Gage Introduces "The First X-Men"

[CBR News]

CBR News spoke to writer Christos Gage about "The First X-Men," a 5-issue miniseries debuting in August that examines the earliest battles for mutant rights with legendary artist Neal Adams.


Full article here.

[NewMutant]

Was this downgraded to a mini?

[darknessatnoon]

Was this downgraded to a mini?

It was always a mini.

[NewMutant]

It was always a mini.

My bad, thought I read it was a new on-going.

[CTpitch]

My bad, thought I read it was a new on-going.

I can't see how that would work

just be glad that this is a mini

[JmH Reborn]

I just fail to understand why they couldn't position this as part of a new 'Team X' story where its already established that Sabretooth and Wolverine, along with other mutants had a covert team and for this particular story, needed to pair up with Xavier. It doesn't contradict anything, it doesn't force an awkward narrative where Wolverine and Sabretooth don't know who each other are, nor contradict the various stories such as Original Sin involving Xavier and Wolverine.

This just sounds like a mess.

I think I'll pass unless user reviews are mind-blowing

[Liam_67]

Hmm ... wonder if they ever planned to address the existence of Marvel's other forgotten early mutant, Thomas Raymond aka "Toro" of the Invaders fame? I don't know if he was commonly identified as such but, considering he was viewed as a hero figure of sorts during WWII ~ one would think that since the character was still around (this story clearly takes place well after WWII and, yet, before the FF's encounter with the Mad Thinker) there would be some use for him. That alone would make for an interesting element in a storyline somewhere. That said, I'm glad to see that they're touching upon Namor's time as an amnesiac wandering the streets of New York City.

[SayOcean]

Why even write stories anymore some new writer is just going to ignore it the next story arc for the sake of "new readers"

[coconutphone]

Why even write stories anymore some new writer is just going to ignore it the next story arc for the sake of "new readers"

THIS. It's become Marvel's defacto defense anytime any continuity issue is brought up by fans. They've pulled this repeatedly in talks about AvX and now here we are again.

[CMBMOOL]

Thank Goodness Gage is a smart and caring writer to Avoid the likes of Romulus in this series.

This does make things promising for this series. Very promising things indeed.

[Soundrave]

Why even write stories anymore some new writer is just going to ignore it the next story arc for the sake of "new readers"

Normally, I'd agree with this sentiment 100% . . . but Romulus and everything that storyline established sucked hard.

[Rheged]

Hmm ... wonder if they ever planned to address the existence of Marvel's other forgotten early mutant, Thomas Raymond aka "Toro" of the Invaders fame? I don't know if he was commonly identified as such but, considering he was viewed as a hero figure of sorts during WWII ~ one would think that since the character was still around (this story clearly takes place well after WWII and, yet, before the FF's encounter with the Mad Thinker) there would be some use for him. That alone would make for an interesting element in a storyline somewhere. That said, I'm glad to see that they're touching upon Namor's time as an amnesiac wandering the streets of New York City.

Toro falls into that part of the sliding timeline that really doesn't work. He's a human born in around 1925, who died approximately 10 years ago, when he would have been 77. Yet, when he died, he could pass for the ageless Jim Hammond? When he came back to life very recently, again, still looking quite young, he was mooning over his wife, Anne Raymond who had remarried -- presumably sometime AFTER she was flirting with the revived Jim Hammond, here in her late 70s or early 80s.



Yeah, she doesn't look quite that old to me. We've the same problem with Betty Dean, Namor's WWII sweetheart, who has appeared alive after FF#1.

As much as I like seeing Namor in print, this sounds like it's going to mess with continuity. Originally, Namor was only an amnesiac for a couple of years, before Johnny Storm discovered him. Now, they are going make that more like 20 years, which is ridiculous.

[trajikflp]

Why even write stories anymore some new writer is just going to ignore it the next story arc for the sake of "new readers"

Apparently, "new readers" are a lot dumber than the readers who've been reading comics before they were popular. It's that, or Marvel has gotten lazy, because they apparently don't care to remember any past storylines ever. Back in the days, they used to annotate (?) where certain unseen events took place, like if we use when stupid Wolverine killed his kids and was feeling remorseful. The regular X-men books would annotate that this stupidity occurred in his solo book and in a particular issue. Now, the writers don't have to know what happened previously because they figure at some point they'll be regurgitating the same ol' shit and the "new readers" will be all goo-goo over it all because they didn't read it before while the rest of who have been following since our childhood get stuck going "didn't they already do that?"

[SoupStainedTie]

Interested to see what this "military career" of Xavier Gage referred to is going to be portrayed as, or how "vague" the time period will be.

The still in-continuity military career of Xavier is the Korean War, meaning this mini should take place firmly in a specific time (early 1950's) rather than have a sliding time issue like Gage said, or the need to be vague.

And as we've discussed many times before, if they slide Xavier then Magneto becomes a much older man, erasing their "peer" status.

Either way, it doesn't seem like Marvel is interested in addressing this or fixing the problem.

[Brian from Canada]

Originally, Namor was only an amnesiac for a couple of years, before Johnny Storm discovered him. Now, they are going make that more like 20 years, which is ridiculous.

From what I've read, that may not be true. We don't know how long it has been since the end of the war and Namor's disappearance — it's only established that he returns to Aquarius (now Atlantis) and is sent away with amnesia. It could very well have been twenty years — Johnny recognizes him from old comic books.

As for Toro, it COULD be explained that he tried experiments to prolong his life, or was an earlier seeker of the same formula that made Nick Fury slow down his aging dramatically. That would fit the sliding time scale easily. (And a failure at that might explain why Toro was posing as Jim the whole time.)

Betty Dean is the one that definitely doesn't fit because she's clearly aged in between appearances, and none of her appearances even remotely hint at the possibility that her aging was slowed or reversed at one time or another.