Though I had mixed feelings about the X-Men: First Class film, which, by the way, pretty much had absolutely nothing to do with the same titled collection of comics (at least, not the first few, which I read over the week while I was ill), my stance on the comics themselves are pretty solid and negative. What a bunch of crap.

I know that they were written very recently (2007) so they aren’t going to emulate the actual first comics of the series in any way, but really, using cell phones, e-mail, and other modern technology? Is that meant to just kill off any memories we have from the original X-Men comics at all?

The artwork was very disappointing to me. There was not one memorable cell that I wanted to copy, to doodle on my own (as if I’d have the time!); in most X-comics, there are at least a dozen I want to draw or watercolor. It felt like it wasn’t even hand-drawn at all, but a bunch of regurgitated images without much bang for their buck. It was a real let-down, especially since I hadn’t read the comics in a while.

The storylines were awful as well. Rather than real adventures, there were these stupid tongue in cheek exploits with an alien, a mutant, and other crap. A little allusion to Spider-Man that should have been humorous turned out to be a fail, and none of the personalities of the team showed through at all. Professor X was made to be much cockier than I remember (setting Scott up with Jean? Really?), and all of the little hints at what was to come later in the series (such as the Phoenix) weren’t fun; they were just annoying.

I have to be honest. I didn’t even finish the compilation I picked up from the library. After reading the first three, I was so bored with them I just put it down and didn’t pick it back up. These days, I’m much pickier about what I read since I don’t get to as much as I’d like, and if I don’t enjoy it, what’s the point in finishing it?

This was really just too bad. I remember when I stopped buying comics regularly after the Age of Apocalypse started, and though I’m left wondering about all of the storylines since, this little chunk did nothing for me at all—and it certainly didn’t build upon my images of what the X-Men originally were. It sort of stripped them of their integrity and made them look like slapstick sideshows.

At least I have a huge set of old X-Force comics (25 of them!) coming from my awesome sister who found them on eBay for me. One in particular, based on Feral’s life story, is one I’ve been looking for for years, and I can’t wait to draw some of the images in it. I remember drawing almost all of them back in the fifth or sixth grade and it was so much fun.