Please note that although this book says volume 1 on the cover, it got canned due to sales not being high enough. It actually sold a lot, but not enough to make the greedy moneygrubbers at Marvel happy.
This one I found at my local library. After about 10 pages in, I began to question whether this was a new take on the X-Men, or a really elaborate practical joke. If not for the production values, I would simply assume that Marvel had released this on April Fool’s day just for the sole sake of pissing off comic book guys everywhere.
Alas, upon checking up online, this is not so. So Del Rey went out and made a shoujo Harem using the X-Men cast, and stripped everybody of any signs of masculinity. My first reaction to some characters was just “Wow… what have they done to you man?” This double true for Magneto (shown right) who is a physics teacher who likes to go on about Human rights and hangs around with the juvenile delinquents known as the “Hellfire club” Before I discuss plot, it should be noted my familiarity with X-Men mythos extends to having seen the first X-men movie (loved it btw.) and a couple of O.K. comics I read at the library. Anyhoo, this book is about high school student Kitty Pryde and her getting transferred to a new school because she doesn’t seem to fit in at her old one. This is because a few people seem to have noticed that she has this weird ability to phase through objects. (although her skills are unrefined) This has garnered her the attention of a recruiter for Professor Xavier’s academy for “gifted” youngsters. Anyway, being a mutant has forced Kitty Pryde to be transferred to one of those rich kid schools where everybody wears a fancy uniform. Oh yeah, and she’s the only female student in the school. This garners her the attention of a whole bunch of incredibly pretty male students, such as Pyro, Angel, and Alex. I was about to gouge my eyes out from all of the bishounen. Oh yeah, she doesn’t get any attention from the Icy-demeanored Bobby (Iceman,) but seems to get along well with all of the other students. Furthermore, the book seems to focus more on the day-today life of the high school students, such as Kitty Pryde’s relationships and fitting in, with a small thing about mutant rights during the last chapter.
Of course, the bishounen who irritated me the most was MAGNETO, the physics teacher. He generally looks too young to be the holocaust survivor he is in the comics, and just lacks that aura of badassery he seems to possess in almost any other representation.
This book does have its plus sides, aside from making me want to gouge my eyes out from all the bishounen. (Seriously, what about women like Ohno from Genshiken? She’d love it if they took the time to make Proffessor X and Magneto look like the masculine older men that they are) Due to generally throwing away all the old continuities, you never get that feeling of missing some details you get with the mainline X-Men, which lets you relax a bit. Furthermore, there is no sign of the rest of the Marvel universe, which makes me breathe a sigh of relief knowing that they can do what they want with the plot (if they went somewhere) The artwork has a lot of detail put in it, although I would greatly appreciate more character variation, and I would love it if some people managed to look a lot rougher. (This is a bit of an issue in Wolverine: Prodigal son, which I will be reviewing next, but they got character variation better there.) Unfortunately, there is no second volume to this plot, so all we have is an introduction to characters, which will never be fleshed out. Might be worth checking out if you’re into shoujo stuff, but since it wasn’t finished, I have an easier time recommending it to people if it continued, so it’s much easier to show to comic book guys to make them RAGE!
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