Yeah so I know this dates back to 2001 (come on at least it’s this century) but if you’ve never read an X-Men comic before and want a great, no, X-cellent place to start (sorrynotsorry) with a good amount of time to catch up to present day afterwards, then this really is the place to begin.
I started a few years before this with The Twelve story line; 1997, classic Chris Claremont, colourful spandex, fucking epic, ends with Apocalypse and Cyclops merging for a short time. And though that and what came before was great, the retitled ‘New X-Men’ from dynamic duo Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely was a real contrast to what had come before in both writing and artwork.
Everything became a lot simpler, but darker.
More real too. Morrison left behind (as much as one can for a superhero comic) the big bad over-sized villains who just wanted world domination for the sake of it, and brought to the fore some more hard hitting issues based a little more in the real world.
I mean sure the story arch more or less begins with a mass genocide, and the big bad of the series is predominantly Charles Xavier’s evil twin sister (not that much of a give away, like I said they’re twins, it’s hard not to miss) but Morrison focusses as much on what makes the individuals human as mutant, hence the great idea to narrow down the team to just five core members to explore and develop, rather than the usual roster that can regularly span into double figures.
Scott’s just returned from being possessed by an evil spirit, and Jean isn’t far from Phoenix-ing the fuck out again, but their marriage is on the rocks. That becomes the focus. Then along comes Emma Frost with her sass and her tits and even though you do get to see some good psychic confrontations, at heart it’s a really well developed and human love triangle that spans the entire series, and is still very very relevant in the comics today, more than eighteen years later.
Beast has undergone a second mutation, which is written like a second puberty, he’s not just questioning his mutation or species, but actually his sexuality.
It brings these super heroes back into the realm of being relatable human characters which was exactly the point when Stan Lee created these guys back in 1963.
Quitely’s artwork reflects this too. His characters are super detailed, but simpler backgrounds, shifting the focus to where it should be on the characters, and not what’s going on around them. And call me old fashioned but I do so love a uniform. Again, simple, but bloody cool.
Anyway, read the whole Morrison series (it also leads straight in to Joss Whedon’s series so ‘nuff said), as you can probably tell it’s a bit of a favourite of mine. It runs directly alongside Claremont’s X-Treme X-Men which I dare say I’ll have up on here pretty soon.
But yeah do yourself a favour.
Educate yo’ self.
#harrisonthehand