Oh, What Could Have Been...
I understand this comes at a very strange time in Marvel history, when the X-Men are moribund and not the powerhouse of today, and while the focus on Hank McCoy in his own title is wholly deserved, the creative team does no justice to his character or his story. I grew up with Hank McCoy already in his furry form, so I was originally surprised when I learned he wasn't always like that. Now that I have finally read through the issues up to this point, I was disappointed in the actual transformation. I know the Marvel Universe has a number of similarly-transformed characters (The Thing, especially), who no longer look the way they used to, and though the premise of McCoy transforming himself into a furry beast because of his research and whatnot is plausible, it just felt off. Conway does a fine job with the transformation issue, and the pain of McCoy's new life is depicted quite well throughout the issue with the off-putting atmosphere from the beginning until the end, so perhaps it is mostly the sadness for Hank that irritates. Plus, if he is as smart as he supposedly is, surely he would have developed a counteragent before trying some magically-timed Cinderella-like potion on himself. Steve Englehart truly does the greatest disservice to Hank through this series. It's bad enough the storyline is cancelled without any meaningful resolution (likely not Englehart's fault, admittedly), but the characterization is rather wretched. At first, we are willing to follow Englehart's revision of Hank's character, as his vocabulary and demeanor embrace the bestial identity of the new Hank McCoy ... but a few issues later Hank has resumed his humanity and diction. This is certainly a positive mark, in one sense, but the immediate abandonment of the character direction replaced with the early '60s flippancy and dialogue in the dark days of the X-Men are grating, at best. One gets the suspicion Englehart was itching to revisit the pirate ship episode if the series lasted any longer. At least he doesn't end every sentence with an exclamation mark, though he does feel the need to bring back old characters/villains just long enough to have them commit suicide by the end of each issue. The other issues featuring Iceman, Polaris, and Havok are equally steps in the wrong direction, though on the whole we are willing to forgive the egregious disrespect the creative staffs display for their subjects, since we are just glad to spend some time with these characters again. This collection definitely gets worse at it goes along, which is probably why the series was cancelled so soon, but it does have many fine moments and is rife with great possibilities ... which never seemed to materialize, sadly. What happens next to Hank and Linda and the Brand Corporation? I wish I knew. This collection does not tell us. It's worth reading, certainly, especially to fill in the missing gaps between the first demise of the X-Men and Giant-size X-Men #1, but it will not answer all your questions.