The master of magnetism messes up.

January 7, 2000

ISSUE #4: Escape to Oblivion
A barefoot Beast in the Savage Land -- what more do you want? Click the cover to see a larger image.
	REVIEW: Magneto is not exactly the man with the plan. What exactly does he hope to accomplish by setting up a headquarters on top of a radioactive volcano whose eerie fumes instill immortality in the inhabitants of a city of mutants? I don't know. Sure, immortality would be nice, but Magneto also knows the volcano's about to blow, and there's nothing he can do about it. Yet he babbles on and on, waiting to the last moment to make his escape -- too late in fact, giving Beast enough time to deck him with a right cross. The X-Men fare a little better -- they were sent to the Savage Land to make sure that Magneto is really dead. They arrive, they find him alive, and they capture him. Fortunately for them, they escape the city just before the volcano blows (and Cyclops saves the inhabitants with a truly impressive superhuman effort). But unfortunately, the airship they use to make their escape goes down, and we're left hanging -- literally -- in mid-air, to see how the X-team gets out of this one. Fun stuff all around, really only brought down by a lackluster outing from a too-easily defeated Magneto. --Jason Bates
	Recommendation:	BORROW IT!

ISSUE #3: On Wings of Angels
Click on the cover to see a larger version.
	No wonder they wanted to keep these years hidden: the X-Men were incompetent back then. So here's our story so far: Professor Xavier gets mad when the X-Men return from the Savage Land without checking to make sure that Magneto truly is dead. So he sends them back. They crash land in the jungle, split up into a couple of different groups, lose Marvel Girl, and are captured. If they were characters in a roleplaying game or a videogame they should all be dead. But they're not, they're Marvel superheroes, so you know that pretty much anything they do will work out in the end. This issue, Xavier sends in reinforcements -- Polaris and Havok -- to check up on his bunglers, and they promptly meet up with Ka-Zar. Meanwhile Marvel Girl escapes from a table, Beast and Cyclops escape from a cage, and Warren gets a goofy, lovestruck look in his eyes when he sees a really rather hideous looking winged mutant girl. Despite all my kidding, this has been a great adventure so far and I'm curious to see what's next. --Jason Bates
	Recommendation:	BUY IT!

ISSUE #2: The Ghost and the Darkness
Click on the cover to see a larger version.
	REVIEW: Though they're billed as "The Strangest Teens of All" (a really awkward tagline, by the way, and just added to this issue), the classic X-Men act much more like mature, responsible adults than your typical school-skipping, MTV-watching strange teenager. Sure, Xavier's school is probably a good influence (well, apart from the constant attacks by space aliens, super-villains, and the like), but I think it's pushing it for Cyclops to risk his neck dodging a raging Tyrannosaurus Rex (!) yet hold back from using his optic blasts for fear of hurting the creature! C'mon! In the Land of Marvel, with cloning machines galore, dinosaurs are hardly going to go extinct. Okay, there is at least one X-Man who's acting his age though -- Iceman is still having temper tantrums up in New York while the rest of the team is down in the Savage Land, dodging dinosaurs and violating native taboos. The weak hook here from last issue is that Cyclops thinks Jean Grey is dead, because the natives said so. Well, we all know she's not dead, so the dramatic urgency is nil. Other than those points, though, this is still a good read and the art and colors are bold and add an appropriately nostalgic feel. --Jason Bates
	Recommendation:	BORROW IT!

ISSUE #1: Once More the Savage Land
Click on the cover to see a larger version.
	REVIEW: Marvel Girl in a mini-skirt? Xavier handing out demerits? Beast dressed up in a red and blue clown suit? Thirty or so years ago, the X-Men weren't as all-popular as they are today, and in fact the original X-Men book was struggling so much that for a couple years in the early 70s (issues 69-93, to be exact), Marvel stopped publishing new adventures for the team, instead reprinting earlier outings just to save money. Flash forward to today, and the X-Men are the most popular team in all of comic-dom. So what better time to revisit those "lost" years? Wouldn't it be fun to read new adventures for the original X-Men? And who better to head the project than John Byrne, one of Marvel's leading lights? Byrne's challenge is to re-create the mood and personality of the team as it was back then without it coming off as some dated. In the first issue at least, he's done this admirably, and we're looking forward to more. --Jason Bates
	Recommendation:	BUY IT!

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