Wednesday, July 29, 2009

X-Men Forever #4 - Marvel

Personally . . I like this book. This was an exciting time in the X-Men era. And with Chris back at the helm . . what else can I say? I just have to remember, as I'm reading it, that this is a divergent time-line. I can't compare it to what's already happened in the X-Men history. Although this, technically, is in the past, it really hasn't happened yet . . or, I guess I should say, is happening as we're reading it. You got that? Anyways, the main differences here are . . Wolverine has been recently killed, by Storm . . Nick Fury is now co-leading the X-Men with Charles . . Sabretooth, who had come to kill Storm, has, with this issue, temporarily joined the team while he watches Scott search for answers . . Kitty has somehow obtained one of Logan's claws in her right arm . . and at the end of this issue, Remy has found a teen-aged Ororo who seems lost and searching for her X-Men family. Oh yeah, and Jean was knocked out when Logan was killed, because of their psychic connection, and while rummaging around in her brain Charles has learned her real feelings toward our crazy Canadian. Also with this issue, we find out that Storm . . the one that killed Logan and is currently running away from the X-Men . . is actually an agent of the Consortium. We don't yet know what the Consortium is, but . . they've sent agents to kill her because she was supposed to clean up this mess she's left behind with the X-Men. Also, to me, this Beast seems a little edgier than the Cat-like man we've come to know over the last 10 to 15 years. Anyways, Tom Grummett has been doing the art for this story-arc and it looks fantastic. It really gives us a feel for the book those 17 or 18 years ago when Chris decided to leave. Issue #5 is going to have a special variant cover of Storm, drawn by Dave Cockrum. I guess it's one of his original designs for the character, with Terry Austin doing the inks. Then, in issue 6, when we start a new story-arc, Paul Smith and Terry Austin will be taking over the art chores. That'll be a blast from the past. I think it's a neat experiment. I'd like to see, maybe in the back of one of these books, the story-line notes Chris had back then to see where these guys were supposed to go after he left. I'm sure he left a plan and some dangling story-lines in place, after he left. I'm just wondering where, along the line, Marvel decided to take the team in a different direction and forget about Chris' plans. I know we'll never see it, but . . I think that would be an interesting addendum.

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