Before the Fall: Mutant First Strike # 1 Review – This is what the X-Men Should have been doing in the first place
Here’s my Before the Fall: Mutant First Strike # 1 Review written by Steven Orlando with art by Valentina Pinti and colors by Frank Williams! It’s one of the one-shots that Marvel has released to start the Fall of X storyline coming later this year for the X-Books.
First off when they announced this a few weeks ago, I really thought they were creating another new book with a new team with Jean Grey with nifty new uniforms which was a little “ugh” but I loved every page when this turned out. Turns out this was a book where the mutants of Krakoa band together to act as first responders to a disaster that happens in American soil and it’s a mix of different mutants from different team books working together for the goal of just helping.
Steve Orlando wrote a pretty solid plot and dialogue for the book with deft and gravity for most of the characters but suffering a little from the normal villain diatribe with the people from Orchis moving their scheme along.
The plot’s starting point would be a bombing that wrecks an entire city with the chief cause being a mutant suicide bomber or somebody whose powers manifested in a deadly fashion and that causes so much death and destruction in the area. To make things worse, news outlets have also tagged mutants as the source of the blast which makes the Krakoan Quiet Council aka the Immortal X-Men to step in and send their best people to help out in the situation.
And show up they do with some slick new costumes and the main goal of helping as much people and solving the mystery of who did this.
The story is a one-and-done one but it’s such a joy to watch. We see the mutants doing what they best from Iceman generating water to drink, Triage healing the sick, Jean Grey helping rebuild homes and Cyclops calling the shots in the field. Even the more violent and members of the X-Men find something to do and they do it great. James Proudstar aka Thunderbird bashes heads together with Penance / Monet St. Croix, Storm and Angel doing aerial recon and mutants with time and psychic powers like Tempo and Monet trying to find out the identity of the “mutant” that devastated this place.
Even better, we don’t have Wolverine here (not that we don’t need him).
I also love the fact that they actually wear something different from their regular costumes. That white overall with a big red X emulates what field medics and first responders wear while making them really cool.
Tracking back to Fall of X, this issue was focused more on the threat of the Orchis and the mutant-hating human group. The other release was focused on the threat of Genesis and her goal of killing the mutants of Arakko which could run in X-Men: Red. This one would be taking over as the main drive for the main X-Men book.
Definitely worth getting if you want an X-Men book that shows them doing good stuff with their powers rather than giving internal drama.
