X-Men Forever #s 1 to 5

Writer: Chris Claremont; Pencils: Tom Grummett; Inks: Cory Hamscher

Rating 4 out of 5 stars

The concept behind X-Men Forever is thus: what if Chris Claremont, the primary architect behind the X-Men for seventeen years, went back to the exact point in fictional time when he first left the series, namely X-Men vol 2 #3 in 1991, and proceeded in an entirely new direction, totally divorced from "mainstream" Marvel continuity?

Of course, Claremont has worked on various X-Men projects since, but the results were strikingly uneven. I cannot help but think that a significant reason for this was that he was working in a very different environment than the one where he spent the majority of his first decade and a half charting the course of the X-Men. Whatever work Claremont produced in the last decade had to conform to whatever editorial and/or corporate edicts were now in place to guide, as well as safeguard, the direction of Marvel's most lucrative franchises. Definitely a very different arena to be working in than when Claremont, in collaboration with first Dave Cockrum and then John Byrne, took a low-selling revival of a second-tier canceled sixties book and transformed it into a runaway creative & commercial success.

X-Men Forever is a title that allows Claremont a great deal of creative freedom. The X-Men books are obviously very different now from when he was the primary writer, and Marvel's current management has their own ideas & plans for the line. As I see it, X-Men Forever will allow Marvel to go their own way, while giving Claremont a vehicle to chart the characters in his own unique direction.

As to the actual results... well, so far, so good. Claremont's new story arc actually begins in X-Men Forever Alpha, a one-shot reprinting the final three Claremont & Jim Lee issues from 1991, followed by eight pages of new material by Claremont and X-Men Forever artists Tom Grummett & Cory Hamscher. Actually, the contents of the new material in Alpha are a bit odd. The first six pages take place prior to X-Men Forever #1, and the last two pages are set between #1 and #2. So, really, you should read those first six new pages in Alpha, then read #1, then go back to Alpha for the final two pages, which lead right to the opening scene of #2. Make sense? Good!

There is a hell of a lot going on in these first five issues, and I'm not ever going to attempt to summarize everything. Rather, let's just get right to my thoughts on some specific matters:

X-Men vol 2 #s 1-3, saw Magneto seize an arsenal of nuclear missiles, threaten the world with atomic blackmail, battle the X-Men, and then die due to a betrayal by his supposed disciple Fabian Corez. In the aftermath of all that, the United States government is now even more leery of mutants than before. And so they assign Nick Fury, director of SHIELD, to the dual role of liaison with, and watchdog over, Professor Xavier and the X-Men.

I have often felt that the X-Men have been their own worst enemies. They are a covert paramilitary strike force answerable to no one but themselves. To the average man on the street, that is not going to engender any sort of trust or confidence. No matter how many dangerous mutant menaces the X-Men defeated, their secretive nature is going to generate inevitable feelings of suspicion & fear. Nick Fury himself voices sentiments along those lines in the first issue.

What the X-Men really needed was a good public relations firm. And while no one is ever going to confuse Nick Fury with an image management consultant, he is a no-nonsense ramrod who can pass along a fair & accurate assessment of the X-Men to his superiors in Washington, as well as advise the team to avoid stepping on political minefields.

So, while certain members of the team are less than thrilled with this development, others recognize that there is some justification for the US government's actions. In issue #5, observing SHIELD agents taking charge of the scene after a battle, Gambit states "I don't trust them." To which Nightcrawler sagely replies "Well, likely they don't trust us, either. As Fury says, we X-Men have lived perhaps too long in the shadows."

The majority of the first issue is given over to the X-Men's pursuit of, and subsequent battle with, Fabian Cortez, as they seek to bring him to justice for his role as agent provocateur to Magneto's actions, and his subsequent betrayal of the master of magnetism. The fight is surprisingly even, with the solo Cortez holding his own against a contingent of eight X-Men. At first I was surprised, since I recalled Cortez as something of a joke. But then I realized that all of Cortez's appearances after X-Men #s 1-3 were penned by other writers, and that in the original Claremont issues he actually was presented as a formidable opponent.

I was hoping that Cortez's motivations might be explained here by Claremont, because I never really understood his reasons for prodding Magneto to action, and then stabbing him in the back. True, later writers made this part of the whole Upstarts subplot, with contestants seeking to eliminate prominent mutants for points; thus Cortez targeting Magneto. But since X-Men Forever diverges from the 1991 continuity before that plotline really got going, here Cortez must have entirely different motives. If I had to guess, I'd say that Cortez wanted to make Magneto into a martyr while simultaneously eliminating his competition as a rallying figure for mutant supremacy. Claremont is obviously not done with Cortez yet, so hopefully light will be shed on the character in the future.

The first major indication that X-Men Forever is drastically veering away into uncharted territory is in issue #2, with what seems to be none other than the death of Wolverine, his body burnt to a crisp by an explosion of electricity, leaving nothing behind but his adamantium-coated skeleton in a charred pit. And his murderer is apparently long-time teammate and friend Storm, who is working for a mysterious shadow organization called the Consortium. This betrayal is followed up by the appearance of a second, adolescent version of Ororo.

I've been wracking my brains, trying to remember comic books I read, oh, twenty years ago. As I recall, an odd, egg-shaped villain name Nanny kidnapped Storm, de-aged her, and erased her memory. The amnesiac pre-teen Ororo then crossed paths with Gambit (in that character's first appearance), and the two traveled together for a time, before finally meeting up with the rest of X-Men. Storm was then re-aged during the "X-Tinction Agenda" crossover. What Claremont appears to be indicating here is that the true Storm was never turned back into an adult. Which would mean that the Storm who was with the X-Men in Uncanny X-Men #s 273-280 and X-Men #s 1-3 was a duplicate infiltrator created by the Consortium. Or not. As of Forever #5, the X-Men have not been able to verify the authenticity of either Ororo. Hmmm, for all we know, neither of them might end up being the real deal. You never know.

Claremont makes it a point to say that Xavier and Jean Grey cannot read either Ororo's mind for the answers because "Storm's control over weather has created an impenetrable shield of static around her brain." I don't ever recall that being mentioned about Storm before, and it seemed to come out of left field. However, this is a continuity apart from the normal one, and that allows Claremont to set up his own rules for the character, um, characters.

In any case, Wolverine's death causes his arch-enemy Sabretooth to resurface. And why? To avenge Wolverine's murder... because Wolverine was his son. The idea that Sabretooth is Wolverine's father is one that Claremont (and, I believe, John Byrne) had in mind for years, but never really implemented. And other creators at Marvel had their own very different ideas about Wolverine's origins, which did see print. But, again, Forever is in it's own separate continuity, which allows Claremont to definitively declare that Sabretooth is Wolverine's father.

Quite why Sabretooth would want to avenge Wolverine's death, even if he was his son, is left unexplained. Paternity aside, they were bitter enemies. Perhaps it's a case of even a vicious sociopath such as Sabretooth having some form of affection for his offspring, however twisted. Or perhaps it's just that Sabretooth wanted to be the one to kill Wolverine, and he's angry someone stole his opportunity.

Whatever his reasoning, Sabretooth goes after Storm (the adult one). And, in the resulting struggle, Storm blasts Sabretooth almost point blank in the face with lightning, blinding him. Oddly, this appears to be permanent. I would have expected Sabretooth's healing factor to handle that easily enough. Maybe in this continuity Sabretooth's healing ability (and Wolverine's) hasn't been amped up to the utterly ridiculous level that it is in the regular books. A blinded Sabretooth is an interesting idea, though. If anything, it could make him even more dangerous, because it could lead to people underestimating him, when in fact his heightened senses more than compensate for lack of sight.

A development I don't find quite as credible is the apparent romance between Jean Grey and Wolverine. Again, it has been two decades, but I recall that Jean and Logan didn't have much recent "screen time" together before this story, as the X-Men were believed dead for a while and living in Australia, while Jean was in X-Factor slowly beginning a relationship anew with Cyclops. The only time Jean and Wolverine had together would have been after the "X-Tinction Agenda" crossover, and then later when X-Factor rejoined the X-Men after the "Muir Isle Saga." I suppose something could have occurred "between panels." It just seems abrupt.

It is in issue #5, though, that Claremont is most striking. Yes, even more so than Wolverine's death, because he postulates that the central premise of the X-Men, that mutants are the next stage of human evolution, is false. The Beast, searching through Xavier's files in an effort to deduct the identity of the real Storm, accidentally comes across the Professor's early data on mutants. It seems to indicate that mutants, by the use of their powers, gradually burn themselves out. And the greater the use of power, the more a mutant's life span is reduced. (As Tyrell waxed poetic in Blade Runner, "The light that burns twice as bright burns for half as long - and you have burned so very, very brightly, Roy.")

Claremont's introduction of this concept did feel somewhat forced, what with the Beast conveniently coming across the relevant information. Nevertheless, it is an interesting idea. It is also exactly the sort of thing that Marvel would almost never allow Claremont to do in the main X-Men books. But, again, Forever provides the perfect venue for Claremont to completely upend the foundation of the series and run with it wherever he wants to go.

The idea that mutation will not automatically prove beneficial to its recipient goes back to Claremont's revelation regarding Magneto in X-Men #1-3. Moira MacTaggert's discovered that Magneto's body was not capable of handling the energies being channeled through it, one result of which was mental instability. I always thought this was an elegant solution to reconcile the character's depiction in the 1960s as a one-dimensional ranting megalomaniac with the more nuanced, morally ambiguous take on the character that Claremont gradually developed in the 1970s and 80s. Likewise, it ties in perfectly with Claremont's revision of the status of mutantkind as a whole in Forever.

On the minor end of things: I like how Claremont is developing a SHIELD support staff made up of the Howling Commandos' children. In the 1960s, it was still somewhat plausible for Fury and his fellow World War II veterans to be field agents in SHIELD. But, as time went on, it gradually became more and more unlikely that they would still be charging off to battle Hydra. Eventually it was retconned that Fury, at least, had the Infinity Formula to keep him young. But really, by 2009, all the other Howlers ought to be over ninety years old. In Forever it appears the Howlers have finally retired. In their place we have Gabe Jones' son, Dum Dum Dugan's daughter, and so on. I hope we see more of them.

As for the mysterious Consortium, I wonder who they are. The artwork has the members hidden in shadow, but if this is because we've seen these characters before, or if it's just to create an aura of mystery, I don't know. It does remind me a bit of how Claremont in his early stories would throw in the occasional reference to a mysterious Council of the Chosen, a group years later revealed to be the original Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club before Sebastian Shaw's coup. Come to think of it, if I recall correctly, around this time in Marvel continuity, Shaw was presumed killed by his son Shinobi in an issue of X-Factor (part of the whole Upstarts subplot). Shaw later returned, of course. Perhaps Shaw is also alive & well in Forever. Looking at the silhouettes of the Consortium members, I just can't tell if any of them are sporting a ponytail and Hanoverian wardrobe.

But seriously, my only major criticism of X-Men Forever so far is that some of these developments have been too sudden and abrupt. Claremont obviously wanted to hit the ground running. Perhaps he started just a bit too fast. But that's a minor complaint. And at least he is going somewhere, full speed ahead, instead of spinning his wheels.

Obviously I've commented at length on the writing. A few words are in order for the artwork by Tom Grummett & Cory Hamscher. In the past, I was not a fan of Grummett's art. His work on the Superman books in the 1990s really didn't do much for me. But either he got better, or his style gradually began to grow on me, or both. By the time he was pencilling Thunderbolts, I thought he was rather good. And then he worked on Claremont's Exiles issues. That was some of Grummett's best work. In places it even reminded me a bit of the late, great Dave Cockrum.

Grummett, inked by Hamscher, is turning in some really striking art on X-Men Forever. The first five issues are very striking. He really is a great storyteller. The fight scenes are dramatic, and the dialogue pages are laid out very well. Talking heads can be boring, but a good artist knows how to make a conversation interesting & dramatic.

I like the new costumes that are gradually being phased in. I was never a big fan of the ones Jim Lee designed in 1991. They were too generic and bland for my tastes. So far most of the new ones in Forever have only appeared on the covers, but hopefully they'll make it into the interiors soon. Whether it's Grummett or another artist who designed them, the end results look good. My only gripe is with the new Nightcrawler one seen on the cover of #5. I'd rather they had stuck with Kurt's original costume. Don't mess with a classic, especially if it's designed by Cockrum.

One other note: X-Men Forever is published twice-monthly. This is one of the few mainstream books being published nowadays that is leaving me eagerly anticipating the next issue. Claremont is obviously doing something right if I get to the end of each issue and cannot wait to find out what happens next. It's definitely a relief that I don't have to wait an entire month between issues. I cannot imagine how much torture it must have been in the late 1970s when the "All-New, All-Different X-Men" was only published bi-monthly!