The story seems to be playing fair with past continuity so far - which is only fair, since Adams built quite a bit of it. Read Full Review
This first issue was pretty damn good. I loved seeing Logan, Creed and Darwin, and the dynamic between Logan and Creed is really well done. I really liked the scene with Charles wanting to live a normal life and not have to fight for mutant rights, as that is a lot dropped upon a guy that young, that hasn't had the hard life Creed, Logan and Erik had. This mini has a TON of potential and it definitely started on the right track in my opinion. Read Full Review
Overall, The First X-Men should remain canon after the Marvel NOW! changes that are immanent, and I certainly hope so. I really like the idea that Logan was very much a good guy in the early goings before Weapon X and all. It reinforces his current position as prime protector and educator of mutant children. Read Full Review
The First X-Men #1 does a large part of it's job very well, positing the existence of a secret X-team before the previous secret X-team, and does so without yet creating problems in the timeline, earning 3.5 out of 5 stars overall. I may not be the target audience, but I can tell you that if you're avoiding this book sight unseen and you're an X-fan, you might be doing yourself a disservice, as it's an ably-done and mostly benign sort of retcon. Read Full Review
Despite these hangups, this book is not all that bad. If you liked X-Men: First Class with its dated time period and younger characters that operate in a world without what we know as the X-Men, then this title will please. Like the movie, it is perhaps best to ignore the continuity established before it and focus on the entertaining characters struggling to complete a dire mission. Read Full Review
I'm pretty split on this issue. I think the idea and the story are fantastic and a good start to the book. Matthew Wilson's colors are great, and at times, Adams' art is wonderful. The problem is that his art is a bit inconsistent in this book. One panel will look great and another can look like it came from a bronze age book. Read Full Review
To be honest, were it not for the great book ending moment with Erik Lehnsherr, I don't know if I'd come back for Issue #2. Read Full Review
If The First X-Men slows down plot-wise, it has the potential to be excellent. I would have enjoyed the issue more had it focused on interaction between Wolverine, Sabretooth and Holo. Holo is a great character and I loved the way she was introduced with her mutant powers. Perhaps if the issue had ended with the trio on their way to meet someone at Oxford University (hinting at Xavier) it would have felt less rushed. If youve never read an X-Men comic before, you may like this new series. Wolverine and Sabretooth exchange some great banter and jokes, and Holo is a solid secondary character. If the creative team focuses on introducing new characters more slowly and their interaction with established characters, The First X-Men could be a big hit. Read Full Review
Of course, part of the nostalgic appeal stems from Adams's artwork as well. While his work hardly boasts what one could call a light, Silver Age tone, it's also synonymous with comics storytelling of the 1970s. The rougher leanings in his style suits Logan and Creed quite well. The revelation of Holo's true form could've been clearly; the script offers cues that she's quite young, but it's not that apparent visually. The script purposefully avoids telling the reader when this story takes place, and in keeping with that approach, there are no direct visual cues to provide any direction in that regard either. It's unfortunate, as I think a clearer sense of history could've added a lot to the story. Read Full Review
Sadly, the great Neal Adams' old-school style doesn't gel with modern comics, with Wolverine looking blocky and awkward, a lumbering giant rather than a killing machine. The rest of the art is fairly inconsistent, visuals often garbled. The series nevertheless has promise if you can ignore half-a-century of continuity, which is occasionally a good idea when fresh stories are needed. Read Full Review
The art from The First X-Men looks more like a collection of county fair caricatures than the work of one of the most important artists in comic book history. As unnecessary as I find the retread of pre-X-Men history to be, it can be done with flair and style. It can be entertaining. Neal Adams and Christos Gage’s attempt fails across the board. Read Full Review
The art here is somewhat inconsistent as well. Wolverine shifts between a buff looking guy to feral with really no step in between. The tech the guards use looks way too advanced for the period of time the series takes place in as well. All in all, I can't get behind the idea of pushing Wolverine this far into the spotlight by essentially stating that he beat Charles Xavier to the idea as well as paint the professor as somewhat inept. Read Full Review
On the bright side, Magneto's last page reveal is by far the most entertaining thing that The First X-Men #1 has going for it. This bodes well for a limited series with a mediocre debut issue. Hopefully, injecting Magneto into the rest of this series will make it much more entertaining and worth the book's $3.99 price tag. Read Full Review
But beyond those two nice pieces of business, this comic suffers under the weight of reputation. If I pitched Marvel on this book, they would never have approved it. I think both DC and Marvel are trying harder to keep their old timers happier, and that leads to books like this one, where logic and characterization take a backseat to nostalgia. And, as much as Marvel is telling readers that now (or NOW!) is what they should be focused on, publishing stories like this firmly place their emphasis on then. Read Full Review
If you are a glutton for punishment or just can't stop yourself from picking up every Wolverine or X-book on the shelf, go for it. If you like a good comic and don't want to soil your brain and the good memories of the X-origins, I'd say skip this and pretend it's a "What If?" event. It may surprise us because Gage is good at what he does, but this first installment does not bode well. Read Full Review
Artistically, this is immediately recognizable as a Neal Adams book (the wild looks of astonishment, the use of posture and body perspective to convey emotion), and the draftsmanship and paneling are impeccable: they're also the sort of thing he was doing in his sleep thirty years ago, and doesn't appear to have awakened since; again, nothing about the look of the book suggests that drawing comics was getting his juices flowing again, or that he had new ideas to explore. It's just the latest collector's artifact for the Neal Adams completist. He didn't become a legend by repeating himself, but by challenging himself, and us. Only challenge he faces here is getting another four bucks out of me next time. Read Full Review
Perhaps the most frustrating parts of this series - and there are obviously many - is that Erik Lensherr is going to join the team. Magneto. So, Christos Gage and Neal Adams are trying to claim that Wolverine and Magneto were on a Pre-X-Men team that helped mutant kids before Charles Xavier possessed his lifelong ethics (really????) and decided to try and guide the mutant race. The entire idea is just stupid. There is no way this is alright. Not by a long shot. What The First X-Men is comes down to one word: disappointing. Not only is this series totally unnecessary, it slaps comic book fans across the face with a whole new slew of (technically official) canon that's just depressing to think is now part of a comic book universe that still had some semblance of sense to it. I'm not even going to start into Neal Adams' completely dated and awful artwork because it will just depress me. I'll just say, it's mind-numbingly bad (Magneto's hair looks like Nite Owl II's cowl). Read Full Review
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