Flashback Friday: Mutant X #1

 

            In the late 90’s I had begun reviewing comics and like many reviewers at the time I was being critical of Howard Mackie.  Remember that these were the days of Ben Reilly as Spider-Man.  The poor fellow that was burdened with the whole Clone Saga was Howard Mackie.  He was being complained about and even from his writing on the Spidey titles one could feel his heart might not have been in the stories.  Along the same time Mackie was handed the reins of a new title.  The name of that book was Mutant X.

            The TV Show strangely would not be far behind, but they were totally different.  The set up is simple.  Take Alex Summers and blew him to bits in X-Factor.  Let his spirit float into a nexus of all realities then meld with a dying Alex Summers of an alternate reality.  Then you have an entire new set of Marvel characters that are similar yet drastically different.  It was a really under appreciated comic.  Mackie was set free to play in a cool sandbox where he could imagine the toys.

            Alex comes to in the middle of a battle with weird looking Sentinels.  His teammates are his wife, Madelyne Summers, the vampiric Storm, Bloodstorm, a horribly mutated simple-minded Henry McCoy, The Brute, the Loki cursed Ice-Man, a creepy Warren Worthington III, The Fallen.  A very disturbing team of mutant heroes.  Let me just say that Alex was very confused, and that was before he met his son Scotty.  It is a wild beginning that just gets better as the issues come out.

            One great thing about this series is the way that they are so common in the back issue bins and out in the flea market circuit.  I would guess that maybe stores bought this book like they did anything with an “X” on the title.  That might explain why it is an easy book to buy as a back issue collection.  It is a great and fun read that really brought my respect for this awesome writer back.  He was saddled with an impossible task during the Clone Saga.  The greed that took that story farther than planned drug him down and you could tell with the work product.  Mutant X reminds us why Mackie was the writer chosen to write the titles before the Clone Saga.

BDS