Mutant Genesis

As you many recall if you've been reading this blog for a while, I have recently been reading the Astonishing X-Men comic series. However at the moment I am up to date with the latest published TPB and the next one is not due out until October this year. Now if you remember one of my my few complaints about the story was that although it was labelled as issue one it really wasn't a beginning. So I started looking into the history of the series and although there have been earlier volumes of X-Men with the 'Astonishing' name, the series I'd been reading was actually an extension of the 'New X-Men' series from 2001. I almost bought the first issues from that series but after a little more research I discovered that 'New X-Men' is actually a continuation of the only series to be titled simply 'X-Men' which started in 1991.

So I picked up the first TPB of this series which includes issues 1 to 7. Although this is another issue 1 it's still not really the beginning. This is a spin-off of the main line 'Uncanny X-Men' and runs in tandem with it. While it is not the start it's probably as good as you're going to get with out going all the way back to 1969. This story is X-Men at its basics with the Xavier and the X-Men verses Magneto and some other mutants while having arguments about mutant rights. There's also a sub plot explaining how the team will split into two to cover the two storylines, on this side (the Blue team) with Beast, Cyclops, Gambit, Jubilee, Psylocke, Rogue, Wolverine and on the other (the Gold team) with Storm, Archangel, Colossus, Iceman and Jean Grey. It does still refer to past events though some which I still know nothing about. There's even a couple of random pages devoted to the Mojoverse which if I hadn't already seen the cartoon very would have been extremely confusing. I presume that's going to be expanded on in later issues. It was a good read though as it contains so many of the core elements of the series, including my favorite Rogue who is sorely missing the the 'Astonishing' series. Although I understand in the 3 currently ongoing storylines she is in 'Legacy' instead.

Great to pass the time with while I wait for more of the 'Astonishing' story and of course Buffy Season Nine.