X-Men Part 12
X-Men: First Class #1–8, 2006–2007, by Jeff Parker and Roger Cruz
We’re taking a little detour starting with this post. X-Men: First Class was a mini-series that was billed as telling some untold adventures of the original X-Men when they were still students. Basically, these stories are supposed to be taking place between some of the original stories that we’ve been discussing, hence why I’m talking about them now. However, they don’t fit in perfectly anywhere. For instance, Issue #4 references a Juggernaut story that takes place in Issue #33 of the original series, which we haven’t read yet, but Jean is also still a student at the school, which means this should be taking place before the end of the last issue we discussed (#23). This is possibly why Marvel has said that these stories are not canon, for the most part. Every once in a while a story in the main continuity will reference something that happens in this series, pulling a tiny bit into canon. But, overall, these stories are outside of official X-Men canon.
So, why are we talking about them? There are a couple of reasons. First, I said at the very beginning of this project that I was going to read and write about all of the X-books, as best as I can. And this certainly qualifies as an X-related comics series. Secondly, and perhaps even more importantly, these are a lot of fun.
Rather than going through all of the issues beat by beat, I’m just going to talk about the points that stood out to me. To begin, we’ve talked previously about the sliding timescale in the Marvel Universe. The stories written in the Sixties are meant to take place roughly twenty years ago from whenever we’re reading. That allows our heroes to continue adventuring without getting too old, but also creates some awkwardness when they don’t have things like cell phones. This series updates the setting to a more modern one (complete with flip phones!), while still having the stories set in between the original adventures. On the one hand, that’s very confusing. On the other, it’s already confusing, and at least these stories avoid that extra suspension of disbelief that the originals require at this point.
And to be clear, when I say update the setting, I don’t mean ignore the original setting. There are plenty of details to remind us of the twenty-three issues of the original series we’ve already read. We see that Professor Xavier has kept the statue (or piece of solid matter, as Stan Lee put it) of Mastermind, and it’s now in the hallway of the school. We get a whole issue about Angel trying to date Wanda Maximoff, now that she and Pietro have left the Brotherhood. In another issue the team deals with a group of Skrulls trying to discredit them in the eyes of the public, and Cyclops wonders aloud which alien would even bother to go after them, before pausing and saying, “Lucifer, maybe.” The creators did their homework. They knew where and when to drop in references, and it works. If you can overlook the updated technology around them, these issues really do work well read in the middle of the original run.
Secondly, the biggest thing this series has working in its favor is that it finally shows the original five X-Men being teenagers. We’re told repeatedly in the Sixties material that these are “the strangest teens of all”, but we’ve seen very little evidence up to this point that actually points to them being teenagers. And that all changes in these eight issues. Scott and Jean’s flirtations actually feel like something that would happen between classmates, rather than Stan Lee shoehorning some romance comic panels into the superhero book he was writing. When the team goes on “vacation” to Florida, most of them go into the swamp to look for Dr. Curt Connors (aka the Lizard), but Scott and Jean are left with Bobby to hold down the fort at the beach house. We’re treated to some actual flirtation between the two of them as they play on the beach. And after a surprisingly thoughtful Xavier tells Bobby to go inside, and tells Scott, “Don’t say I never did anything for you,” we get one of my favorite scenes in the series. While horsing around with Jean, Scott’s glasses are knocked off, resulting in his optic blasts shooting out uncontrollably. As he’s done countless times in the issues from the Sixties, his response is to shut down and lose any faith in himself or his future. But in a change from the early versions of these characters, this Jean has a little more agency and won’t allow Scott to follow his usual path of self-degrading moping. Instead, she reminds him that no one is around and has him look straight out into the empty ocean and open his eyes. After a little back and forth, Scott is finally convinced and does so. We get a rare appearance of both eyes wide open, before he slowly bows his head and lets Jean put his glasses back on. As she does so, she says, “See? No one got hurt. You are what you are, Scott. Just like a horse needs to run, you have to use your power.” It’s a beautiful scene, and one that is sorely missing from the original run of comics.
The one thing I don’t love about this series, and its historical updates, is the way they depict Cerebro. In the issues that we have been covering up to this point, Cerebro is a powerful computer designed to detect mutants, usually nearby mutants. As the series continues over the decades that computer becomes more powerful and gains more uses, but in this series Cerebro is sentient and runs most of the classes for the students. This is a much bigger change than someone having a cell phone, or the internet existing. This takes something that was simply an object, albeit an object with powerful uses, and turns it into a character which our regular cast of characters interact with. It has a personality, speaks with people, and makes decisions. If you are reading these issues in the middle of the original X-Men run, as I am, that’s complicated to adjust to. And when we finish and go back to the Sixties, it’s not going to be a matter of taking a cell phone away from someone, it’s completely unmaking a character. It’s messy and there’s really no point to it. The classroom scenes could have just as easily been handled by Professor Xavier.
Speaking of Professor Xavier, as I mentioned above, he’s shockingly nice in this series. Growing up watching the cartoon, I always thought of the Professor as a kind person that was looking out for his students and friends in the X-Men. It wasn’t until I went back and started reading older comics that I realized how truly terrible he is. X-Men: First Class is a nice change of pace for him, and seems to humanize him in the same way that it makes the team into actual teenagers. This is a man that I would allow to be in charge of teenagers, or at least super-powered teenagers. And that’s a big change for him, or at least a big change of perspective in the story.
Before moving on, I also wanted to talk about Hank. If you are someone that is reading the current slate of X-books, the version of Hank we get in First Class is pretty unrecognizable. If you are not caught up on modern comics, let me just say that starting in the late 80s/early 90s, Hank begins a long slide into moral ambiguity. I think you can see hints of it even in the early issues we’ve been reading, when he bemoans the fact that he’s a mutant. But it eventually moves into CIA/ends-justify-the-means/amoral scientist territory. So, seeing him be an almost carefree teenager in these eight issues is pretty heartbreaking. It’s also great, because we’ve never gotten to see him being an actual kid before. But whether it was intentional or not, seeing this jovial and young Hank is a pretty stark reminder of how much the world can change you if you allow it to.
Finally, I think it’s important to talk about the covers to these issues before we end. They were all done by Marko Djurdjevic, and they are stunning. They capture these characters as both superheroes and as the young teenagers they are in the stories. We see the version of them that the world sees, soaring into action, ready to take on whatever danger is waiting for them. But we also see the tender and quieter moments of normal life (or at least as close to normal life as the X-Men ever get). The covers are beautiful without exception, and they’re a real highlight of the book.
Overall, I really loved this series. And I think throwing it into the middle of the original run is as good a place to read it as any. It breaks up some slower paced issues, and it’s a fun change of flavors. Next time, we’ll look at the beginning of the second First Class series, along with the Giant Size Special that was released in between the two series. Spoiler alert, they’re also both quite charming.
