Sunday, December 30, 2012

X-Men: Season One by Dennis Hopeless, art by Jamie McKelvie

Professor Charles Xavier has recruited five extraordinary teen mutants for his "high school" - a place where they will learn to fight together to protect the world from other, dangerous mutants.  Jean Gray has her doubts about Professor Xavier, and his seeming willingness to put she and her friends in harms way.  After all, they're just kids, trying to deal with major self revelations and crushes!

It's another X-Men reboot, but this time, the story is being told by Jean, which is cool.  Professor Xavier is not being portrayed as infallible, and the kids question him and struggle with his ideals, which they don't really share.  It's hard protecting people who hate you!

We have the five original X-Men - Jean, Angel, Beast, Iceman and Cyclops.  We get to see all their angsty teen interactions, which is lots of fun.  Jean at first has a crush on pretty-boy Warren (Angel), and it nothing but annoyed with Scott (Cyclops) who's super intense and does nothing but train.

Hank (Beast) and Bobby (Iceman) are best friends.  I enjoyed seeing how Beast is the smartest and most thoughtful of them all.  He's a science genius and an inventor and becomes incredibly frustrated that it's only his fighting skills that are looked for, not his intellect.  He actually leaves the X-Men for a time, much to Bobby's distress, and it's Jean who's able to bring him back.

By the end of this first volume, the X-Men are beginning to act more like a team, and they've also all emerged alive from their first serious encounter with Magneto.  They also have to struggle with the fact and Professor Xavier and Magneto are friends.  Who, like, play chess together sometimes.  That's a very difficult thing for the teenagers to accept.  Isn't Magneto evil?  Aren't they trying to defeat him?

I thought this was a great start to the series.  I love that we're seeing everything through Jean, and I really like the fact that the X-Men act like the teenagers they are, with all the usual teen problems on top of the fact that they're trying to save the world, and are clearly not ready for it.  It will be fun to see them learn to control their powers.  Especially Jean, who's already starting to see she's far more powerful than she though.

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