As I mentioned during my review of X-Men vs. Apocalypse: The Twelve, I really only consider two runs on the X-Men to be worthwhile: Grant Morrison and Joss Whedon. Jeff Parker’s First Class is amazing as well, but that’s out of continuity. However, after reading Essential Uncanny X-Men, I’m going to have to expand my suggested X-Men reading list.
Right off the bat, I want to address the biggest problem with this book (and Marvel’s “Essential” line generally): the black and white images. While there are other books that I feel the lack of color is a little more damning (such as Spider-Man or Thor), my general feeling is that it is always worth splurging for color in these old reprints.
It’s not that I’m a person who thinks things have to be in color. I like black and white movies and one of my favorite series ever, Scott Pilgrim, is a black and white comic. The problem is, these books weren’t drawn to be black and white. Art changes based on colorization and reading these to black and white is as big of an abomination as the colorization of old movies.
Something that I had never realized, given how popular the X-Men have been in my lifetime (based on the Claremont stories and that awful cartoon in the 90s), is just how slow of a start they got. The original X-Men stories were published bi-monthly, which was probably a combination of Jack Kirby’s work schedule (and maybe Lee’s, but I doubt that because writing comics is far less time consuming than drawing them, especially given what we know about the Lee/Kirby relationship) and the rather tepid sales of the books.
The original team is a bit jarring as the brightly colored, personalized suits have yet to come about. Instead, the team wears what amounts to uniforms, except for Iceman. Iceman, for most of the time Kirby draws him, looks like a snowman and not the sleek ice figure I would guess most of us know him as. Plus, it will always be weird to me for Beast to not be blue and furry. When he looks normal, minus some superlarge feet, he lacks a certain tragic element in his character that makes him so interesting.
Having said that, out of all the characters, Beast is the best written and is closest (outside the odd first issue which makes him sound like The Thing) to what he would later become. Professor Xavier is a lot different than my understanding of the character. He’s a bit cold and comes off as withholding sometimes.
He also is cocky. When the X-Men first meet the Blob, Xavier is shocked that the Blob doesn’t want to join. He then announces (stupidly) for the X-Men to stop the Blob so that he can wipe his mind. That’s…kind of awful on his part. Of course, this is also a guy who has the hots for Jean Grey, who has to be at least 20 years younger and barely out of her teens (if that). Apparently, Professor X is a homo superior who thinks we shohuld return to the Roman marriage system.
The character that I actually found the most intriguing in these old stories in Cyclops. He’s really the unquestioned leader of the group, but he doesn’t trust his ability to control his eye blasts and constantly thinks about seeking out help to have his eyes “fixed.” Unlike how Cyclops later comes off as a whiner, Cyclops off as brooding in these older stories. In fact, these stories actually make the Jean Grey/Cyclops love affair seem reasonable.
After the whole “Professor X loves Jean” storyline gets dropped early on, the angsty relationship between Scott and Jean comes to the fore, usually with Angel butting his way into it. Both Jean and Scott are constantly thinking about how much they like the other one, but never say anything to the other. It’s angsty, but certainly no worse than alot of different crap that makes its way into comics under the guise of romantic interests.
Plus, as I mentioned above, Scott doesn’t come off as whiny. He comes off as serious and brooding. Suddenly, the fact that Jean is attracted to both Scott and Logan makes a lot more sense because they’re really they same person, though Logan is more apt to act on his feelings than Scott. (As an aside: this is also the reason why I am sick of the Cyclops/Logan rivalry. These two guys are clearly cut from the same cloth and make the other one better. They may bicker, but when they’re written with actual animosity, it’s the wrong artistic decision).
The stories themselves are super fun, especially the Lee/Kirby ones. They are a bit repetitious (the characters spend 20% of just about each issue in the Danger Room and Iceman and Angel will always get into some kind of horseplay-fight), and rely on simple stories, but, when you approach it with the mindset that you’re not going to see Magneto kill everyone in New York, they’re really enjoyable. Sometimes, it’s just fun to see a guy who can’t be touched defeated by Beast amplifying his powers amplified so that he can’t get food to eat.
The two things, canonically, that I thought were odd/interesting were that Magneto is telepathic and not responsible for crippling Professor X (that honor goes to a character named Lucifer). I’m not sure when either of those facts change, I just know they don’t during the course of the 24 issues I read.
Recommendation: I wouldn’t buy this unless you could get it in color for under $20. However, if you recognize that older comics are different than today’s, it is a solid purchase or, at the very least, a well worth reading.
Everyone Look Busy! 