X-Men: Days of Future Past

X-Men: Days of Future Past by Chris Claremont
Illustrated by: John Byrne
Publisher: Marvel
Collects: Uncanny X-Men: #138-143
Published: 1981
Length: 184 pages

This was a bit of an odd one. It consists of six issues from a 1981 run of Uncanny X-Men, but only two of those issues are actually the Days of Future Past storyline.

The first issue is essentially a recap of every major event in the X-Men timeline, which is a cool idea but excruciatingly dull to read through. It read like an overview from an excited child. “And then Magneto attacked them, and then they were in the Savage Lands with dinosaurs, and then aliens happened and they went to space. Oh yeah, Phoenix died and Cyclops was sad and left, and then the Canadian government wanted Wolverine to…,” and you’re like, okay, slow down, I have a headache. Although I haven’t read a lot of them, I love the idea of superhero comics and think the stories themselves can touch on some real issues, but it’s all so ridiculous listed out like this.

There’s a story of Nightcrawler, Dr. Strange, and the rest of the X-Men being sent through a Dante-like vision of hell, which was actually quite cool. Eternal damnation with mild nudity was not what I was expecting when I opened this book. Another couple of issues involved Wolverine and Nightcrawler heading up to Canada to deal with Wolverine’s old crew, which I also enjoyed quite a bit. I don’t know if I read many comics with Nightcrawler as a kid, but he’s adorable. His sister did trick him by shapeshifting into another woman and becoming his girlfriend, though, and he was okay with that, so I think there are some dark issues lurking under the surface there.

The Days of Future Past issues were a good time-travel story. In the future, mutants are being held in internment camps and the world is in ruin. They find a way to send Kitty Pride’s consciousness back in time to her young body in an attempt to avoid this future. The same Kitty Pride who inexplicably arrived on her first day at the academy in quite a naughty shirt.

The book ends with a Christmas issue, where Kitty Pride is chased around the X-Mansion by a murderous demon alien thing, which is a Die Hard take on a Christmas story, but I like it.

It feels like quite a random mess of issues, but it makes some sense in its own way. The title story is only two issues and the issues surrounding it do establish some of the relationships and backstory that support the main story. It’s a bit of a stretch, but I guess they had to include something to move it into its standalone volume.

I’ve never been a massive fan of Chris Claremont, and many of the old-school superhero comic writers, just because I hate the constant exposition to explain what they’re already showing us in the panels, but I did enjoy this. It was a real trip of a read.