X-Men Red, in the Shadow of the Phoenix.

X-Men Red #1 Review

Marvel Comics keeps dropping X-Men books like they’re painting by numbers, starting with Gold, which is arguably the best, then Blue and now Red. Each X-Men team is unique with different members having different ideas of what the purpose of an X-Man is. X-Men Red, a team derived of very powerful mutants (with the exception of Honey Badger, I mean, wtf Marvel?) lead by Jean Grey, have adopted the long lasting ideals of the late Professor X that mutants can live among humans without prejudice.

I’m not going to lie, I didn’t continue to read Phoenix Resurrection to its completion, it’s just so hard to follow a weekly book for 6 weeks, so I have no idea how we got to where we are in X-Men Red. That’s only the real complaint I have with X-Men Red is the lack of backstory, it starts out heavy and continues down that path. There’s really no slowing down from start to finish, and the finish of issue one is a doozy.

Jean Grey is so passionate about her quest for peace, she’s such a genuine character, and siding next to the strength of Wolverine and Namor is a definite power move. I love the team but I’m just displeased with the fact it’s the same thing we’ve been seeing from the X-Men since I was reading and watching it back in the 90’s, but maybe that’s the Legacy drive of Marvel right now.

X-Men Red is written by Tom Taylor with pencils from Mahmud Asrar who contribute to the book in the same manner as I see the book, it’s an X-Men Book that’s just… there. I wasn’t disappointed with it but I also wasn’t crazy about it. It didn’t grab me by the face like Astonishing X-Men did late last year. I’m not tired of the X-Men am I? No way, I just need Marvel to give us something, revive the X-Men franchise because these color coding schemes aren’t doing it for me.

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