I didn’t even want to report this comic book news, because it just makes me shake my head and sigh. But I might as well, in case any of you are interested. Though turn back now if you don’t like listening to nerds bitching about stupid comic books on the Internet.

Marvel Comics is going to release a new mini-series in August entitled The First X-Men. It’s going to star Wolverine. And it’s going to involve a stupid retcon in which Wolverine put together a team of mutants before Professor Xavier.

With Wolverine, Sabretooth, Magneto, and token black and female characters

The worst thing is that the idea behind the series actually sounds pretty fascinating, but then Marvel go and mess things up by just making it another Wolverine book. Which is obviously done because Wolverine is a high-selling character, but c’mon! Can’t you guys just publish a cool X-Men book without jack-knifing Wolverine into it?

The book will be written by Christos Gage and drawn by Neal Adams, who is a legend in the comic book world but means nothing to me. Though Gage is the guy who brought Mimic into the cast of his X-Men: Legacy, so he gets some points for coolness there. The idea behind the book is to tell the stories that establish the X-Men’s famous tagline: “Protecting a world that hates a fears them.” That is actually a fascinating idea! What was the world like at the dawn of the discovery of mutants? Why are mutants hated, but heroes like the Avengers and Fantastic Four are beloved?

This is a really cool idea!

But then why, oh why, does telling this story have to involve Wolverine? I realized he was alive in that time period, but isn’t Wolverine’s history packed with enough stuff? And considering the histories of Wolverine, Magneto, Sabretooth and the X-Men, doesn’t it just warp continuity a little too much for all of those characters to suddenly say, “Oh yeah, we’ve just forgotten that once upon a time we were all buddies and hanging out as the First X-Men. Along with our friends the black guy and that one chick who we never talk about.”

“Also make sure Wolverine shows his claws on the cover.”

Here is how Gage describes the comic:

It takes place before the original X-Men and at a time when the government was snatching mutants up and doing scary things to them. Logan notices this and thinks somebody needs to look out for them…We wanted this to be something you could hand to somebody who just saw the X-Men movies and they’d enjoy it as a good X-Men story. At the same time, for giant nerds like me, FBI agent Fred Duncan from the early stories is in there, and when Professor X talks about his brother you know it’s Juggernaut.

The book is apparently going to feature various cameos to characters who would have been around at the time, like Prince Namor when he was a hobo and Professor X before he decided to dedicate his life to mutants. It’ll also involved concepts like the first wave of Sentinels, which would be a really neat thing to see. But this is an absolute stupid way to do it.

Here is how Adams describes the comic:

Maybe mutant kids were getting abused by the military, by the government. Somebody would have been looking out for them, but maybe that person came to Charles Xavier, realizing he couldn’t protect these kids. That was my pitch… The concept that Charles Xavier could pass for a human I don’t think has ever really been explored. At some point in his life, he made the difficult decision to step forward as leader of the X-Men and as a mutant. He could have wiped all of this out of the world’s collective mind. Why didn’t he? Stuff to think about.

The concepts and the general ideas that these guys have would make for a pretty cool comic, one I’d be interested in reading about. But I absolutely have no interest in reading yet another comic starring Wolverine. Especially not one that tries to reaffirm the idea that Wolverine is the greatest character ever, who did everything before everyone else, and did it better. You think Professor X was a leader of mutants? Oh no, according to Marvel, he totally got the idea from Wolverine, who is the true leader of the X-Men. But then who also forgot about it and nobody has ever mentioned it since. Ever.