Days of Future Present

Fantastic Four Annual 23

X-Factor Annual 5

New Mutants Annual 6

Uncanny X-Men Annual 14

I get a little thrill just from typing “Uncanny X-Men.”  There’s magic in those words, in that title. Anyway.

These four annuals make up the Days of Future Present storyline, a sort-of sequel nine years after the classic Days of Future Past two-parter in Uncanny X-Men.  (There’s that tingle again!)  An adult Franklin Richards travels back in time from that dystopian future to find his true love Rachel Summers.  His fractured mind can’t deal with the strain, and he starts using his mutant power to warp reality to his liking.  This brings in the FF and all the merry mutants of the era.

Chasing Franklin is Ahab, complete with peg leg and (psychic) harpoons.  In a typical Chris Claremont-ian tease, it’s suggested that Ahab is Cable in the future, but that point was handily dropped when Cable turned out to be Cyclops’ son (who also makes an appearance in these issues).

No, Cable.  Not him.

Him.

The plot’s very “split the teams up and let them each have an encounter related to the main plot before bringing them back together for the big finale,” as this kind of crossover tends to be, but it’s done as well as can be expected.  It’s unfortunate that bad art mars half of it - John Bogdanove on X-Factor and Terry Shoemaker/Chris Wozniak on New Mutants really do a poor job here.  The editor explains in the forward that Shoemaker and Wozniak came in at the last second after Rob Liefeld couldn’t get the art done on time.  (Big surprise.) So a bit of a pass there.

But he had the time for this pin up.  Ugh, that sword.  Blade and hilt not even lined up!

But Bogdanove has no excuse.  I’ve never been a fan of his X-Factor work (he’s the weakest part of the X-Tinction Agenda).  His characters are blobby and misshapen. I really can’t call them anything but ugly.

So not pretty.

He does much better later on with his work on Man of Steel, establishing a great look for John Henry Irons.

Much better.

The crummy art looks even worse when placed next to Art Adams’ exquisite pencils in the Uncanny annual.  It’s so so good.

Mwahh.

The main arcs in the annuals are all followed by random short stories.  They’re mostly forgettable, except for one Holocaust survivor tale by Peter David.  I’m not sure why it needs to be told in an X-Factor annual, but it’s pretty good nevertheless.  

My nostalgia for this story means that it sticks around, but the Uncanny annual’s the only one that I would replace if it all burned up in a fire.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No (Yes for Uncanny)

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Fine (Didn’t suck for X-Factor, Pretty good for Uncanny.  Both shifts due to the art.)