X-Men: First to Last HC – Review

Written by Chris Yost; Now: Penciled by Paco Media, inked by Juan Vlasco, and colored by Mrate Gracia; Then: Art by Dalabor Talajic, colored by Juan Vlasco.

The Story: One of the apes who got the crap beaten out of him with a femur bone in 2001: A Space Odyssey has his own bone to pick with Cyclops.

The Good: Chris Yost knows his X-Men. He’s stated before that his goal is to eventually write Uncanny X-Men, and after reading his work on X-Force and New X-Men, it’s kind of weird that he hasn’t been approached for the job. First to Last is an Uncanny story rudely marginalized as a filler arc for Gischler’s X-Men run. But it’s that high stakes story that was missing from much of Fraction’s run of Uncanny from the time this came out (Quarantine…why was that story so long?). But Yost’s story, all taking place in one day, has so much weight and so much potential impact, that not being told in the flagship book is simply disrespectful.

And just as the title suggests, this story has both classic X-Men goodness (protecting a world that hates and fears them!) and some new juiciness (mutantkind was being watched over for all these years?) Yost’s story, that staggers between the current era of the X-Men (or, the era right before Schism) and the “First Class” era of Cyclops, Beast, Marvel Girl, Angel, and Iceman, gives the reader the unique opportunity to see just how much team has changed since its offset. Beast is no longer a member; Angel is a homicidal hero; Jean is dead; Iceman is jaded; and Cyclops…Cyclops went from boy scout to general. But we also get to see changes in other characters too. Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver we see starting to question their father’s choices in the “Then” segments. Toad we get to see as a lackey being pushed around by both his peers and his enemies in the past, and then taking drastic measures to not be pushed around in the present. Xavier…isn’t even in the “Now” segments, which is a point in and of itself. His dream doesn’t really matter anymore. But the biggest change is by far seen in Magneto. In the “Then” segments, he is totally willing to wipe out humankind when the Evolutionaries make the offer, but in the “Now,” (SPOILER ALERT) when they return to him with the same offer, he refuses, stating “I laughed at Charles Xavier and his dream. But my dream cost me my children…it cost me everything!” He might not be saying that he’s abandoned his beliefs, but he now sees them as a downfall and not a virtue.

X-Men: First Class – Movie Review

One of the most fundamental sticking points of the X-Men is their outsider status.  It’s what defines a lot of how we view the team and mutants in the Marvel U in general, but it’s also the very thing that limits real progress for their fictional civil and social rights.  To preserve the X-Men as unappreciated outcasts, most writers have maintained the human intolerance of them for decades, offering them few truly human, non-heroic allies in their quest for peace.

Ultimately, First Class largely overlooks this human element, and that’s what prevents the film from being better than it is.  Nearly all the human characters in the film get portrayed as either easily manipulated buffoons (Emma Frost making the Russian general grope thin air) or overly rash decision-makers (the entire higher US military).  This almost forces you to sympathize with the mutants in the film, even the obviously twisted ambitions of Shaw.

Part of the problem lies in using the Cuban Missile Crisis as a premise, or at least inspiration, for the plot.  Anyone who’s put some effort in studying that volatile period knows how many complicated political/intelligence factors were involved.  The film depicts the event by making it pretty much the results of Sebastian Shaw’s manipulations, making the ugliest, most dire nuclear confrontation in history the outcome of mutant meddling.

This really undermines the climactic finale of the film, which serves to dramatically play Xavier and Magneto’s conflicting ideologies.  Humanity gets brought to the brink of global apocalypse by mutant whims, and they’re saved by mutants more personally motivated by vengeance (the deaths of Mag’s mother and one of the X-Men’s own) than by justice.  Any way you look at it, humans became pawns and near victims in this deadly game, fairly just cause (in addition to the atrocities committed against US soldiers in the second act) for the resentment, which encourages their hasty actions at the end.

What the film really should have done was give Moira MacTaggert, the sole non-mutant with a significant role in the film, more interaction with the X-Men than mere tagalong.  She is the character driven most to do what’s right (her actions are basically responsible for saving everyone, human and mutant alike), and her sensitivity and even love for the mutants gets grossly unappreciated and unacknowledged by them, even by Xavier to a certain extent.

The film’s plot also gets hampered by several major logistical gaps.  Given Shaw is obviously a psychotic megalomaniac, maybe we should be unsurprised that his plan to simultaneously destroy humans and uplift mutants is so incredibly ill-conceived (it would’ve likely doomed both races).  His logic is simply bad; if atomic energy caused mutation, then wouldn’t all mutants be largely Japanese, Pacific Islander, or American Southwesterners?