'Marvel’s mutant heroes return when a remarkable student rushes to save his family but ends up in a whole heap of trouble, in this gripping Xavier’s Institute novel
'Victor Borkowski – aka Anole – has adjusted well to life at Xavier’s Institute, gaining control over his reptilian mutant powers and the respect of his fellow students. However, when he discovers that his parents have been kidnapped by anti-mutant extremists, the Purifiers, Victor’s discipline and trust in the X-Men is strained to breaking point. Setting out alone in defiance of his instructors, he’s quickly in serious trouble. It isn’t just the fanatical Purifiers threatening his family, there’s a villainous scientist waiting to get hold of Victor himself. Maybe he can’t do this by himself after all…'
I've been a fan of the X-Men for as long as I've been reading comics, longer even. I remember sitting down to eat breakfast on a Saturday morning as the 90's X-Men cartoon came on TV and loving every minute of it; whether it was the stories that were fairly complex for a kids show, the brightly costumed heroes, or the absolutely rocking intro music by Ron Wasserman, there was never a dull moment. And that show instilled in me a love for these characters, and that particular part of the Marvel universe.
Over the years I would come to love them even more, especially when I realised I was both queer and trans, and was able to connect to their status as outsiders who are persecuted for who they are. But, as most people who read X-Men stuff will agree, there's a lot of it, and there are parts that I've still not experienced over the years, including the Young X-Men; as such, this book became my first opportunity to get to know some of these younger members of the X-Men.
First Team features several characters, but chiefly follows Victor Borkowski, the young mutant known as Anole, who's been struggling with school thanks to the confined environment of the Xavier Institute, as well as the stressful exam seasons. Luckily, he's given a leave of absence to go back home and visit his family to unwind for a bit. Victor had been lucky enough to grow up with parents who not only accepted his being a mutant, but were immensely proud of him, and made sure that others saw him as a regular person and treated him with kindness and compassion, even though his mutation made him stand out more than most. As such, Victor not only returns home to a welcoming family, but friends, neighbours, and people from across his small town who are proud to have an X-Man amongst them.
With so many characters in the X-Men books having more tragic back stories, of lives where they were never accepted by their loved ones, to see a family stand up for their child this way is incredibly heartwarming. The people of Fairbury treat him with respect and care, for the most part, and to get to see a mutant that's so obviously not human walk down the street and be met with smiles and waves is incredibly jarring, especially as the book had already established that the mutant hating cult The Purifiers were on the rise and causing disturbances across the country.
Unfortunately, Victor's peace is short lived when a group of Purifiers arrive in Fairbury and take his parents hostage in an attempt to lure Victor out. Despite fighting valiantly against them Victor is able to free his mother, but can't help his father, and the cult manage to take him prisoner.
The first third or so of the book covers this part of the story, and we get to see Victor being forced into action in his old hometown with no back-up and no resources, having to rely purely on his training and his own abilities. Not only does this display how adaptable and level headed Victor is, having to resist the urge to just rush to his parents aid and having to actually come up with a plan, but it also feels so different to most X-Men stories. Whilst stories of civilians and innocent mutants being targeted isn't new to the franchise seeing an X-Man with nothing and no one to help them, having to go alone very rarely happens to characters other than Wolverine. And I struggle to think of it really happening to a character as relatively young and inexperienced as Anole.
Despite these struggles, Victor is able to keep his head and manages to save his mother, thanks in part to the people of Fairbury, and the two of them are able to return to the Xavier Institute. From here the story expands as Rockslide is sent out on a mission to track down Victor's father. Despite knowing that someone is out there looking for his dad, Victor is unable to just sit around, and with the aid of Cipher and Graymalkin manages to break out of the Institute so that he can begin to search for his father himself.
Despite a lot of the book featuring Victor alone it's ultimately, as the title might suggest, about a tam; or more accurately, a family. It's not the family that Victor was born into that's important in this story, but the one that he's made himself, that comes together here to help him when he's at his most desperate. And you know what, it's so much more heartwarming that it has any right to be. It should feel corny, and I should be jaded to things such as this, but the connections forged between the four young heroes here feel so earnest, and so well earned that it honestly filled my heart with joy to see them come together. There's a moment towards the very end of the book (well, the last scene really) that even brought some tears to my eyes with how wonderfully heartwarming it was.
And that's what I love about the X-Men in general, and this book especially. It tells the stories of people who normally don't have much, who've had terrible lives; people like Graymalkin who were almost killed by his father for being gay and a mutant, or like Cipher who grew up alone and with no one. But instead of letting that fear and pain overwhelm them they come together as a family, they find common connection with each other and that makes them stronger than any hate they'd have to face. The group that forms in this book are of characters I'd not read before, or who had only briefly appeared as minor characters in some stories, but by the end I loved them all so much. I not only wanted to see them win the day and beat up the bad guys, what I wanted most was to see them happy.
It's easy to write an X-Men story filled with popular, powerful characters and have them fight some villains and make a story that wins over the reader thanks to the sheer spectacle of it; but making a story with smaller characters, characters some people might never have encountered before, and making you emotionally invested in their lives is a hell of an achievement. An achievement this book manages.
This is the second Xavier's Institute book that I've read from Aconyte, and the second that's hugely impressed me. Whether we get more of these stories with this group of characters, or something completely new next time I'm definitely looking forward to more.
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