"X-Men: Mutant Genesis"

 

            The following is a review for the graphic novel “X-Men: Mutant Genesis” by Fabian Nicieza, Jim Lee, Whilce Portacio Chris Claremont, & Peter David with Len Kaminski, as collected in Marvel Epic Collection format.

            The X-Men are a team of mutants, those born with a genetic anomaly that grants them powers beyond those of ordinary humans. They were gathered by telepath Professor Charles Xavier, who dreams of peaceful coexistence between mutants and baseline humans. The X-Men pledge to try to make this dream a reality. The roster has changed many times over the years. The original X-Men reunited many years after leaving the X-Men to create X-Factor. Professor Xavier founded the New Mutants after the presumed deaths of the X-Men, but the New Mutants left Charles Xavier’s tutelage to study under the mutant Cable to become X-Force.

In Kuwait City, Freedom Force (formerly the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, now government agents) is assigned to transfer German physicist Reinhold Kurtzmann from a resistance safe house to allied forces and not allow the Iraqis to get him. This transfer is interrupted by a super powered Iraqi team calling themselves Desert Sword.

            The terrorist organization Advanced Idea Mechanics (A.I.M.) schemed to recreate Proteus, a powerful reality warping mutant who the X-Men vanquished several years past. To that end, A.I.M. hired mutant mercenaries Harness and Piecemeal. Superhero team the New Warriors and X-Force traveled to Muir Island, home of the original Proteus’ mother, geneticist Doctor Moira MacTaggert to warn her of the plan, but Moira had been possessed by the psychic mutant entity, the Shadow King. Moira has her assistants Multiple Man, Siryn, Legion and Polaris intercept the two arriving teams. A skirmish ensues, and all parties fail to prevent Piecemeal from merging with Kevin MacTaggert’s essence and resurrecting Proteus. The New Warriors and X-Force are able to contact X-Factor to help defeat Proteus once and for all. Meanwhile evil mutants Toad and Gideon literally play a game of chess, plotting against the mutant heroes in the X-Men, X-Factor and X-Force.

            X-Factor’s greatest nemesis, evil mutant En Sabah Nur/Apocalypse resurfaces and uses X-Factor’s sentient headquarters, Ship, in an all-out assault upon Manhattan. X-Factor teams up with fellow super hero teams the Avengers and the Fantastic Four. X-Factor arrives on the moon and teams up with the Inhumans, a race of super beings created long ago by the alien race, the Kree. Apocalypse abducts X-Factor leader Scott Summers/Cyclops’ infant son Nathan Christopher and infects him with a techno-organic virus that the present has no cure for, and Cyclops made the difficult decision of sending Nathan with the mysterious mutant the Askani, Nathan’s only hope for survival, with the possibility Cyclops may never see his son again.

            Meanwhile, the Shadow King has invaded Muir Island, enslaving the X-Men to lure Charles Xavier, who cost the Shadow King his corporeal body many years past to enact his revenge. Xavier contacts X-Factor to help defeat the Shadow King and free the X-Men from the Shadow King’s control.

            Following this battle, the mutants of X-Factor decide to rejoin the X-Men at their mansion headquarters Professor Charles Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters in Salem Center, New York. However, this grouping is considered too big and the X-Men divide into the Blue Team and the Gold Team. They X-Men are contacted by the global peacekeeping organization S.H.I.E.L.D. to inform them that their old enemy Magneto has established a haven for mutants called Asteroid M, hovering in orbit by Magneto’s magnetic powers over Russia during the height of the Cold War, kidnapping several human astronauts and risking the threat of nuclear retaliation. A new group of mutants the Acolytes pledge themselves to Magneto’s cause of mutant supremacy. Upon hearing of the nuclear threat, Magneto returns to earth in an attempt to disarm the planet of their nuclear weaponry, but the X-Men Blue engage Magneto. After his defeat, Magneto retreats to Asteroid M and to the supposed care of Fabian Cortez, who is actually planning to eliminate Magneto and usurp control of the Acolytes and the mutant supremacy cause. During his attempted recuperation, Magneto discovers an anomaly in his system. Several years past, Magneto had been reduced to infancy. During this time, Moira MacTaggert had been entrusted with the care of the baby Magneto. Moira attempted to prevent Magneto from being corrupted by his power by genetically tampering with his genetics. Magneto and the Acolytes again returned to earth, where the X-Men Blue Team was abducted. Magneto also abducted Xavier and Moira, and brought them all to Asteroid M. He then used the powers of the Acolytes to subvert the X-Men Blue Team to his cause. Meanwhile, the powers that be upon earth all globally agree to enact the Magneto Protocols and obliterate Asteroid M. The X-Men Gold Team then must mount a rescue effort to save the X-Men Blue Team and evacuate Asteroid M.

 

            I figured this Epic Collection would be a huge joy for me, it has been on my radar for several years. Unfortunately, I was relatively disappointed. When I first started collecting Marvel Comic Books, I went to a comic book store and bought the first three issues of X-Men (1991) from a three for a dollar bin, which were contained in this graphic novel, but I never read the issues leading up to the X-Men (1991) premier, which is why I picked to purchase this book. The first three issues of X-Men (1991) were arranged at the conclusion of this graphic novel. Now, I love those three issues, I’ve read them literally dozens of times I kid you not, so I figured that this would be a great book. And that is where my complaints begin. During the late 1980s and early 1990’s, Marvel published their Annuals as crossover events (if you’ve read my posts before, you might recall this). The problem is, the Epic Collections only feature the Annuals for the titular characters. This Epic Collection again followed suit. The main crossover was “Kings of Pain.” This Epic Collection featured an excerpt from New Mutants Annual #7, but not the “Kings of Pain” story, which I felt made no sense. This Epic Collection contained the entirety of X-Men Annual #15 and the “Kings of Pain” story from X-Factor Annual #6, but it still felt very out of context, leaving out two parts of the story from other Annuals from that year (every issue in this book were originally published in 1991). I will give credit that this contained Annuals aside from X-Men, but it still didn’t give the whole story, which was highly disappointing. I will also say that I figured this would be mostly Uncanny X-Men, which is the series that X-Men Epic Collections mainly follow. The majority series in this Epic Collection, however, was X-Factor. Also, X-Men Annual #15 really didn’t feel like X-Men story as there was literally no appearance of the X-Men, aside from a revisited origin and a Wolverine short story that I found to be rather flat. Otherwise, X-Men Annual #15 belonged to X-Force and the New Warriors. The original New Warriors are one of my Marvel weak points, I really have not read much of their run. Another thing that bothered me was the appearance of both Cable and Nathan Christopher Summers in the same point in time since (spoiler alert) Cable is Nathan returned from the future. That just seemed weird to me, but Marvel time travel has very different rules when compared to time travel in other written and visual works. He was both an infant boy and an older man at the same time. Like I said, weird. I will say I found the X-Factor “Endgame” storyline to be enjoyable and a good Apocalypse storyline. Yes, there have been good and poorly written Apocalypse stories (don’t get me started on the “X-Men: Apocalypse” film, ugh) and I felt that this one was pretty good, especially the heartbreaking sacrifice of Nathan Christopher at the end. I thought that was a great ending. The “Muir Island” saga, however, felt mediocre to me. The saving grace for me though, was X-Men #1-3, which I’ve already talked about, so we can move on from there. This graphic novel just didn’t live up to my expectations. And X-Men #3 was supposed to be Chris Claremont’s final issue, but his retirement didn’t last, which was a relief for me because he has been my favorite X-Men writer and I think his work is brilliant. And now, let’s turn to the “graphic” part of “graphic novel.” I felt like the art was high quality. Previous readers of my reviews know how I feel about artwork in comic books, but I still have to say it to you newbies. The art styles of time periods has certain common traits. As I said earlier this paragraph that every issue in this book was from 1991. I love late ’80s-early ’90s artwork, there was just something about it that just stood out. I have also previously mentioned in my blog that there is art which reflects on either good/bad art of the time or good/bad art period. In other words, some artwork may be good for the time it was released, but it can’t be considered good art by the standards of other times of art. To me, I feel this artwork is good in general, and not just for 1991, and the artwork in this book felt to me like the epitome of art of the time. The art in this book totally stands out to me and even now, thirty-two years later, I still feel it is great. And now, I want to talk about the costumes. The original X-Factor and the Uncanny X-Men had mostly generic outfits that all looked pretty identical. That lack of individuality just didn’t make the characters stand out. Yes, military, police, and other organizations have standard uniforms for their profession, but I just feel like it doesn’t work for mutant teams in visual form. Look at the original X-Men from 1963. You could only tell them apart from Cyclops’ visor, Angel’s wings, Iceman being covered in ice, Beast not wearing gloves and shoes, and Marvel Girl being female. Now, you can counter me with the Fantastic Four all wearing the same costume, and that works, and I will agree with that. But look at the Avengers: they all wear different costumes and you immediately know who everyone is because of that, and viewers of the Marvel Cinematic Universe like that, the representation of the characters. You can counter me again by saying the X-Men in the films all had the same outfit. But think about supervillains; they all wear different costumes and you know Magneto when you see him, or Doctor Doom, or Thanos; you just see them and know who they are. In my opinion, the X-Men, all being different, deserve to look different, to show off who they are. And again, there have been times where the X-Men in the comics have all dressed the same, but there were customizations that made them stand out. But, when X-Factor joined the X-Men and the X-Men Blue Team and X-Men Gold Teams were created, the costumes changed and I just totally loved that visualization. The X-Men Blue Team and X-Men Gold Teams were drawn with some of the most iconic appearances of the X-Men in all of Marvel history. If you watched the “X-Men” animated series from 1992-1997, these were the costumes you know. I grew up with that, so the appearances of the costumes in the new teams were familiar to me and I enjoyed those costumes. Seeing these just felt right. So I must give a shout out to Jim Lee for creating these iconic costumes, I thought they were brilliant, so thank you for contributing to my childhood!

            So we have a few more pieces of subjects to consider. What do I think you should know about Marvel history in order to understand this book? First off, if you have never read Marvel Comics before, especially from the 1970’s-1980s, this is not the right book for you. It is absolutely not an introductory point to start at. I barely know the New Warriors and the Annuals’ story is incomplete, so it’s easy to get confused by just that (heck, even I was confused). Also, almost every character had been established before and none of their backgrounds were explained and it continues almost directly from storylines that had already started prior to this book. It is not at all a jump-on point.

            Next, we’ll do the ever important and pretty much only reason that you’re still here after over 2,000 words: (and if you are here still, you are THE BEST!) my numeric score. As some of you may already know, I score on a scale of one to ten. One is the worst, ten is the best. In this case, I have to take in everything about the graphic novel before I score it, which means both story and art are considered. I was highly disappointed by some of the story. BUT! The artwork did not fail to impress. So, all the eggs in one basket, I give it a score of… (drumroll please!)… seven. There were stories I disliked, but it had several stories I really enjoyed, and the artwork just amazed me, so I scored it at a balance. If it were just a story as a prose novel, I would have given it a lower score, but the artwork totally upped it, so the score went higher. I will say that I didn’t think it was a bad book, I just didn’t quite get what I was hoping for. I should also be said that Marvel published another graphic novel called “X-Men: Mutant Genesis” which actually does NOT contain the same stories. If you read my review of “The Silver Surfer: The Infinity Gauntlet” you may recall that I said it was not “The Infinity Gauntlet,” but only the issues of “The Silver Surfer” from the year around it, and this is much the same. Epic Collections only contain specific stories from mostly a singular point of view. Were you to get the other edition of “X-Men: Mutant Genesis,” you would be reading X-Men (1991) #1-7, so if you are actually interested in reading this book, check the contents first to make sure you are actually getting the right book (it will have the words “Marvel Epic Collection” on the top of the cover). And I have an upcoming review about to sit on my desk called “X-Force: Zero Tolerance” which surrounds the “X-Men: Operation: Zero Tolerance” crossover event, but only features the X-Force issues. If you want to read more of my work, at the moment it should be posted in about a week, so keep an eye out for it.

            Next, I will tell you if I recommend this book. I totally don’t know what to tell you. I can’t quite say I recommend it, but at the same time I can’t tell you to just completely avoid it. All I can really say is if you want to read it, then go for it, but if you don’t feel like reading this book, then I say you should follow that instinct. It’s all totally up to you. In all my reviews, this has never truly happened before, which is weird for me, but I leave the decision up to you.

            As I said before, I have the “X-Force: Zero Tolerance” Epic Collection getting close to being on my desk, so keep an eye out for it. Otherwise, I have literally written dozens of reviews, I’ve made over 100 posts, I write short fiction, short nonfiction, poetry, essays, editorial, reviews and plenty of other content, so if you liked this post, I totally say you should read more of my posts, you may find something else you like. If you read to this point, you are THE BEST, and all I can say is, until next time, Tim Cubbin… out!