Wolverine and the X-Men #1 - review

So Wolverine and the X-Men has been heralded by some as the single greatest and most original comic by either of the two big companies. It's the most non-spandex title too apparently and well, so when I picked it up I figured it wouldn't live up to these massive claims and of course, it doesn't.

What is Wolverine and the X-Men though? First of all, the title name has nothing to do with the comic at all. This is not an X-Men title in the sense that the X-Men are not a team in this title. It's about the school that Wolverine and apparently Kitty Pryde are running. It does have some interesting ideas that pleased me like mutant members of the Brood and I'm assuming the Shi'ar. I've been wanting that for years. In fact, I had an idea years ago for Luna Maximoff to be a mutant Inhuman by being of 2 castes: Warrior and artist, but Marvel ruined that. So I did enjoy that aspect of things, but.. all in all, the title is a tad too silly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*Spoilers Follow*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The whole concept of this issue is the day leading up to and the first day of the new Jean Grey School for Gifted Youngsters. That would be fine.. if they didn't also have the New York Department of Education certifying them as "fit to teach" on the exact same day they open. That didn't make much sense to me, but that's OK. On top of that, Beast, the super genius he is, has built the entire school but apparently.. very, very badly. Everything is constantly going wrong while Wolvie and Kitty escort these two idiots from the Department of Education. These guys are of course stiff and stuck up jerks. That's the basic idea here. It just comes off way too goofy and stupid for my tastes.

The issue actually opens up the day before the big open. Wolvie is walking through the school with a rather smug and glib Xavier. The two talk about advice for Logan on how to be a good headmaster and basically Xavier giving him not sage advice, but snarky and sarcastic comments. So much so that Logan even mentions it to Xavier. It just didn't feel natural or like Xavier wanted to help Wolverine at all. He even states at one point that he thought someone would open their own school, but he never thought it'd be Logan. It's very awkward and weird conversation.

The next scene moves on to the day of, we suddenly find out that Kitty is headmistress with Wolverine as Headmaster. I don't know why they need both, but apparently they do. They go out to meet the smug Department of Education people and guide them on a tour around the mansion. These Department of Education weasels insult Wolverine and Kitty constantly and the two of them just take it with a smile and nod. We take a brief diversion from all this to see a Brood mutant being bullied by Hellion and Glob Herman. It ends quickly as the Brood kid sees Wolverine coming, then Logan in his infinite wisdom decides to punish Julian and Glob by locking them in a bathroom and using the Danger Room on them. Apparently the Danger Room is available in the whole school now (Great idea right? It's not like IDK the Danger Room has caused countless problems before when it was just one room, let's make it take over the whole school!). The snide DoE flunkies do not take well to that, of course. From there, Wolverine tried to introduce them to Idie, the chick from Schism that killed a guy. The brilliant twit she is starts telling the DoE guys how all mutants are monsters and should be dest.. i mean "cured" and she doesn't want to have to kill anyone again. Yeah, this is genius here people!

Finally we get to Beast, who is suppose to help calm everything down. Instead, Hank is completely lost in his world, almost beans Kitty with a coffee cup and rambles on with the DoE people there about how the school is out of control and he couldn't shut it down even if he tried. In fact, he mentions nuclear meltdown at least once. He also states that Emperor Gladiator is giving full alien tech support and has promised a new surprise in this latest shipment that just arrived. The surprise? Apparently Gladiator's son (Who knew?) that is kind of an arrogant ass, but his "bodyguard" Warbird seems cool. I'm assuming that Gladiator's son is a mutant of some sort, but it's impossible to say.

After all of this and an explosion with baby Nightcrawlers harassing the DoE people they decide to call it quits and get the school shut down. Of course, that happens after we get the penultimate moment in the comic supposedly. Remember Kilgore from Schism? The young leader of the Hellfire club? Well.. he looked much younger in Schism as did the other Hellfire Club members (They acted younger too), but apparently he's 12. He tells Logan his entire plan and how he caused the entire Schism (Is this the same character as from Schism? Cause it sure as hell doesn't feel like it at all) then throws down the gauntlet saying he's going to destroy Wolverine and the school. Yeah, the brilliant genius behind the Hellfire Club from Schism that kept the X-Men jumping through hoops and clueless has now come out of the closet, introduced himself to his enemy and that he was the head of the Hellfire Club. I just don't get it at all. It was goofy and stupid. Then out of no where of course, this creature comes to eat the whole school from below apparently caused by Kilgore.

So yeah, the story is really jokey. My other problem is that there aren't enough teachers with students. They break it down at the end and there are about 10 teachers and maybe 20 students. I didn't count them, but the break down made it rather clear. I mean there are only around 200 mutants and most of them are grown, so it feels odd. The other problems with the school is because of House of M bullcrap, there is a limit on new possible students. The other limitations is that unlike during Morrison's school run, the number of faculty is insanely small. This means that the range of subjects is considerably smaller. It just.. it doesn't worklogistically speaking. There is not enough students, not enough teachers.. I just don't see it as a full school as is.

The other major problem is the art. I don't like Bachalo's art at all. Never have really, but add that to the fact that characters look different sometimes than they've ever looked before. Doop looks 10 times bigger than he was in X-Statix (He must have been eating former teammates). Kilgrove looks older, Kitty looks Asian in a couple shots, others look goofy for no real reason. Beast seems to walk around with this thing all over him and it was hard for me to figure out his scene since it wasn't as clean as I'd have liked to see. THe technology looked.. muddled and all over the place.

Is this the most original, most non-spandex comic in the industry today? Not by far. It's a decent humor book if you really want a humor book, but I don't buy this title being the humor book. I think a title about Wolverine running a school should be a little more serious and less goofy. It comes across as downright stupid at points. There is just too much inconsistency here with early portrayals some by the same writer.