X-Men: First Class #4 is a single-issue road trip story, as Hank and Bobby go off on holiday together.

This sounds like it ought to work.  Hank and Bobby were always written as close friends in the early stories, and it's a relationship that has never really been explored that fully.  Since Hank is the intellectual one and Bobby is the immature geek, they were an "odd couple" pairing with plenty of potential.

But "Road Trip" turns out to be a disappointment.  The road trip story is a simple, classic format.  You take your characters, you send them out on the open road to face new situations outside their normal environment, and by the time they reach their destination, they've learned something about themselves or their relationship.  The crucial point is, they've got to learn something from it.  Otherwise, you've just got a string of mildly amusing anecdotes.

Jeff Parker clearly understands that this is how road trip stories normally work, because he finishes off the story with a male bonding moment between Hank and Bobby that's clearly supposed to tell us that they've gained a new, stronger friendship from their experiences.  The problem is that it doesn't really relate to anything that's gone before.  It's very nice that they're closer friends and all, but it doesn't seem to have resulted from any of the scenes that we've read. 

So we're left with a story where Hank and Bobby go on a road trip, and stuff happens, and then some more stuff happens, and then a bit more stuff happens, and then it stops.  The individual scenes are fine, but the whole is less than the sum of its parts.

Fill-in art comes from Brazilian artist Julia Bax, doing her first work for Marvel.  She's pretty good; her storytelling is nice and clear, her characters are expressive, and she's able to establish a strong sense of place.  There's a slight cuddliness to her style that's probably a better fit for the all ages titles than for the Marvel Universe books, but she's a good choice for this book.

First Class has still got a weirdly ambiguous relationship with Silver Age continuity.  Nothing in this issue bears on anything from the original stories, but there have been previous stories which have founded quite directly on specific events from the Silver Age.  So apparently we're meant to be somewhere in that continuity, but once again the time frame is horribly confused.  Hank and Bobby are only just becoming friends, and they're talking about whether Jean prefers Scott or Warren - all of which would mean we're very early on. 

But then, Alex is in the issue.  Alex.  Who doesn't debut until six years into the series, in a scene where everyone stands around saying "Oh look, it's Scott's previously-unmentioned brother Alex, who we inexplicably knew nothing about, and absolutely definitely unequivocally have never met before."  And Xavier was "dead" by that point, so if you're using Xavier and Alex in the same story, apparently we're somewhere up into the Hidden Years timeframe - which doesn't fit at all.

Yes, it's a minor point, but First Class has invoked the details of Silver Age continuity often enough for this to be an issue of at least some significance.  It's not that hard to remember that Alex can't actually be in these stories because he hasn't shown up yet, surely?

Anyway - the issue has its moments, and the art is fine, but the bottom line is that it doesn't work as a road trip story.

Rating: C+

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