Based on an Original Idea by Stan Lee

Hi, everybody! (There will now be a slight pause for you to say "Hi, Bully!") I'm back. And I hope you had a very merry holiday season of your choice and that you got to read some fun comics over the seasonal break. Me, I'm diggin' Marvel Now. Well, I mean, I've always digged Marvel. I mean I dig Marvel Now. Now.

One of my surprise new favorites is Brian Michael Bendis's All-New X-Men. Favorite because I loves me the five original X-Men, surprise because I'm not a biiiiiiig little stuffed fan of Mister BMB's patented decompression. (Seriously, it takes four issues to get to that point? Ooooookay.) But I like the concept: Comics Oughta Be Fun-favorite The Beast brings the first X-Men (not to be confused with the Neal Adams miniseries The First X-Men) forward in time to meet the All-New X-Men (not to be confused with the All-New All-Different X-Men of X-Men #94). Although I think Thunderbird was involved with the decision of both.

But hey, we're all wondering, just where did Future/Now Beast pluck Previous/Past Beast and company from? And after a trip down to the Bully Temperature-Regulated and Climate-Controlled Vault o' Comics to the "X" section, aisle 1, we can find that Henry McCoy-2013 picked up Henry McCoy-1964 from page six of X-Men #8. Very precise time travel there...hey when did the X-Men get a time machine?

Let's see this Quantum Leaping in action, shall we? Just peer through the time-scope with your chronal-adjusted goggles...or, if you don't have those on hand, take a look at the panels below. Here's the past...


Panel from The [Uncanny] X-Men v.1 #8 (November 1964), script by Stan Lee, pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Chic Stone, letters by Sam Rosen
...and here's the present. (And as we all know, I love presents!)


Panel from All-New X-Men #1 (January 2013), script by Brian Michael Bendis, pencils by Stuart Immonen, inks by Wade Von Grawbadger, colors by Marte Gracia, letters by Cory Petit
Looks like Mister Bendis also has a comic book vault he can consult (as does artist Stuart Immonen), because here's an...uncanny...(heh heh heh!) new interpretation of the saga of Hank McCoy's ripped jacket. (What the story doesn't tell you: he bought a new one at Robert Hall the very next day.)



Whoops, Bendis-decompression™ kicks in (vrrrrroooooom!) as Bendis finds a way to stretch a single Lee/Kirby panel into three. Well, it's not as drastic as expanding eleven pages from Amazing Fantasy #15 in six issues in Ultimate Spider-Man.



I'd suggest that the juxtaposition of these two scenes is like the movie Rashomon, but you may have a different story.



AND THEN THIS HAPPENS.


Timeline: successfully derailed! Now, as it has been rendered no-longer-happened through the wonders of time travel, please throw out your copies of X-Men #8. Do it! Do it now!

Say, let's see what this same scene looked like in the 1990s, through the medium of the Marvel series Professor Xavier and the X-Men, which (bwah-ha-ha!) attempted to (haw-haw!) "do Stan 'n' Jack right" (HA HA HA HA HA HA!)


Page from Professor Xavier and the X-Men #9 (July 1996), script by Jorge Gonzalez, pencils by Nick Gnazzo, inks by Ian Akin, colors by Matt Webb, color separations by Malibu, letters by Phil Felix
It's good to know that Hank McCoy will have a successful career away from the X-Men smuggling coconuts in his shoulder pads. What can we say...it was the nineties.

Hey, just for fun, here's the entire script to All-New X-Men #1...in convenient word cloud format.


Click image to imBeasten
So, whatever else, we know what's happening in this story: mutants like going mutant. Also, humans need war. Same as it ever was. Play us off, all-new X-Men theme song!