Story 1: “Talking about my Generation” (Note: This story takes place before the original AoA storyline) Colossus sits on a rock and watches as his teammates Rogue and Morph fight a band of Infinities to try and save humans from genetic cleansing. Sunfire and Rogue discuss the situation while Colossus continues to sit on the sidelines.

After the mission has been accomplished Colossus is in front of Magneto being asked what his thought process was to not helping his teammates during the battle. Colossus explains that he no longer feels the desire to fight for a world and a race that cares nothing for him or his decisions. He leaves Magneto and finds Kitty, his wife in the next room.

Peter and Kitty talk for a moment about what the future might hold now that they are no longer going to be X-Men. When Magneto floats through their window and explains that he needs someone to teach the next generation of mutants how to live and fight.

So was born Generation Next…

Story 2: “Man bites Dog” (Note: This story takes place before the original AoA storyline) In the midst of a genetic cleansing Holocaust gives Victor his wrath. Victor found a way to hide a group of young humans from extermination. Holocaust does not feel that Victor is fit to be one of the elite. He blasts Victor in the back.

Next we see Victor being dragged by a couple of Infinities toward a cell where the occupant has eaten his last four cellmates.

Victor hears growling coming from the shadows and dares the owner of the growl to come out and show his stuff. Wildchild comes from the shadows and the two are in a hand-to-hand fight for four days.

At a point Victor’s vision is covered in red and he loses any idea of what’s going on. When he wakes he is on the floor and fears that he’s lost his humanity and killed Wildchild. That’s when he remembers that he didn’t kill Wildchild but only showed him who was in charge.

The Infinitie guards sit around a table and play cards wondering what happened in the cell when Victor comes into the guardroom with Wildchild on a chain. The two make short work of the guards and escape. Later on they join the X-Men and the dream of Magneto.

Story 3: "Shinjuku Incident" (Note: this story takes place before the original AoA storyline) Mariko has been captured destroying computer mainframes and video games when Weapon X comes in and puts a stop to it.

Mariko complains and says that she does not need his protecting and didn’t understand why he was following her. Weapon X says it’s a matter of honor when Silver Samurai, her half-brother, appears from thin air and begins to fight with Weapon X. They have some bad blood from an earlier encounter.

Weapon X comes close to ending Samurai's life and thinks twice about it, letting the man teleport away before he changes his mind.

Story 4: “Beginning at the End” (Note: This happens after the end of X-Men: Omega) The bombs that have been dropped have suddenly been suspended in mid-air. Magneto and the X-Men have been covered with energy fields and they all watch as the bombs are disassembled right before their eyes.

Weapon X holds Jean Grey in his arms. He tells Magneto that she died to save the world and he better make the most of the chance that he’s been given.

Weapon X tells Magneto to give Jean Grey a proper burial; he’s done being a hero and done with any reason to live.

The world believes that Magneto saved everyone. Even Quicksilver believes that Magneto was able to avert destruction at the end of it. Magneto never corrects anyone.

Weeks later Magneto wakes from a deep slumber with a scream. He looks himself in the mirror over the bathroom sink and wonders how he can live with himself with this lie?

Sinister, in veiled shadows, appears behind Magneto and asks the very question that Magneto is thinking, what exactly happened that night?

Review: If you read the original AoA when it first came out (I did), then you’re going to enjoy a lot of the little things that this issue gives. Granted, there is a lot of fluff in this issue. The opening stanza of this one-shot, Colossus’ story is probably the weakest of them all. It gives insight to how it is that Generation Next was created but not how the younger characters were found. It was entertaining in the manner of the tête-à-tête that the characters around Colossus about his plight. That’s the only saving grace of this story.

The second stanza, Victor and Wildchild, is the most gratifying. It’s a story that has a nice beginning, middle and end. It shows how the partnership of a misfit and an elite came to be. It’s something that reads more like a memoir, which it could be considering that Victor can currently be seen in the pages of Exiles.

Weapon X’s story is another disappointment that feels like it was put in simply to give a little background on a character that will be introduced during the AoA mini-series going on this month and doesn’t really give much except for nice pencils and a kinetic feel that only Talent Caldwell is able to give.

I suppose the jewel of this one-shot is the explanation of how exactly it is we’re even going to be able to have an anniversary mini when everyone was supposed to be dead. Mark Brooks’s pencils are VERY similar to Roger Cruz’s pencils during the original Omega ending. It’s incredible how he is able to mimic a little of everyone when he draws. It’s very appealing.

Overall this issue is 50/50. It’s almost a MUST simply because of the last story in the one-shot that sets up the rest of the mini-series that is being done. I only hope that this anniversary event isn’t a dud.