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Title: X-Men Misfits Vol 1

Authors: Raina Telgemeier & Dave Roman

Art: Anzu

Publisher: Del Rey

ISBN: 9780345505149

May Contain Spoilers

Kitty Pride is going through a rough time.  It’s kind of hard to make friends when you keep falling through floors and walls.  Everyone thinks she’s a freak because she’s a mutant, and even she thinks it weird when she suddenly becomes transparent.  When she receives an invitation to attend Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, she’s not sure that she’s happy about her parents shipping her off to live with a bunch of strangers.  Once she arrives at the school, however, she has a sudden change of heart.  She’s the only girl in the entire student body, and she has her pick of all of the really, really hot guys!

I enjoyed this take on the X-Men franchise much better than Wolverine: Prodigal Son.  Kitty Pryde’s got it kind of rough at home, what with her unpredictable episodes of becoming transparent.  Makes being on any floor other than the first kind of risky.  No wonder she wears that bicycle helmet when traveling the countryside to Xavier’s School, but I don’t know how much good it will do if she fell out of a moving bus onto the freeway.  Anyhoo, when Magento shows up at her parents house to offer her a scholarship at the school, she’s a little reluctant to accept.  Are her parents just trying to get rid of her so that they don’t have to acknowledge the fact that one of their kids is a mutant?

Once she gets to the school, Kitty warms up to the idea, and what girl would blame her? She is the only girl at the entire school!  She has her pick of the hot guys!  And there are tons of them!  She quickly falls in with a group bad boys under the patronage of Professor Magento.  They are cocky, reckless, and never play by the rules. The other students are afraid of them and try to avoid them.  But Kitty is attracted to the handsome Pyro and ignores all of the warning signs when she’s hanging out with them.  A trip to New York turns disastrous, and then Kitty has some hard decisions to make.

The tension between normal humans and mutants is only touched on here, as students and professors each choose sides over the issue.  To live peacefully with humans or to use their superior abilities to rule them?  That is one of the aspects of the X-Men universe that is very fascinating.  How some humans and mutants strive, even after so many failures, to craft a world where everyone can live in peace.  Then there are the ones who would like to eliminate those different than they are, either because of fear or arrogance.  I hope that this becomes a meatier issue in following volumes of the series.

For the most part, this first installment of X-Men Misfits focuses on Kitty’s struggles to adjust to her new life at Xavier’s, where she is trying to fit in and learn to control her powers.  She is introduced to the Danger Room, which is amusingly turned into the Hellfire Club.  All of the lean, muscled, and scantily clad bad boys turn Kitty’s head, and it’s hard to fault her for that.  They are hot, and it’s not just because Pyro is in the room.  Kitty has to deal with familiar teen problems, including homework, dealing with a possessive and jealous boyfriend, and finding the courage and confidence to stand up for what she believes in.

The art is sort of a mixed bag.  On one hand, the faces are very expressive, and I really like the character designs. It’s when action comes into play that the illustrations seem wooden and motion is not fluid or elegant.  I also thought that the art at the beginning of the book was more detailed and had a more finished look than closer to the end.  I love the cover illustration, with the battling hues as Pyro and Iceman strut their stuff, with Kitty standing tensely between their images.  It’s a very attractive and eye-catching cover.

Grade: B-

Review copy provided by Del Rey