X-Men v3 Issue 1
Ah... X-Men. I love you so. I especially love that I am able to pick this up, have this chance, and know how far I've come. You see, I bought a trade of X-Men for the first time in December. It was from Claremonts New Age run. It was decent. However I knew I wanted to get into it, know the X-Men, and catch up to the current books. So I read. And read. And read. By the time Second Coming came around I had read over 300 issues of various X-Men books to have a full grasp of the situation. Luckily you don't need that here.
The issue opens with a de-powered Jubilee and Pixie having lunch in San Francisco when out of nowhere, a suicide bomber attacks, using themselves as a bomb and causing mayhem and all that jazz. The X-Men see the news, check out their teammates, and go in to investigate the scene, which leads them to discover that the culprit was a vampire and that the Lord of Vampires is to blame. That's right. Dracula.
Now, I know people are gonna hate cause haters gonna hate, but having the X-Men fight vampires feels right. It doesn't feel like the vampire trend reaching comics, but instead it feels like a natural event, what with them having fought them in the past and all sorts of demons. That being said, Victor Gischler, a writer I've never heard of before, has done a stand out job, proving why he was given the reigns with a story that impresses. While not perfect, the characterization is great, the many levels the X-Men work on comes across nicely, and it has a good atmosphere of things settling down and a hopeful future on the horizon. Whether this is the calm before the storm or not remains to be seen. Another plus for this issue is that you need literally no knowledge of the X-Men to pick this up. It's a starting point and a good one at that.
When I heard Paco Medina would be drawing this I was disappointed. I didn't think he was good enough to be honest, with both previous volumes beginning with such greats as Jack Kirby and Jim Lee. I was wrong. I seemed to have forgotten that Medina has a great grasp of individualizing characters to the point that even if you shaved all their heads you could tell who was who. It's a great thing to see and he handles the big cast and big settings remarkably well and makes his X-Men work even better than his fantastic Deadpool work. From New X-Men years ago to X-Men here, Medina proves he is worthy to handle this wild bunch.
Overall, this is something you want to have. Not only is it a new X-Men 1, the last of which was 20 years ago, but the book itself is great and takes a concept many would groan at and makes it work. It's not perfect, but I'll give it a 4 out of 5, feeling excited for next issue.
