X-Men: Age of X

Stories where the future has gone to hell for mutants, or where changes to the past have made for a wretched present day are a recurring trend in the “X-Men” universe.  You’ve got classics like “Days of Future Past” that started the whole trend, and the “Age of Apocalypse” which provided the franchise with one of its most memorable storylines in the 90’s.  “Age of X” hews more closely to the former as writer Mike Carey gives us his take on what the world would be like if Charles Xavier wasn’t around to form the X-Men and provide a counterpoint to Magneto’s confrontational agenda.  Though he tells a good story, it still feels like a pretty small-scale “event” by the time things are over.

So it turns out that without Professor X in the world, humans would’ve turned on mutants, Beast would’ve been beaten to death a peace rally, Phoenix would’ve destroyed Albany, and more such events eventually fanned the flames of intolerance to irreconcilable levels .  After a last-ditch rescue by Magneto in New York, mutanity prepares to make its last stand against the human aggressors.  Most of the group has resigned itself to dying here, but there are some troubling signs on the horizon.  Stars that don’t look right.  A camera that was snuck outside the fortress’ perimeter that took pictures of nothing.  Identical dog tags collected as trophies.  What does it all mean?  That’s what Rogue, now known as “Legacy” aims to find out.

Putting her in the starring role here shouldn’t surprise anyone who has been reading “X-Men:  Legacy” since Carey started writing it.  However, he finds an interesting use for her powers as she is tasked with storing the memories of the mutants fallen in battle.  Her status as a living archive causes a lot of the cast to treat her with kid gloves, so it’s not surprising that this leads to a minor act of defiance which gets the plot going.

Most of the fun of these stories is seeing what kinds of twists the writers can give to existing characters and we get some good ones here.  In addition to Rogue’s new position, Cyclops winds up in the “Wolverine” role as his time as a death-row execution device excised nearly all of his compassion and left him with no leadership skills.  Wolverine is a shadow of his former self after his attempt to dissolve the mutant “cure” wrecked his healing factor and leaves him tending a bar while the others fight on the frontlines.  There are plenty of other changes, but these stand out the most due to their drastic natures.

While this story does seem to borrow a lot from “Age of Apocalypse” on the surface, it doesn’t play out  in the same way.  Carey was right to not try and re-tread the same material but his big twist feels more reductive than anything else.  We eventually find out that the world is much smaller than it was initially made out to be and that the way to return things to “normal” is also pretty straightforward as well.  To his credit, Carey does do a good job of setting up the mystery and building things to a climax.  I was entertained, but this feels more like an amped-up arc of “Legacy” than any kind of X-event.

The other problem with the twist is that it also renders the “Age of X Universe” stories collected at the end rather pointless.  The “Avengers” stories written by Si Spurrier are the main attraction as the team is still fronted by Captain America, but with more psychotic and homicidal versions of Iron Man, Hulk, and Spider-Woman backing him up.  As they track down Magneto and his followers, we’re treated to some very familiar moral philosophizing about what the right thing to do in this situation is.  Spurrier handles everything competently, but this is of little consequence in the end.  The “Spider-Man” story by Jim McCann is similarly forgettable, but Chuck Kim’s “Dazzler” short is actually pretty decent thanks to its unexpected ending.

“Age of X” will be of primary interest to long-time “X-Men” fans who want to see what the latest “alternate history” scenario for the team is, and for those of us who have been following “Legacy.”  The story ends in a way that shows things will be returning to normal for the main cast, certain background characters will be feeling its effect for some time to come.  If the aim of this series was to give a new direction and purpose to “Legacy,” then I can say that it did that well.