Thanks to barnesandnoble.com for this image of Marko Djurdjevic's X-Men: First Class - Tomorrow's Brightest cover.

When I first started reading the 2007 Marvel Comics hardcover collection, X-Men: First Class – Tomorrow’s Brightest, I initially thought, “Marvel doesn’t make comics like this anymore.”  Then, I realized that they do – under the “Marvel Adventures” line for young readers, and if you like that line, then, this fantastic, old school-style X-Men comic is just for you.  This book reprints X-Men: First Class #1-8.

First published in 2006, X-Men: First Class was an eight-issue miniseries set during the early years of the X-Men when the team still consisted on the original X-Men: Cyclops (Scott Summers), Marvel Girl (Jean Grey), Angel (Warren Worthington, III), Beast (Hank McCoy), and Iceman (Bobby Drake).  These young people are mutants, genetic anomalies born with superhuman abilities that usually manifested themselves at puberty.

This quintet attended Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, where Professor Charles Xavier or “Professor X” taught them to use their powers.  However, this school is also something of a military academy, as the students are taught to use their powers to protect humans from evil mutants and other forces that seek to harm humanity.  Like superheroes, the X-Men wear special costumes and masks (to hide their identities).

In X-Men: First Class, the X-Men seem to be college age.  In Marvel Comics continuity, these stories apparently take place after X-Men (1963) #18 when Magneto was spirited off-world by a mysterious character knows as “The Stranger” (as the incident is mentioned in X-Men: First Class #7 (Chapter 7 in this volume).

X-Men: First Class is basically a modernization of the original 1960’s X-Men, in which writer Jeff Parker takes the same characters, stories, and concepts and sets them in the 21st century.  Like the original X-Men comics, X-Men: First Class is basically a comic book series meant for young readers – especially ‘tweens (8 to 12-years-old or 9 to 14).  X-Men: First Class is nothing like the main X-Men comics, especially the flagship Uncanny X-Men, which are much darker, even fatalistic in tone, and tend towards science fiction.  First Class is more a mix of juvenile sci-fi and fantasy.

These stories feature guests appearances by a number of Marvel Comics characters, including The Lizard (a Spider-Man villain), Doctor Strange, Thor, a young team of Skrulls (an adversarial race from the Fantastic Four comics), Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch (brother and sister mutants who were once X-Men adversaries), and Gorilla-Man (an obscure Silver Age character).

THE LOWDOWN:  While Jeff Parker’s writing will not shatter or transform the X-Men the way Grant Morrison did in New X-Men about 8 years ago, it is closer in spirit to the X-Men stories that provided the foundation for writers like Morrison to come along and do their trashing, rebuilding, and/or re-imagining.  These are the kind of highly enjoyable stories that once served the industry well – superhero comics that could be casually read.

Now, it seems that to read any one Marvel or DC Comics’ series requires a sizable investment of time and money and a major investment in either of these publishers’ labyrinthine continuities and myriad universes and timelines.  We also may not mistake Parker for Alan Moore, whose shadow still looms large in comic book writing over two decades after his landmark work on DC’s Swamp Thing series began, but then again, no one will mistake Moore for Parker.  Parker can still tell the kind of the story that not only captures the spirit of what made and what still makes the X-Men attractive to readers, but he can also capture our sense of wonder by transporting us to adventure.

POSSIBLE AUDIENCE:  For anyone who yearns for the X-Men of the 60 and 70’s or for anyone who wants to introduce the X-Men to new readers.

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