Scott Summers, leader of the x-man has a choice: stay on the newly founded Utopia Island and rally the last mutants left in the world to fight for their new home and possibly die, or flee and give up their home but maybe live to fight another day.
Told from four successive viewpoints as Scott stands at the window and contemplates, each narrator tells their thoughts and remembers. Professor Xavier remembers meeting Scott for the first time and recruiting him to the x-men, Magneto remembers his childhood in Germany and then in the concentration camps, Scott remembers when his powers first developed and how he lost his parents, and Wolverine remembers his beginnings in the wilds of nineteenth century Canada. Each of these main characters has an important place in Summers’ life and will ultimately have some influence on his decision.
And all the while the other mutants wait and fret, impatient to find out what their leader is going to command them to do.
While there is little action in this volume in terms of fighting, this interlude adds richness to the X-Men story. Each story has a different illustrator, underlining the fact that each story has a different narrator.
I do like that many of Marvel’s graphic novels come with a little introductory summary, just to place the story in context. Just a bit. Enough so someone picking up the book with no prior knowledge of anything at least has a sense of where the book’s story begins. This volume also has an interview with the author at the end, for those die hard fans who want to get inside the heads of their favorite authors and look around.
Age 14 and up – not because of content so much as that this is a gateway book leading to other volumes with more adult content.
X-Men: Prelude To Schism
by Paul Jenkins
Art by Roberto De La Torre , Andrea Mutti , Will Conrad , & Clay Mann
ISBN: 978-078515690
Marvel, 2012
Publisher Age Rating: teen to adult
