By: Scott Gray (writer), Fernando Blanco (artist), Jordan D. White (editor)
The Story: An apparent suicide has occurred at Cassidy Keep and Banshee brings Nightcrawler, Colossus and Wolverine along to solve the mystery.
What’s Good: There is almost no story you can tell in the early Uncanny X-Men era (let’s say before the death of Phoenix) that I won’t love. The X-Men mythos is simpler and, to my tastes, purer. You’ve only got about fourteen possible X-Men total (including Professor X) and a new world to be explored. The X-Men roster is Cyclops, Phoenix, Colossus, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Storm and Banshee. How do you beat that lineup?
Scott Gray led with a dramatic start. Not much can launch a story with more momentum than a dead body. See? I just said dead body and now you want to see who did it, don’t you? Sean as the leader of this little team of the X-Men was also a nostalgic reminder of just how unpolished they all were, even Wolverine, who was more than a little bit of a loose cannon. Wolverine did steal the stage though, once they were swarmed by leprechauns, when he said “This is the dumbest fight I’ve ever been in. Hands down.” The moral of the story was also pretty strong and I didn’t see it coming.
What’s Not So Good: Blanco’s art left me cold. Issue #1 started so strong with the pencil held by Roger Cruz, and later we had Scott Koblish and Nelson Decastro, so Blanco’s draftsmanship didn’t do it for me. Steel-armored Colossus looked like he was wearing a shiny striped suit at times, while at others the proportions seemed to be of uneven quality. Maybe Blanco would do well with another series or with another setting, but I didn’t feel he was right for this story.
Conclusion: I really loved this series. It wasn’t a single, cohesive arc building to a ringing conclusion, but a patchwork of stories meant to charm us with the nostalgia of the innocence of the early months of the New X-Men. I suspect that there won’t be a lot more of these experiments by Marvel (issue #6 appears to have sold only 10,000 copies in comic shops, while the first issue didn’t even top 20,000), but if, like me, you love the early adventures of the new X-Men, you have to buy this issue and all the back issues as well!
Grade: C+
-DS Arsenault
Filed under: Marvel Comics, Other Tagged: | Banshee, Colossus, Comic Book Reviews, comic books, comic reviews, Comics, DS Arsenault, Fernando Blanco, Jordan D. White, Marvel, Marvel Comics, Marvel Reviews, Nightcrawler, Reviews, Scott Gray, Uncanny X-Men First Class, Uncanny X-Men: First Class #8, Uncanny X-Men: First Class #8 review, WCBR, weeklycomicbookreview.com, Wolverine, X-Men, X-Men
Hey Al,
yeah, I thought this was the last of this series. The quality of the series was a bit up and down, but I was really digging it – how many X-Men adventures can you have between Uncanny X-Men #109 and #110? Phoenix never really had a chance to interact with the team and vis versa.
DSA
Question: Is this the last issue of the series? Can’t find any info. Thanks!