X-Men: Deadly Genesis [Hardcover]

Ed Brubaker (Author), Trevor Hairsine (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 26, 2006

What happens when the skeletons in your closet finally break down the door and come looking for you? The X-Men are about to find out! The mutant community is in turmoil, and the X-Men are bearing the brunt of this New World Order. Amid the chaos, a new enemy awakens, one whose very existence will haunt the founding members of the X-Men like nothing has before. Who is this new threat? How is he tied to Professor X's darkest secret? Cyclops, Wolverine and the others must find out soon, before they and those closest to them go mad! Collects X-Men: Deadly Genesis #1-6.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 200 pages
• Publisher: Marvel (July 26, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0785119612
• ISBN-13: 978-0785119616
• Product Dimensions: 1 x 1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #722,307 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Alright, but too Many Plot Holes and Cheats, September 24, 2006

By 

This Reader (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: X-Men: Deadly Genesis (Hardcover)

I've over all enjoyed Brubakers Captain America, but have never found his writing to be as amazing as a lot of reviewers. It seems very workable in most cases, but not very memorable.

This started out good, but the problem that comes along is that the villians' motivations and actions don't play out very realisticly, his insertion into X-men lore seems too arbitrary, many scenes designed to build suspense wind up seeming completely disconnected from the plot, and the Xmen's actions and reactions to civil authorities and civil catastrophes left me disgusted with them -- which didn't seem to be the intent. Oh, and the major sin of Charles Xavier that sets the whole story in motion really doesn't make much sense at all on many different levels.

In the story, Xavier sends Vulcan and an new team of Xmen to rescue his old team of Xmen (including Cyclops) who are trapped on an island. Vulcan is Cyclops brother, but he doesn't know it until right before the start of his mission. Vulcan and his team manage to rescue Cyclops, who then leaves the island to get help. When Cyclops gets back to Xavier, Xavier tells Cyclops that Vulcan is his brother. Xavier then apparently recruits a third team of Xmen to rescue both previous teams -- the original Xmen team and Vulcans team. The first team is rescued, the second team ends up dead, and Cyclops can't live with the knowledge his brother got killed trying to rescue him. Of course the only three people who knew Vulcan was Cyclops brother are Vulcan, Xavier, and Cyclops -- and Vulcan is dead. So intead of just changing Cyclops recent memory and making him forget Vulcan was his brother, Xavier changes the memory of everyone who ever encounted Vulcan or his team, making each of them forget that the team ever existed. Excuse me, what?

So then, of course, Vulcan turns out to be alive. Strangely, he wakes up and instantly knows EXACTLY what Xavier has done. Excuse me again, but how? He's been dead since before it was done, and he wakes up in space already with a plan on how to get revenge? And another question -- revenge for what, exactly? Does he think Xavier got him killed? Because that's never said. The only thing that he seems to be angry about is that Xavier made people forget he existed (which again, is a plot device that doesn't make much sense the way it was carried out.) But if the only thing he's angry about is that Xavier made people forget about him, why does he come to Earth instantly trying to kill the people he once worshipped (the Xmen)? And what does that have to do with all the flashbacks people keep having about their troubled pasts (ie Nightcrawler remembering being hunted as a demon, Havok remembering Lorna cheating on him, etc.)

And when when Vulcan blows up an entire jetliner (killing hundreds of innocent people)to stop Banshee from bringing information about what Xavier did to the rest of the Xmen, the Xmen repeatedly brush off any responsibilty they might have in the accident, and even act like the only death that matters is Banshees'. Not only that, but Vulcan blows up the plane using the Xmen's blackbird, and when the government comes to find out what's going on and how the Xmen are involved, the Xmen act like uncooperative, petulant children, completely unable to see how or why the government would want to ask them questions. It was THEIR freaking plane, and they think the government has no right to ask them questions about it! I mean, the Xmen's plane crashes into a jetliner, killing hundreds of people, and when the government wants to know what's going on, the Xmen (instead of answering or cooperating) throw fits and get angry, and they act so self righteous and disgusting about it that I pretty much stopped rooting for them right there.

Of course, then that brings up the question; if Vulcan is so angry because Xavier made people forget about him -- again, Vulcan's motivations are not well established, nor are his plans, nor is how he even knows what Xavier did -- but, anyway, if he's so angry that Xavier made people forget about him, then why does he blow up the plane when Banshee has figured out what Xavier did and is bringing evidence to prove it to the other Xmen? Vulcan wants the Xmen to know. Banshee has evidence to show them. Why blow up Banshee and the evidence? Oh, I know, because then in order to get evidence later, Vulcan has to open his mind to Xavier and Rachel, which is what allows the Xmen to beat him in the end. Sorry, but that's weak plotting.

Overall, it was a moderately alright read, but it felt like it built to an anti-climax, and it certainly had several problems. The insertion of the second rescue team into continuity seemed forced, and how the third team succeeded where both the first and second teams failed isn't gone into -- other than to say the way it's shown in Giant Sized Xmen isn't accurate -- that's just how Xavier made people remember it, but not how it really happened. Vulcan's motivations were unclear, and how he even knew the things he knew was never explained. Xavier's actions in the first place made no sense -- he could have simply changed Cyclops memory of the one and only time he'd been told Vulcan was his brother rather than change dozens of peoples memories about months and months of their lives -- but then this whole story wouldn't have happened. And Vulcan's actions to stop Banshee which then lead to his downfall later seem to go against his best wishes even when he takes them, and therefore it seems like his actions exist more to serve the writer than himself.

The interior art is passable, but not as good as the cover, and definitely not art that in and of itself would entice me to buy the book. Some of the characters are barely recongnizable from their apearances in other books (other than their costumes) and none of the art in the book really made me take notice.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Brubaker begins Uncanny X-Men, September 1, 2006

By 

Ant - See all my reviews

This review is from: X-Men: Deadly Genesis (Hardcover)

The story of X-Men Deadly Genesis is just that, the beginning of a completely new (and apparently deadly) saga in the X-Men's lives. The story revolves around a new character called Vulcan and ties in very well with the original giant size X-Men, which is essential to read before taking on this book. I don't want to give to much away since a great deal of this book has to do with finding out secrets, but I'll say this much Vulcan takes some X-Men prisoner and it becomes obvious he has ties to them somewhere in their past.

The story has a few neat twists and the artwork is decent at times, but this story is mainly a prequel. Vulcan, the main character introduced here, is set to play a major role in the future of the X-Men and so reading this story as a stand alone can be somewhat of a let down. At the same time the story flows right into Brubaker's current workings on Uncanny X-Men and as such is essential to pick up if you are a fan or would like to see what's happening with the X-Men

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Has its flaws, but it's a fun story, September 21, 2008

By 

DJ Joe Sixpack (...in Middle America) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: X-Men: Deadly Genesis (Hardcover)

Other reviewers have commented on how this book is a big retroactive continuity mind-muck that shows a different version of what happened between the old X-Men series and the new (that murky period when the original book was running in reprints...) And while, yes, while on principle random retconning is kind of offensive, I still thought this was a pretty fun book, and definitely a "good read." I plowed through it, and even though I know it's leading towards some silly, overblown space opera with the Shi'ar Empire, I totally want to see what happens next.

This book was fun, and while there are some goofy plot holes, it's basically a pretty cool, pretty propulsive adventure story. I thought Brubaker handled it well, and came up with a few interesting new heros while he was at it. (Really, the only thing I found truly lame was a "secret origins"-style short story that showed a young Emma Frost working as a stripper at the Hellfire Club. A stripper? Seriously -- how lame is that? What a dumb, pointless and utterly hackneyed tweaking on the back-story of one of the most potent female characters in the Marvel Universe. Other than that, though, this book is totally worth checking out. Better than your average latter-day X-book. (Joe Sixpack, ReadThatAgain book reviews)