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Oct 14, 2016

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 597: X-Men #4, January 1992

http://www.comics.org/issue/50800/

I sometimes think that in the wake of a creative team transition, there should be an issue or two that is simply pictures of heroes hanging out, having breakfast, watching Netflix. It could be all splash pages (which Jim Lee is so very good at) of them relaxing, if only for a single issue. The events of the last three issues have been not only physically very perilous, but have played psychic havoc with many members of the team. That they're thrown right back into a life or death situation just seems unfair.

That said, the basketball game between the teams of Jubilee and Gambit, and Wolverine and Rogue, is pretty great, especially once they decide to let their powers loose. It's interesting to see Wolverine and Gambit's relationship, which is played similarly to the one that Wolverine and Cyclops have shared for so long, only reversed. Wolverine, in his dotage, appears to be the responsible one.

I don't have too much more to say about this issue, but I think that has to do with the fallout form the previous issue - we just need a moment to recover from the revelations, deaths, and changes that Claremont's final (sort of) story dropped. I say "sort of" because, about 10 years after leaving, Claremont returns to the X-Men with the X-Treme X-Men title (worst X-Men title ever, I think). I never read any of them, nor do I have any in the collection. At the same time, Marvel had put Grant Morrison on New X-Men and Joe Casey on Uncanny X-Men, so a new Claremont title held little allure, at least for me.

We'll keep plugging away tomorrow, and hopefully get a bit of background on the new menace of Omega Red!

Onward.

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