Well, that was disappointing.
Actually, that's not fair. What's disappointing about this special is the new material. I had expected that Whedon was going to offer a story that boasted the same kind of strength as his work on Astonishing X-Men. Not only is this story not nearly as strong, it's barely even a story at all. What Whedon gives us is a fight scene -- a well-choreographed one, yes -- but in the end, it's nothing more than a pointless fight scene that says nothing about these characters. The good news is that Silver Age stories of the X-Men's first encounters with the Avengers, the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man are included in this volume, and the campy storytelling of yesteryear is not only fun, but it enlightens us on the evolution of these characters and comics storytelling.
Shortly after they're recruited by Professor X to rescue the original X-Men, a new team of culturally diverse X-Men -- Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Storm, Colossus, Sunfire and Thunderbird -- are gathered by one of their own number for an impromptu meeting... and assault. Wolverine tears into his new mutant colleagues, and everyone begins to defend themselves and to go on the attack.
How many times do we need to see a group of heroes -- especially the X-Men -- fight each other? Wolverine offers up a reason for fight in the final moments of the brief new sequence, but it's not convincing. His point is well taken, but the brevity of the encounter doesn't make me feel as though he's accomplished what he set out to do. Furthermore, Whedon's script really doesn't enlighten newer readers as to who the less familiar characters -- Sunfire and Thunderbird -- are.
Adams's art perfectly evokes a sense of the past, of the X-Men's history but at the same time, he pours a strong level of detail that fans of modern comic art expect. It was a pleasure to see Adams's work again. It serves as a reminder of just how powerful an influence he's had on artists who followed in his footsteps, from Bill Siewkiewicz to Frank Miller to Brent Anderson. Cockrum's cover boasts a simpler style, but it's one that mirrors the simpler tone and innocence of the reprint material included in this volume.
Those reprinted stories serve as the greatest strength of this one-shot. After the disappointment of the emptiness of Whedon's script, I figured nothing could redeem the comic, but reading these Silver Age stories -- ones I hadn't seen before -- really helped turn things around. And as enjoyable (and important) as Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's collaborations were, I was pleased to find they weren't the only ones whose work was represented here. Roy Thomas and Werner Roth join in the reprint fun as well. 6/10
