YES! YES, BABY, YES! This is what I've been missing!!!
I grew up on Chris Claremont's writing. I've always loved his technique (honestly, I think the drama and the dense prose of his work is part of what makes it so much fun). He's distilled his infamous Uncanny X-Men style down to its most engaging elements in X-Men Forever #1. If you've loved Claremont's work in the past, there's an excellent chance that you'll love this first issue.
Some out there have been heavily hating on Claremont for the past decade. Personally, I've loved some of his most recent writing. Though New Exiles wasn't my bag, I thought his latest run on Uncanny X-Men was just starting to pop with brilliance when he was shuffled off of the title (also, I think he suffered a heart attack around that time). While I found his collaboration with Alan Davis and Oliver Coipel to be decent, I found his work with Chris Bachalo and Billy Tan to be wonderful. Grey's End was a chilling few issues that used a fascinating interpretation of the passage of time to tell a riveting tale. As for other recent work, I was also moved by CC's issue of Excalibur that explored Nocturne's frustration with her paralysis.
And while those comics were near and dear to my inner Claremont fan, they weren't nearly as indulgent as X-Men Forever #1. When I say indulgent, I don't mean it in a bad way. I mean indulgent like rich ice cream or expensive chocolate - indulgent like a delicious desert. Working with Tom Grummet, who's been attached to Claremont for a couple of years now, seems to only deepen the indulgence. I've long been a fan of Grummet's work and this issue may be some of his most enjoyable pencils to date.
All in all, this feels like a rebirth of the X-Men to me. Maybe I'm just too old school to properly move on from the glory days of John Byrne, Paul Smith, and John Romita, Jr. But I don't care. X-Men Forever just feels right to me. Though I've vowed to shy away from as many $3.99 single issues as possible, I can't deny myself Forever (get it?). I await issue #2 with bated breath.
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