Giant-Size X-Men #1 cover Ms. Marvel goes on a journey through mutant history in Giant-Size X-Men #1, but will she survive the experience…?

Commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of Len Wein and Dave Cockrum’s landmark X-milestone, Giant-Size X-Men #1 is the first in a series of one-shots that follows the newly mutant-ified Ms. Marvel through a ‘greatest hits’ procession of major X-Men moments as a villainous Legion from the future threatens to change their history — and that’s not mentioning the lingering mystery of what Kamala’s dormant mutation actually entails, which may or may not be revealed by this saga’s end.

If you wanted to be cynical about it —and many people have been since this was announced— then you could see Giant-Size X-Men #1 as an excuse to shoehorn Ms. Marvel into X-Men lore and inflate her importance to them as a means of inflating her own notoriety. And maybe that is so. Personally I would rather just wait to see what they do with this story before committing to a harsh opinion against it, but I realize that makes me an outlier in the online comic book fandom. All I’m really expecting here is a frivolous time travel story —which the X-Men canon is lousy full of— with perhaps a few major developments regarding Kamala’s mutant identity.

Writers Jackson Lanzing & Collin Kelly’s script is totally fine, hitting the requisite time travel beats and the expected fangirl moments from Kamala as she witnesses X-Men history unfold right before her eyes. It’s Adam Kubert’s art, however, that is what’s really worth tuning into here, providing some unexpectedly trippy visuals amid what is an otherwise pretty faithful reference to the art of the era being depicted. I’m curious to see how Giant-Size X-Men unfolds from here, admittedly with low expectations, but setting the bar low means there’s enough room to be pleasantly surprised!

But wait, there’s more — a backup story from Al Ewing and Sara Pichelli teases the arrival of a forgotten character from X-Men past, but there’s not much to go by with it just yet, aside from the fact that she’s Italian. Enough for me!