Slugfest!

Professor X is missing, presumed dead. Earth's mutant population has been reduced to a fraction of its previous size. And in the aftermath, the X-Men are left to pick up the pieces under the watchful gaze of a Sentinel positioned outside the mansion for government surveillance. Billed as "the greatest mystery in the history of the X-Men", X-Men: Deadly Genesis written by Ed Brubaker with pencils by Trevor Hairsine and inks by Kris Justice, revisits the story presented in Giant-Size X-Men # 1 to commemorate the 30th anniversary of its release.

After a one-page recap, the story moves past the exosphere (heh) where the crippled space-shuttle Prospect is host to a dead crew. And from the depths of space, an unknown visitor appears with glowing eyes and hands, his body alive with energy. He says, "No...it can't just be me..." leading us to believe there were others who were accompanying him on his journey. In an attempt to orient himself, he approaches the dead astronauts, and simply by touching one he gets a glimpse into the past and how they met their demise: a flash of light and its resultant energy surge. And although the reader is only left to wonder, the blazing eyes of this visitor seem to understand exactly what has transpired. After boarding the ship, he realizes he is now in the 21st century, abandoned or exiled by "them", and none to happy about it.

Over at the mansion, Piotr finds Kurt lost in thought as he examines a photo of the original "new" X-Men team: Cyclops, Storm, Wolverine, Banshee, Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Professor X....with Sunfire and Thunderbird noticeably absent. The point made a little more apparent when Kurt says, "And it occurs to me this is one of the few times all of us have been together since this picture was taken. All who are still with us." Meanwhile, reluctantly under the supervision of Kitty Pryde and Lockheed, Emma Frost is using Cerebra in an effort to try and locate Professor X and instead picks up on an "omega level" energy signature. As she tries to lock on its position, a psychic slugfest! knocks Emma unconscious, with Kitty witnessing Emma's mental projection of the shuttle Prospect as it crash lands.

As Hank and Scott rush Emma to the infirmary, Kitty relates the events and Scott decides to take action. With Rachel and Logan, he boards the Blackbird as he wonders aloud who else beside Professor X might possibly register as powerful a signature. Once they out-manuever the Sentinel on guard, they proceed toward the crash location in upstate New York.

Back in the mansion, Kitty trying to recover from the entire incident, screams as she looks into a mirror and momentarily sees a reflection of a walking, decayed corpse. As she turns to face the horror, she see Piotr instead, who has come to check on her. Simultaneously, Kurt is walking about in the woods surrounding the mansion and finds himself confronted by an angry mob with murderous intent, which harkens back to the time he was rescued by Professor X. Just when it appears that there is nowhere left to turn, Kurt realizes it is all just an abberant vision.

Back in the Adirondacks, somewhere near Lake Placid, the team in the Blackbird flies over a fist of clay which has risen out of the earth and is clutching the shuttle, Prospect. Surmising this is not the work of Charles Xavier, Rachel's psy-scan of the area reveals the prescence of an "omega-plus level mutant.

Meanwhile on Muir Island, Sean Cassidy is on a mission to go through Moira MacTaggart's files in an effort to find clues to the Professor's whereabouts. McCoy tells Cassidy, "If anyone knew Charles' secrets, it'd be her." Sean experiences a vision similar to Kitty and Kurt, and thinks he see Moira.

And at the crash site, Scott, Logan, and Rachel have disembarked and begin their search. They too experience a strange vision in what appears to be Jean. Rachel falls for the ruse and pursues the image only to captured by the visitor. Cyclops and Wolverine spring into action!

On Muir Island, the vision of Moira leads Sean to a set of offices before he realizes what he is witnessing is impossible. As he wanders into the building, he finds what appears to be a zip cartridge labeled "Charles Xavier's notes: Important".

Meanwhile the visitor attacks Wolverine with a lightning bolt which lifts him off the ground rendering him totally helpless. The visitor tosses Wolverine toward Cyclops and knocks him down. As Scott scrambles to his knees and the battle reaches a fever pitch, Cyclops fires an optic blast which is not only deflected with the wave of the visitor's hand, but is also sent back in their direction which essentially finishes the battle. In the wake, Cyclops is still conscious and listens to the visitor call him by name and asks, "You don't remember me?" Scott finally loses consciousness and we witness the visitor drag Cyclops into the cave.

The issue closes with Sean viewing the zip tape of Moira accusing Charles of being a "total and utter bastard." And the over in the Adriondacks, Wolverine has regained consciousness at the same moment the Sentinel and a cadre of military choppers converge upon the crash site informing him he is under arrest.

The X-Men have always explored characters and relationships, many times at the expense of a lot of real action. And here in this first issue, we get more of the same. The Charles Xavier I know isn't a "total and utter..." And I'm hoping by the end of this story we return to the status-quo.

Brubaker should pick a good villain to dump on instead of creating some bit of retro-continuity which seems to be...Moira hates Charles because he knocked her up and never accepted responsibility for their relationship and their child: Proteus. Yes, my money is on the visiting alien being revealed as none other than Moira Mac Taggart's son, Proteus a.k.a. Mutant X. Although for a second, I was thinking it might be Xavier's son, Legion, who has time-travelling powers, or perhaps one of the Upstarts.

Either way, long about issue 5 or 6 of this mini-series, hopefully things will heat up to a frenzy and make it slugfest! worthy material. But my advice for now is to read comprehensive reviews (like this one) until this action comes around.

What raises my eyebrow most about this story is billing it as "the greatest mystery"...blah...blah..blah. It suspiciously smacks of an Identity Crisis type story where "everything you thought you knew about the characters"...blah...blah...blah. But I'm willing to play along for now.

As for the artwork, I enjoyed Hairsine's work in Ultimate Six, so if you liked the artwork there, you'll enjoy his work here too. His has good storytelling style and helps keep this character centered story from becoming visually dull. I chose the Mark Silvestri cover over the Quesada cover because it had a little more snap. But how could it not, especially since it is a take off of Gil Kane's classic cover to Giant-Size X-Men # 1!!!

This issue also includes an 8-page back up story titled Petra, written by Brubaker with art by Pete Woods. It seemed a little odd including this story here when readers are supposed to be agog by the fact that so many mutants have simply vanished overnight, yet here's the story about one you've never heard of.