Last week Marvel teased their upcoming FIRST X-MEN series, and earlier today the publisher gave us some more information and insight on the upcoming new series from writer Christos Gage and artist Neal Adams. Starting in August, Marvel will launch the limited series that will follow the days before the X-Men became the X-Men; at least that's what we gathered from Neal Adams' pitch for the series.

At the beginning, Stan and Jack were experimenting. You had Professor X, bald and in a wheelchair. These strange kids already in costume. It seems to me like this was not the beginning of the story, but the middle…Of all the mutants on Earth, Professor X could easily pass as a human. Why would he want to get involved in this? Maybe all this was going on before Professor X was Professor X...when Professor X was a teenager. Maybe mutant kids were getting abused by the military, by the government. Somebody would have been looking out for them, but maybe that person came to Charles Xavier, realizing he couldn't protect these kids. That was my pitch.

The days before the X-Men were X-Men? Before Xavier was in the wheelchair? When he was just coming to grips with his mutant powers and what they really meant? It sounds interesting enough. The good news is that fans will likely be seeing many familiar faces, too, like Wolverine and Erik Lensherr, for example. Gage and Adams will also be exploring the relationships between these characters and the X-Men team. The book will answer questions like "why was Wolverine's first team a failure?" for example, and much more. Gage also added some background on the series, giving fans the time period (before the "first X-Men" team was created. Gage also evaluated the era and the society the X-Men were living in at the time.

It takes place before the original X-Men and at a time when the government was snatching mutants up and doing scary things to them. Logan notices this and thinks somebody needs to look out for them. He recruits Sabretooth, who asks 'Why?' and so he pays him. Professor Xavier is a young man studying at Oxford, who's engaged and wants nothing to do with this…They recruit this guy Erik Lensherr who is out there killing Nazis...

Sounds to us like the script for this series will be borrowing a bit from the most recent X-Men movie, 'X-Men First Class' -- at least where the idea of the "years before the first X-Men team" are concerned. Other things to expect from this new series is: hobo-Submariner, fighting amongst teammates, new characters ("Bombastic Aghast") and much more. In case you're wondering, this series is cannon and will (according to Editor Nick Lowe), "be key to Wolverine's relationships with other characters."

This is firmly set in continuity. This is not a What If. This is canon. This is key to Wolverine's history and his relationships with other characters. This will answer questions that have been out there for decades.

What do you think of the plans for this new series? Are you looking forward to the release of the book this August?

Source: Marvel

i dont know

art is awful

I want to get excited, but I don't think this series is for me.

I'm intrigued

Hobo-Submariner.

What the F...am I lookin at?

Oh now i realize.....X-Men 1959. Marvel, cancel this Sh*t and bring me back X-23 -.- this is gonna sbe awful

*yawn*

One of the worst ideas I ever heard.

All that is good and all but do we need, Wolverine in another book?

A origin story to basically a prequel ok??? Yeah enough retconning of the origin stories.

and Sabretooth now is on first X-Men and Avengers teams?! Captain America should salute the man!

I'm just glad it's a limited series, nothing ever seems to really happen in them so I can skip it

Wolverine? Really?

oh great another wolverine shoved down your throat story

Sigh.

Another wolverine focused book O_O ok I'm bored

I was interested with a really young erik and charles and the pre costume wearing x-men

Loved the government snatching, experimenting but then you made it that wolverine was the reason why prof x made the x-men and I'm annoyed and bored

Wolverine has way too much influence in the x-history that he never had and now he is the reason for the x-men WTH

wolverine and sabertooth on another team together.................................... Oh yeah they hate each other ALOT!

Did they really give Magneto a mullet?!? Goddamn, Marvel.

My interest in this book died at the word Wolverine 

This is shit. Pure watery shit.

pass

Wolverine: One of the oldest living X-Men (if not THE oldest outside of Genesis' previous form Apocalypse.)
 
Namor: Longest living mutant. 
 
Anything outside of those two bits of info is just a marketing excuse to play on the new Before Watchmen crud that DC is pushing though.

@JMLG: Srsly, do we need this 1959 books? The art sucks, and the story....Dear God....do something new instead of copying other artists. And btw I love Wolverine, but i feel like if this is gonna ruin his background

Sorry for bad english

How about an all new X-Men team with a new story...no really it could happen.

@Arevish said:

What the F...am I lookin at?

Oh now i realize.....X-Men 1959. Marvel, cancel this Sh*t and bring me back X-23 -.- this is gonna sbe awful

I totally agree. Avengers 1959 has potential but the art killed it like it is killing this.

Just because Wolverine was alive doesn't mean he has to be involved in every past X-Men related thing, Wasn't he in Japan at this time anyway? My can they possible justify this with his past, memory loss only works so far, you can't erase him from everyone else's memory. The only thing in this that they have gotten right is that Wolverine has bone claws...

this isn't for me, I will be passing on this...

Telling a story that's already been told and adding yet another Wolverine book to the 1,000,000 they already have...yeah, Marvel...that's a great idea...

Huh, sounds like they are borrowing some elements from the First Class movie....but yeah, like everyone else said...
 
I could do without Wolverine

Oh lord...

@Arevish said:

What the F...am I lookin at?

Oh now i realize.....X-Men 1959. Marvel, cancel this Sh*t and bring me back X-23 -.- this is gonna sbe awful

YES Love this idea so much more lol

@spiderbat87 said:

My interest in this book died at the word Wolverine

I'm not impressed at all. Sorry.

@spiderbat87 said:

My interest in this book died at the word Wolverine

Seriouslyyyyyyyyyy

@Namor1987 said:

A origin story to basically a prequel ok??? Yeah enough retconning of the origin stories.

For once could we get a new story that starred and expanded the character of someone else other than f*cking Wolverine? So many X-character are written so poorly now and could have so many better things done with them, why throw another book that Wolverine can shine in?

@pspin: True story man...This team is horrible. Magneto's hair...magneto sabretooth and Logan togheter in a team...and, btw, we know why Logan hates everyone, we don't need retcons, just re print old stories....

For once could we get a new story that starred and expanded the character of someone else other than f*cking Wolverine? So many X-character are written so poorly now and could have so many better things done with them, why throw another book that Wolverine can shine in?

Great more X characters who are going to be completely outshined by Wolverine.

So is this cancelling out the events and origins of Deadly Genesis? You know the tale of the X-Men before the X-Men. The so called first class. And really Wolverine and Sabertooth in yet another retcon on X-Men? Fuck,Marvel do you have any idea what your doing anymore or are manatees just bounding idea balls around?

Wolverine Everything, basically. Even inspired Prof X into creating X-Men. Now that's just stupid.

Its all going to end in tears, mainly ours. Maybe Gages & Adams too

ahahah. no ones said one thing positive about this at all. no ones gunna..

Not a bad idea in theory. Using it to shoehorn Wolverine into another X-Men story (one he literally has no business being in) is what makes this a fail. I can't see how this can be bent to fit into continuity.

The only thing that sounded cool to me was "Hobo Submariner". Other than that, I don't really think this will be good. However, I have been wrong before and I will be wrong again.

-HEY I GOT AN IDEA!!!! Some secret X-Team that came out BEFORE the very first X-Men.

-Yeah... well... I'm pretty sure that was already made with Avengers like a year ago or something like that.

-SHUT THE F**K UP!

art is awful

Gage is a phenomenal writer. His work on Initiative and Academy ranks rather high on my Marvel list.

Adams is a legend of the industry. Clearly the man had some epic runs, and I found myself surprised and delighted by his recent Batman: Odyssey. (Vol. 2, the 1st one I admit seriously turned me off).

Those facts aside, my honest reaction is not incredibly positive. I'm trying to avoid fanboy clicheisms here and respond appropriately, respectfully and rationally... I'd actually like more to be excited about the series, but even after a little reflection I'm just not sensing it.

Rewriting the hidden origins of these established teams is just not something that appeals to me at this point, no matter which industry legends you tack onto them... I loved X-Men: First Class, but in part because it was a movie rather than a canonical revelation of the things we never knew. I'm not opposed to the past, nor am I opposed to revelations about the past. I count myself a fan of Origins, and I often find tingles at suggested foreshadowing of things that will come to pass... but this is pushing too hard for me. "Everything you know is wrong" is only enjoyable if the concept plays well, particularly if it is believable, and I don't find it to be as such with this example.

The biggest question I'm left with at this point is why? It certainly catapults Wolverine to a spot as the secret founder of the X-Men... and for the narrative as I've read it to this point, that seems incredibly irrational. These things can, of course, be rewritten, but the angle I found myself enjoying was that of Wolverine the untamed eventually becoming tempered by the exposure to his time, particularly with children, leading him to his role as professor and caretaker. Having him secretly already super-concerned on the well being and treatment and rights of mutant children... I can't buy into it at this point.

For now, I'm inclined to pass on the book. I'm simply not interested. With that said, I'd be thrilled if it were to be a sensational and worthy revision, the likes of which the two talents might be able to achieve, and would then be thrilled to catch up on the tale after it is fully established. Beyond that, I'm rather comfortable treating the story as existing out of canon and therefore irrelevant to the overall scheme of things (as I've done with Avengers 1959) and moving on to other things. Granted, I'm not really Marvel's top zombie at the moment anyways, but this is not going to be the project to make me salivate my way back into the drone line.

Art looks Horrid, Pitch sounds unimaginative and unoriginal. Can't believe X-23 was cancelled and this get's a launch

@Mercy_ said:

I'm intrigued

Even though I already know there's going to be a bunch of hate, I'm feeling the same way. I hate that both Sabertooth and Wolverine are both on the team, but oh well. Here's to a retcon on some of the bullsh!t that's been happening with Wolverine.

Seeing as how it's by Gage, I think that this should at least be okay.