sawyl | Essential X-Men Volume 1 (Reply)

I started just after Christmas, but after a few hundred bus journys, I've finally finished the first volume of the Chris Claremont and John Byrne X-Men comics.

The first story arc describes the Professor's attempts to build up a new team following the departure of the original X-Men. He recruits Banshee, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Storm, Sunfire and Thunderbird, then teams them up with Scott Summers, the only remaining member of the old team to stay on. After taking on Count Nefaria and his plot to blackmail the world, the X-Men are abducted by a group of sentinels. In the course of their escape, Jean Grey is exposed to a high level of solar radiation and becomes Phoenix. While Jean is recovering, the rest of the gang head off to Banshee's ancestral home, where they get their arses kicked by Tom Cassidy, Banshee's evil cousin.

After that it's they're off for a short jaunt to Muir Island, site of Moira MacTaggart's mutant research lab, where they discover that Magneto has recovered from his indisposition — he'd been turned into a young child. After getting their teeth knocked out by the Big M, they finally work out the reason why everyone has been down on them recently, before going off to kick arse and take names. Having done the necessary, you'd have thought the X-Men would have taken some time off, but nope, they've gone missing instead. After being to find them in Westchester, Hank McCoy finally tracks them down to a one ring circus, where they're working as performers. Needless to say, it's all part of a dastardly plot. The rescue attempt doesn't go as well as it could have gone and the X-Men eventually end stuck in the Savage Lands, helping Ka-Zar sort out his planning dispute with Garokk — well, I guess it beats appealing to the council.

All in all, it's just the thing for reading on the bus first thing in the morning. Plus, being able to reel off huge lists of facts about the X-Men gets me no end of kudos with my nephew. Well, ok, not actually kudos as such, more a slight reduction in his general belief that his uncle comes from a different planet...