X-MEN: RED No. 1
MARVEL COMICS – @Marvel
[This review was originally posted on
Patreon.]
STORY: Tom Taylor
ART: Mahmud Asrar
COLORS: Ive Svorcina
LETTERS: VC's Cory Petit
COVER: Travis Charest
V
ARIANT COVER ARTISTS: Mahmud Asrar with Ive Svorcina; John Tyler Christopher; Phil Jimenez; Phil Jimenez with Nolan Woodard; Rob Liefeld; Skottie Young; Pepe Larraz with Edgar Delgado
36pp, Color, $4.99 U.S. (April 2018)
Rated T+
X-Men created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
“The Hate Machine” Part 1: “Heal the World”
Last year, Marvel Comics launched a publishing event, entitled “ResurrXion,” in an attempt to shoot new life in its moribund
X-Men line of comic books. This initiative involved the debut of several new X-Men comic book titles, including the color-coded
X-Men: Blue and
X-Men Gold.
Still trying to pump life into the X-Men, Marvel has launched a new X-Men color-coded comic book, entitled
X-Men: Red. It will feature an X-Men team led by the resurrected, original
Jean Grey, also known at times as Marvel Girl and Phoenix/Dark Phoenix. This new comic book is written by
Tom Taylor; drawn by
Mahmud Asrar; colored by
Ive Svorcina; and lettered by
Cory Petit.
X-Men: Red #1 (“Heal the World”) opens with
Heather, a young mutant, being hounded by a mob of neighbors who want to kill her because she is a mutant. Her rescuers are
Jean Grey,
Nightcrawler,
Gentle,
Namor,
Trinary,
Honey Badger, and
Wolverine (
Laura Kinney). Two months earlier, Jean Grey, newly brought back to life, decides that in order to protect mutants from a world that still hates them, she will need to find a way to protect the entire world. Of course, not everyone wants that.
Once upon a time, someone who thought they were being smart “man-splained” to me that corporations existed to provide goods and services. I didn't say anything at the time, but I firmly believed that many corporations, if not most, existed first and foremost to make money for their major stockholders and chief executives, officers, and/or managers. That includes corporations that own comic book publishers like Marvel Comics.
I imagine that in the early 1980s, the people that called the shots noticed how popular the Marvel Comics title,
Uncanny X-Men, had become with readers and how its story of a band of mutants who fought for a world that hated and feared them really resonated with fans. That love had turned Uncanny X-Men into the top-selling comic book, at least in North America. So why make a lot of money from just one X-Men comic book title when Marvel could make a even more money with more X-Men publications?
First it was one graphic novel... or two, and then, an X-Men spin-off series and a miniseries featuring the most popular X-Men character (Wolverine). What started as a few X-Men and X-Men-related spin-offs became a trickle, then a stream, and the stream became a deluge. I think Marvel officially started ruining the X-Men, not when it became a franchise, but specifically when that franchise launched the comic book,
X-Factor (cover dated: February 1986).
In the three decades plus since the debut of
X-Factor #1, there have been many quality X-Men publications, but most X-Men comic books have been, to be generous, average at best. The X-Men went from being something special into nothing more than a cynically exploited cash cow for whatever money-grubbing corporation or CEO that owned Marvel Comics at any given time.
Writer Tom Taylor tries to recall the halcyon pre-X-Factor days of
Uncanny X-Men in X-Men: Red. Writer Marc Guggenheim tries to recall the storytelling of the classic X-Men scribe, Chris Claremont (who is arguably still the best X-Men comic book writer ever) with X-Men: Gold, but the results are mixed. I feel like being cynical and saying that it is too late to make X-Men great again, but Taylor seems to be on to something here. I would like to see where this goes.
I do think that artist Mahmud Asrar is already delivering excellent work. I don't need to wait and see with Asrar; I am already declaring his art and graphical storytelling here a winner. I think Asrar's illustrations, which are beautifully colored by Ive Svorcina, make this issue's story, “Heal the World,” seem as if it is indeed part of a promising larger story. I have considered Asrar a star-creator in the making since I first saw his art in The New 52 title, Supergirl (2011).
So I see red,
X-Men: Red that is. I will keep reading as long as Taylor and Asrar are making something that seems special like the Uncanny X-Men at its speak from mid-1970s to the mid-1980s.
8 out of 10
Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"
The text is copyright © 2018 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.
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