Plot: It's the good old days all over again, as a new visit to simpler days for the X-Men shows a powerful team crash headlong into some immovable objects from space.

Comments: It's an odd state of affairs when Marvel is publishing two books meant to get us back into a nostalgic mood for X-Men stories that might have been in days gone by. This is the company that once cancelled John Byrne's successful X-Men: The Hidden Years series because a flashback story would be too confusing for readers of current continuity (and viewers of current movies), right? Yet not only is Claremont picking up the X-Men as if he never left in 1991 in X-Men Forever; but this title is actually capturing the heyday mood of his collaboration with John Byrne as if it were 1981 all over again.

Or maybe a little earlier. These X-Men's seem to have just survived the fall from the space shuttle to the Hudson River, or their first dinner party at Jean's Manhattan pad with Misty Knight. The Phoenix hasn't quite gauged her fluctuating power levels yet, and the Uncanny crew is chafing under the patronizing attitude of Charles Xavier.

How fun is it to see a younger, scrappy Wolverine, who isn't everyone's best friend or sworn enemy yet, but just a rough and tumble scrapper? And Banshee, the experience Interpol agent, alive and well and effective again?

Their foes, who make their presence known by attacking Professor Corbeau's Starcore space station, look a bit like the Shi'ar in style, but their power levels seem to be off the charts. Imagine if a Galactus herald, like Terrax, had a bunch of buddies that he liked to carouse with? Or if the guardians of the M'Kraan crystal liked to unwind by beating up on earthlings? It's that bad, and that much like the old unwinnable battles of the Marvel Age of comics.

Koblish and Decastro do a non-shabby Byrne/Austin impression, all clean lines and expressive shadows, but with enough style of their own to keep the visuals fresh and to make those dayglo costumes pop. The Hykonians, by the way, take on Nick Fury and his Heli-Carrier just for an added thrill. They're way too powerful to persist in this way, and I'm sure next issue Lilandra will just happen to know their one weakness, but the old formulas are sometimes the best, and this series of new adventures from the old bi-monthly era is having a lot of fun with beloved memories what once made the X-Men matter.

---

What did you think of this book?
Have your say at the Line of Fire Forum!

---