X-Men #1/2
Writing: Todd Dezago
Art: Mike Wieringo
What Went Down:
We begin in a medieval fantasy city named Salaam Centaur (see where this
is going?) full of knights, horses, fairies, and traders. Nightcrawler is there, but he’s dressed like
someone form Lord of the Rings and going by the name Kurt of the Ulfen
Warriors. Kurt comes into contact with a
beggar, who is actually Marrow. While
the warrior gives Marrow some coins, she picks his pocket and takes the rest of
his money. However, when she returns to
her hiding spot, the coin purse disappears from the spot she left it.
Elsewhere, Ororo the Goddess-of-the-Winds is visited by Kit,
an elven ambassador of Phaerie. Of
course these characters are actually Storm and Kitty Pryde. At a tavern, Kurt comes into contact with a
mercenary named Logan, who of course is Wolverine. Wolverine and Storm simultaneously tell the
story to their respective companions of a dark wizard that clouds men’s minds and
his army of townspeople who protect him.
Both Logan and Ororo want to rescue the kidnapped people. As both groups leave, Storm and Kitty are
tracked by Colossus while Nightcrawler and Wolverine are tracked by Marrow.
Outside the castle, Kurt confronts Marrow, and Colossus
confronts all of them. The group decides
to join forces, although Marrow is reluctant, thinking it is not her
fight. The Dark Wizard confronts the
X-Men and commands his horde of townspeople to attack. As Kurt teleports he notices reality
flickering, revealing present day people fighting in a mall. Kitty confirms the illusion when she phases.
Logan gets an idea to stop the wizard. Individually all the heroes attack the wizard
and are one by one mind controlled. The
wizard reveals himself to be X-Men villain Mesmero, who is obviously
hypnotizing the X-Men and the civilians into believing the medieval
illusion. After Colossus is possessed,
Kit phases through him to punch out Mesmero. With Mesmero unconscious, the
world turns back to normal and all of the civilians are freed. The X-Men decide to leave with Mesmero,
assuming that they will get the blame for this.
How It Was:
This issue was a special that could be ordered from Wizard Magazine. Every month they would have a different ½
issue to be solicited from Marvel or Image (and rarely DC). Most of these were one-off stories that never
affected the major plot lines of the characters, since the issues were only
available to Wizard Magazine readers and inaccessible to most regular X-Men readers. So hence we have this little diddy that fits
in after the Excalibur group joins, but before Gambit does.
What really works in this book is the setting and fantasy
redesigns for all the characters. Mike
Wieringo really went above and beyond; from the first page it captures the feel
of a swords and sorcery epic like Conan.
The costumes for all the characters are phenomenal. They’re completely different form their
regular costumes, but still feel true to the characters.
The story is hampered a little by its brief length; it’s
only sixteen pages long. And the first
half of the story is just introducing the characters, the characters
introducing themselves to each other, and then explaining the big wizard that
they need to fight. Again the art carries the book as the scope of the final
battle is pretty impressive; there are a dozen townsfolk on any given page for
the heroes to fight. It’s just too bad
the fight is only like four or five pages long.
The reveal of Mesmero is quite random, and he doesn’t have
any motivation here for making a mall full of people and the X-Men believe they
live in a Tolkien novel. He just does it
for the sake of doing it. Mesmero’s plot
doesn’t even make sense. He obviously
has to have hypnotized the X-Men in the first place to make them believe the
illusion of the fantasy world, so why not just make them his slaves to begin
with; probably because that already happened when he made the X-Men circus
performers in Uncanny #111. Still, he
tries to convince the X-Men to join him, then he takes over their minds at the
end, but he still has to have some control over them for the fantasy world to
work. I just don’t know.
This is pretty easily skippable. It has no bearing on the plot of either of
the main titles. It’s essentially filler
that would have wound up in an issue of X-Men Unlimited if Wizard hadn’t
approached Marvel to make a gimmicky collectable for the most popular comics
franchise at the time. Having said that,
it is still worth a look to see the fantasy spins Wieringo gave the X-Men;
between this and his FF run, it’s obvious Wieringo was a truly amazing talent. Other than that it’s too short and
inconsequential.
C
