X-MEN: FIRST CLASS – TOMORROW’S BRIGHTEST
MARVEL COMICS
STORY: Jeff Parker
PENCILS: Roger Cruz with Paul Smith
INKS: Victor Olazaba & Roger Cruz with Paul Smith
COLORS: Val Staples
LETTERS: Nate Piekos
COVER: Marko Djurdjevic
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2426-8; hardcover (January 1, 2007)
192pp, Color, $24.99 U.S.
Recently, I posted a review of Zootopia Volume 1 #1, the first issue of Dynamite Entertainment's new comic book series based on Disney's Oscar-winning, animated film, Zootopia (2016). The comic book is written by Jeff Parker, and because I enjoyed the first issue, I started thinking about other comics by Parker that I have read and reviewed.
One of them is the hardcover trade collection of Marvel Comic's 2006 miniseries, X-Men: First Class. I wrote a review of it back in 2007 or 2008 for a website run by an ungrateful asshole. So I'm reclaiming the review for my own blog, “I Reads You.”
Here, it is with some recent edits. - Leroy Douresseaux:
When I first started reading the 2007 Marvel Comics hardcover collection, X-Men: First Class – Tomorrow’s Brightest, I initially thought, “Marvel doesn’t make comics like this anymore.” Then, I realized that they do – under the “Marvel Adventures” line for young readers – and if you like that line, then, this fantastic, old school-style X-Men comic book collection is just for you.
X-Men: First Class – Tomorrow's Brightest collects X-Men: First Class #1-8, an eight-issue miniseries originally published in 2006. The series is set during the early years of the X-Men when the team still consisted on the original X-Men: Cyclops (Scott Summers), Marvel Girl (Jean Grey), Angel (Warren Worthington, III), Beast (Hank McCoy), and Iceman (Bobby Drake). These young people are mutants, genetic anomalies born with superhuman abilities that usually manifest themselves at puberty.
This quintet attended Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, where Professor Charles Xavier a.k.a. “Professor X” taught them to use their powers. However, this school is also something of a military academy, as the students are taught to use their powers to protect humans from evil mutants and other forces that seek to harm humanity. Like superheroes, the X-Men wear special costumes and masks (to hide their identities).
In X-Men: First Class, the X-Men seem to be college age. In Marvel Comics continuity, these stories apparently take place after X-Men #18 (cover date: March 1966) when Magneto was spirited off-world by a mysterious character knows as “The Stranger.” [This incident is mentioned in X-Men: First Class #7, which is reprinted as “Chapter 7” in this collection.]
X-Men: First Class is basically a modernization of stories and plots found in the run of X-Men comic books published in the 1960s. Writer Jeff Parker takes the same characters, stories, and concepts and sets them in the 21st century. Like the original X-Men comics, X-Men: First Class is basically a comic book series meant for young readers – especially ‘tweens (8 to 12-years-old or 9 to 14). X-Men: First Class is nothing like the main X-Men comics, especially the flagship Uncanny X-Men, which are much darker, even fatalistic in tone, and have been for some time. These stories tend towards science fiction, and are like a mix of juvenile sci-fi and fantasy.
These stories feature guest appearances by a number of Marvel Comics characters, including The Lizard (a Spider-Man villain), Doctor Strange, Thor, and a young team of Skrulls (an adversarial race from the Fantastic Four comics). There are also appearances by Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch (brother and sister mutants who were once X-Men adversaries) and Gorilla-Man (an obscure Silver Age character).
THE LOWDOWN: While Jeff Parker’s writing will not shatter or transform the X-Men the way Grant Morrison did in New X-Men about 8 earlier, it is closer in spirit to the X-Men stories that provided the foundation for writers like Morrison to come along and do their trashing, rebuilding, and/or re-imagining. These X-Men” First Class comic books feature the kind of highly enjoyable stories that once served the industry well – superhero comics that could be casually read.
Now, it seems that to read any one Marvel or DC Comics’ series requires a sizable investment of time and money and a major investment in either of these publishers’ labyrinthine continuities and myriad universes and timelines. We also may not mistake Jeff Parker's comic book writing for that of Alan Moore, whose shadow has loomed large over American comic book writing, beginning with his landmark work on DC’s Swamp Thing series. Then again, no one will mistake Moore for Parker. Parker tells the kind of imaginative and luminous stories that not only capture the spirit of what made and what still makes the X-Men attractive to readers, but also, he can capture our sense of wonder by transporting us to incredible adventures in far away places.
POSSIBLE AUDIENCE: For any readers who yearn for the X-Men comic books of the 1960s and 70s or for anyone who wants to introduce the X-Men to new readers, X-Men: First Class: Tomorrow's Brightest is for them.
A
★★★★ out of 4 stars
EDITED: Wednesday, January 8, 2025
Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"
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