Marvel Masterworks: The X-Men, Vol. 1

This volume collects the first 10 issues of Marvel's X-Men ever published. I'm pretty sure that I've read most, if not all of these issues prior. But I have never experienced them in such glorious remastered color!

These issues reflect what I think is some of the very best and very worst of the early days of Marvel Comics. These stories debuted starting in the fall of 1963. That's not quite 2 full years of the Marvel Age of Comics yet. While many of the heavy-hitters including Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four and the Avengers have already debuted prior to the creation of these mutants, X-Men is really the first Marvel series aimed directly at primarily a teen audience. 

Stan Lee pens these stories and the first 2 or 3 issues show that Stan the Man had zero idea how early 60s high schoolers talked. Spider-Man was great because the kids in the book talked like normal people. Johnny Storm, the first teen of Marvel Comics, used some slang and was annoying. But at least he was only 1 character. Here you've got 5 high school students who despite their mutant abilities, look like kids who would've gone to a prep school and yet they talk like rejects from Blackboard Jungle. 

Thankfully, by issue #5, the bad attempts at 60s teenage language are aborted. But now it's replaced by really bad romantic pinings internally expounded by Cyclops, Jean Grey and even Professor X! Thankfully, Xavier's unrequited love towards his under-aged student, Marvel Girl, is quickly forgotten about. Yet, lots of people complain about how out of touch DC writers were with the youth counter-culture during the 1960s. Sure, the House That Superman Built never could get the generation gap right in their books. However, these early X-Men comics are proof that Marvel was far from perfect when it came to American's youth.

Jack Kirby was the main artist of these 10 first issues. I love Jack Kirby. However, I could tell that the X-Men was definitely a title that Kirby felt at times was beneath him. Some issues, the artwork looks rushed. Especially issues 1,2 and 6. However, when the King got a chance to be less rigid, like the 10th issue which takes place in the prehistoric Savage Lands, you could tell that Kirby had tons of fun drawing all those different dinosaurs and cavemen. Plus, it was really neat getting to see Ka-Zar's re-entry into the Marvel Universe as a teen warrior out of time after having recently reads some of his original exploits as a Tarzan arch-type in the African jungle.

Compared to how the X-Men universe has unfolded today, 1963-64 mutantdom is rather plan. The Danger Room is rather unimaginative. For one training session, Marvel Girl is tasked with telekinetically sewing laces on a practice board! There's no more than a dozen mutants with Magneto being the big baddie and for a character that will one day become a Jewish symbol of resilience and resistance, the X-Men foe sure does have a lot of fascist ideas in the book.

These 10 issues were enjoyable stories. But they definitely were not the best Marvel had to offer at the time. Oddly enough, though X-Men will go on to become the flagship standard of heroes for Marvel Comics from the 1970s to the early 2010s, these guys were in serious danger of becoming swept under the rug for their first dozen years of existence. The X-Men don't really gain a devoted cult status until 1975-76 when Len Wein, Dave Cockrum and a neophyte writer named Chris Claremont retool the entire team to being more of a group of international mutants instead of American misfits. Adding a character by the name of Wolverine to their ranks helped a lot with this newfound popularity. 

If I am at all honest, if I was to pick a group of oddball 1960s superheroes to put all my money on, it would be the Doom Patrol. Many, including series creator Arnold Drake and myself included saw the early X-Men as a poor copy of the DP team. I think it helped that the DC team had better and far more original villains than the students at the Xavier School did at the time. Magneto and the Blob are great foes. The Toad, Mastermind, Unus the Untouchable, and siblings Scarlett Witch and Quicksilver are not. (Can anybody tell me why the Vanisher is dressed like a snake?) But I really think the hearts of both Stan Lee and Jack Kirby just weren't in it 100% with this title and the lack of dedication shows as the consistency of Marvel Age quality just isn't noticeable in about half of these reprinted issues.

Worth Consuming, but just barely.

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars.

X-Men Noir

In 1940s New York, Eric Magnus is the chief of police. In the pocket of several crime bosses, Magnus let crime take over the Big Apple while putting on a show in front of the press with his war against the X Men. As for the X Men, they aren't heroes. Instead, they're a bunch of former juvenile delinquents who were 'reformed' into the ways of crime by the noted psychiatrist Charles Xavier.

Our story opens on the first day of Eric's son Peter's first day as a detective. Peter and his partner have been called to the docks to investigate a death- that of Jean Grey. Meanwhile, a reporter is snooping around into the history of the X Men. His investigation seems personal. But what those motivations are just aren't clear. But upon an interview with an incarcerated Xavier, the journal is given an urgent tip- 'Find Marie Rankin'- the rogue X Man!

X-Men Noir is an interesting take on the Marvel mutants. I've seen medieval X-Men. Fairy tale X-Men. I've even encountered X-Men Babies. While this may not be my favorite incarnation of the group, I much preferred these gritty heroes to the Noir version of Daredevil that I read previously. There was an air of Batman: The Animated Series to this book. Plus, Daredevil was set in the 1930s. X-Men Noir was in the post-war 1940s and since technology has always been an important element to the Children of the Atom, I think that change of time period was a key element to my enjoyment of this book.

In the Daredevil Noir review, I complained how I didn't like that there were a few characters added that did not have modern comics counterparts. This book includes a character from when Marvel was known as Timely Comics and I loved that touch of nostalgia! While this character isn't an X-Man staple, I did appreciate the addition.

One element of sentimentality that I wasn't such a fan of was the inclusion of a prose story set as a sci-fi pulp multi-parter. While that tale allows for more of the vast cast of X-Men characters to appear in this book, it just felt a little unnecessary. Plus, the story was supposed to be written by a eugenics advocate and entertaining that little bit of prejudice and bigotry felt outdated.

X-Men Noir wasn't prefect. But it was an entertaining mystery. If you enjoy films like Rudolph Mate's D.O.A. or the Bogart classic The Maltese Falcon, then this is the sequential art story you've been looking for. If you decide to skip the prose story at the end of each chapter, you won't be missing anything. But don't skip the BTS stuff at the end of this hardback. They're visually stunning pages!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars.

X-Men: Dark Phoenix

Fox's run on the X-Men movies comes to a close with Dark Phoenix. With some small adjustments, this movie was one of the more faithful-to-the-comics adaptations. However, this was also one of the most boring films I ever sat through.

If you are familiar with Chris Claremont's 'Dark Phoenix Saga', then you have a pretty good idea about the plot. Always troubled by her immense mutant abilities, Jean Grey (Game of Thrones' Spohie Turner) gets possessed by a cosmic force during a rescue mission in space. The entity causes what little command Jean had on her telekinesis to spiral out of control, resulting in a body count. 

It's revealed that Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) had kept a number of secrets from Jean as to how she became a pupil at his School for Gifted Youngsters, mostly through mental barriers established. When the truth comes out, Jean seeks both revenge and answers. Enter the mysterious Jessica Chastain (The Help) who plays an alien with ties to Jean's 'Phoenix force' powers, along with promises to those questions. Now Jean is stuck between the forces of good and evil with control of her new powers with the fragile truce between humans and mutants forged since the previous film hanging in the balance.

I know that I am going to upset a bunch of X-Men fans by saying this; but I really don't like Jean Grey that much. Yes, the 'Dark Phoenix Saga' is awesome, but it's really all of the other characters who make that story so good. It just seems to me that Jean Grey always loses control, dies and then comes back, spending all of her time trying to make amends before going insane with the Phoenix Force yet again.

Then there's the fact that we already had this storyline in 2006's The Last Stand. I didn't feel like I needed to see this plot again so soon, if at all. But I promised my god son we'd go see it. I wish we went to the new Men In Black movie instead...

I thought that the make-up and special effects were quite good. So were the fight scenes. But Dark Phoenix is a movie that is heavy of melodrama and very light on action. I truly think this is the case why the movie had such a steep drop-off at the box office from the first and second weeks. Very few people clamor to see Schindler's List again after first viewing. But they'll jump right back in line for a movie with amazing action and adventure scenes. 

Let's also face the biggest problem with the entire X-Men franchise: the timeline. Everything is just so mixed up. For one thing, this movie occurs in 1992, meaning that in 8 years, Michael Fassbender, who plays Magento, is supposed to look like Ian McClellan and Xavier will turn into Captain Picard! I still cannot figure out how Wolverine ended up back in the Weapon X project after being rescued by Mystique...

One thing is certain, the X-Men are better as a TV show than a movie. X-Men: The Animated Series proved this. There's so many plot threads, that with progression jumping 3-5 years into the future in each chapter, 2-3 hours is no enough time to catch up on all the missing parts. 

This still isn't the worst Marvel movie I've ever seen in theaters (Thor: Dark World wins that distinction). But this also wasn't a necessary film either. I know Fox wanted to milk that cash cow one more time. But with how money hungry Disney is, I am afraid that all Dark Phoenix did was push back an sort of reconciliation of Marvel's mutants with the rest of he MCU back for years to come!

Rating: 5 out of 10 stars.