Here is a 7 pages (... well the summary of the previous issue + 6 pages of story) preview for #2

But be warned there's a spoiler about the death of a long time main cast member.

http://comicbookresources.com/?page=preview&id=2898& disp=table

I was under this impression too, but at least they are claws and not small swords.

For people who want an idea of the art but not the spoiler, here is the first page:

John Byrne wrote: Surley you appreciate the difference between a miniseries* and something that takes years to build up a head of steam? *Not to mention a miniseries in which all the key characters have their own titles, and so no permanent or even lasting changes can be made! Tough to do "The Death of Phoenix" if Phoenix has to be returned safe and sound to her own title at the end of the mini!

Definitely, JB -- my comment was not intended as a criticism, and your reply builds on what I was trying to say:  Just "dumping" any creative team on a title does not create "magic" -- usually the sum is greater than the parts, and the greatness usually comes from a build-up of character development, along with emerging storylines.  Greatness doesn't just "happen" because you have the right people doing the drawing and writing chores -- you get "inherent goodness" from those kind of combinations, but I tend to believe that the truly GREAT stories that we all remember had more to do with simple quality adding up to something TRULY great.  

To give you and Chris proper credit, I'm sure lots of planning went into The Phoenix Saga, but I would guess that it involved nowhere near the level of planning that went into something like Infiniite Crisis, for example.  The fact that Infinite Crisis received more attention to detail during the "planning" stages did NOT guarantee that Infinite Crisis would emerge as something equal to The Phoenix Saga in terms of quality or "classic" potential.

In the case of what you an Chris did on X-Men, you didn't PLAN on doing one of the all-time great classic comic runs -- you were concentrating on doing your JOBS as well as possible, bringing all your best abiliities to the table to do a QUALITY job.  In the midst of all that professional greatness, TRUE greatness literally "just happened."  Bringing you guys back together -- either as a one-shot run or for any length of time -- is no guarantee that it would result in simlar magic.  Sometimes magic just happens.

Mark. Nothing of what was printed after X-Men 3 is in the Forever continuity.

It simply never happened and will never happen. The retcons, like "James Howlett" don't count either.  The Forever Wolverine is Logan and his past still a mystery.

I was never a big X-Men fan though I like the idea of this series being a pickup where the creator left off and following a different timeline like an extended What if. I would love to see it continue with some other classic runs (JB on AWC would be a personal favorite).

While it may not be following the style/format of X-Men Forever Marvel does have a very intriguing (and long awaited) story coming out that I CAN'T WAIT for:

Spider-Man: The Clone Saga, a 6 issue mini written by Tom DeFalco and Howard Mackie. I'm happy both for seeing those two get to write Spider-Man again, and of course for more Ben Reilly goodness.

Brad: Give a look at the message boards. You'll see people say Forever #1 is the best thing Claremont wrote in this century.

And many of them were thinking what you seem to think.