Ron Richards is an evil bastard.  You can tell by the sideburns.  Oh, sure, he hits you with whacky laugh, and his goofy grin, but underneath that “whadda ya meeeeeeeeen, Ima nice guy” exterior is a cold, plotting supervillain, twirling his mustache, unable to rest until everyone is reading every X-book in the universe.

I was out.  I’d given up on them.  Carey couldn’t make me care.  Fraction was only 1/3rd more interesting.  And the ink on X-Force was so dark, I couldn’t tell Wolverine from Rahne…bad example, Wolverine from X-23….bad example, I couldn’t tell Cyclops from Elixir.  I mean, I just can’t tell people apart.

Do you see what reading a Claremont issue has done to my writing skills and…my, uh…writing?  Damn it.

Whereas most modern Claremont reads like your illiterate third century ancestors trying to explain particle acceleration via Twitter, this X-Men Forever annual just feels nostalgic.  Yes, the characters explain every action, as they commit to that action, but somehow, because this is a story broken out of the X-History vault, it’s not only acceptable, it’s mostly entertaining.

The art starts off looking a little rushed.  There’s a blurry quality that suggests dream sequence, but it’s not a lame dream sequence.  But about eight pages in, the art becomes much more focused, and while vastly different from any X-art I remember, it works very well.

If you, like me, read the first few issues, and then dropped out, fear not.  This issue takes place BEFORE X-Men Forever #1.  It’s a, ummmm, dare I say it “good jumping on point”.