X-Men:First Class: Finals

Jeff's Parker's four-part X-Men: First Class: Finals miniseries bids a fond farewell to a classic Marvel flashback, fills in a long-neglected gap in X-history, and neatly sets up Scott Gray's upcoming Uncanny X-Men First Class. In the days just before Wolverine, Storm, etc. burst onto the mutant scene in "Giant Size X-Men #1," the original five X-Men are preparing to leave Xavier's School with college degrees and head out into the real world. But wouldn't you know it? Some mysterious adversary is forcing them to confront old foes (all from Parker's series) one last time.

Along the way, Parker drops in answers to questions fans have been asking since the 60s and 70s. Presumably. I wasn't born then. We find out why the X-Men switched to more individualized uniforms, why Professor Xavier went from running a school for "The Strangest Teens of All!" to overseeing a pseudo-military team of adult mutants from around the world, and even how a classy girl like Jean could possibly have designed the suspendered nightmare that was Angel's first attempt at a unique costume.

And in the end, we learn that the bad guy bombarding the team with Parker's greatest hits is none other than Jean Grey, and I discover a facet of my favorite relationship in comics that I'd never quite caught on to before. I'd always seen Scott and Jean primarily as two straight-arrows, wanting nothing more than to do right and take care of their great big X-Men family. Less important, I thought, were the very different ways they experienced and dealt with power. Scott's struggle was with a physical handicap, Jean's with a metaphysical question of how much power she can use before it must corrupt her.

Finals showed that both Scott and Jean's power struggles are ultimately emotional. Here we learn that as Jean's telepathic abilities grew, her subconscious fears and traumatic memories began to manifest as what Xavier called "ambient dreams," forcing themselves on those around her. The Professor explains, "As a mentally enhanced mutant, it's important that her mind be disciplined. Objective," meaning that Jean's power demands a figurative clarity of vision, just as Scott's does a literal one. And for Jean, just as much as for Scott, power has always been overshadowed by childhood pain. Scott lost his parents in the plane crash which also deprived him of the ability to control his optic blasts; Jean first experienced telepathy in the moment her friend was killed in a car crash. One lost a family, the other a best friend, and they found both again in one another - making their continual efforts at control a little less burdensome.

And those who say Scott Summers wasn't "a real grown up" or "free" or "truly happy" until Emma Frost came along can suck it.

The first 3 Finals issues also feature a back-up story by Parker, irresistably drawn by Colleen Coover: "Scott & Jean Are On a Date!" Honestly, they had me at the title, but you have to love a Marvel series that manages to work a playful newspaper-style comic strip into its continuity, and in the oh-so-angsty X-verse to boot.

- JC