GIANT SIZE X-MEN (2025) #1: "The Mutant That Walks Like a Man" / "Revelation: Superior"

Kamala Khan is dropped into an iconic moment in X-History!

The Mutant That Walks Like a Man: Jackson Lanzing & Collin Kelly (writers), Adam Kubert (artist), Laura Martin (color artist) With appreciation for the work of Len Wein and Dave Cockrum

Revelation: Superior: Al Ewing (writer), Sara Pichelli (artist), Federico Blee (color artist)

VC's Clayton Cowles (letterer), Adam Kubert & Laura Martin (cover artists), Carlos Lao (designer), Annalise Bissa (associate editor), Tom Brevoort (editor), C.B. Cebulski (editor-in-chief)

We begin in the far-flung future of Askani times (circa 3500 CE) where we see a mysterious lone traveler with a British or Irish accent. After surviving some blasty business we have absolutely no context for, he/they reveals themselves to be an aged version of Legion. "Legion" proceeds to what I think is the head of Krakoa, saying some ominous things to "David" (which we know to be Legion's real name/primary identity) and enacts some psychedelic effects while a disapproving disembodied voice delivers some heavy narration about this "blasphemy on time."

Meanwhile in our times (circa 2025 CE), Kamala Khan, aka Ms. Marvel, is hanging out with her pal Bruno, nonchalantly chilling atop a street lamp in Jersey City, discussing what it's like to be both an Inhuman and a mutant. Bruno, the super-genius, just happens to have invented a time travel detector, which goes off just in time for the technicolor time travel wave to hit Kamala and send her back to Westchester, "many years ago," in a period that feels a lot like the mid-70's but, for reasons of sliding timeline, was definitely not.

There she encounters Cyclops, freshly returned from the famous first failed run at Krakoa, which got all of his teammates kidnapped and turned into food for the island that walks like a man (but talks like a plant.)

Kamala and Scott -- as we know from the mid-2010's -- are old pals, having both served on the Champions team when Scott was a time-displaced teen. Kamala, who is up on her X-History, is pretty happy for Cyke, because as frustrating as it must be to have all your friends get turned into plant food, today's the day the All-New, All-Different X-Men arrive, which is pretty cool.

Inside, Professor Xavier, who can read Kamala's origins from Scott's mind (he wouldn't dare violate a stranger like that, but on his students he gets a free pass) disapproves of her time-shifted nature but eh, what are you gonna do? Before long, she's fitted for a uniform that sadly does not meet the standards of the Dave Cockrum fashions nearly everyone else will be wearing -- the boots don't even reach her knees. She also comments on it being leggy, but she's very clearly wearing tights under the miniskirt not unlike her iconic "burqini" look, so maybe the legs were not supposed to be colored in.

She is quickly introduced to the recently-recruited ANAD X-People, gushing over all her faves like she's some kind of Iman Vellani-style fangirl, putting haughty Sunfire in his place, and trying to win over early Wolverine. She is most surprised when history doesn't quite go to script -- the Strato-Jet is destroyed in mid-air by the arriving Legion, sending the X-Men hurtling toward the ground (they survive.) Kamala identifies their attacker as Legion/David Haller, but she's only half-right -- this is Legion/???, as David has long since experienced psychic final death and gone to the white hot room (curtain colors and proximity to the station, unknown.) Leege alludes vaguely to their mission to "take back what's [theirs]," but specifying they are not here to kill the X-Men (something of a mixed message then, by destroying their aircraft.)

Safely down on Krakoan ground, Kamala spoils the whole thing by explaining that the Island is a mutant and will someday turn out to be nice. Speaking in its native tongue, she convinces Krakoa to pop itself out of the Earth and into space (to become a "Giant-Size X-Man"!), thus shortening the original Giant-Size story by about twenty pages. Legion is foiled in whatever-it-is they were hoping to accomplish, but vows to keep pursuing Krakoa, and whatever-else they're after. After a brief bout of fisticuffs, Legion zaps Kamala to another iconic period of X-Men history -- the Dark Phoenix Saga. To be continued!

In the backup story, we meet Justina LaGuardia, an Italian cop capable of running after a Vespa-riding purse-snatcher on foot. When Xavier arrives to offer her a chance to join the X-Men, she demonstrates her power: to one-up the abilities of whoever is around. The very existence of the X-Men offends her law enforcement sensibilities -- they're terrorist child-soldiers, you know -- so she punks Charles out with his own powers and sends him on his way, to forget she he ever met her. ACAB, even in Italy.

Further Thoughts:

You're getting the perspective here of a guy who has spent the last decade going over X-Men history with a fine tooth comb. Giant-Size X-Men #1 (1975) is more or less a sacred text for me, as it is for many of the people this book is aimed at. But you're also getting the perspective of a guy who holds a couple of contradictory beliefs, one of which is: nostalgia sucks. We have old comics. And as much as we like to think the craft of creating comics has advanced greatly in the last 40 years, it's also degraded a bit in other ways and places. This is a very simplified and flattened-out version of the X-Men we met back in the 70's -- who themselves were already inherently archetypal. The good news is, there isn't much time for them to be flat and stereotypical (or mischaracterized) -- anyone not named Kamala doesn't get much screen time here, for better or worse.

There's an argument, for people who are fussy about such things, that there was room to refresh GSXM -- time has passed and we have new context about who and what Krakoa is or will be. The way that plays into the proceedings is certainly quite interesting and probably the most noteworthy thing about the story. The ripple effect of what this new version of the Krakoa adventure means for the X-Men probably won't be addressed very much, and once it's over we can probably go back to thinking of the original story as the still-correct text.

Though the replay of Giant-Size X-Men is pretty superficial, Kamala has always been such a joyful character, and is handled well by Lanzing and Kelly, that the vibe of this book is quite infectious. It's easy to dismiss such a gimmicky comic, but I'm comfortable giving it a slight thumb's up. Taken for what it is, it's a brisk and fun adventure that piqued my curiosity (against the odds!) about what Legion wants and how he intends to get it while looping Kamala through various points in X-History. It's a story with a naked ambition and purpose -- to revisit old touchstones in X-History with Kamala as a time travelling guide -- which at worst could have been quite a tacky and meaningless bit of self-reflection (as comics all too often are) but ends up as a fun excursion and celebration of comics.

Adam Kubert, on art, is a seasoned pro. He's no longer the wildchild 90's penciller whose work defined Wolverine with writer Larry Hama in that decade, while his similarly-skilled brother helped steward one of the core X-books. If anything, the look of the book is undistinguishable from any number of Reliable Pros at Marvel today. It looks good -- not special but good -- and he acquits himself particularly well during the brief scenes of the I-can't-believe-it's-not-the-70's X-Men in action, blending modern layouts with a little bit of retro coding. After all, falling from exploding aircraft is what the X-Men do, and they do it well here. (Longtime nitpickers like me, however, will note that Nightcrawler should not be teleporting while falling, since physics is going to catch up with him and splatter him when he lands.)

The Revelation story, by Ewing and Pichelli (another top notch pro) is a great pastiche of a segment from the original Giant-Size, showcasing who Justina LaGuardia/Superior is (and she'd fit right in with the other ANAD X-Men with her Famous Ethnic Name.) I'm dubious about her powers -- I don't normally care for Power-Powers, and doubly so when her power is to be better with those powers than the person who has always had them. Logically, what should have happened is that she should have been overwhelmed by the volume of power she's taken on by Xavier, and been more or less defeated instantly -- but then you wouldn't have a story, duh. So it is what it is.

But more rankling to me is the labelling of the X-Men as effectively a terrorist cell. Calling out the X-Men as child soldiers is a cute meme for us on social media who spend way too much time thinking about such things, but it knots my stomach when it finds its way into the mouths of the characters. In reality, it's a pretty flat, glib and inaccurate interpretation of what the X-Men are meant to be and do. I get that it's a villain (or at least, an antagonistic figure) saying it, but I'm bothered by it, and the supposed basis it has in reality. If you're reading an X-Men comic you're probably on the side of the X-Men, so calling into question the very premise of is a distracting thing for an X-Men comic to do, as much as writers can't resist picking at that easily-accessible fruit.