Now here's a book I never thought I'd find myself reviewing.  It's been almost 30 years since Marvel shipped an issue of Giant-Size X-Men, but for some reason they've decided to revive the format.  In fact, to judge from the solicitations, this seems to be a regular feature for the coming months, with the same basic format - three reprints from the archives, and eight pages of new material to sucker the completists into buying it.  There's a Giant-Size Spider-Woman coming soon, believe it or not.

In a curious nod to history, Marvel have decided not to renumber from issue #1, so instead we pick up with issue #3.  Everyone's heard of Giant-Size X-Men #1, which introduced the new team back in 1975.  Issue #2 was a reprint book, which is why nobody ever mentions it (although they've still reprinted the cover here for some reason).

Our eight pages of original material were originally scheduled to come from Joss Whedon and Dave Cockrum, the artist from issue #1.  But Cockrum's unavailable, so instead we have Neal Adams.  The good news is that Adams is also a legendary X-Men artist from the past, and while his style is a bit looser than it used to be, he's still a damned good artist.  The bad news is that he's drawing a story obviously intended for Cockrum, since it's entirely based around Cockrum's cast.

The new X-Men have only just been recruited, and Wolverine decides to put them through a team bonding exercise by trying to get them to kill one another.  They react accordingly.  And that's about it.  Actually, it grows on me slightly the more I read it, since it begs some interesting questions about what the hell Wolverine thinks he's achieving here.  His idea of team bonding seems to be entirely based around knowing how your teammates are going to react, but has absolutely nothing to do with trusting them.  Perhaps not surprising, for somebody who's spent time trying to work alongside Sabretooth and Department H.  It's very in character for mid-seventies Wolverine: correctly identify the problem, and then come up with a psychotically violent and inappropriate solution. 

Nonetheless, it's a bit slight, and certainly not enough to justify the hefty price tag on its own.  The selling point of this issue is the reprint material, and since it's Silver Age Marvel, it won't be to everyone's taste.  The theme here is X-Men team-ups, so we have the X-Men with the Avengers from X-Men #9, the X-Men with Spider-Man from X-Men #35, and the X-Men with the Fantastic Four from Fantastic Four #28. 

Silver Age Marvel isn't for everyone at the best of times, and this isn't even good Silver Age Marvel.  X-Men #9, frankly, is crap - it's the story that introduced Lucifer, a villain so boring and generic that nobody ever mentions him even though he's fundamental to Professor X's origin story.  His plan is dull, the Avengers are used in a stock way, and the X-Men let Lucifer go at the end because it's immoral to hurt people.   (Nobody even thinks that arresting him might be an option, which is absurd even by Silver Age standards.)  The issue hits an unintentionally hilarious low point when we're supposed to be alarmed about the possibility of Marvel Girl tripping on some uneven ground.  Yes, it's Lee and Kirby.  No, that doesn't stop it being rubbish.

X-Men #35 and Fantastic Four #28 are considerably better, but they're still ultimately generic examples of Silver Age Marvel going through the motions.  Besides, if you're really that interested in Silver Age X-Men stories, buy the first Essentials volume.  It's far better value and has plenty of stories which are much better than anything here.

At the end of the day, we're left with a mildly interesting eight-pager and a bunch of mediocre reprints which you can find in better packages elsewhere.  It has a certain curiosity value, and I can't bring myself to give too low a grade to eight pages of original Neal Adams art.  But really, it's not worth the money.

Rating: C+

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