X-Men Forever #1

Chris Claremont & Tom Grummett
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A blast from the past. Chris Claremont picks up the X-Men where he left off with them when he moved on to other projects in the 90's. The team consists of Cyclops, Jean Grey, Wolveine, Shadowcat, Nightcrawler, Gambit, Rogue, Storm, Beast and Professor Xavier at this point in the book (with Sabertooth soon to join if the cover is any indication). The characters are in their bright mismatched costumes of the period when the cartoon was at its prime, and indeed, the book felt a little bit like the 90's cartoon show - a little dumbed-down and simplified, keeping to iconic elements like the love triangle between Jean, Logan and Scott. It also feels like I just picked up a random X-Men comic off of the rack, mid-story. Claremont really did just jump onboard immediately after the Asteroid M stuff went down before he left the title: Magneto is dead, Fabian Cortez escaped, and Nick Fury is looking over the X-Men's shoulder as humans are afraid of the power Magneto demonstrated. In this issue, the X-Men try to track down Fabian Cortez and bring him to justice. Once you get passed that backstory, it's pretty straight-forward and is a nice way to just reintroduce the characters and their various powers, each of whom get a little moment to shine and show off in battle. Overall, this book isn't as bad as the horrid stuff we've seen from Claremont recently. In fact, it's probably the best he's had to offer in recent memory. But with the "First Class" books out there, this just seems like another one of the same types of books we're seeing oozing out from Marvel recently, appeasing long-time fans. Not a bad thing, but not any more deserving of attention than any of the other X-books.

Comments

Max said…
I've also read on his forum that John Byrne has some ideas for an "X-Men: Forever" type book of his own.

http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=31849&PN=1&TPN=8

Imagine the alternate reality where Claremont had left Uncanny X-Men rather than Byrne? I loved Claremont's run but always wondered....what if??

Hope Marvel makes this one happen too!
I would love to see what John Byrne would have done if he had never left Fantastic Four...

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