OSR Commentary On Marvel Super Heroes Rpg Project Wideawake By Jeff Grubb

 "They are the children of the atom, the next step in human evolution. They are mutants, hated and feared by mere humans. Some, like the X-Men and the New Mutants, are protectors of humanity. Others, such as the Hellfire Club and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, want to be the masters of humanity."

"Now, the major marvcom mutants, well-meaning and malign, are collected in one book. More than 50 heroes, villains, and interested parties... are described inside, along with notes on the X-Men's mansion, important non-mutants, and the fearsome Sentinels -- mutant-hunting robots created by the United States government to deal with the mutant menace."

So the year is 1987 & we're in the middle of our Marvel Super Heroes rpg campaign & this add appeared in several Marvel comicbooks. Because mutants were such a big deal in certain circles of comic book readers.  A year earlier Jeff Grubb had written Marvel Super Heroes Rpg Project Wideawake &  it was the start of the Fall of the Mutants adventure line for our group. According to the Project Wideawake wiki entry;"MHAC5 Project: Wideawake was written by Jeff Grubb, with a cover by Kerry Gammill, and was published by TSR, Inc., in 1985 as a 32-page book"

For us this was the supplement that launched our group of heroes into the Days of Future Past comicbook world when we stumbled through an alternative Earth gateway created by a mutant kid with reality warping powers called Second Guess. This mutant kid not even ten years old could create doorways into alternative universes.Given my uncle proclivity for using the Marvel comics as reference & we soon found ourselves saving Second Guess from a group of Friends of Humanity supporters.
And then we found ourselves on an Earth so very much unlike our own. And it was not an easy slog back to save Second Guess from the Sentinels. Most if not all of the stats for the mutants that we met along the way came from Project Wideawake.
For me Project Wideawake is a great little supplement and Jeff Grubb's writing and design is tight. Not everyone feels this way however;
"Pete Tamlyn reviewed the supplement in Imagine magazine.^[2] He comments, "OK, X-Fans, this is the one you've been waiting for [...] if you have any interest at all in the X-Men and related groups then this product is essential."^[2] He found that the floor plans "are not really clear enough for any serious use without considerable work on the GM's part."^[2] Tamlyn added: "The coverage of Marvel mutant-kind is reasonably comprehensive. Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch have been left out as they were in the Avengers booklet; Beast was as well, of course, but they could hardly miss one of the original X-Men. Phoenix is in and, as might have been expected, is tough enough to take on everyone else in the booklet put together and win easily—the booklet sensibly recommends that she only enter games as an NPC. There are, however, some surprising omissions, including the Starjammers, Shi'Ar Imperial Guard and Alpha Flight. There are not many mutants in that lot, but they're all part of the X-Men circle. Another book, perhaps?"^[2] He continued, "I have got a few gripes as well. One or two boobs seem to have slipped past the proofreaders; for example we are told that Magma regains health points each round as long as she is in contact with the ground, but we are not told how many points per round. However, if you want to run MSH as it is designed to be run, some things are essential, and this is one of them."^[2] Tamlyn concludes the review by saying, "Final point: the booklet introduces a new rule to MSH. Supervillains now have negative popularity which is a measure of how easy they find it to cow hapless civilians. A nice idea."" 
Do I personally agree with Mr. Tamlyn's review?! No,because it seems unduly harsh and Dragon magazine would later have it's Ares section cover Alpha Flight and the Shi'Ar Imperial Guard. What Project Wideawake does is introduce the Xmen and thier enemies into the Marvel Superheroes rpg and it could easily be used with the Marvel Super Heroes Advanced rpg. 
Project Wideawake was a product of it's time and as such easily introduced the Xmen. I was later on replaced by the superior Children of the Atom supplement but for it's time Project Wideawake did it's job easily and with bells on.