X-Men: Days Of Future Past

Reprints Uncanny X-Men #138-143, Uncanny X-Men Annual #4
Written by Chris Claremont and John Byrne.
Penciled by John Byrne and John Romita, Jr.
Inked by Terry Austin and Bob McLeod.

Note:This is a review of a 2011 tpb. Another tpb of the same name was recently published, but I do NOT recommend that book because I feel it contains inferior material. 

The X-Men have gathered together for the funeral of Jean Grey. She took her own life when she reverted back to Dark Phoenix, so that she wouldn't kill again. Everyone mourns Jean, but the loss is felt hardest by Scott Summers, AKA Cyclops, who lost the woman he loved.

During the funeral, Scott meditates upon his career as an X-Man, from the early days up to the present.  Cyclops decides that Jean's death has brought him to a crossroads, and that he will take a leave of absence from the X-Men. But on the same day he announces his departure, Kitty Pryde arrives at the X-mansion to join the team.

Exit Cyclops, enter Kitty Pryde.

Shortly after the funeral, the X-Men celebrate Nightcrawler's birthday. All is well, until Kurt opens a present that turns out to be a crystal figurine of himself. The figurine explodes and kills Nightcrawler!

His teammates are shocked, but their leader Professor X thinks that there is one man who can help Kurt. Xavier calls on Dr. Strange, the Master of Mystic Arts!

 

Doctor Strange examines Nightcrawler and determines he isn't dead, just in suspended animation.  Suddenly, Strange and all the X-Men are attacked by a witch who calls herself Margali. The witch sends all the heroes descending into Hell itself! The X-Men and Doctor Strange find themselves in an adventure that's straight out of Dante's Inferno!

Can the heroes save Nightcrawler's soul and escape from Hell?

Following that adventure, Wolverine heads back to Canada to make peace with his former teammates in Alpha Flight and with the Canadian Government. When he resigned from Canada's Secret Service to join the X-Men, his resignation was not accepted. Nighcrawler accompanies Logan to "keep him out of trouble."

Wolverine looks back on the first time he encountered Wendigo.

But trouble is exactly what they encounter when they're attacked by the Wendigo! Wolverine will need the help of Vindicator, Snowbird and Shaman of Alpha Flight to stop the mythological flesh-eating monster.

Sometime after that, Kitty is participating in a training session in the Danger Room, when she suddenly collapses and falls unconscious. When she awakens, she calls herself "Kate" and speaks in the voice of a much older woman.  We learn that she has psychically exchanged places with her older self from the year 2013.

Kate tells the X-Men that the future looks grim. A new Brotherhood Of Evil Mutants assassinated U.S. Senator Robert Kelly. This set off a wave of anti-mutant sentiment, the mutant hunting Sentinel robots killed or imprisoned the X-Men and every mutant. Even non-mutant superheroes like Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four were executed.

That very day, Prof. Xavier is testifying at a Senate hearing on mutants, with Sen. Kelly chairing the committee. Kate says the Brotherhood will kill Kelly at that very hearing.

The X-Men battle the Brotherhood in Washington, DC;
Storm confronts Wolverine about the use of his claws.

The X-Men head to Washington, DC to prevent the assassination. Just as Kate predicted, the new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, led by Mystique, crashes the hearing. Will the X-Men be able to intervene and save Sen. Kelly from assassination?

Lastly, it's Christmas Eve and everyone is departing the X-mansion to celebrate the holidays.  Everyone, that is, except for Kitty Pryde.

Residents of the X-mansion all have plans...except for Kitty.

In the woods nearby, a N'Garai demon has crawled to the surface and killed two people. The demon breaks into the mansion and terrorizes Kitty. She tries to call Prof. Xavier's car phone, but the N'Garai wrecks the phone.

The demon is determined to kill Kitty and will destroy the mansion to do so. Can Kitty survive the assault of the N'Garai all by herself? 

Review:
I'll admit up front that I've got lots of sentimental, nostalgic attachment to the stories reprinted in X-Men: Days Of Future Past. They were originally published shortly after I began collecting Uncanny X-Men and are among my all-time favorite comic book stories.
I remember the first time I saw the now-iconic cover of UX-M #141, and wondered how it was possible that so many superheroes could be killed (or "slain" as it said on the cover).

A typical session in the Danger Room.

Story:
Chris Claremont and John Byrne are credited as co-plotters here and it's some of their best work. Claremont had been writing X-Men for about five years and almost 50 issues by this point. Byrne began co-plotting shortly before this. The "Days Of Future Past" two-parter is an absolute classic, and the rest of the stories reprinted here are also very good.

Great splash shows Kate Pryde running through the New York of 2013.

The Cyclops funeral flashback was a great history lesson for me. I wasn't familiar with many of the villains and stories Scott mentions and it made me want to seek out X-Men back issues.

Nice to see the X-men's early villains drawn by
John Byrne & Terry Austin in Cyclops' flashback.

The Wendigo/Alpha Flight story was my introduction to both the Canadian heroes and the monster.  Wolverine was still a violent and mysterious character at this time. This story gave us a little more background, showing flashbacks of Logan and his interactions with Heather Hudson. Plus, the fight with Wendigo was very exciting.

Nightcrawler tries to evade the attack of the Wendigo.

Kitty Pryde joins the team in these stories and she takes a prominent role early on. Kitty is the character who saves the day, preventing the mutant holocaust from occurring in the future. And she fights the N'Garai all by herself and lives to tell the tale. Byrne and Claremont must have guessed early on that Kitty would become a fan favorite.

The N'Garai story is one of my favorite standalone issues. I read it every year around Christmas time.

Mystique and the new Brotherhood make their first appearance here and they make a strong impression right away. This team of villains would go on to be a thorn in the side of the X-Men for years to come.

We meet the new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants for the first time.

Another big change was that Storm became the new team leader when Cyclops quit. This was a big change for the series and a step forward for comics in general. I can't think of other superhero teams that featured Women in charge in or before this. And she makes an impression right away, telling Wolverine that he will do what she commands during a battle.

The weakest part of the tpb is Nightcrawler's Inferno. It's not a bad story, and it was fun to see them interact with Doctor Strange. I just didn't believe for one second (now or when I first read it) that Nightcrawler would die or that the X-Men would be marooned in Hell.  

Minos greets the X-Men, who are surprised by the way he looks.

Art:
John Byrne and Terry Austin are one of the greatest art teams of all time. The stories reprinted here are the final issues of The Uncanny X-Men that feature their work. In this blogger's opinion, all X-Men stories that followed paled by comparison. Byrne's Bronze Age work was always good, but Austin was his best inker by far. I want to call out the cover of the book for only crediting Claremont and Byrne. Austin is part of the X-Men's "Holy Trinity" of creators and fans of Bronze Age X-Men stories should never forget his contributions.

I love the cartoonish/scared reaction of Nightcrawler on the mid-left.  
Great art from Byrne & Austin.

The story from Annual #4 features pencils by John Romita, Jr. and inks by Bob McLeod. Romita's style was still evolving here, but McLeod's inks are so heavy that very little of Romita is visible. It's decent art, but it's a step down from the Byrne/Austin portion of the book.

The X-Men & Doctor Strange encounter Cerberus, the 3-headed dog!

How does it look?
Fantastic, no signs of recoloring or anything odd looking here. Here's another scan from the book that shows how great it looks:

In the future, the X-Men take out a group of Sentinels.

Extras:
At the end of the book, we get a gallery that features covers from previous reprints of these stories. Most are from the Classic X-Men series.

X-Men: Days Of Future Past contains some of the best X-Men stories of all time, and some of the finest tales of the Bronze Age. They are just as good now as they were 34 years ago. If I ever create a "Hall Of Fame" of Bronze Age reprints here, this book will be one of the first inductees. The amazing (or should I say "Uncanny" ha ha!) team of Claremont, Byrne and Austin went out with a bang. Highly recommended!

J.A. Morris' rating:

4 Sals!