WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN #29

Review by: ghostmann

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Story by Jason Aaron
Art by Ramon Perez
Colors by Laura Martin
Cover by Ramon Perez

Size: 0 pages
Price: 3.99

You know lately I’ve been having a lot of migraines – crippling headaches that render me almost comatose. I took a trip to my doctor to see if maybe I had a tumor or something, and after some CT’s and MRI’s I can report that, “It is not a tumor.”

My doctor sent me on the way with a prescription and told me to watch my caffeine intake.

But the headaches were still coming. I couldn’t figure it out. Then one day, while reading some old issues of X-Men it hit me. I discovered the answer as to why I was getting this horrible migraines.

It’s all because of Chris Claremont and John Byrne.

These two motherfuckers are the cause of my agony and it all started years ago. Like a sleeper cell, they planted in my brain, not to be awoken until the secret words are spoken – the words of, “Marvel NOW!”

Let’s wind the clock back from NOW! to THEN for a little bit here and start at the beginning of this sinister cephalalgia plot. The year was 1981 and The Uncanny X-Men were just beginning their dominance over the comic book world thanks to the storytelling of Claremont and Byrne. They had taken a lackluster title and turned it into a phenomenon that still lasts to this day. Once the X-men took off there was no looking back for this team and soon Wolverine would be a household name. One of the stories that they told was the now classic “Days of Future Past”, and with the magic of Wikipedia and “Cut & Paste” I give you the plot of that story:

DAYS OF FUTURE PAST
“The storyline alternates between present day, in which the X-Men fight Mystique’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, and a future timeline caused by the X-Men’s failure to prevent the Brotherhood from assassinating Senator Robert Kelly. In this future universe,Sentinels rule the United States, and mutants live in internment camps. The present-day X-Men are forewarned of the possible future by a future version of their teammate Kitty Pryde, whose mind traveled back in time and possessed her younger self to warn the X-Men. She succeeds in her mission and returns to the future, but despite her success, the future timeline still exists as an alternative timeline rather than as the actual future.”

The key phrase here is “FUTURE TIMELINE”. Little did you and I know at the time, this phrase would be the catalyst for years of powerful headaches.

Yes, it was there in 1981 that the seeds were planted for COUNTLESS stories of Alternate Realities and Timelines. Many other comics would copy this successful recipe but it was The X-Men that were truly the best at jumping into the timestream and fucking shit up so much that our brain tissue feels like it’s been stomped on by Juggernaut.

Cut to 33 years later and Alternate Realities are all the rage. Almost every X-Men title in those last 33 years has either dabbled or jumped head first into Alternate Realities. I was there for a first few of them then dropped off from reading The X-Men for a good many years there. But when Marvel Now! started up and I heard that a lot of these new X-Titles were pretty good and I started buying a few. Then one thing led to another, as it always does in comics, and I started reading MORE and MORE X titles. They just kept coming. Some good, some not so good, but it’s like I had no control over my impulses – an almost Manchurian menticide was taking place.

But I didn’t seem care that I was reading all these books, I mean take Bendis’ All-New X-Men? Holy cranial neuralgia Batman! It’s a great read and a lot of fun BUT he’s got old X-men, new X-Men, cats and dogs, living together! It’s mass hysteria I tell you! No longer was there just “Uncanny X-Men, “New Mutants”, and “X-Factor” like back when I first started reading. No, now there are so many different books and thanks to the craze started by “Days of Future Past” so many different timelines or time-streams that keeping track of everything has led to this……

….mother. fuckING. MIGRAINES!

So yeah, thanks Claremont and Byrne for starting the whole thing. Thanks for the hours of pain and suffering you have inflicted on my weary mind. I owe you motherfuckers.

p.s. oh yeah, Wolverine and The X-Men #29 does deal with time travel and alternate timelines, but it is done a fun-loving and carefree way that really makes for a great read and complete one and done story. Nice work Aaron. Thought I better squeeze that in there. =)

Story: 4 - Very Good
Art: 3 - Good

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