Extraordinary X-Men #1 Review

Extraordinary X-Men #1

A brand new era of the merry mutants are about to begin in the pages of the first issue of brand new monthly ongoing Extraordinary X-Men. Since it is a new X-Title lots of expectations and speculations were made before it was even released and now it’s here for us to find out how it turns out to be. The comics opens with Ororo Munroe aka Storm sitting at Charles Xavier’s desk. Although I suppose you could call it her desk in her office now. Because, Wolverine is gone, Beast is off with the Inhumans tying to help them out with their recent crisis, Cyclops is off the team as well. Actually, Cyclops has done some terrible things in his run as the leader of the X-Men and now Scott Summers' name is something that no one is willing to even mention, which more or less leaves Storm as the de facto leader of the mutant community.

It seems that the Anti-Mutant aggression is at an all-time high all over the world and they are not just your regular angry mobs filled with bigots but actual world powers and militaries too coming after them. It is because they claim that the mutants are spreading some sort of horrible disease called the "M-Pox" or the "X-Pox". Because of this worldwide mass hysteria against their kind, Illyana Rasputin aka Magik has re-joined the main X-Men team is travelling all over the world trying to mutants from various dangerous situations they are in. One of these places happens to be India, where she saves a whole family from getting butchered. The entire front lawn of the X-Mansion has been turned into one giant X-Haven for mutants with nowhere left to go.

Magik's Quest

Again, they continue to refer to what Scott Summers did in the eight months in between now and Secret Wars. With mutants under threat from all sides, Storm does the only thing that she can do in a great call back to classic X-Men stories. She says, “To me, my X-Men... the war for survival has begun!” and begin to drive to recruit more people for the team. First on their list is the time-travelling young Jean Grey who has apparently left the X-Men, is attempting to build a normal life for herself, even going to college. You can’t really fault her for this as she is a psychic. She’s looked into the future, read all the historical documents and know that whenever she was part of the X-Men as Marvel Girl, she usually ends up dead.

Welcome to X-Haven

We soon find out that the situation is far worse than we even thought. You see, the Terrigen Mist isn’t just making mutants sick, it’s not just killing them but it also made them sterile which means, we’re back into one of those classic situations where there will be no more New Mutants will born (X-Men – Messiah Complex). So, until then the gauntlet has been thrown down.

The Inhuman Catalyst

Next up, on the list of recruits are Peter Rasputin, who has abandoned his Colossus identity and living in a self-imposed isolation in the Russian countryside trying to make a go of it as a farmer. His sister comes to him and he ultimately doesn’t take much going to come back. He has also grown a beard that looks wicked on him. Together Magik and Colossus vowed to bring their old pal Nightcrawler into the fold. His current location yet to be disclosed shows him being chased by a bunch of new recruits of Marauders.

Colossus; The Hipster-Lumberjack

While young Jean Grey still very much refuses to join the team, she does use the mini Cerebro that Storm gave her to hunt down another mutant, a very powerful and strange mutant who feels as though he does not belong in this world but immune to all the same. Might very well be able to turn the tides for the X-Men and that mutant is none other than the Old Man Logan. Having survived the Secret Wars and is now just walking around the main Earth-616 timeline.

Bad Day to Pick a Fight!

Unlike a lot of these ‘All-New, All-Different Marvel’ books from Marvel Comics, Extraordinary X-Men issue one actually does feel like a fresh start for the mutant heroes and indeed the X-Men books as a whole. Stakes are being made higher than they have been in a very long time. Then saying in the book it used to be mutants were hated and feared. Now they are just straight-up hated. This book was brought to us by one of the accomplished writers today; Jeff Lemire (Essex County, Sweet Tooth). He most certainly shows his writing chops here in the first issue. Balancing a bunch of stories and a bunch of characters but never having it feel you know slapdash or overwhelming. The art is also pretty damn good to because, Humberto Ramos (Amazing Spider-Man, Superior Spider-Man) were on the illustration duties and we all have seen over the years what great deal of business he is all about. Overall, I will give this one a deserving cool read that it is because of the combo of its creators.

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