Wolverine and the X-men #1 Review

Summary

Wolverine gives Prof-X the tour of the school and gets his blessings. The rest of the issue is spent giving two school inspectors the tour of the school, of course in typical X-men fashion it goes badly, and at the end they get attacked.

The Good

Cover-I liked the simplicity of the cover, the team on a blood red background.

Humor– Sure word vomit was everywhere but we also got a fair bit of humor throughout which kept the boredom to a minimum.

Sheer Lunacy- I get the obscure angle this book is taking with Wolverine as Headmaster, Kitty Pryde as headmistress etc and clearly this line of x-men books will be run under the premise of these characters growing into these roles BUT the practicality of it is lost on me….and how can we take this staff serious when Rachel Grey is senior staff and Cannonball is Junior? WTF?

Confirmation- Well we now know that Black Superheroes Gentle, Bling and Cipher will be staying at this school along with Okonkwo/Oya and Frenzy.

Continuity- Fans of Schism (I know some of you are don’t even try to deny it!) should be happy the lame villains from that series….killer kids will play into this new status quo for wolverine.

The Bad

Art- Sorry Chris but this no nowhere close to being the best work you’ve ever done! Generic and uninspired art, weird poses, pointy feet reminiscent of Rob Leifield (Shudder). Lack of detail also springs to mind in various places and the new Hellfire lub black king who’s supposed to be 12 looks the same age as Quentin Quire. Bachalo my man you’re not new to the world of comics so these shoddy commissions may work for newbies but you have a higher standard to uphold.

Out of left field- So now Gladiator has a son? Right!

Characterization- Ok lest start off with the portrayal of Hellion as a school bully….been there done that! This story completely disregards all the character development he went through under Chris Yost and Craig Kyle’s New X-men so they can make him a stereotype once more, what’s worst it’s done in such a generic way his fans should/would be pissed!

Next up is my most hated black superhero EVER, Idie Okonkwo…….she continues to be the literal dumb African….No! Scratch that she behaves like a “tabula rasa/active” character from Joss Whedon’s defunct Dollhouse series. Now don’t get me wrong this portrayal works on a character like X²³ considering her past but makes no sense for Okonkwo. In her defense though she’s been every black cliché one can include in a comic book since her debut so this is just par for the course I guess.

Lack of action- Sorry action junkies this book skimps on the skirmish and explosions for tons of exposition.

Verbose- Word vomit all up and down these pages, page after page after page after page of exposition….

Too much– Honestly while Justice League #1 and even by extension Ultimate Spider-man #1 felt like parts of a story this comic felt like Charlie’s angels full throttle. Too much happening, too much going on, allot of things were highly unnecessary, case in point “the Bamfs” essentially mini Night crawlers pop up at the end…was this necessary?

The Ugly

I’m not impressed honestly; sure I expect things to eventually get better but as Flash would say in Young Justice “I’m underwhelmed” 2/5