Wolverine and the X-Men #1

By: Jason Latour (writer), Mahmud Asrar (artist), Israel Silva (color artist)

The Story: As the bard hath wrote: high school never ends…

The Review: It’s very strange to see a new Wolverine and the X-Men #1 so soon, but this is what we find ourselves confronted with. Jason Aaron’s post-Schism story for Wolverine and his school was a highly unique one, and one that occupied a very special place in Marvel’s lineup. Now that Jason Latour and Mahmud Asrar have taken over, the question on many minds is how much of the title’s charm was WatXM and how much was Aaron’s sensibility.

Well, to get right to it, it’s certainly not a repeat of Aaron’s work. Latour’s WatXM has a different feel, which might upset fans of the previous volume, but it’s not at all the reversal that the New 52 JLI was. Indeed, as we predicted last week, this could have very easily have been Wolverine and the X-Men #43.

The story picks up right from where we left off, with the solicit even assuring us that this is summer term. Our focus character is Quentin Quire, newly graduated and beginning his new job as a teaching assistant, though who he’s assisting is never made particularly clear. Quire’s always been a foil for Wolverine and, similarly, it’s interesting to see his individual brand of rebelliousness forced into a position of authority. The problem is that, unlike Logan, Quire isn’t dedicated enough to this new stage in his life to sell it in a first issue. He’d probably give up on it if it weren’t for his girlfriend, Idie.

While I’m thrilled to see that Idie hasn’t reverted to her simplistic characterization that plagued most of the first volume, I’m not sure if Latour hasn’t gone too far the other way. While I found some of her lines rather touching for all the struggle she’s been through and the relationship between Idie and Quire feels realer than ever, she’s also a little generic. Idie’s aged a couple of years between writers and, despite mentions of her troubled past, it feels as though she’s always been the voice of reason. I’m not saying that her character was super strong under Aaron, it really wasn’t, but even after she started dating Quentin, Idie always felt like her own character, here I’m not so sure.

There’s another paradox in this issue. I’ve been hoping for a long time that Wolverine and the X-Men and Uncanny X-Men would spend more time on their students and, in both cases that’s been starting to come true. This issue takes it one step farther by putting most of the teaching staff on a bus. It’s lovely to see students from the Academy X era again and, with Quentin and Glob Herman out of the trouble maker spotlight, it’s a great choice to bring back Hellion and a depressed Rockslide. However, while I’ve missed that generation and love the greater emphasis on Storm, it still feels like Kid Omega and Genesis own the show.

This brings us to the most interesting element of the issue, its relation with the future. WatXM has always been a forward-looking series, but this takes it to a new level. For some reason, everyone at the Jean Grey School believes that the “Battle of the Atom” future is the future and, for once, people are reacting to the weight of this situation. It’s a clever way to justify some of Quentin’s emotional turmoil and introduce some old-school X-Men sci-fi into the series, but it also comes with its own problems. Knowing the future can severely decrease the sense of possibility in a series, and, in this case this limiting effect is even further exacerbated. The opening flashforward strongly implies that we’ll be seeing the same few concepts battling it out well into the next generation of mutant kind. While it’s a shame to think that Genesis will end up as another Apocalypse, I can’t help noticing that the laws of comics have kept Quentin and Idie together in some form or another some decades later. Even if they’re not dating, look at X-Men comics. Admittedly they have a tendency to revert, but zip back to 2010 and tell someone that Kid Omega and Oya would be most strongly associated with the same humor filled X-title and they’d look at you real funny.

Mahmud Asrar is a solid artist to turn the reins over to, however this issue doesn’t do much to highlight his strengths. Rockslide looks great and the costumes have a lovely realism to them, but the majority of the book feels utilitarian. There’s really nothing wrong with that, there’re plenty of great books with workmanlike art, but between the problems in the script and my memories of Asrar’s work on Supergirl, I can’t help but feel like this isn’t enough.

I will say that this means that Asrar does very little wrong. Though there are inevitable weaknesses, they’re fairly rare. Highlights of Asrar’s work on this issue tend to be close-ups, like Wolverine’s bruises or Kid Omega’s anger, and he proves capable of some lovely shading. Still, no element of this issue is likely to scare off readers through anger, it’s apathy that threatens the title now.

The Conclusion: Wolverine and the X-Men #1 isn’t a bad comic, but it clearly should be WatXM #43. Had it been, it might have felt less in competition with its superior predecessor. In fact many of the problems with the issue, while certainly not erased, could probably be shadowed by the continued numbering. The story possesses some interesting little wrinkles and Latour is doing nice work with a couple of choice characters, but not only does the book lack the unified vision of its predecessor, the cast is less interesting and the writing only solid. Likewise, while I actually like Mahmud Asrar’s style better than what Chris Bachalo brought to WatXM, it’s largely unspectacular, something you’d never say of Bachalo’s work. Whether you’re comparing it to its older brother or not, this issue can’t stand up to expectation.

Wolverine and the X-Men #1 isn’t a bad comic, but it has no business being a number one and readers will know it.

Grade: C+

-Noah Sharma