X – Men: Days of Future
Past
Trade Paperback Review
With the prospect of the
next X-men movie being the classic story (that’s what I’ve been told by those X
– Men experts) so I went out and bought the trade paperback in which this story
is collected and thought I would give it a read to get a hint of what the movie
would be about. The trade collects Uncanny X-Men 138 – 143 and
Annual 4 of the original run of the book that was published in 1980 and
1981. I really enjoy 80’s comics as that
era is a favorite of mine and there are a lot of good stories and well it was a
time where the big two did not reboot series and start everything over every so
many years.
This collection is written
by long time X-Men scribe Chris Claremont and is responsible for many stories
that have lasted the test of time like the Dark Phoenix storyline and of course
Days of Future Past. On art duties is
one of my favorite artists John Byrne who I became a fan of during his run on
Fantastic Four from the mid 80’s to early 90’s.
The stories that are
included in this collection along with Days of Future Past are for the most
part pretty entertaining and fun to read.
They are not all that complex and have a good mix of dialog and
action. One of the main complaints that
I have with comic books today is that there is too much dialog and not enough
beating up the bad guys. The books get
mired in a dragged out story that is mainly dialog and that gets boring
quick. What I liked about these stories
from the 80’s is that the plot wasn’t complex.
It mainly was heroes stop the bad guy.
Uncanny X –Men Annual 4
dealt with a story about Nightcrawlers past.
It guest starred Dr. Strange. It
dealt with the occult and the X – Men had to go to Hell to save Nightcrawler
who is put on trial sort of for killing his brother as he was trying to stop
him from killing again. The story
overall wasn’t bad and gave me some insight into Nightcrawlers character which
I hadn’t known before as I am only a novice when it comes to the X – Men and
not an expert on their history.
The other stories which I
enjoyed dealt with Wolverine and Nightcrawler heading up to Canada to fix some
of Wolverines government problems and on the way they visit his old friends in
Alpha Flight. There they are menaced by the return of Wendigo who is in fact a
giant big foot type of creature who is like the Hulk cause his human self does
not know what is going on. This story
was pretty good as it was a throw them down all out brawl between Wolverine and
Wendigo.
No, Days of Future Past
was not the story I was expecting. For
one it is only in two issues of Uncanny X – Men (141 -142) and it is centered on
Kitty Pryde. You have the future events
where mutants are hunted and killed by the Sentinels in the year 2013. The future Kitty has a plan to go back in
time and inhabit young Kitty’s body and try to stop the events that caused here
future. When she gets to the past at
the cost of some of her friends life we end up watching a big battle in the
Senate against the new version of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants who want to
kill Senator Kelly. When I saw a big battle the second half of the story is
just that a big battle in present day.
We do see a few more of the future X – Men fighting the Sentinels in the
Baxter Building to no avail and eventually getting exterminated in the process but
I felt that part could have been done earlier when future Kitty was trying to
get to the past. It did not really
dampen the story but wasn’t really needed as we could have had flashes to the
future showing them showing concern for Kitty’s mission
Overall the story was
pretty good and pretty simple to follow but there really wasn’t much to it and
it makes me wonder how they will make this into a movie. Well for one they will be doing it different
with different characters but for the most part the main story is just a big battle.
It is too bad that the story didn’t take place completely in the future more as
that part was truly interesting and probably be the best part of the
movie. But who knows the movie most
likely be loosely based on the comic book story anyway.
What was pretty good about
these stories is the introduction of Kitty Pryde, who will be played by Ellen
Page in the movie, and how she became a member of the X – Men. Since she will be a central figure in the new
movie it was pretty good to get a feeling for what her character is about at
least in the early parts of X – Men history.
Most notably in the last story of the book in which Kitty is left alone
at the school and has to fight off a monster that wants to kill her while the
others are away. It was good to see how
they developed her and the story Demon was a pretty good story to finish up
this collection of X – Men stories. Days of Future Past was a pretty good and
enjoyable read and if you want a head start on the movie give it a go.
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