Published by Del Rey

Mass Market Paperback, 408 pages

March 2003

Retail Price: $6.99

ISBN: 0345461967

Review by John C. Snider © 2003

Mutants are among us.  Freaks of nature, or perhaps the next step in evolution, Mutants have a variety of abilities; some can control the elements; some have superior strength or senses; some can read minds or manipulate objects.  Some don't even look human.

Among the Mutants are two camps: one led by Professor Charles Xavier, who runs a school for teens with emerging abilities in the New York suburbs.  Xavier hopes to foster a sense of self confidence and responsibility among the young mutants, as well as a sense of tolerance among the "normal" population.  Xavier also has a team of powerful, highly trained mutants called the X-Men: Cyclops, whose eyes constantly emit destructive optic blasts; Jean Grey, a powerful telepath and telekine; and Storm, who is able to manipulate the weather.  Xavier, despite being wheelchair bound, is one of the world's most imposing Mutants, being an even more formidable telepath than Jean Grey.  An unofficial member of the team is Logan, also called Wolverine, a loner with amazing self-healing powers and a skeleton made of an indestructible alloy.  Logan has a giant chip on his shoulder, aware that his bones (which include deadly retractable claws) are the result of a secret government experiment, but he is unable to remember how he became what he is, or who did it to him.

Opposing the X-Men is Magneto, a powerful mutant who can control metals and magnetism.  For the last few years, Magneto has been held in a plastic prison deep inside a mountain - his guards ensure nothing metallic comes within Magneto's influence.  Magneto, whose real name is Eric Lehnsherr, was just a boy when he survived the Nazi death camps of World War II, and he has sworn that the same fate will never befall him again.  Lehnsherr will stop at nothing - murder, kidnapping, even terrorism - to protect the Brotherhood of Mutants.

The delicate balance of peace between Mutant and normal is shattered when a  long-tailed blue demon with teleportation abilities tries to assassinate the President of the United States.  While Xavier sends his X-Men to find the would-be assassin, William Stryker, a mysterious government operative who knows more about Mutants than just about anyone, takes the opportunity to convince the President to allow a special mission: arrest all the mutants they can find - beginning with Xavier's school!

The Mutant Epic Continues...

X-Men 2 is the novelization of the movie of the same name, sequel to the hit film from summer 2000.  And who better to write this novel than Chris Claremont, the most influential man (behind Stan Lee) in the history of Marvel's popular comic series.  Claremont, after all, wrote The Uncanny X-Men for 17 years, and is responsible for much of the comic canon used for the creation of the original X-Men film.

Claremont's smooth, straightforward prose is perfectly suited to describing the fast-paced, visually oriented action, and to encompassing the dozens of characters involved.  In addition to the primary players described above, X-Men 2 features appearances and cameos of many of fandom's favorite characters: Colossus, the Russian lad who can turn his body into solid metal; Pyro, who controls fire; Iceman; Kitty Pryde, who can walk through walls; Hank McCoy, the blue-haired Beast.  Veterans of the first movie, Mystique, Magneto's shape-shifting lieutenant, and Rogue, the teenager deadly to the touch, return for this second tale.

Juggling all these characters, and staying loyal to X-scripture, is truly a daunting challenge, and Claremont is uniquely qualified for that task.  Even so, he slips up a couple of times.  After establishing that Mutants manifest their abilities at puberty, he includes a flashback of an 8-year-old Jean Grey reading someone's mind.  And Wolverine, consistent with his traditional comic-book depiction, is repeatedly referred to as being short - but movie-Wolverine Hugh Jackman is clearly half a head taller than most of his cohorts!  None of these minor inconsistencies, however, detract from a story magnificently told - they simply make grist for the fannish nitpicking mill.

Aside from the edge-of-your-seat action, the real fun of X-Men 2 is the teamwork.  Combining their diverse abilities to create a whole greater than its parts, the X-Men (and their enemies) clash like chess pieces, constantly strategizing and inventing new ways to turn their limitations into winning combinations.

The X-Men epic has always been a metaphor for tolerance and race relations, something which was captured beautifully in the first film.  X-Men 2 takes things a step further, incorporating the events of 9-11 and the subsequent attitudes toward homeland security and terrorism.

X-Men 2 is a rousing and entertaining novel.  Don't read it if you don't want to "spoil" the movie, of course.  But if director Bryan Singer puts half the action of this book onto the screen, X-Men 2 will be an even bigger success than the first film!

X-Men 2 is available from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

Links

Chris Claremont - Interview

X-Men - Collection of articles and reviews.

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