A Pretty Good Retelling of the O5 X-Men Origin Story.
The story opens with Jean Grey, the narrator and protagonist, alongside the X-Men as they battle Magneto. During this fight, the story flashbacks to when Jean Grey first enrolls to the Xavier Institute. For me these 1-3 page flashbacks are a problem throughout the book. Sometimes they had some connection to what was happening in the present, but for the most part the flashbacks ruin the flow. I would have appreciated a more straightforward story.
After Magneto escaped from the X-Men, we go back to the Institute where the relationship building and drama begins. Jean develops a crush on Warren, but their relationship becomes strained when he begins to date a mutant girl he saved. Hank and Bobby also go through relationship problems. After a group of kids, one of whom Beast saved from being hit by a truck, harass Beast by throwing trash at him, he leaves the X-Men without so much as contacting any of them. Iceman, being Beast's best friend, gets upset at this, and even though Beast eventually rejoins, there was still a rift between the two.
As for Cyclops...he's hardly prominent in the book. He's mostly just in the background. I think the reason for this is in the original 05 run, Scott was often a by himself. In the original run we got to see Scott's thoughts and angst, but here he barely does much besides superhero stuff. There were some good stuff of him acting OCD and needing to constantly train. There was one funny part where after the X-Men's first fight with Magneto, Scott is taped up and has his arm in a sling and he's again in the training room practicing. He also does somewhat builds a relationship with Bobby after Beast leaves. As for him and Jean, well they get together at the end, but the relationship wasn't handled well. For the first half of the book he either ignores Jean or snaps at her. Things change when Jean kisses him after he saves her and Angel from a T-Rex in the Savage Lands. There's not much interaction between Scott and Jean after this moment and the time they decided to date besides a scene where Jean, Scott, and Warren are sitting at the kitchen table and none of them wants to talk to each other. The moment Jean and Scott get together is when Magneto traps them and Jean confesses that she liked Scott. For me this was a huge leap because there wasn't much that went on between them.
The art was probably the best part of the story. It was a very pretty book. I love the way Jamie McKelvie draws Jean. The fact that he gave Bobby the Beiber haircut is fantastic. If you're a fan of his you should probably buy this book.
The overall story is not bad. When I read it this afternoon it didn't leave much of an impression, but as the day progressed I kept thinking about the X-Men and realized that this was a fun book. It's probably not worth the retail price, but it's definitely worth the Amazon price. I can see how some hardcore X-Men fan may not be impressed by this story. They might prefer X-Men:First Class. If you want a easy to get into X-Men story then this is it.
