Wolverine & the X-Men #1

Writer: Jason Aaron
Penciller: Chris Bachalo
Inker: Jaime Mendoza
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Price: $3.99

Once upon a time, the X-Men comics were a lot of fun. Huge cast of characters with what seemed real personalities. They started out young and over the years, you saw them grow into adults, villains or whatever turn they took. They had big adventures that seemingly put them everywhere. It’s one of the few comic book franchises that if you followed it for long enough, you could get a real sense of their timeline. The always hunted mutants numbered in the many thousands and even millions although now, the mutant population is nearing extinction. Also, there’s too many X-books and too many of them have Wolverine in them. Usually, that’s a bad thing, but not this time.

In the last big X-Men storyline, “Schism,” Cyclops and Wolverine see that they have huge differences in how the mutant survivors should be. There’s been a huge split in the X-universe. Scott Summers is staying on Utopia with the rest of the big guns defending the mutant race. Wolverine feels that the mutant youth need to be taught, much like the originals and that they need a school and goes back the original grounds of the Xavier school, this time it’s named for currently dead teammate Jean Grey. The big villains for this relaunch issue aren’t the usual ones, like Magneto or Juggernaut, but instead, it’s things like state school inspectors, student bullies and the fact that the entire school is a danger room. And that right there, is Wolverine & The X-Men.

I actually cannot believe how much I enjoyed this first issue. It’s been a few years since there was an X-Men book that I was this behind. I had grown very bored of just about everything that has been done the last few years. Wolverine & The X-Men has a very fresh take on this portion of the X-Men by Jason Aaron, who writes a lot of books each month. Thankfully, he still is able to give each work it’s own voice. Chris Bachalo knocked it out of the park on the art. Sometimes, the X-books just take themselves too serious and I hope that as more issues of this come out that the book stays fun and weird, but weird in a good way. This book already has a great supporting cast and showcased a preview of some interesting things to come.

This could be the beginning of a book in the X-Universe that is as fun or as complex as Grant Morrison’s or Joss Whedon’s run. The X-Men have always been one of these storied groups that writers do best when thinking big. With this first issue, it seems someone remembered this. While this book deals primarily with Wolverine’s side, Cyclops and the rest of Utopia are featured in Uncanny X-Men, which also got relaunched with a new #1.

-Josh