X-Men Mutations

Rating:
Summary: This is a series of "origins" tales, not a single story...
Review: I didn't quite know what I was getting into when I bought X-men Mutations. It's basically three stories of how Beast, Psylocke and Angel came to be their current selves. If you're looking for a single, cohesive storyline, you'll be disappointed.

What drew me to this title in the first place was the Archangel storyline, drawn by Walt Simonson - one of my favorite comic artists. This was the Apocalypse story featured in the early days of X-Factor, which I enjoyed very much. I wish it featured the entire story arc, which is what I was expecting when I bought this title, instead of just the part that focused on the Angel/Archangel transformation. What can you do, right?

The other two vignettes are stories I wasn't that interested in. The first features Beast's transformation from normal-looking jumping super guy to blue hairy jumping super guy. It's a mid-70's story that isn't drawn or scripted particularly well by today's standards. I honestly didn't spend that much time with it because I already knew the story and it couldn't hold my interest.

The Psylocke story happened after I stopped collecting comics, and I'll admit that I was curious to see how the more recent vintage X-men compared to what I was more familiar with. I knew that Wolverine played a significant role in the story, and that Psylocke had become pretty popular as a character. That said, I was surprised that the bad guy wound up being the Mandarin, the old Iron Man villain. I was also surprised that he had been conveniently installed as the ruler of The Hand, the ninja clan introduced in Frank Miller's classic Daredevil run. He seemed out of place in both roles, reducing The Hand's mystique in the process. I just couldn't see the outfit that Miller came up with taking orders from a run-of-the-mill villain like the Mandarin (never mind that Mandarins are Chinese while the Hand was a Japanese organization). Jim Lee's artwork was fine, but I'm afraid I have a tendency to compare it to John Byrne's work in the early 80's. It's a tough act to follow.

In the final equation, I'll say this - thumbs up on Angel/Archangel, thumbs down on Beast, and the jury's still out on Psylocke.

Rating:
Summary: Offbeat little reprint book, pretty cool
Review: Ok, here's the dirt on X-men Mutations: we've got the reprinted stories of the transformations of the Beast, Archangel, and Psylocke from fairly normal looking folks into their current, outre appearances. The stories range from fairly poor (the original blue beast transformation story from the 70's) to all out awesome, with the amazing Walt Simonson reinvention of Warren Worthington into the deadly Archangel and Jim Lee's scrumptious revamp of the already gorgeous Betsy Braddock into the mysterious and seductive ninja Psylocke of today. If you haven't read these issues before, you definately want to pick this collection up, if only for the Jim Lee Psylocke tale... which I forgot to mention also features the Mandarin and a certain hairy, adamantium laced mutant as well. Classic stories, Jim Lee at his artistic peak, funky Simonson X-factor...if this one doesn't have what you need, nothing does.