UNCANNY X-MEN: FIRST CLASS #1 - 4

Story: Scott Gray | Coloring: Val Staples | Lettering: Blambot's Nate Piekos
Production: Joe Sabino, Anthony Dial, & Paul Acerios
Assistant Editors: Jordan D. White (#1 - 3) & Michael Horwitz (#4) | Editor: Nathan Cosby
Editor-in-Chief: Joe Quesada | Publisher: Dan Buckley | Executive Producer: Alan Fine
Dedicated with respect and admiration to Len Wein, Chris Claremont,
John Byrne, and the late, great, Dave Cockrum

In 2009, Marvel published this series featuring a handful of adventures set during the early days of the "All-New, All-Different" X-Men and starring the team lineup from that era: Cyclops, Storm, Banshee, Wolverine, Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Phoenix. I'm unsure if this was always intended to be a limited series or if it was cancelled with #8 due to low sales, but in any case, eight issues are all that were published. Given that the Claremont/Cockrum/Byrne days are my all-time favorite period for the X-Men, this series was on my radar for years, but I never read it... until now. Thanks to Marvel Unlimited, I've finally given it a try. Here are my thoughts.

A Note For the Continuity-Anal Fan (like myself): As best I can tell, all eight issues of this series must take place during the time gap between UNCANNY X-MEN #110 and 111. My reasoning is simple: Lilandra is hanging out with the X-Men in FIRST CLASS, and she returned to Earth with the group in issue 109. Also, Jean Grey became Phoenix in issue 101, but the X-Men immediately set out on a series of adventures, without her, which also ran all the way up to issue 109. Following 109, 110 is a stand-alone story, and then 111 kicks off an extended story arc which doesn't end until the opening chapters of the "Dark Phoenix Saga", after Lilandra has returned to the Shi'ar Empire. And since it's an unstated amount of time which passes between issues 110 and 111, it seems obvious these stories are meant to fit there.