I’m going to classify this as #HorrorComicsMonth material because even though it’s a superhero comic, it is an alternate take on the X-Men that has characters fighting a monster.

Featuring story and art by Peach Momoko (and adapted to English by Zack Davisson), Demon Days is an X-Men title that was published in the summer of 2021 and does something similar to what Marvel’s 1602 series did back in the day, but instead of putting our characters in colonial America, they’re in feudal Japan. I honestly had no idea this series existed, mainly because I so casually flip through Marvel Previews that I obviously missed it and forgotten about it.

The story that is in this particular issue is that a monster (which is essentially Venom) is terrorizing a Japanese village and a girl named Tsuki is determined to stop it. Eventually, she meets Sai, a traveler who has purple hair, brandishes a sword–Psylocke, if you’re keeping track of such things–and is accompanied by a dog named Logan. The monster is defeated, with the help of Juju (Jubilee) and the village is saved. Sai walks on and we get to the last couple of pages where it seems like this is a story that a young woman named Mariko is reading in a book. Or is it? The last panels suggest that the confrontation is real and Logan, the dog, is still alive after what has had to be hundreds of years.

I got this particular book out of the mystery box I bought at the Baltimore Comic-Con. With the exceptions of the few that I’ve read in recent weeks (mostly due to said mystery box), I haven’t read the X-Men in nearly 30 years. But being that my X-Men phase was during the early 1990s when Psylocke and Jubilee got a certain amount of spotlight, it wasn’t hard to follow what was going on or who the characters were. The book was enjoyable and had enough substance as a one-and-done special (which I believe connects to other such specials). Plus, the feudal Japan setting was a nice touch and the “look who it is” aspect of the characters was not as hammy as 1602 was back when I read that series.

I don’t think I’m holding onto this one but I might see if the rest of the books are available digitally on Marvel Unlimited.

Keep, Sell, Donate, or Trash?

Donate.