Category: X-Men

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X-Men: Manifest Destiny


By Jason Aaron, James Asmus, Mike Carey, Frank Tieri, Steven Segovia, Jorge Molina, Ardian Syaf, Michael Ryan, Chris Burnham, Takeshi Miyazawa, Ben Oliver & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3951-5

Most people who read comics have a passing familiarity with Marvel’s fluidly fluctuating X-Men franchise and even newcomers or occasional consumers won’t have too much trouble following this particular jumping-on tome, so let’s just plunge in as our hostile world once more kicks sand in the faces of the planet’s most dangerous and reviled minority…

At this particularly juncture, the evolutionary offshoot portentously dubbed Homo Superior is at its lowest ebb. This follows the catastrophic House of M and Decimation storylines, wherein former Avenger Wanda Maximoff AKA the Scarlet Witch – ravaged by madness and her own chaos-fuelled reality-warping power – reduced the world’s entire mutant population to a couple of hundred individuals.

Most of these genetic outsiders have accepted a generous and earnest offer to establish an enclave on an island dubbed “Utopia” in San Francisco Bay, and this utterly engrossing tome re-presents Wolverine: Manifest Destiny #1-4, X-Men Manifest Destiny: Nightcrawler plus the lead strip and selected short stories from the anthology X-Men Manifest Destiny #1-5 and covers the period October 2008 – April 2009: one of a number of collections cataloguing various mutant heroes’ and villains’ responses to the offer.

This account of some who answered the call to “Go West, Young Mutant” opens with the 4-issue miniseries Wolverine: Manifest Destiny (by scripter Jason Aaron and artists Stephen Segovia, Paco Diaz Luque & Noah Salonga) wherein the long-lived wanderer known as Logan is plagued by some freshly-returned memories as he wanders the streets of Chinatown, painfully aware that, at least in this part of San Francisco, he is not welcome…

The bestial, nigh-indestructible mutant was born at the end of the 19th century, but over the decades his mind and memories have been constantly tampered with by friends and foes alike. Recently. however, a steady procession of revelatory disclosures regarding his extended, over-brainwashed life has gradually seeped out.

He recalls a breach of trust and broken promise made to the citizens of Chinatown fifty years previously and is determined to make amends and restitution, beginning with an unhappy confrontation in ‘Enter the Wolverine’…

The hero is reviled by the old men who remember him, and subsequently attacked by an army of triad gangsters and kung fu warriors determined to eradicate the shame he had heaped upon their forefathers…

Outmatched and beaten near to death by the massed Tong fighters, the barely resisting Wolverine is further-imperilled when his old girlfriend Lin turns up in ‘Black Dragon Death Squad to the Edge of Panic’ – a septuagenarian crime-boss still furious that he abandoned her half a century past and ready to avenge the insult by setting her mystic martial arts warriors on him…

Suffering the worst beating of his impossibly long and fractious life, Logan barely escapes into the sewers as the long-suffering San Francisco cops arrive only to be greeted with stony silence. As usual the close-knit community refuses to have anything to do with such unworthy interfering outsiders…

Chinatown has always been policed by the Black Dragon: a supreme criminal boss who takes tribute from civilian and Tong societies alike, and in return always ensures peace and a healthy business environment. Now, far below the incensed citizenry, the slowly recuperating Logan recalls how ‘Once Upon a Time in Chinatown’ he breezed into the thriving ghetto just as current chief Lo Shang Cho began overstepping traditional boundaries and acting like an old world tyrant.

Naturally he had to intervene, but after killing the bullying despot and routing his ruthless thugs, the cocky mutant shirked his responsibility, refusing to become the new Black Dragon and insulting the entire community by leaving.

His brief paramour Lin was compelled to take his place to maintain order, but over the decades she became as cruelly corrupt and debased as her predecessor …and now the “man” who ruined her life has returned, seemingly not one day older or wiser…

Whilst recovering, the deeply penitent Wolverine has been tutored by Master Po, the kung fu sensei who first tried to teach him to fight like a man and not an animal. It didn’t work then but this time the Black Dragon commands unbeatable magical warriors Rock of the Buddha, Fist of Fire, Storm Sword and Soulstriker and the mutant just cannot win with his usual unthinking berserker methods…

Covertly trying to rally support and drive out the “bad criminals” forever Logan, attempts to recruit some of the area’s martial arts Schools and Dojos to his cause in the blistering finale but as usual, events get away from him and fists and feet too soon start furiously flying in ‘The Way of the Black Dragon’, leading to a triumph of sorts and a whole new role for the transplanted, redeemed Canadian…

This spectacular and bombastic homage to Hong Kong action cinema and comics perfectly blends East and West wonderment in a beautiful, intoxicating manner and also includes a glorious guest-shot from vintage 1970s stalwarts Lin Sun, Abe Brown and Bob Diamond, the legendary Sons of the Tiger (and one of the US industry’s first martial arts series, from issues #1-19 issues of the mature-readers magazine Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, April 1974-December 1975).

The one-shot X-Men Manifest Destiny: Nightcrawler follows as ‘Quitting Time’ (by James Asmus, Jorge Molina, Ardian Syaf, Victor Olazaba & Vicente Cifuentes) focuses on the swashbuckler-turned-priest as he seeks for higher meaning in the eradication of mutants and his own place in the X-Men.

An answer is perhaps forthcoming in a request to visit a museum dedicated to him in the German village where he was almost killed by pitchfork-wielding bigots who believed he was a demon…

At that time Professor Charles Xavier saved him and invited him to join the mutant hero team, setting him on the path of the hero. However, all these years later as he meets his former persecutors, the troubled cleric still feels like an unclean outsider and realises he has been brought to his homeland under false pretences. Another “demon” is plaguing Winzeldorf and, with a child missing, the villagers are expecting one monster to catch the other.

Of course there is far more going on than meets the eye, and inevitable tragedy leads to a confrontation with a genuine devil when the satanic Mephisto appears, hungry for despoiled and tarnished souls…

‘Kill or Cure’ by Mike Carey, Michael Ryan & Victor Olazaba was the lead strip in the miniseries X-Men: Manifest Destiny and followed radical changes in the life of founding X-Man Robert Drake. As Iceman, the hero had been fighting for most of his adult life but when maniacal mutant shapeshifter Mystique poisoned him with a genetically keyed neural inhibitor, his powers began to run amok and he imagined his end was near.

Embarking on a trip to Utopia and the medical ministrations of best friend Hank “The Beast” McCoy, Drake was dogged and sabotaged every step of the way by Mystique who apparently wanted him dead but seemed reluctant or unable to finish him off, despite his weakened condition and wildly fluctuating powers…

Surviving her many assaults, Iceman realised an exponential leap in his abilities but their final confrontation on the Bay Bridge proved that his understanding of her incomprehensible motives and actions was far from complete…

The short story section opens with a comedic clash between matter-detonating mutant ‘Boom-Boom’ and cheesy Homo Superior shoplifter Kuwa in a broadly slapstick tale of slapstick broads by Asmus, Chris Burnham & Nathan Fairbairn, after which Nightcrawler returns in a pretty but downbeat psycho-drama.

As the teleporting hero faces old foes in a Danger Room simulation, he is forced to confront his deep doubts and true feelings for a lost comrade in the bittersweet ‘Work it Out’ (Asmus & Takeshi Miyazawa) before ‘Nick’s’ by Frank Tieri, Ben Oliver & Frank D’Armata ends things on a moodily oppressive note after Wolverine, Colossus and Nightcrawler pay a disturbingly heavy-handed visit to a former Evil Mutant with the intention of keeping the already-reformed character on the straight and narrow…

This stirring and excessively entertaining tome comes with a selection of cover reproductions from Dave Wilkins, Brandon Peterson, Humberto Ramos & Brian Reber and Michael Turner and pages of stunning designs, roughs and colour studies by Segovia featuring assorted kung fu warriors and the Sons of the Tiger.
© 2008, 2009 Marvel Characters In. All rights reserved.

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Uncanny Avengers: The Red Shadow


By Rick Remender, John Cassaday, Olivier Coipel & Mark Morales (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-528-4

In the aftermath of the blockbuster Avengers versus X-Men publishing event, the company-wide reboot MarvelNOW! began repositioning and recasting the entire continuity in the ongoing never-ending battle to keep old readers interested and pick up new ones.

Sadly this isn’t a merely Marvel problem but a malaise affecting the entire global comics industry, but that struggle for survival does occasionally produce some truly stellar reading results as in this impressive fusion of two grand old franchises, allowing writer Rick Remender and artists John Cassaday, Olivier Coipel & Mark Morales to take the latest brigade of the “World’s Mightiest Superheroes” in a fascinating old new direction.

Collecting Uncanny Avengers #1-5 (cover-dated December 2012-May 2013), this astounding reaffirmation of the magic of Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction opens with the eponymous 4-part thriller depicting the creation of a new, politically correct and provocatively inclusive team combining human and mutant heroes, tasked with proving that mutant visionary Charles Xavier‘s dream of lasting cooperation and mutual amity between Home Sapiens and Superior was not impossible…

What You Need to Know: Once upon a time the mutant Avenger Wanda Maximoff – daughter of arch-villain Magneto and known to the world as the Scarlet Witch – married the android hero Vision and they had (through the agency of magic and her unsuspected chaos-energy fuelled ability to reshape reality) twin boys. Over the course of time it was revealed that her sons were not real and they subsequently vanished (for further details see Marvel Platinum: the Definitive Avengers).

As the years passed their loss slowly, imperceptibly drove Wanda mad and when she at long last slipped completely over the edge and destroyed a number of her Avenger team-mates, the effects of her power and actions affected and reshaped the entire Marvel Universe, resulting in a dramatic reboot event known as Avengers Disassembled.

No sooner had the team recovered from that catastrophe than reality was overwritten again when she had another breakdown and altered Earth history such that Magneto’s mutants ruled over a society where normal humans (“sapiens”) were an acknowledged evolutionary dead-end living out their lives and destined for extinction within two generations.

It took every hero on Earth and a great deal of luck to put that genie back in a bottle (in another colossal company crossover dubbed House of M), and in the aftermath less than 200 mutants were left on Earth…

The Witch was partially rehabilitated and began her redemption during Avengers versus X-Men wherein the World’s Mightiest Heroes strove against the remaining mutant outcasts for control of young Hope Summers: a girl predestined to become mortal host to the implacable force of cosmic destruction and creation known as The Phoenix.

However the primal phenomenon instead possessed a quintet of X-Men, corrupting them whilst empowering their dream of turning the planet into a paradise for besieged, beleaguered Homo Superior.

In the ensuing conflict humanity was briefly enslaved before inevitably the rapacious, selfish destructive hunger of the Phoenix Force caused those possessed to turn upon each other. Soon its transcendent energy transformed the unifying, rallying figure of head freedom-fighter Scott Summers, AKA Cyclops, into another seemingly unstoppable and insatiable “Dark Phoenix”.

At that crossroads moment his beloved mentor Xavier, founder of the X-Men and formulator of the policy of peaceful mutant/human co-existence returned, only to be killed by his most trusted, devoted disciple…

Professor X’s death forced X-Men and Avengers to unite against the true threat but, in the days that followed the expulsion of the Phoenix Force, progress and reconciliation stalled. The mostly human world festered with resentment even as new mutants began to appear, and liberated humanity again fell into its old habits of species intolerance and violent, bigoted vigilante outrage…

After disturbing scenes of brain surgery, our story now begins in ‘New Union’ as Wolverine leads the bereaved Homo Superior students of the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning in services for their fallen inspirational Moses (or perhaps more accurately Martin Luther King). Meanwhile in a secret S.H.I.E.L.D. detention centre an unrepentant Cyclops is paid a visit by his brother.

Also known as the government-sanctioned mutant agent Havok, Alex Summers is appalled at the unflinching hard-line attitude of his apparently irredeemably radicalised sibling who seems oblivious to the damage his crusade has done to Xavier’s Dream. On exiting the facility, Alex is met by Captain America and Thor who have an enticing yet frightening proposal for the shaken former head of America’s X-Factor mutant task-force…

The Sentinel of Liberty is painfully aware that America’s mutant minority has been poorly served – if not actively institutionally discriminated against – and is hungry to make amends by making real Xavier’s vision. To that end he wants to create a new high-profile, affirmatively-active Avengers Unity Division, comprising humans and mutant heroes working together.

He also wants Havok to lead the team…

Even as Alex and the Avenger elder statesmen discuss the deeply contentious and heavy-handed proposal, an old, vile threat has resurfaced. Mutant terrorist Avalanche launches a devastating assault, slaughtering hundreds of New Yorkers, before killing himself when Thor, Captain America and Havok intervene. The atrocity has no apparent motive but the killer seems to have undergone recent cranial surgery…

Elsewhere the desperately repentant Scarlet Witch tries to pay her condolences at Xavier’s shrine but is attacked by furiously indignant X-Man Rogue before they are both ambushed and captured by a squad of metahumans faithful to a monster claiming to be the true Red Skull.

The Nazi hate-monger has plans to eradicate the sub-human mutant race forever, and now that he has stolen the deceased Professor X’s brain – and telepathic powers – nothing can stop him…

The horror grows in ‘Skulduggery’ as Wolverine joins the heroes at the scene of Avalanche’s holocaust/suicide, confirming that the mass-mover had fully reformed and this disaster must have a hidden architect. Although dubious of Cap’s “positive PR” solution, the feral mutant is also convinced that someone is trying to foment genocide and agrees with Thor that they need to be stopped… permanently…

Answers come when the Red Skull pre-empts television broadcasts, urging humanity to rise up and destroy the mutants who are the cause of all America’s woes. It’s the same vile message as espoused in Depression-era Germany seven decades ago, but this time enforced on believers and resisters alike by Xavier’s irresistible psychic powers.

Soon, brainwashed mortals are slaughtering anybody deemed different. The message is backed up and subtly reinforced by the Fascist’s deadly deputy Honest John, the Living Propaganda, even as the Skull’s other S-Men – Goat-Faced Girl, Dancing Water, The Insect, Mzee and Living Wind – tend to their master’s mutant captives…

Soon however Rogue and Wanda have escaped, but their flight through the monster’s hidden fortress is abruptly halted when they discover the appalling remains of Xavier, allowing the Nazi madman to make them his mindless slaves.

The Worst Fiend in History has big plans: if he can bend Wanda to his will, perhaps she can be made to rewrite reality again to the deranged Nazi’s debaseded design…

‘Skull & Bones’ sees the madman and his puppets begin their eradication campaign in Manhattan as the Crimson Hatemonger seizes direct control of ordinary humans and orders them to slaughter all mutants in an orgy of destruction with only Cap, Havok, Thor and Wolverine to battle the rampage of rampant unchecked hatred and fear in ‘Thunder’.

With so many mystical mindbenders on his team, it’s not long before Teutonic deity Thor is also seduced and beguiled by the Skull and set upon his erstwhile mutant comrades; but sadly for the briefly triumphant S-Men their leader’s iron hold on the Scarlet Witch has subsequently slipped…

Against all odds, the mismatched Politically Correct Paladins score an unlikely victory and drive off the Skull, forcing the still-unconvinced Havok to admit that his proposed new team might actually help remould the nation’s fears and opinions…

This initial collection concludes with a tantalising glimpse of things to come in an untitled fill-in from Remender, Coipel & Morales which publicly launches the Avengers Unity Division amidst a flurry of time-bending hints and portents.

Interspersed with pithy glimpses of old adversaries Immortus, Kang the Conqueror and Onslaught as well as the advent of ancient, portentous devil-babies the Apocalypse Twins (all murderously jockeying for position), the first Press Conference of the official team – Havok, Captain America, Thor, Wolverine, Scarlet Witch, Rogue, Wonder Man, the Wasp and Sunfire – goes horribly wrong when implacable undead enemy the Grim Reaper attacks, resulting in a shocking death which looks set to undermine all that hard-won pro-mutant progress in one bloody instant…

To Be Continued…

Engaging, exciting and extremely entertaining; blending spectacular adventure with wry suspense, this new look at an old concept is magnificent fun and promises even greater thrills and chills to come.

This book also includes a vast, sublime and expansive cover-and-variants gallery by Cassaday, Mark Brooks, Sara Pichelli, Neal (not, as attributed, Arthur) Adams, Coipel, Skotti Young, Ryan Stegman, Adi Granov, Mark Texeira, J. Scott Campbell, Simone Bianchi and Milo Manara and a selection of now obligatory 21st century extra content for tech-savvy consumers in the form of AR icon sections.

These Marvel Augmented Reality App pages give access to story bonuses once you download the little dickens – free from marvel.com – onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.

™ & © 2013 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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All-New X-Men: Here Comes Yesterday


By Brian Michael Bendis, Stuart Immonen, Wade Von Grawbadger & Craig Yeung (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-532-1

Radical perpetual change – or the appearance of such – is a driving force in modern comics. There must be a constant changing of the guard, a shifting of scene and milieu and, in latter times, a regular diet of death, resurrection and rebirth – all grounded in relatively contemporary terms and situations.

With a property as valuable as the X-Men such incessant remodelling is a necessarily good thing, even if you sometimes need a scorecard to keep up, and over the decades the franchise has repeatedly reinterpreted, refashioned and updated the formative early epics by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Roy Thomas and Werner Roth and others to give a solid underpinning to all the thoroughly modern Mutant mayhem.

Now following all the bad choices and horrendous paths taken by the mutant mavericks over the last few years, and in the aftermath of the blockbuster Avengers versus X-Men publishing event, latest company-wide reboot MarvelNOW! recasts the entire continuity and allows writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Stuart Immonen (with the assistance of Wade Von Grawbadger & Craig Yeung) to take the franchise in a truly bizarre old new direction.

Collecting All-New X-Men #1-5 from November 2012 – March 2013, this dark yet breezy reboot finds mutant Moses Charles Xavier dead, murdered by his favourite son who has also splintered his chosen people into polarised if not actually warring factions.

Way back in 1963, The X-Men #1 introduced gloomy, serious Scott Summers/Cyclops, ebullient Bobby Drake/Iceman, wealthy golden boy Warren Worthington III/the Angel, standoffish Jean Grey/Marvel Girl and erudite, brutish genius Henry McCoy/the Beast. These very special youngsters were selected to be students by the wheelchair-bound telepath Xavier: a man dedicated to brokering peace and achieving integration between the sprawling masses of humanity and an emergent off-shoot race of mutants with extra abilities, ominously dubbed Homo Superior.

After years of eccentric, quirky adventures, the masked misfits faded away in early 1970. When they eventually made their comeback they weren’t kids any more…

Over the intervening years the struggle to integrate Homo Superior with baseline humanity has produced many tragedies and compromises, resulting in the death of Jean Grey and Cyclops allying with former foes Magneto and Emma Frost in a hard-line alliance devoted to preserving mutant lives at the cost, if necessary, of human ones. His former team-mates and newer X-Men such as Wolverine, Storm and Kitty Pryde have stayed on Xavier’s path, abandoning Scott to protect and train the next X-generation at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning…

The five part ‘What Happens Now?’ opens at the school as Hank McCoy realises he is dying.

The team’s resident super-genius was the first to strike out on his own and paid a high price for it, but now those days have come back to haunt him one last time…

Premiering in Amazing Adventures #11 (March 1972) ‘The Beast!’ told how the brilliant student had left Xavier’s school and taken a research position at the Brand Corporation. Using private sector resources to research the causes of genetic mutation, McCoy became embroiled in industrial skulduggery and to hide his identity used his discoveries to “upgrade” his natural animalistic abilities – temporarily turning himself into a fearsome furry anthropoid creature with startling new abilities. At least it was supposed to be temporary…

Now, after years as a big blue Beast, McCoy is uncontrollably mutating further and realises he will not survive the agonising process. As Cyclops and his new team of freedom fighters begin a very public crusade, rescuing the latest mutants to manifest from their own power and the hostility of humankind, Hank and fellow tutors Pryde, Storm, and oldest friend Iceman discuss how far their friend has fallen.

Drake then muses on the team’s earliest days and remarks that if the Scott Summers from back then could see himself now, he’d slap some sense into himself…

With no time left, staring a prospective mutant civil war in the face and determined to leave a lasting, meaningful legacy, McCoy risks the entire continuum by bringing not only Cyclops but the rest of the original team back to the future in a desperate attempt to heal and restore the noble, dedicated Scott Summers he used to implicitly trust with his life and the future of mutantkind…

Back in our present, Marvel Girl suddenly gains the telepathic powers which originally took her years to develop as the shocked innocent kids become aware of the catalogue of horrors they will endure whilst defending Xavier’s dream. Young, idealistic Scott especially cannot believe… and will not allow his later self to continue betraying his/their life’s purpose…

However as Wolverine and the others become dramatically aware of what McCoy has done, the elder Beast collapses. Realising their moral compass is dying, the 21st century X-Men lock up and isolate the newly-arrive, future-shocked kids to prevent further problems.

They have however completely underestimated the squad who where regularly saving the world years before they could vote or buy beer…

Breaking out and stealing a jet, the juvenile first team take off to confront the terrorist Cyclops and his allies, but discussion quickly devolves into brutal battle and the elders choose escape over further risky conflict…

Shaken but resolved the kids return and, whilst the time-twisted McCoy boys find a way to save the dying Beast, the original X-Men come to a fateful decision. They won’t go home until they have stopped the wayward modern Cyclops. Moreover Jean, having learned of her own dark destiny, is set on ensuring it will never happen…

Engaging, exciting and extremely entertaining; blending spectacular adventure with the signature themes of alienation and personal freedom but finally finding room for much-missed humour, warmth and affection, this utterly beguiling, enticingly  unpredictable yarn promises a genuinely fresh approach to the moribund, dead-ended, water-treading mutant franchise and offers a perfect jumping-on point for new and retired fans alike.

This book also includes a stunning cover-and-variants gallery by Immonen, Joe Quesada, J. Scott Campbell, Salvador Larroca, Pablo Manuel Rivera, Skott Young, Pasqual Ferry, Ed McGuiness, Jim Cheung and Olivier Coipel, and also the now nigh-compulsory 21st century add-on for all those tech-savvy consumers in the form of AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which give access to story bonuses once you download the little dickens – for free – from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet thingy.

™ & © 2013 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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Marvel Masterworks volume 12: The X-Men 101-110


By Chris Claremont, Dave Cockrum, John Byrne & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 0-87135-628-7

In 1963 The X-Men #1 introduced Cyclops, Iceman, Angel, Marvel Girl and the Beast: very special students of Professor Charles Xavier, a cerebral, scholarly wheelchair-bound telepath dedicated to brokering peace and integration between the masses of humanity and the emergent off-shoot race of mutants dubbed Homo Superior.

After years of eccentric and spectacular adventures, the mutant misfits disappeared at the beginning of 1970 (issue #66 cover-dated March) during a sustained decline in costumed hero comics, when mystery and all things supernatural once more gripped the world’s entertainment fields.

Although their title was revived at the end of the year as a reprint vehicle, the missing mutants were reduced to guest-stars and bit-players throughout the Marvel Universe and the Beast was transformed into a monster to cash in on the horror boom, until new editor-in-chief Roy Thomas green-lighted a bold one-shot in 1975 as part of the company’s line of Giant-Sized specials…

This superb second deluxe hardcover compendium recaptures the stellar excitement of those exuberant days through X-Men #101-110 of the decidedly “All-New, All-Different” X-Men (from October 1976 to April 1978) when the merry mutants were still young, fresh and delightfully under-exposed and only beginning their inexorable rise to mega-stardom. Moreover scripter Chris Claremont & artist Dave Cockrum were on the on the verge of utterly overturning the accepted status quo of women in comics forever…

What You Need to Know: The team now consisted of old acquaintance and former foe Sean “Banshee” Cassidy, Hulk villain Wolverine, and new creations Kurt Wagner, a demonic German teleporter codenamed Nightcrawler, African weather “goddess” Ororo Monroe AKA Storm and Russian farmboy Peter Rasputin, who could transform into a living steel Colossus and joined field-commander Scott (Cyclops) Summers and Jean Grey – still labouring under the nom-de guerre Marvel Girl…

But not for much longer…

For months a long-running, blockbuster-widescreen plotline had been building. Xavier, plagued by visions of interstellar wars and alien mind-mates, was on the verge of a mental breakdown. Not coincidentally, former students Havok and Polaris had attacked the new team, apparently willing allies of a mysterious madman disguised as Cyclops’ old alias Eric the Red.

That devastating conflict then segued into a spectacular battle as remorseless robotic Sentinels returned under the hate-filled auspices of rogue Federal Agent Steven Lang and his mysterious backers of Project Armageddon. Coordinated attacks successfully snared the semi-retired Jean, Wolverine, Banshee and Xavier himself, compelling Cyclops to co-opt a space-shuttle and, with the remaining team, storm an orbiting space-station to rescue them.

Although the new X-Men were victorious, their cataclysmic clash wrecked their only means of escape and, as an immense solar flare threatened to eradicate the complex, their only chance of survival meant certain death for one X-Man…

Bracketed by a brace of team pin-ups (by Paul Ryan and Javier Saltares respectively and both inked by Al Williamson), the ten tales of stunning power and imagination contained herein begin with the debut of a landmark character in ‘Like a Phoenix from the Ashes’ (by Claremont, Cockrum & inker Frank Chiaramonte) as the shuttle spectacularly crashes back to Earth.

The X-Men had travelled in a specially shielded chamber but Marvel Girl had been compelled to pilot the vehicle unprotected through the lethal radiation storm.

As the mutants escaped the craft slowly sinking in JamaicaBay, a fantastic explosion propelled the impossibly alive Jean into the air, clad in a strange gold and green uniform and screaming that she was “Fire and Life Incarnate… Phoenix!”

Immediately collapsing, the critically injured girl was rushed to hospital and a grim wait began.

Unable to explain her survival and too preoccupied to spare time to teach, Xavier then packs Banshee, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, Storm and Colossus off to the Irish mutant’s home in County Mayo for a vacation, blissfully unaware that Cassidy Keep has become a deadly trap for his new students…

Within the ancestral pile, Sean Cassidy’s mutant cousin Black Tom has usurped control of the manor and its incredible secrets and at Eric the Red’s behest has contrived an inescapable ambush, assisted by an old X-Men enemy.

‘Who Will Stop the Juggernaut?’ (inked by Sam Grainger) sees the neophyte heroes in well over their heads and fighting for their lives, but finds room to tell the origin of weather-witch Storm and provide an explanation for her crippling claustrophobia, before ‘The Fall of the Tower’ shockingly concludes the tale as the heroes and the Keep’s Leprechauns (no, really) unite to expel the murderous invaders.

Although bi-monthly at the time, the epic kicked into strident top gear with ‘The Gentleman’s Name is Magneto’ as the weary heroes then divert to Scotland and check up on their gun-toting biologist/housekeeper Moira MacTaggert‘s island lab: a previously secret facility containing many of the mutant menaces the X-Men have defeated.

It’s a bad move as the ever-active Eric has restored the dormant master of magnetism to full power. He’d been turned into a baby – a strangely common fate for villains in those faraway days – but was all grown up again now – and very angry…

Arriving from America, MacTaggert and Cyclops are only just in time to lead a desperate, humiliating retreat from the exultant, triumphant Magneto. Cyclops doesn’t care: he realises the entire affair has been a feint to draw the heroes away from Xavier and Jean…

He needn’t have worried. Although in ‘Phoenix Unleashed’ (inks from Bob Layton) Eric orchestrated an attack by Firelord – a cosmic flamethrower who had been a herald of Galactus much like the Silver Surfer – Jean was now fully evolved into a being of unimaginable power who readily held the fiery marauder at bay…

In the interim a long-standing mystery was solved as the vision which had haunted Xavier was revealed as a fugitive princess from a distant alien empire.

Lilandra of the Shi’ar had rebelled against her imperial brother and whilst fleeing had somehow telepathically locked onto her inter-cosmic soul-mate Xavier. As she made her circuitous way to Earth, embedded Shi’ar spy Shakari had assumed the role of Eric the Red and attempted to remove Lilandra’s potential champion long before she arrived…

During the blistering battle that followed the X-Men’s arrival, Shakari snatched up Lilandra and dragged her through a stargate to another galaxy, but now, aware that the fate of entire universe is at stake, Xavier urges his team to follow.

All Jean has to do is re-open a wormhole to the other side of creation…

A slight digression followed as overstretched artist Cockrum was given a breather by a fill-in “untold” tale of the new team featuring an attack by psychic clones of the original X-men in ‘Dark Shroud of the Past’(by Bill Mantlo, Bob Brown & Tom Sutton, but with a framing sequence from Cockrum).

The regular story resumes in a wry tribute to Star Trek as ‘Where No X-Man Has Gone Before!’ (by Claremont, Cockrum & Dan Green) finds the heroes stranded in another galaxy where they meet and are defeated by The Shi’ar Imperial Guard (an in-joke version of DC’s Legion of Super Heroes), until bold interstellar freebooters The Starjammers arrive to turn the tables and uncover a mad scheme to unmake the fabric of space-time.

Lilandra’s brother Emperor D’Ken is a certified maniac and wants to activate a cosmic artefact known alternatively as the M’Kraan Crystal and “the End of All that Is” in his quest for ultimate power. He’s also spent time on Earth in the past and has played a major role in the life of one of the X-Men …

This tale (from issue #107) was the last drawn by Cockrum for many years. He would eventually return to replace the man who replaced him.

As X-Men and Starjammers battle the Crystal’s impossibly deadly automated guardians, this final chapter sees the newly puissant Phoenix literally save all of reality in a mind-blowing display of power and skill, all whilst trapped in a truly staggering other realm before taking the heroes home, appalled and enthralled by the intoxicating, addictive nature of her own might.

The conclusion of this ambitious extended saga was drawn by John Byrne (with inks from Terry Austin) and his efforts were to become an industry bench-mark as the X-Men grew in popularity and complexity. However, even though the bravura high-octane thrills of “Armageddon Now” seemed an unrepeatable high-point, Claremont & Byrne had only started. The best was still to come…

In ‘Home Are the Heroes’ Wolverine finally began to develop a back-history and some depth of character as technological wonder Weapon Alpha attacked the recuperating team in an attempt to force Logan to rejoin the Canadian Secret Service. Renamed Vindicator he would later return with Alpha Flight – a Canadian super-team which would eventually graduate to their own eccentric high-profile series.

This splendid compilation ends rather limply with another hasty fill-in as ‘The “X”-Sanction’ (illustrated by Tony DeZuniga & Cockrum), finds hired cyborg-assassin Warhawk infiltrating the mansion in search of “intel” for a mysterious, unspecified master before getting his shiny silver head handed to him…

The immortal epics compiled here are available in numerous formats (including softcover editions of the luxurious and enticing hardback under review here), but for a selection that will survive the continual re-readings of the serious, incurable fan there’s nothing to beat the sturdy and substantial full-colour feel of these sturdily Marvellous Masterwork editions.
© 1976, 1977, 1978, 1990 Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc/Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Wolverine Origins: Romulus


By Daniel Way, Scot Eaton & Andrew Hennessy (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3539-5

Ever since his glory days in the All–New, All Different X-Men, the mutant berserker known variously as Wolverine, Logan, Patch and latterly James Howlett has been a fan-favourite who appealed to the suppressed, put-upon, catharsis-craving comic fan by perpetually promising to cut loose and give bad guys the kind of final punishment we all know they truly deserve.

Always skirting the line between and blurring the definitions of indomitable hero and maniac murderer, Wolverine soldiered on, a tragic, brutal, misunderstood hero cloaked in mysteries and contradictions until society changed and, as with ethically-challenged colleague the Punisher, final sanction and quick dispatch became acceptable and even preferred options for costumed crusaders.

Debuting as a foe for the Incredible Hulk in a tantalising teaser-glimpse at the end of issue #180 (October 1974) before indulging in a full-on scrap with the Green Goliath in the next issue, the semi-feral Canadian mutant with fearsome claws and killer attitude rode – and maybe even caused – the meteoric rise of the reconstructed and rebooted X-Men before gaining his own series, super-star status and silver screen immortality.

He hasn’t looked back since, although over the years many untold tales of the aged agent (since the original miniseries Origins revealed the hero had been born at the end of the 19th century) have explored his missing exploits in ever-increasing intensity and torturous detail.

Thus Wolverine’s secret origin(s) and increasingly revelatory disclosures regarding in his extended, conveniently much-brainwashed life have gradually seeped out. Cursed with recurring and periodic bouts of amnesia and mind-wiped ad nauseum by sinister or even well-meaning friends and foes, the Chaotic Canucklehead has packed a lot of adventurous living into his centuries of existence – but doesn’t remember most of it.

This permanently unploughed field has conveniently resulted in a crop of dramatically mysterious, undisclosed back-histories, so from June 2006 to July 2010 supplementary series Wolverine Origins, for a 50-issue run, began revealing certain discrete pockets of that rich but occluded seam of comicbook gold.

Short and feisty, Logan has always threatened and promised an explosion of visceral, vicarious ultra-violence and grim, gritty justice at every moment and in this slim, savage collection (gathering issues #37-40 of Wolverine Origins from), the panting comicbook public once again gets what it’s never stopped clamouring for…

Wolverine is the ultimate tracker and for months has been hunting for his own past. His search has revealed one inescapable, horrific fact: for most of his life the mutant has been repeatedly manipulated and tortured by a madman. Over decades a mysterious mastermind has been invisibly moving in and out of his life: even exerting complete mental dominance over the wandering warrior.

Only recently has Logan realised this and by setting all his prodigious instincts and tracking skills to the task, is at last closing in on the sadistic phantom he only knows as Romulus…

The infinitely patient phantom is the force behind numerous programs such as Weapon X (which first agonisingly bonded miracle metal Adamantium to Wolverine’s skeleton) and is dedicated to manufacturing and augmenting appalling human killing machines.

Of late Logan has been confronted by many of Romulus’ greatest successes, overcoming walking tragedies and monstrous atrocities such as tortured US super-soldier Nuke, old associates Wildchild and Sabretooth, foes Cyber and Omega Red and even his own, now-adult, psychotic son Daken.

Crisscrossing the globe, the implacable stalker has gradually come closer to finding his ancient tormentor, discovering ever-more chilling details about his shadowy opponent. Now he is ready for a final showdown…

The eponymous 4-part ‘Romulus’ opens with Wolverine in Russia following the mastermind’s trusted factotum Victor Hudson to the brutal Vutluga Prison, where a modern pestilence is plaguing hope-starved, desperate inmates and warders alike. As the infuriated mutant moves in for the long-deferred confrontation he’s been hungering for he realises he’s been set up in another stupid test… just as the life-leeching Omega Red ambushes him…

The staggeringly brutal battle goes to Wolverine – but only just – and as the exhausted victor staggers outside he falls prey to fellow feral mutant Wildchild.

Dragging the battered hero to a steel mill and a doom even Wolverine’s legendary healing factor can’t overcome, the boastful brat reveals a shocking truth.

Inhuman Romulus is apparently thousands of years old and considers himself the planet’s absolute apex predator. Logan’s quarry has spent centuries creating, shaping and honing his own successor. To this extent he has bred, if not actually farmed, Wolverine’s bloodline – among others – for generations: constantly improving human killers through technology and the crucibles of torment and combat, even killing Logan’s first wife Itsu and stealing the son the X-Man never knew existed…

Moreover, although Logan was the preferred option to succeed him, Romulus has always had other prospects in play and is content to stand well back and let the very best killer win…

Wildchild’s plan comes undone when the seemingly unstoppable Omega Red intervenes, resulting in one more cutthroat clash as another of Romulus’ frontrunners falls. Soon after, with the aid of Russian super-spy The Black Widow, Wolverine’s last rival falls and the master manipulator finally reveals himself for the climactic last battle…

It doesn’t end in the way you’d expect…

With covers by Doug Braithwaite & Art Lyon, variants from Mike Mayhew, Herb Trimpe and Simone Bianchi, fact-files on Omega Red and Logan and a comprehensive bibliography in ‘Wolverine: the Reading Chronology’, this plot-light, carnage-driven collection of gory delights is a vicarious thrill for the devoted but might well be hard to follow for new or returning readers.
© 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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X-Men: First Class volume 1


By Jeff Parker, Roger Cruz, Kevin Nowlan & Victor Olazaba (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5313-9

Radical perpetual change – or the appearance of such – is a driving force in modern comics. There must be a constant changing of the guard, a shifting of scene and milieu and, in latter times, a regular diet of death, resurrection and rebirth – all grounded in relatively contemporary terms and situations.

With a property as valuable as the X-Men such incessant remodelling is a necessarily good thing, even if you sometimes need a scorecard to keep up, and over the decades the franchise has repeatedly reinterpreted, refashioned and updated the formative early epics by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Alex Toth, Roy Thomas and Werner Roth to give a solid underpinning to all the modern Mutant mayhem.

A case in point is the impressive and deliciously upbeat restating of the Mutant paradigm wherein the latest status quo gets the boot and a new beginning equates with a return to the good old days…

In 1963, The X-Men #1 introduced gloomy, serious Scott Summers/Cyclops, ebullient Bobby Drake/Iceman, wealthy golden boy Warren Worthington III/Angel, Jean Grey/Marvel Girl and erudite, brutish genius Henry McCoy/Beast: very special youngsters and students of Professor Charles Xavier, a wheelchair-bound telepath dedicated to brokering peace and achieving integration between the sprawling masses of humanity and an emergent off-shoot race of mutants with extra abilities, ominously dubbed Homo Superior.

The team was also occasionally supplemented by magnetic minx Polaris and cosmic powerhouse Havok – although they were usually referred to respectively if not respectfully as Lorna Dane and Scott’s brother Alex.

After eight years of eccentric, quirky adventures, the masked misfits faded away in early 1970 when mystery and supernatural themes once again gripped the world, causing a consequent sustained downturn in costumed hero comics.

Although the title was revived at the end of the year as a reprint vehicle, the mutants were reduced to guest-stars and bit-players across the Marvel Universe whilst the Beast was further mutated into a monster to cash in on the new big thing. Then in 1975 Editor-in-Chief Roy Thomas green-lighted a risky Giant-Size one-shot as part of the company’s line of over-sized specials. The introduction of a fresh team of mutants made history and began a still-burgeoning frenzied phenomenon…

In 2006 those deliriously naive secret school days inspired X-Men: First Class (a comicbook iteration, not the movie) which once again updated the seminal 1960s adventures for a far more sophisticated modern audience (as had happened twice before in the intervening decades).

Most people who read comics have a passing familiarity with Marvel’s ever-changing X-franchise so newcomers and occasional consumers won’t have too much trouble following the backstory, so let’s plunge in as the hostile world once more kicks sand in the faces of the planet’s most dangerous and reviled minority…

An 8-issue miniseries and a One-Shot Special led to a further 16 issue run: retrofitting old material around new stories, in-filling cases and teaming the teenaged school squad with assorted adult guest-stars such as Man-Thing, Invisible Woman, Gorilla-Man and those included in this book. The series inevitably led to a slew of spin-off series based on the same winning “untold X-tales” format.

However all good things come to an end – until the next time a few years from now – and the junior league finally had to move on into their later lives and rejoin the ongoing Marvel Universe continuity. Thus in 2009 the 4-issue miniseries X-Men First Class: Finals revealed how the student heroes’ graduation fed directly into the introduction of the All-New, All Different modern team…

This rousing compilation – illustrated throughout by Roger Cruz with inks from Victor Olazabo – is an introductory/best of edition with series scripter Jeff Parker picking his favourite stories from the initial run (specifically issues #1, 2, 4, 5 and 7 plus a cracking vignette from 2007’s X-Men: First Class Special) and opens with ‘X-Men 101’ as youngest student Bobby Drake writes a letter to his mum, giving the lowdown on his new classmates and detailing the eventful last few days.

The edited highlights include a battle against an utterly alien hive-mind, rich-kid pal Warren being possessed, childish pranks going scarily awry on a quick field-trip to the Arctic and the saving of the oldest creature on earth from well-meaning but oblivious scientists…

Warmer climes beckon next as Professor X takes the kids on a vacation to Florida, playing anonymous matchmaker to Scott and Jean, whilst star scholar Hank and the Angel get stuck with hunting for scientist Curt Connors, who has once more mutated into a deadly human-hating saurian scourge in ‘The Bird, the Beast and the Lizard’. In the end however it was Iceman who held the key to their success…

Issue #4 then gave us a glimpse into the inner world of Cyclops with ‘Seeing Red’ as he is targeted by an escaped demon from the Ruby Realm of Cyttorak and the team require the aid of Doctor Strange to set two dimensions to rights…

Dr. Donald Blake appears in ‘The Littlest Frost Giant’ as the X-Men battle an Ice Troll, unaware that young Bobby is being hunted by an ancient Viking cult intent on awakening the primal monster and Lord of Winter Ymir. However once they make their move the villainous Vanir are soon in over their heads and the aroused and angry Frost Giant can only be stopped by the hard-pressed mutants and their new friend The Mighty Thor…

Young romance is in the air when ‘Who Wants to Date a Millionaire?’ finds Warren skipping classes to make out with European hottie and newly-reformed member of The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants Wanda Maximoff. Sadly the Scarlet Witch‘s twin brother Pietro is the old fashioned protective type and Quicksilver‘s enraged over-reaction endangers an entire playground full of kids before the X-Men can satisfactorily calm the situation down…

The all-new classic cases conclude with a short, sharp skit wherein Iceman and the Beast are dispatched by mutant-detecting electronic wonder-computer Cerebro to find a hidden Homo Superior lurking within the vaudevillian confines of ‘The Museum of Oddities’, brilliantly illustrated by the superb Kevin Nowlan.

This perfect primer also includes the usual cover gallery – by Marko Djurdjevic and Nowlan – plus character designs and model sheets by Cruz and pencilled cover sketches from Djurdjevic for art lovers to drool over.

Engaging, exciting and extremely entertaining; blending outrageous adventure with raucous humour and sheer comradely warmth and affection, this thoroughly beguiling collection always keeps the continuity baggage to a sustainable minimum for non-addicts and concentrates on delivering vibrant fun and fast-paced rollercoaster thrills packed with smart laughs, heavy on action and light on extended sub-plots.

For moments of mutant mirth and mayhem gloriously free of angst and overkill, these tales are without doubt top of the class…
© 2006, 2007, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Deadpool volume 4: Monkey Business


By Daniel Way, Carlo Barberi, Tang En Huat, Dalibor Talajić & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4531-8

Bloodthirsty, stylish killers and mercenaries craving something more than money have long made for popular comics protagonists. Deadpool is Wade Wilson (and yes he is a thinly disguised knockoff of DC’s Slade Wilson AKA Terminator: get over it – DC did), a hired killer and survivor of genetics experiments that have left him a scarred, grotesque bundle of scabs, scars and physical unpleasantries but practically invulnerable and capable of regenerating from any wound.

The wisecracking high-tech “Merc with a mouth” was created by Rob Liefeld and Fabian Nicieza, debuting in New Mutants #97, another product of the Canadian “Weapon X” project which created Wolverine and so many other mutant/cyborg super-doers. He got his first shot at solo stardom with a couple of miniseries in 1993 (Deadpool: the Circle Chase & Sins of the Past) but it wasn’t until 1997 that he finally won his own title, which blended 4th-wall busting absurdist humour (a la Ambush Bug) into the mix and secured his place in Marvel history.

Since then he has come and gone with frightening frequency, undergoing radical rethinks, identity changes and reboots, but always inevitably reverting to irascible, irreverent, intoxicating type in the end…

This gloriously continuity-light and baggage-free romp collects issues #19-22 of Deadpool volume 4 and also includes the (originally digital) One-Shot origin tale of Simian Sensation and World’s Greatest Assassin Hit-Monkey, all from 2010.

A sucker for sentiment and plagued with an urge to be better than he is, in the extended saga ‘Whatever a Spider Can’ (Daniel Way, Carlo Barberi, Juan Vlasco & Sandu Florea), Wade Wilson has decided to give up the murder-for-profit business model in favour of a life as a conventional superhero, but lacks both a mentor and commitment. Thus in ‘Start Spreadin’ the News’ he turns up in New York City looking to learn the ropes from a far-from-welcoming web-spinner, just as Spider-Man discovers a massacre in the back of his favourite Deli…

Wrong conclusions are reached on all sides: the copious blood-spatter indicates a killer who hops about and shoots from walls and ceiling and the wall-crawler knows it wasn’t him…

Tracking down Deadpool – who has set his incredible healing factor the nigh-impossible task of saving his intestines and dignity from the effects of forty street-vendor hotdogs – the Amazing Arachnid takes a lot of convincing before he believes the Merc wasn’t responsible for the murders… but only the merest hint to stay well downwind of the reformed killer’s turbulent digestive process…

After Wade examines the crime scene he has only one suggestion as to the actual perpetrator: a stone-cold killer who’s a legend in the assassin community and never takes just one job per city. Moreover he only goes after really unique targets like a hit-man with a healing factor…

The four-handed hunter has other killers in his sights too and, as Spider-Man and Deadpool bicker and snipe, Hit-Monkey is dispassionately dispatching a couple of cops using their positions for ruthless gain. Soon however he has tracked down Wade and it seems the only way to stop the anthropoid assassin is to just let him shoot the Merc with the mouth until he finally shuts up…

Sadly the simian soon learns that it takes more than just bullets to keep Wade down, and Spider-Man becomes an unwilling pawn and collateral damage in Deadpool’s sorry excuse for a plan to get the monkey off their backs forever…

In the explosive aftermath of the killers’ final confrontation Wade sneaks out of town and heads south, only to have his bus hijacked by cops pretending to be robbers in rural Georgia. Unfortunately, them Good Ol’ Bad Boys has a electrically-charged super-hick on their side and, when the astonished Deadpool finally recovers, the keen wannabe-hero resolves to clean up the county in ‘Do Idiots Dream of Electric Stupidity?’ (with art by Tang En Huat.

Luckily, even though it is really hard to tell the good guys from the robber scum in Dukes of Hazzard territory, the former killer has unsuspected help from the most unlikely sources…

The remainder of this slim engaging tome is given over to the anthropoid super-star discovery of the decade…

Something of an overnight sensation, ‘Hit-Monkey’ quickly graduated to an online solo story on Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited and that weirdly moving eponymous origin tale was rapidly reprinted in comicbook format in April 2010, written by Way and illustrated by Dalibor Talajić.

The fabled furball’s history was revealed as, years ago, a desperate killer for hire fled the authorities in the heart of a chilling Asiatic winter and almost died before being found by loving monkeys living near and often within the hot springs of a mountain thermal pool.

All but one of the simians welcomed the human in their wordless, loving way, and that young dissident assiduously watched the interloper, keenly observing as the human practised all his killing arts in preparation for the day when the cops and soldiers would find him.

When they finally came and the winter night erupted into hot brutal butchery, there was only one to avenge the slaughter – and he was far from human as he extracted his bitter brand of justice…

Although staying close to his superhero roots and the X-franchise that spawned him, Deadpool is more often than not a welcome break from the constant sturm und drang of his Marvel contemporaries: weird, wise-cracking, and profoundly absurd on a satisfyingly satirical level. This is a great reintroduction to comics for fans who thought they had outgrown the fights ‘n’ tights crowd.

Including covers and variants by Jason Pearson, Marko Djurdjevic & Frank Cho, this frenetic blend of light-hearted, surreal, fighting frolics and incisive, poignant relationship drama is absolutely compulsive reading for dyed-in-the-wool Fights ‘n’ Tights fans who might be feeling just a little jaded with four-colour overload.
© 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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The First X-Men: Children of the Atom


By Neal Adams & Christos Gage with Andrew Currie (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-522-2

By now you’re either aware or not of mutant continuity, so in the spirit of this high octane, terse, and immensely enjoyable prequel, I’ll forego the usual catch-up scorecard and précis to simply state that new readers can jump on with the minimum of confusion and, by the skilful use of banter, be readily brought up to cruising speed.

Presumably designed to appeal as much to fans of the movie franchise as comicbook aficionados, the drama is set in those Cold War days when Charles Xavier was a college student – and latterly American G.I. – whilst immortal beast Wolverine and feral manhunter Sabretooth both worked as spies specialising in wet-work…

Even in the Marvel Universe today not all Children of the Atom are found and mentored by heroes, villains or the ever-vigilant Federal Government, and in the long-gone era revealed by this tale (originally released at the end of 2012 as 5-issue miniseries) we learn a few harsh secrets about the early moments of the burgeoning and isolated emergent mutant race and the tragic way today’s draconian status quo was established.

In a fast-paced romp from co-writers Neal Adams and Christos Gage, fully illustrated by the living graphic legend and artistic associates Andrew Wildman & Matthew Wilson, the action begins in the eponymous first chapter when the cagy mutant Logan meets with the son of an old friend.

Young Anthony is “special” in the same way Wolverine is, but just as the elder metahuman makes contact in the heart of Harlem, the boy starts glowing and explosively detonates…

When the boy’s remains are quickly shipped away the veteran spy realises it was by fellow spooks – American FBI agents.

Shocked and shaken Logan talks things over with savage sometime-partner Victor Creed and convinces him to help in hunting down, protecting and training all those other freaks popping up everywhere – before the government scoops them up as guinea-pigs or weapons…

However when Logan and Creed break into FBI HQ at Quantico they not only discover Anthony’s body in a lab but also files and plans for the capture of all mutants. Their own names are on a list…

Although ambushed by agents in robotic armour they easily escape and head for WashingtonDC to foil the next planned rendition – a young girl named Holly Bright – completely unaware that Anthony has revived…

Holly is living on the streets and has the ability to take thoughts and images from minds and cast spellbinding illusions, which comes in handy when a full compliment of robo-agents arrive just as Logan and Creed locate her.

The next name takes them to OxfordUniversity in England where brilliant PhD student Charles Xavier is planning his marriage – to Moira MacTaggert – and a rich, happy, uncomplicated future. When the trio of bizarre, brutal creatures turn up they tell him a preposterous story of hunted beings and ask him to join as their leader. He refuses and sends them packing, but he has to believe that he’s on the FBI’s catch list… after all he read it in their minds.

Disgusted with the telepath’s refusal to join or even acknowledge the problem, Logan, Creed and Holly head for South America and the next name – a magnetic mutant and determined killer named Erik Lehnsherr…

First however they find ‘Common Cause’ with a monstrous teen in Colorado, rescuing Ben Goldendawn – Yeti – from common hunters rather than Feds, before joining him in another assault on Quantico. Ben was in mental contact with his equally empowered brother, but when the mutants reach Virginia they find the government facility abandoned and reduced to rubble.

It’s not a complete disaster however. Buried in the debris is the now fully recovered Anthony who gratefully joins the refugees as Logan takes a time-out and  trains his kids in the basics of combat, survival and living under the radar…

Meanwhile in Argentina, Lehnsherr is increasingly active: tracking Nazi war criminals and exterminating them in the same ruthless manner that they eradicated his family and people. When Logan and the team find him, Magneto spectacularly refuses to join, declaring a war against oppression is no place for children.…

Somewhere in America, anthropologist Bolivar Trask stridently advises his FBI employers to renew all efforts to locate and destroy all “Homo Superior” beings before they supplant mankind, overruling the suggestions of senior Agent Fred Duncan who advises working with, not alienating and eliminating, the coming race…

Their Director Hartfield has his own short-term solution however: using their own pet mutant to enslave and subjugate the worrisome freaks…

In ‘A Place to Belong’ the government’s ghastly mind-controlling monster Lyle Doorne, AKA Virus, is deployed even as Wolverine’s pack tackle and fail to recruit a demented, super-strong and very crazy water-breathing wino in Manhattan (a sly tip of the hat to Fantastic Four #4, for all the long-term fans. Look it up if you want…). They are inexplicably aided by Agent Duncan, covertly and independently testing his policy of cooperation…

Later at their wilderness hideaway, the unwise relationship between Victor and Holly takes a major step forward even as, at the Pentagon, Private Xavier is removing all suspicious flags against his name and scrubbing his own government record via his psychic gifts before arranging his own transfer to the top-secret Federal Project Chimera in Pennsylvania…

Things are going badly: no one realised the full extent of Virus’ abilities nor that the horrific monster might have his own agenda for both humanity and Homo Superior, and when Logan’s heroes raid the facility to rescue Yeti’s long-lost brother, nobody realises it’s all part of Doorne’s game plan…

Secret origins lead off ‘Things Fall Apart’ before the team – now comprising nine mutants of varying age and ability – starts to disintegrate from internal tensions, ably abetted by the Trojan Horse that Virus has planted amongst them. The FBI’s shaky solidarity is also fracturing, with Duncan and Trask – who advocates using robot hunter/killers to utterly exterminate all mutants – constantly clashing.

Hartfield prefers the latter option and a flight of prototype Sentinels is launched to capture the rogue misfits. Desperate to see his toys in action, Trask and his driver Xavier head to the fugitive’s hideout in time to see Virus’ scheme come close to dreadful fruition before the subsequent horrific battle scars all the surviving outcasts forever, turning Sabretooth into Wolverine’s most vengeful and implacable foe forevermore in ‘I Dreamed a Dream’…

Clever and powerfully engaging, this sharp, gritty and very pretty exercise in dramatic in-filling skilfully operates as a prequel to many themes and events of the later overarching continuity whilst never losing sight of the principal objective of entertaining both devotees and newcomers alike.

This thrilling rollercoaster ride also includes a stunning selection of covers and variants from Adams, Ryan Stegman, Mike Deodato Jr., Shane Davis, Daniel Acuña and Adam Kubert for all art-lovers to enjoy.
™ & © 2012 and 2013 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Uncanny X-Men – First Class: Hated and Feared


By Jeff Parker, Scott Gray, Roger Langridge, Craig Rousseau, Roger Cruz, David Williams, David Calero, Sean Galloway, Joe Infurnari, Cameron Stewart & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-4051-4104-4

In 2006 the deliriously naive secret school-days adventures of the Marvel’s Merry Mutants were re-imagined as X-Men First Class (a comicbook iteration, not the movie) which updated and reinterpreted the seminal 1960s adventures for the far more sophisticated contemporary audience.

An 8-issue miniseries and a One-Shot Special led to a further 16 issue run: retrofitting old stories, creating new material by in-filling existing narratives and especially by integrating the kids with the mainstream continuity through team-ups with assorted guest stars such as Doctor Strange, Man-Thing, Gorilla-Man, Thor and Invisible Woman. The experiment was a conceptual success and even led to a number of spin-off series based on the same winning “untold X-tales” format.

However all good things come to an end – until the next time a few years from now – and the junior league finally had to move on into their later lives and rejoin the ongoing Marvel Universe continuity. Thus in 2009 the 4-issue miniseries X-Men – First Class: Finals revealed the story of the trainees’ graduation and fed directly into the landmark tale which introduced a thoroughly modern new team…

In 1975 Len Wein & Dave Cockrum revived the revered but painfully uncommercial fan favourite in Giant Size X-Men #1, replacing most of the 1960s team – Iceman, The Angel, Marvel Girl, The Beast, Lorna Dane and Havok – with a second generation of edgier international mutants young and old.

With both field-leader Cyclops and wheelchair-bound telepath Professor Charles Xavier remaining to carry on the dream of brokering peace and achieving integration between the sprawling masses of humanity and an emergent off-shoot race with terrifying extra abilities, the stage was set for “All New, All Different” adventures, and the fledgling squad rapidly became the company’s biggest hit and asset.

Comic fans have an insatiable appetite for untold tales and details, so this fresh iteration of the First Class concept, rather than rewriting or updating canonical tales already perpetually in print and utterly familiar to fans, opted to exploit gaps and spaces between scenes and stories with all new yarns…

Collecting one-shot Giant-Size Uncanny X-Men: First Class #1 and the first four issues of the follow-up Uncanny X-Men: First Class from 2009, the revelations begin as quintessential good Soldier Cyclops struggles to adapt to the undisciplined strangers who comprise his unwelcome new team.

After an ill-omened and almost catastrophic battle against a giant mutant fungus, the lone remaining graduate of Xavier’s original intake takes stock by studying the early exploits of Storm as a thief in Cairo, Banshee‘s battle against a Faerie Bog Ogre in Ireland, Nightcrawler‘s formative days in a German circus and Peter Rasputin‘s very first transformation into a living steel Colossus.

Of course Wolverine‘s revelations were clearly a cover-story – if a hilariously funny one – but the effort to understand his new comrades in arms soon allowed a connection to be made by the earnest, dedicated, determinedly single-minded team leader…

That initial outing – a collaborative jam-session from writers Jeff Parker, Scott Gray & Roger Langridge and assembled illustrators Craig Rousseau, David Williams, Dennis Calero, Sean Galloway, Joe Infurnari, Cameron Stewart, John Beatty – was capped off with an hysterical glimpse at the list of ‘International Mutant’s Who Didn’t Make the Team’ before the regular series commenced with ‘Refugee’ by regular series scripter Gray and artist Roger Cruz.

Set just after Marvel Girl Jean Grey “died” and was resurrected as the cosmic entity Phoenix (approximately between X-Men #108 and 111 if you’re counting) the drama begins after demonic-seeming Nightcrawler Kurt Wagner was attacked by the very humans he had saved and went into a depression of disappointment and disgust.

Thus when the Royal Family of the mysterious Inhumans came to visit Professor X as part of a cultural exchange, the dejected hero was intoxicated by the concept of an entire society that venerated the concept of being physically different…

The Inhumans were conceived as an incredible lost civilisation and debuted in 1965 (in Fantastic Four #44-48, during Stan Lee & Jack Kirby’s most fertile and productive creative period).

They are a race of disparate (generally) humanoid beings, genetically modified by aliens in Earth’s distant pre-history, who consequently became technologically advanced far ahead of emergent Homo Sapiens. Few in numbers, they isolated themselves from barbarous dawn-age humanity, first on an island and latterly in a hidden Himalayan valley, voluntarily closeted in their fabulous city Attilan – until a civil war brought them into the public gaze of the modern world.

The hidden race practised a ritual and doctrine wherein almost every member of their society – was on reaching maturity – subjected to mutagenic Terrigen Mists which transformed them into an utterly unique being: something Wagner was unaware of when he made a fervent request of Xavier and Inhuman monarch Black Bolt and his queen Medusa…

In the meantime his cousins Triton, Karnak, Gorgon, and Medusa’s bewitching sister Crystal (and her giant teleporting dog Lockjaw) were being entertained by the other X-Men until abrasive alpha-dogs Wolverine and Gorgon clashed and a bombastic battle broke out…

With no real harm done, arrangements were made and Kurt, accompanied by best friend Peter “Colossus” Rasputin, became guests in the hidden Himalayan retreat, enjoying the easy camaraderie of the society of strangers, until Kurt witnessed the Terrigen ceremony and went ballistic, incensed that perfectly healthy, normal youngsters were deliberately turned into monsters… just like him…

Struck down for disrupting the sacred ritual in ‘To Err is Inhuman…’ Nightcrawler was held for trial, but Triton and Colossus secretly warned the rest of the X-Men, and Cyclops led a rescue mission which quickly escalated into a small, short war that almost destroyed Attilan before order and peace were restored…

Banshee was the focus of ‘The Next Life’ as wise old Sean Cassidy was targeted for revenge by the father of his long-dead bride. That was bad enough, but the cruel weapon of choice was a mutant who could materialise ghosts of lost loved ones…

Meanwhile in space, astronomer astronaut Peter Corbeau of the UN satellite Starcore One detects three impossible entities cavorting on the surface of the sun…

This premiere volume concludes with a classic girl’s night out and a cosmic cliffhanger in ‘Sisters of the Dragon’ illustrated by David Williams, as African émigré Ororo Monroe (AKA Storm) joins Jean and her martial arts/Private Eye pals Colleen Wing and Misty Knight for some downtime, chat and socialisation, only to be ambushed by queen of criminality Nightshade.

The devious diva needs something from the impregnable S.H.I.E.L.D. Heli-carrier and unless the weather witch gets it her friends will die horribly. Complying and completing her task before spectacularly turning the tables on Nightshade, Ororo doesn’t realise the seriousness of messing with the vindictive spy agency…

Meanwhile Professor X is psychically shocked by a telepathic distress call from old colleague Corbeau. Starcore has been invaded by a trio of sadistic solar horrors… and Earth is next…

To Be Continued…

This superbly entertaining collection wisely keeps the continuity baggage to a bare minimum, determined to deliver a compelling, rocket-paced rollercoaster ride of thrills and chills, heavy on action and light on extended sub-plots.

Engaging, exciting and extremely enjoyable, these new adventures are a welcome continuation of the Good Old Days that will delight fans and newcomers alike, offering another bite of that long-lost perfect cherry for all lovers of grand mutant Fights ‘n’ Tights action, mirth and mayhem…
© 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Ultimate Comics X-Men: Divided We Fall, United We Stand


By Brian Wood, Paco Medina, Reilly Brown, Carlo Barberi, Agustin Padilla, Juan Vlasco & Terry Pallot (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-525-3

Marvel’s Ultimates imprint launched in 2000 with major characters and concepts re-imagined to bring them into line with the presumed-more sophisticated tastes of modern readers and free from decades of extraneous story baggage.

Eventually the alternate, darkly nihilistic universe became as continuity-constricted as its predecessor, and in 2008 the cleansing event “Ultimatum” culminated in a reign of terror which apparently (this is still comics, after all) killed dozens of super-humans and millions of lesser mortals.

The era-ending event was a colossal tsunami triggered by mutant terrorist messiah Magneto which inundated the superhero-heavy island of Manhattan and utterly devastated the world’s mutant population. The X-Men – and many other superhumans, good and bad – died, and in the aftermath anybody classed as “Homo Superior” had to surrender to the authorities or be shot on sight. Understandably most survivors as well any newly emergent X-people kept themselves well hidden…

Mutants had always been feared and despised. As the indisputable inheritors of Earth, the often lethally-empowered and wildly uncontrollable creatures were generally believed to be an intrinsically hostile species: the new race destined to take the world from humanity as we took it from the Neanderthals…

This volume, collecting Ultimate Comics: X-Men issues #13-18 (August – December 2012), is part of an imprint-wide crossover which saw America fall into chaos and civil war, with the events affecting and seen from the points of view of a new Spider-Man, a restored team of Ultimates and the current crop of X-Men…

The world had been stumbling from crisis to catastrophe ever since the Deluge (for fuller comprehension the reader is also advised that a thorough reading of companion series Ultimate Comics: the Ultimates volumes 1 & 2 will greatly enhance understanding of the parlous state of this alternate universe in its darkest hours) when word was leaked that all the mutants proliferating around the globe were the result of a 50-year old covert program of genetic manipulation which had slipped from American control, rather than a process of inexorable evolution and natural selection.

Humanity went crazy and a wave of violent prejudice quickly threatened the existence of the feared and despised metahuman lab-rats. In the political furore following the disclosure, bloodshed grew to global panic and a genetic arms-race in Asia (see Ultimate Comics: Hawkeye and The Ultimates: The Republic is Burning), and the President unexpectedly sidelined S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury in favour of co-operation with Magneto’s son Pietro Lensherr – who had inherited control of the terrorist group known as the Brotherhood of Mutants.

The super-swift manipulator had a Faustian Bargain for the severely embattled Leader of the Free World, but their plans were subverted by fundamentalist preacher Reverend William Stryker who seized control of the government’s Sentinel technology and used it to attack mutants all over America as part of his genocidal crusade to purify humanity…

Quicksilver planned to co-opt the latest Nimrod Sentinels to his own purposes but Stryker had outwitted him by taking personal control of the entire program.

The hate-filled preacher then unleashed every killer robot in America’s arsenal to hunt down all remaining mutants wherever they might be hiding, turning a large part of the southwest USA into a killing zone where the freaks were held in experimental facilities, just waiting to die…

However in Mutant Internment Camp Angel, the humans guards and slaughtering Sentinels were overthrown by former X-Men Colossus and Storm, and once the younger prisoners discovered what atrocities the normals had been secretly perpetrating against the captives they erupted into open rebellion.

Tragically, before the situation could escalate further, the sky filled with unstoppable Nimrods who began their program of total eradication by indiscriminately targeting human and aberration alike…

…And after the camps, the Nimrods turned their attention on those human cities which foolishly allowed mutants to live amongst them, before beginning to construct their own robotic god and master – a Supreme Sentinel which somehow gained the personality of the recently killed Reverend Stryker…

Simultaneously in Washington DC, the President and the entire Cabinet were wiped out in a nuclear attack from Reed Richards‘ future men of the Dome (that’s all in the Ultimates volumes) whilst Texas seceded from the Union, provoking a series of similar rebellions by militias and libertarian hate-groups throughout the nation. Hopelessly out of his depth, Acting President Howard declared martial law and the second American Civil War began…

Former X-Man Karen Grant (nee Jean Grey) had been secretly continuing Charles Xavier‘s dream of fostering Human/Mutant co-existence and had gathered a few young mutants together for safety. After vanishing during the burgeoning Asian conflict her role had been taken up by “Mutant Terrorist” and public enemy Kitty Pryde…

Now Jimmy Hudson (whose dead father Wolverine had been revealed as the Military’s ‘Mutant Zero’), languished in hiding with Pryde as well as Iceman Bobby Drake, Marian “Rogue” Carlisle and Human Torch Johnny Storm, all on the run ever since their friend and fellow teen prodigy Peter Parker was murdered in his Spider-Man identity…

The kids had been laying low after Stryker was killed trying to eradicate all of New York’s mutants in a televised ambush. The kids had all survived and subsequently become accidental guardians to a group of mutant children found in tunnels beneath the city…

Written in entirety by Brian Wood, the unRealpolitik begins with ‘Born Free’ (art by Paco Medina, Reilly Brown, Juan Vlasco & Terry Pallot) as Kitty and her band reel in shock as President Howard officially cedes control of the Sentinel-held southwest states to human anti-mutant militias and mechanical murderers; legitimising the mass murder of their rare breed…

Unable to abide any more, Pryde decides to make a stand and invites any who feel the same to join her as she travels across her hostile homeland to Camp Angel. Only Johnny declines: as a mere enhanced human, he believes he’ll be safely left alone to look after their young mutant charges. He’s tragically mistaken and has sorely misjudged how much mankind can hate the different…

The twinned event begins with ‘Divided We Fall‘ and the 2-part ‘Road Worn’ as the freedom fighters escape from New York and slowly make their way across the broken country to Sentinel-subdued Arizona/New Mexico/Utah/Oklahoma, encountering and defeating vile prejudice and murderous men, but only by surrendering to those worst aspects of behaviour that they apparently share with savage unforgiving humanity…

At their lowest point the teen rebels link up with the long-undercover Nick Fury and a young mutant Paige Guthrie. The disgraced and disavowed superspy has been secretly saving the hunted Homo Superior and hiding them from the hordes of would-be genetic purifiers…

Now with inspirational and gutsy fighters to inspire his demoralised charges, Fury takes a back seat and schools Kitty in the role of Mutant Messiah for the upbeat fight back of ‘United We Stand:’ (illustrated by Barberi, Medina, Vlasco & Agustin Padilla)…

The desperate campaign begins with an assault on a newly constructed death-camp and the visible destruction of a brace of the not-so-invulnerable Nimrods, but these robot killers have hidden advantages the freedom fighters are painfully unaware of.

Soon the colossal Super Sentinel that thinks it is William Stryker is on the move with his entire artificial army assembled to wipe out the stain of mutants forever…

As other sectors of the sundered country begin their own climactic last battles, in the southwest states the tiny mutant force faces its greatest martial threat and emerges as an independent Mutant Nation, but victory only brings new problems…

This bombastic battle for life, liberty and honour is deliberately tangential to the other story arcs comprising the full saga (and can thus be read independently if desired), so I’m not going to spoil the manner in which Kitty’s magnificent triumph is soured, except to say that the new President of the forcibly re-United States extends the hand of friendship and cooperation whilst simultaneously offering the rebel leader the most punishing of choices…

The darkly trenchant, nihilistically cynical Ultimate fare, with its trademark post-modernity and bleakly brutal action, still delivers the grim ‘n’ gritty punch fans crave, but sweetens the deal here by offering a powerfully uplifting message of hope for the determinedly worthy that is both satisfying and keenly tantalising. However for maximum impact you really should read the other two collections in this triptych of comics delights…

As usual the volume also contains a gallery of covers and variants by Kaare Andrews, Dave Johnson & Phil Noto, Jorge Molina & Adi Granov, and this up-to-the-minute epic also incorporates 21st century extras for all those tech-savvy consumers with added value in mind.

Many chapters contain an AR icon (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which gives access to all sorts of story extras once you download the little dickens – for free – from marvel.com onto your iPhone or Android-enabled device.

Stay tuned, fans, there’s much more to come…
™ & © 2012 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd. All rights reserved.