X-Men: Lost Tales

I got this little two issue series from 1997 in an ebay lot of an assortment of X-Men issues. I figured that since it was a small two-issue miniseries that there wouldn't be a ton of continuity and whatnot that I'd have to know to read it so I picked them out of my back issue "to read" box and dived in.

It turns out that these two issues collect 8 of the back up stories that were in early issues of the series Classic X-Men (you know, the X-Men series that reprinted older X-Men tales for the next generation to read). Most of these little tales are throwaway short tales, much like what are in the current X-Men Unlimited series. There were a few gems, but there were also a few that didn't work out so well.

The main reason that some of the tales didn't work? Chris Claremont. He wrote all of these little stories and a couple happened to be steeped in the continuity of the stories that were being told in the Classic X-Men issue that it was originally printed in. One such tale deals with the ramifications of Thunderbird's death and another deals with Nightcrawler saving some girl I'd never heard of before, but obviously meant something to him.

There are a few tales that actually are fun, however, one of them being a little ditty about Mesmero using the power of the Phoenix (via Jean Grey) to control the X-Men. He then has the X-Men fight Wolverine, but no one kills each other so Mesmero gets bored and decides to just let them go back to being uncontrolled...... but first, however, he makes them acts in a circus. I really enjoyed that.

There are actually two tales that involve Colossus. In one he falls in love until his love finds out he is a mutant. Nothing new here as Claremont has used this plot over and over again. The second tale, which is somewhat related to the first, is much more interesting. In this one, Colossus is still moping around because his love left him, but in the middle of his moping he saves some women from a tyranasaurus rex (oh yeah, this is taking place in the Savage Land). One of them dies, however, and to celebrate her passing on two of the other women in the tribe want to get pregnant, to start new life after their loss of life. Let's just say that it's pretty obvious from the implications at the end of the story that Colossus has a threesome with two Savage Land chicks. That a boy!

All in all, I was entertained by about half the stories and the other half were retreads of previous plotlines or were just kind of boring. It might be worth it to find these, however, just to read the two tales I described above.

Ratings:
Art: 2.5
Story: 3.5
Overall: 3