After months of build-up in the comics themselves and in the comics press, we're finally seeing our first look at pages from the much anticipated Age of X: Alpha, the January one-shot that kicks off the Age of X storyline. What makes this noteworthy to us is that it's an X-event orchestrated by writer Mike Carey and that his idea is pretty tantalizing: Age of X takes place in a world where Charles Xavier never formed the X-Men, and thus mutant hysteria went totally unmitigated until just a few survive to take one bold step towards survival.

Who are these mutants? You can get a pretty good idea from the Age of X: Alpha preview pages after the jump. But that's not all! Because it's still sort of Christmasy, Marvel's provided ComicsAlliance with a fun teaser image for something called X-Men: First to Last, which appears to pit modern X-Men against their classic counterparts. Nothing else is known abut the story, except that it begins in May's curiously titled Giant Size X-Men #1.


AGE OF X: ALPHA #1 (NOV100514)
AGE OF X: ALPHA #1 COIPEL VARIANT (NOV10515)
Written by MIKE CAREY
Pencils by MIRCO PIERFEDERICI, PAUL DAVIDSON, GABRIEL HERNANDEZ WALTA, HARVEY TOLIBAO & CARLO BARBERI
Cover by CHRIS BACHALO
Variant Cover by OLIVIER COIPEL
Rated A...$3.99
FOC – 1/3/10, On-Sale – 1/26/10