captured the X-Men tone and characters extremely well. It’s almost like reading Chris Claremont, but with the new dark tone of the ‘00s. The humor, though, is excellent and well-placed. Some fans are calling for Whedon to script the next X-Men film. (Sorry; that coveted post has gone to Simon Kinberg.)

Cassaday’s art is great. He captures subtleties that are often more expressive than the words the characters utter while carrying the story along at a brisk pace. His action shots work well. His style is similar to that of Mike Deodato, who currently illustrates The Amazing Spider-Man. And fans really like the color work of Laura Martin.