Review by Win Wiacek
In 1969, after six years of quirky, deliciously off-kilter adventures, The X-Men’s comic folded. Of course, the team emerged resurgent and unstoppable in 1975 and have since become an unshakable fixture of contemporary comics and cinema culture. Nevertheless when they first folded, a goodly number of fans couldn’t believe the loss of such irreplaceable characters.
Despite their reappearance in recycled reprints a certain magic had gone from the world back then and this most modern confection by Alan Davis seeks to redress that loss, albeit decades later.
The all-original four chapters by Davis form the majority of this scintillating compilation, but that final 1960s X-Men exploit was a weird team-up and pivotally informs Davis’ work, so ‘The Mutants and the Monster’ by Roy Thomas and Sal Buscema is included in all its raw glory at the back of the book.
It was actually the epilogue to an epic clash between the mutants and voracious alien invaders. The campaign had shockingly brought back long-believed dead Professor Charles Xavier, who then nearly killed himself for real by uniting every mind on Earth in a psychic thrust of unparallelled force to repel the already repellent Z’Nox. The tragic aftermath was a debilitating coma caused by the exertion leaving the telepath near death, able only to convey a feeble psionic message to send the team hunting for Bruce Banner in Nevada. Apparently, the two cerebral heavyweights had previously and secretly collaborated on a gamma-powered device which might now be able to save and restore the fallen Xavier. However, provoke Banner and the Hulk manifests…
Flipping now to the front of the book, the main event reveals a previously undisclosed follow-up encounter opening with TV coverage of the Nevada battle being carefully scrutinised by Gamma-spawned evil super-genius The Leader. The sinister savant soon gleans a connection between the mutant warriors and their previously unsuspected boss Charles Xavier.
The Hulk meanwhile is fending of another furious attack by the military even as back in Westchester County the recuperating Xavier examines the life-saving device and realises Banner had completed it to cure himself of his emerald alter ego. The mutant mentor soon discovers it didn’t work on the tragic titanic transformer as it needed a telepathic trigger. Convinced he can return the favour and finally cure Banner, guilty, grateful Professor X accompanies Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Angel, Beast, Iceman, Havok and magnetic warrior Lorna Dane back to Nevada and Banner’s clandestine laboratory. They are all blithely unaware that the Leader has already staked the place out.
The frenzied fugitive at the heart of the matter meanwhile has been found by a well-meaning elderly couple whose offer of assistance leads to unbridled terror as the timid down-and-out suddenly shapeshifts into a mountain of angry green muscle.
Only Xavier is aware that things are not entirely what they seem and is capable of combating the true source of the fantastic threat, aided by the Hulk’s most incredible gamma-fuelled transformation yet.
Cleverly conceived, beautifully illustrated, riotously action-packed and stunningly suspenseful, this tale of triumph and tragedy is pure vintage Marvel Mastery, offering readers a magnificent chance to re-experience the glory days of the House of Ideas.
