The Claremont Era of X-Men comics is filled with the most famous, influential, and referenced stories in the history of the franchise. There have been several amazing shorter tenures on the X-books, But Claremont started writing the X-books in the mid-1970s and didn't wrap up his original run until 1992. He had other runs since then but none of them were as successful or as relevant as his original tenure. If you watched The Animated Series that's currently been rebooted as X-Men '97, most of the stories you've seen were from Clarmont's Era. The Dark Phoenix, The Hellfire Club, Proteus, Wolverine becoming The Most Important X-Man Ever, The Shadow King, Magneto's transformation from villain to anti-hero, these are all Chris Claremont adventures. This entry will end with two back to back books that I'm putting in The Headcanon, as they flow right into each other and have a satisfying conclusion. X-Men Epic: It's Always Darkest Before Dawn by Steve Englehart, Len Wein, Sal Buscema, Tom Sutton, Gerry Conway, Gil Kane, Herb Trimpe, and Don Heck X-Men: Prof X, Cyclops, Jean Grey 1st Appearances: J Jonah Jameson, Robbie Robertson, Betty Ross, Harry Osborn, Morbius, Lockjaw, Falcon, Moonstone, Dum Dum Duggan, Nighthawk, Valkyrie, Griffin Also Featuring: Angel, Beast, Iceman, Spider-Man, Gwen Stacy, Hulk, Polaris, Havok, Iron Man, Mastermind, Blob, Unus, Juggernaut, Capt America, Thor, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, Medusa, Black Panther, Vision, Daredevil, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Magneto, Banshee, Nick Fury, Human Torch, Dr Strange, Lorelei, Wolverine, Mr Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Thing, Madrox During the era when the X-Men book was just reprints of the original run, the X-Men were "in hiding" (or trapped on Krakoa in space, depending on who was editing what). Professor X, Cyclops, Marvel Girl, and Angel were used very sparingly as guests in other titles. Beast, meanwhile, was tearing it up in "Amazing Adventures", and Iceman was teaming up with Spider-Man and the Human Torch. This collection has Spider-Man and Iceman's teamup, which is a fun latter-day Stan Lee issue with hints of the Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends cartoon. The Beast story explains how Hank McCoy went from a bouncing, gymnastic human cannonball to a blue furry scientist, with brief stops as a silver fuzzy scientist, and then a black-furred scientist. His powers and his personality are all over the place, as he is initially given a Wolverine healing factor pre-Wolverine! This then disappears without explanation. In some ways, this is maddening to read as Englehart never seems to have a handle on what he's trying to do. But the appearances of Iron Man, various other Avengers, Spider-Man, and then Hulk add enough silliness and Marvel continuity porn to keep X-Men fans interested. The X-Men are definitely in the background of this collection, as opposed to being the stars but it is fun to see what they're up to during the "in hiding" years. It's also great to see Juggernaut be considered an important enough X-character to check in with during this era. Even if his frenemy team-up with Hulk isn't that inspiring. Once again, if you're an X-Men fan, this is a fun look at a weird part of their history but it's not A Great collection, and it's certainly not required to understand X-history. X-Men Epic Second Genesis by Chris Claremont, Len Wein, Dave Cockrum, Bill Mantlo, John Byrne, Sal Buscema, Bob Brown, and Tony DeZuniga X-Men: Prof X, Cyclops, Wolverine, Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Banshee, Sunfire, Thunderbird 1st Appearances: Krakoa, Peter Corbeau, Misty Knight, Firelord, Gladiator, Oracle, Vindicator, Warhawk, Angus MacWhirter, Araki Also Featuring: Iceman, Jean Grey, Polaris, Havok, Count Nefaria, Ani-men, Moira, Eric The Red, Sentinels, Stephen Lang, Black Tom, Juggernaut, Magneto, Lilandra, Corsair, Mr Fantastic, Captain America, Beast, Ant Man, Wasp A classic but not a classic that's necessary to read. While Claremont slowly figures out different voices for each of the newly introduced or reintroduced characters, the first chunk of this story, by Len Wein is the same Every Character Is A Hothead Who Doesn't Know How To Play Well With Others garbage that Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, and the other 60s X-writers penned. Seriously, every time someone suggests an idea, another character angrily shoots it down. While the inclusion of non-American White Dudes was stunningly progressive in 1975, it doesn't help if they're all prejudiced against one another. Apart from Nightcrawler who notes that mutants don't seem to be any nicer to mutants than humans are, every character is kind of a jerk here. It's so bad that when one of the characters tragically dies, I was happy that I wouldn't have to ready any more of his bullying bullshit. The book also suffers from illogical tropes. Particularly in the first story when the characters are paired off and dropped on different parts of an island so that they can immediately meet in the middle. Why not just land the plane in the middle? I get that they were surprised to find a particular landmark, and made their way there, but there didn't seem to be any reason why they split up other than for us to see how none of the pairings got along. Much like all of Stan Lee's characters talk the way Beast was presented in The Animated Series, this collection suffers from every character behaving and talking like Wolverine in The Animated Series. It does get better as Claremont fleshes it out, but it's a rough journey for quite a while. Many of the plots in this volume would get four stars but Claremont has an odd pacing issue whish may have something to do with art. He'll send the X-Men through a Star Gate to rescue an alien princess, and then the next issue supposedly takes place after that one but has the X-Men at the mansion fighting what appears to be the original X-Men team. It's a tedious story which adds nothing to any narrative Claremont is telling. Then, in the next issue, they've gone through the Star Gate. If this story was supposed to take place at some period before the previous issue, why does the issue open with the Professor dealing with the effects of Starlord from the previous issue? It's very confusing. I imagine it has to do with art deadlines. Also, Erik The Red is one of the worst, most confusing villains in the X-Canon. His origin has since been explained through writing about comics but during the story there is one or two (out of a billion) narration boxes saying that he's a Sh'iar agent. How this has tied into any of his previous appearances in the comics doesn't make any sense. Worse, the X-Men overcome a magic crystal threatening the universe ... somehow ... and then we just don't ever hear about Erik The Red again for decades when more modern writers try and explain his origin and purpose. Claremont just abruptly seemed to forget he was supposed to be a major part of the story. There are several other threads Claremont plants and forgets about in this volume, which drag down an otherwise fun story. Yes, Claremont's Exposition/Narration boxes are a bit much if you're used to reading modern comics. I'm more forgiving of them in his 1970s/early 80s run than I am when he used the same style to write in the 21st century. I thought I was going to include this volume in my Headcanon since it does have important milestones for the series. But there's too much scattershot in this collection. Also, the versions of these stories in The Animated Series are tighter and more intriguing, so I'm leaving them out of the comics headcanon and choosing to remember them as fun cartoons instead. Champions Classic The Complete Collection by Tony Isabella, Bill Mantlo, Chris Claremont, Don Heck, George Tusha, Bob Hall, John Byrne, and Jim Shooter X-Men: none 1st Appearances: Ghost Rider, Harpies, Venus, Pluto, Ares, Huntsman, Zeus, Rampage, Titanium Man, Darkstar, Black Goliath, Stiltman, Swarm, MODOK, Dr Doom, Yellowjacket Also Featuring: Angel, Iceman, Black Widow, Hercules, Griffin, Crimson Dynamo, The Stranger, Iron Man, Beast, Magneto, Thor, Capt America, Scarlet Witch, Wonder Man, Wasp, Vision, Hulk, Sentinels, Blob, Unus, Lorelei, Vanisher, Spider-Man A very, and I mean very, silly and forgettable comic from the X-Men In Hiding era of comics. Angel and Iceman end up in a team with Hercules, Black Widow, and Ghost Rider to do some, sigh, shenanigans from Mount Olympus. None of the villains in this volume are interesting, the heroes really don't mesh together well, and it's filled with "Holy Hannah!"s and other 60s-era relics, even though this book came out comfortably in the 70s. I had never read this series until now, and I didn't miss much. From an X-Men historical perspective, the second half of the Champions Classic is much more interesting than volume one, as we see Iceman and Angel of the Champions team up with their former X-buddy, Beast of The Avengers. They also do battle with Magneto, The Brotherhood Of Evil Mutants, The Sentinels, The Vanisher, and...The Stranger (is anyone ever excited to see The Stranger appear in a comic), all the prime X-villains of the 1960s. But we have the excess baggage of Black Widow, Hercules, and Ghost Rider, plus Doctor Doom, plus The Avengers, and more. While the stories aren't particularly interesting, they do explain how Magneto has become an adult again, after being reduced to infancy in an issue of The Defenders. And, it's nice to see three of the original five X-Men in action together. But it's not so nice that this is a Must Read comic, if you're into X-Men. 3. X-Men Epic Collection Proteus by Chris Claremont, John Byrne, and George Perez X-Men:Prof X, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Storm, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Banshee 1st Appearances: Nanny, Petrified Man, Mariko, Moses Magnum, Proteus, Snowbird, Northstar, Shaman, Sasquatch, Aurora, Luke Cage, Arcade, Colleen Wing, Arkon Also Featuring: Beast, Mesmero, Magneto, Sauron, Ka-Zar, Zabu, Lilandra, Moira, Shadow King, Misty Knight, Sunfire, Angus MacWhirter, Vindicator, Mastermind, Polaris, Spider-Man, Madrox For me, this is where Claremont's run on X-Men really clicks. We go from the Stan Lee Every X-Men Is A Hothead Who Argues Over Everything to the characters working together as a team, and Wolverine being the one character who continues to question authority. We see the Claremont team of Cyclops, Storm, Colossus, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and Banshee really gel and become The X-Men while Jean Grey and Charles Xavier are written out to have their own adventures that we check in on periodically but which are not the crux of the story. Claremont really begins to weave his storylines well here. Introducing elements that won't resolve for several issues, and introducing characters and tropes that X-Men writers will continue to chip away at for decades. This is an absolute must for any X-fan. It's the beginning of Claremont at his best, and includes several stories that were revisited in The Animated Series. While still building to The Dark Phoenix Saga in the background, the separated X-Men are slowly reunited just in time for a showdown with Moira Mactaggert's insanely powerful mutant son. The Animated Series fleshed out this story really well but the source material here is also pretty great for late 70s/early 80s superhero comics. There's even an adventure featuring Spider-Man where there is a ridiculously spelled out sound effect on the page, and Spider-Man says "(ridiculous sound effect)! I remember what that is!" It's precisely the right level of cheesy comic writing for me. 4. X-Men Epic The Fate Of The Phoenix by Chris Claremont, John Byrne, X-Men: Prof X, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Wolverine, Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Shadowcat 1st Appearances: Emma Frost, Sebastian Shaw, Dazzler, Smasher, Stevie Hunter, Rachel Grey, Franklin Richards, Mystique, Destiny, Pyro, Avalanche Also featuring: Banshee, Moira, Madrox, Mastermind, Angel, Donald Pierce, Candy Southern, Dr Strange, Lilandra, Araki, Jarvis, The Watcher, Gladiator, Skrulls, Vindicator, Shaman, Snowbird, Wendigo, Blob, Magneto, Sentinels, Robert Kelly xWolverine and Alpha Flight clash again a few times. And Mystique and Destiny debut during "Days Of Future Past" where we get to see the post-apocalyptic future of (checks notes) 2013! These stories go on to influence events for the next forty years of X-Men comics, and the writing holds up surprisingly well. This is also where Wolverine started to become The Most Important X-Men Ever (to marketing people and editors, mostly). If you're only ever going to read one twentieth century X-Men story, this is probably the one. But really, you should read at least two, and hit up X-Men Epic Proteus before this one. The pacing and unfolding storylines are prime twentieth century comics.
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Getting through the Silver Age Era of the X-Men is the most difficult time I've had reading X-Men comics. It's not any worse than the convoluted late 90s where storylines just disappeared as their hacky writers got too overwhelmed to figure out endings. But as I grew up in the 90s and was familiar with that style, I found it easier to eyeroll over those speedbumpy pages than the "Holy, Hannah, it's time for another dull alien or mutant to monologue through a few pages before we never have to think of them again!" era of the X-Men. I made it through this time, though. And while I didn't exactly enjoy it, I finally feel comfortable saying that it doesn't suck, it just isn't for me or very many modern readers. Ed Piskor's Grand Design, which is also not exactly the pinnacle of great writing, is a much more compact way to read the silver-age material, and you really don't miss much. Apart from Neal Adams's evolution in panel design and X-Men costumes from the last dozen or so 1960s comics, there's not a lot of historically relevant art or writing after the first couple of hacky storyarcs in the original series. You'll find that nothing from this post ends up in my headcanon. It doesn't mean this is all bad or that you shouldn't pick it up without gloves, tongs, and a ton of bleach. If you can stomach Silver Age writing, this post is filled with books that provide is a mostly mediocre X-perience. There's certainly no dearth of story here. It's just a repetitive story without a ton of development or interesting villains. Avengers Epic Masters Of Evil by Roy Thomas, Gary Friedrich, John Buscema, Don Heck, Werner Roth, George Tuska, and Gene Colan X-Men: Prof X, Angel, Cyclops, Beast, Iceman, Jean Grey 1st Appearances: Hawkeye, Hercules, Wonder Man, Black Widow, Dragon Man, Red Guardian, Nick Fury, Power Man, Goliath, The Executioner, Enchantress, Mandarin, AIM, Whirlwind, The Collector, Black Panther, Bucky, Super Adaptoid Also featuring: Scarlet Witch, Magneto, Thor, Captain America, Iron Man, Ant-Man, Wasp, Magneto, Mimic, Hulk, Sue Storm, Mr Fantastic, Thing, Human Torch, Spider-Man, Namor, Dr. Strange, Daredevil While it's not intriguing enough to make my X-Men headcanon, this is a fun, cheesecake factory level comic romp. While most of the volume is just random Avengers adventures with major character inconsistencies and over-the-top writing, the latter third starts to involve X-Men characters. It starts with Magneto returning from the space prison he was kidnapped to in the pages of the X-Men. And eventually we get to see an actual crossover where the X-Men and the Avengers battle before realizing they should be working together. Is it the best crossover you've ever read? Certainly not. Is it a thousand times better than the 2010s Avengers vs X-Men fiasco. Hell. Yes. If you enjoy silver age comics and are an X-Men fan, this Avengers collection is worth picking up. If you're an Avengers fan, you can pretty much skip this one. The non X-Men storylines are a mess. X-Men First Class Mutant Mayhem by Jeff Parker, Roger Cruz, Kevin Nowlan, Paul Smith, Mike Allred, Nick Dragotta, and Colleen Coover X-Men: Prof X, Angel, Cyclops, Beast, Iceman, Jean Grey 1st Appearances: Invisible Woman, Mr. Fantastic, Thing, Human Torch, Mad Thinker, Hulk Also featuring: Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, Blob, Juggernaut, Dragon Man While not So Good You Don't Have To Read The Original Stuff, Just Read This Instead, this is a solid addition to the early X-Men canon. Sure, it provides a little headache, as the technology and cultural references place this in the early twenty-first century instead of the mid-twentieth, but Parker's ability to get the general feel of the early X-books but infuse more personality and character into the, well, characters. I still recommend this as a buffer between the silver age Epic Collections. In particular, the story where Sue Storm and The Fantastic Four allow Jean Grey some time to spend time with a role model who isn't an angry old man, and Beast and Iceman's road trip to The Florida Keys. X-Men First Class Brand Of Brothers by Jeff Parker, Roger Cruz, Craig Rousseau, and Colleen Coover X-Men: Prof X, Angel, Cyclops, Beast, Iceman, Jean Grey 1st Appearances: none Also featuring: Sentinels, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Mastermind, Magneto, Blob Unfortunately, Marvel's collections editors are rarely ever good at their jobs, so there's a bunch of repeat material in this collection. The new material is okay but not as strong as the previous volumes. This is an entirely skippable chapter of the original team's adventures. It's not part of continuity, it's not very fun or original, and it doesn't add anything to mythos that surrounds it. X-Men Epic: Lonely Are The Hunted by Roy Thomas, Gary Friedrich, Warner Roth, Don Heck, George Tuska, Ross Andru, Jack Sparling, Dan Adkins, and Jon Buscema X-Men: Prof X, Cyclops, Beast, Iceman, Jean Grey 1st Appearances: Puppet Master, Banshee, Moleman, Mekano, Mutant Master, Changeling Also featuring: Mimic, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, Spider-Man, Super Adaptiod, The Warlock, Bernard, Zelda, Juggernaut, Dr. Strange, Vanisher, Unus, Blob, Mastermind, Agent Duncan Roy Thomas officially takes over writing duty in this collection. I wish that meant a welcome change from Stan Lee's tortured prose but Thomas was a student of Lee, and continued the stilted dialogue and familiar storytelling techniques that Lee used in his tenure. He does give each X-Man a little bit more of their own voice than Lee, as not every character speaks like Beast from the 90s Animated Series anymore but it's still a slog to get through. The biggest disappointment is that while Thomas has the equivalent craft of Lee, his choice of villains is less inspired. There are several villains in the first half of this collection from "Suspense" and "Strange Tales" but none that you'll remember if you aren't a staunch silver age Marvel comics fan. Apart from Banshee, you really don't see any of these villains popping up again in post-Roy Thomas X-continuity. They just aren't memorable. About halfway through, we move from forgettable villain-of-the-week to let's-get-super-into-continuity-and-examine-the-X-Men's-history-and-sprinkle-in-some-special-guests. After a Juggernaut story, we focus on Factor Three, who were mentioned at the end of the previous volume. I both respect and am confused by the fact that there are more than three of them, and that none of them turn out to be Magneto. But the highlight of the Factor Three story is a one-issue appearance of Spider-Man who is mistakenly believed to be the villain. It totally fits in with his sad sack luck and with the X-Men's punch-first-figure-out-you-messed-up-later approach to pretty much everything. The rest of the volume features more C+ X-Men tales but includes origin stories at the end of each issue. They're stories that were already explored in earlier issues but are told in more detail. They're fine but unnecessary if you're reading these in modern collections. They were mainly for people jumping into the story twenty or thirty issues in who also wouldn't have had any sort of access to the first few issues. Dark days. The collection builds up to a major death. I'm not sure if it's impactful because the intervening fifty-someodd years of history have taught me that the character isn't going to be dead for long. The major con to this story is still Roy Thomas's Stan Leeism-filled writing. Holy Hannah, it's repetitive and annoying. There are also an unfair amount of puns that would be outlawed in a better society. I don't think this would be a highlight, even if you're a silver age fan. X-Men First Class The Wonder Years by Jeff Parker, Roger Langridge, Nick Dragotta, Roger Cruz, Karl Kesel, Patrick Scherberger, David Williams, Colleen Coover, Dean Haspiel X-Men: Prof X, Angel, Cyclops, Beast, Iceman, Jean Grey, Machine Man 1st Appearances: Galactus, Mysterio, Venom, Doop, Medusa, The Wizard, Spider-Man, Scorpion, Beetle, Gwen Stacy, Agent Baker Also featuring: Sue Storm, Mr. Fantastic, Thing, Human Torch, Zelda, Skrulls Jeff Parker ran out of ideas for his First Class series really quickly. This volume begins with an agonizingly bad "meta" fourth wall breaking story where a group of comic store employees called...prolonged sigh...The Continuiteens have read the previous collections of First Class and find themselves intertwined with the plot. It doesn't even sound like a good idea but it's much worse than it sounds. From there, it gets a bit better, as Angel heads off to spend time with family, and Machine Man briefly joins the team. It's not terrible but it's also not an interesting addition to the X-Men canon. For a series that began with a lot of promise and some creative ways to slip modern stories into the 60s and 70s continuity, this was disappointingly bland. I don't recommend it. X-Men Epic: The Sentinels Live! by Roy Thomas, Arnold Drake, Linda Fite, Dennis O'Neill, Neal Adams, Jim Steranko, Barry Windsor-Smith, Don Heck, Werner Roth, and Sal Buscema X-Men: Prof X, Angel, Cyclops, Beast, Iceman, Jean Grey, Mimic 1st Appearances: Red Raven, The Warlock, Polaris, Erik The Red, Mesmero, Blastaar, The Dazzler (not to be confused with Dazzler), Candy Southern, Havok, Living Monolith, Sauron, Lorelei, Sunfire Also featuring: Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, Magneto, Toad, Juggernaut, Bernard, Zelda, Blob, Vanisher, Ka-Zar, Hulk Given the quality of the first 48 issues or so of the X-Men, I expected it must have gone downhill a bit when it got cancelled. I actually found the last dozen issues or so to be the most intriguing the series has been so far. While Havoc and Polaris are hardly the most interesting characters ever created, they do add an element of flavor that the book had previously been lacking. The villains continue to be forgettable, and Roy Thomas "Oh Hannah"s hard upon his return, but Neal Adams's panel layouts make the book more visually striking than it has ever been. While I am grateful to be finished with this era of the X-Men comics, I'm glad I finally stuck it out and read the original material so I don't feel like I missed anything. I didn't miss anything. As with my reviews of the previous volumes, I think your enjoyment of this collection will depend on whether you're into the mid-twentieth century comic hackery style of lots of alliteration, puns, and characters leaning heavily into melodrama rather than logic or character development. I think, if you're a fan of comic art and panel layouts, this is several steps above the previous collections. X-Men Grand Design by Ed Piskor X-Men: Prof X, Angel, Cyclops, Beast, Iceman 1st Appreances: The Watcher, Storm, Shadow King, Gabrielle Haller, Lilandra, Corsair, Ch'od, Larry Trask, Stephen Lang, Bolicar Trask, Robert Kelly, Donald Pierce, Cameron Hodge, Legion, Madrox Also featuring: Human Torch, Namor, Captain America, Wolverine, Magneto, Moira, Skrulls, Jack of Diamonds, Mastermind, Toad, Vanisher, Sue Storm, Mr Fantastic, Thing, Human Torch, Unus, Ka-Zar, The Stranger, Sentinels, Iron Man, Captain America, Giant Man, Wasp, Tinkerer, Mimic, Banshee, Super Adaptiod, Juggernaut, Changeling, Machine Man, Nick Fury, Living Monolith, Lorelei, Polaris, Havok, Mutant Master I've occasionally tried to read as much of the full run of X-Men and related comics (X-Factor, X-Force, Generation X, New Mutants, etc.) as possible but until this year, I never managed to read all of the Silver Age material. This book is like the best possible illustrated Wikipedia page for Silver Age X-Men. It's chronologically straight-forward, contains the bare bones of most of the stories, but it looks awesome. It contains all of the stories from the first three Epic Collections ("Children Of The Atom", "Lonely Are The Hunted", "The Sentinels Live" in deliciously bite-sized portions. I would recommend this for people who love the X-Men but don't have the time or patience for the Silver Age era, fans of the Silver Age era X-Men looking for a quick nostalgic overview of the first 65 issues, people who've never read the X-Men but are looking for a quick primer, fans of Piskor's Hip Hop Family Tree, Vol. 1: 1970s-1981, and mutant plot enthusiasts. X-Men The Hidden Years Vols 1 & 2 by John Byrne X-Men: Prof X, Angel, Cyclops, Beast Man, Iceman, Polaris, Havok 1st Appearances: Deluge, Agatha Harkness, Ashley Martin, Sentinels, Master Mold, Kraven Also featuring: Magneto, Blob, Toad, Juggernaut, Zelda, Ka-zar, Storm, Sauron, Lorelei, Sue Storm, Mr Fantastic, Thing, Human Torch, Candy Southern, Medusa, Larry Trask, Sentinels, Namor, The Dazzler, Agent Duncan, Moleman The first time I read this, I was in the midst of reading modern X-Men comics, and the writing and forgettable aliens and villains felt really clunky. I struggled to finish the book. Reading it now, having just finished the silver aged Stan Lee/Roy Thomas era this legitimately feels like it belongs in the pre-Claremont X-verse. It's not great. Tossing in a preview of the Dark Phoenix storyline seems less like fun backforeshadowing and more like an undercutting of a much better story. But the rest of the action is pretty on par with the Roy Thomas/Neal Adams run but with slightly (and I mean slightly) more modern writing. Byrne doesn't quite have the same flare for alliteration, purple prose, and Stan Lee-style editorial remarks that tunelessly hummed through the original run but that's ok. I don't think we need any more of that without tongue granited into cheek. I will confess that I read this earlier this morning and I already couldn't tell you much about it other than: Savage Land, Iceman vs Havoc, the "ghost" of Magneto, the Fantastic Four are involved, and Storm appears ahead of Claremont's run, but that feels like enough. Again, it's not super fun, the writing is an improvement over the silver age dreck but it isn't good, and the art is best defined as John-Byrne-apes-Neal-Adams-to-a-reasonably-successful-degree but it's not worse than the comics it successfully emulates. If you were curious as to what happens between the final all-new material issue of the classic X-Men run, and when the characters started popping up in Hulk, Spider-Man, and Amazing Adventures, this is a perfectly adequate bridge between them. In 2017/2018, I read through most of the X-Men related trade paperbacks and hardcover collections that I owned. This is somewhere around 4-500 books. I rated many, but not enough, of them on a website to keep track of what I loved and what I never wanted to read again. Well, I'm going to read them all one more time. This time, cataloging my reading experience here. Consider this a companion to The X-Men In Five Seasons Worth Reading. A much longer, in-depth look at what books do and don't make it into my X-Men Headcanon. My Headcanon isn't focused on the Big Event Must Read Collections that many people my age and older cobweb poetic about, it's just books that I enjoyed, and I explain why I enjoyed them. This first entry is made up of a few books that are set before the original X-Men run in 1963 but which were written much later, mainly in the 21st century. I just don't think modern readers should have to start out by reading Silver Age books. It's just not a fun way to get into comics unless you're an early reader who hasn't experienced serialized storytelling before. I'm not starting with Wolverine Origins or including much of Wolverine's pre-Hulk #181 appearances in the early chronology because the entire first forty years of his character depended on him not knowing his history, so we will get to see his pre-X-Men adventures but not for a long while. All numbered titles in BOLD are those I'd consider part of the Headcanon of X-Books I recommend. Anything not boldfaced or numbered is a book I read but will probably skip, should I ever do another readthrough. Understand MOST books will not be numbered or boldfaced. There are going to be at least 500 books on this readthrough. At most, 50-100 will make Headcanon. At most. I hope. 1. Magneto Testament by Greg Pak & Carmine Di Giandomenico X-Men: none 1st Appearance: Magneto If you've seen an X-Men movie, you've almost definitely seen a scene of a youngish Magneto in an office of a concentration camp using his powers of magnetism to kill someone. You've seen iron gates ripped from the ground, projectiles launched at Nazis. That's not what this book is. Interspersed with historical data about The Holocaust, we get the story of a young teenage Max (he has not yet taken the name Erich...his father's name) who's targeted at school because of his Jewishness, as the nation of Germany descends into anti-semitism and genocide. We get brief glimpses of important moments in his young life. He falls in love based on almost nothing. He rebels when it seems convenient. He protects his family when he can. But his powers are a hint, not a weapon. When his family is murdered, he survives presumably because of his power of magnetism but we don't know. They could have just missed him or not delivered a fatal wound. He ends up in a concentration camp where he eventually is in charge of leading other Jew to their deaths. It is, of course, a grim book. There is no moment of catharsis where he rips open an iron gate. He does not kill any officers by hurling cutlery at them. He survives. He does what he has to do to survive and to try and save a girl he loves, even though he doesn't seem to know very much about her. I think this is a great starting point for a read-through of the Marvel Mutant Universe. It clearly sets the tone that, despite what your drooling, all-caps, anti-woke, right wing nutjob uncle thinks, this is a story about overcoming the harms of prejudice, bigotry, and racism/anti-semitism. Marvel's mutant sector, in particular has ALWAYS been about civil rights. Anyone who tells you otherwise lacks reading comprehension skills, and you should never give credence to anything they tell you about literature or writing because they're clearly too stupid to understand the basic premise of a comic series that's mostly directed at children and teenagers. Carmine Di Giandomenico's art is superb, and I think the muted grey color palette helps the book feel like something from our past without that visual metaphor overwhelming the story. The story is affecting but not devastating to read. If you're familiar with the basic horrors of The Holocaust, you're likely to learn some new details, and maybe get a better feel for the timeline but it doesn't delve so deep into the story that you're likely to be weeping. The First X-Men by Christos Gage & Neal Adams X-Men:Wolverine, Sabretooth, Holo, Goldendawn, Bomb, Meteor 1st Appearance: Prof X, Moira, Virus, Sentinels Also featuring: Magneto If someone presented me with an outline for this story from concept to final page, I'd cautiously suggest that with precisely the right creative team, this could be interesting but on the surface the story feels very forced and not very original or fun. The dialogue on the first few pages scraped against my eyes. I was trying to figure out if Gage was trying to suggest this took place at a particular time or whether he was trying to make a modern sounding patter between characters. Whatever he was trying to do, it didn't work. The syntax was off, and while it wasn't difficult to follow, it was jarring. But by the time the second issue rolled around, characters started talking somewhat stiltedly but believably. Another big stumbling point for me is the art. You might love Neal Adams , and if that's the case, you might love the look of this book. For me, Adams's art has always felt inconsistent. It's not terrible. It's not ugly. It's just that Wolverine's face and haircut looks different from page to page, as do other characters. Every character was always recognizable and distinguishable from others but it's like watching a movie and an actor got a nose job and switched wigs several times during shooting, and since it wasn't filmed chronologically the nose seems to change from scene to scene. The end result of this story is never truly in question, as it is supposed to take place "long before" Professor X builds the Westchester School (though, actually, we see him build it at the end of the story). We don't really learn anything new about any of the characters except it gives us a possible reason why Sabretooth has always been such a dick to Wolverine. It's sort of like a shoddier version of Star Wars' Rogue One, you know the new characters you're introduced to aren't going to survive to the parts of the story you've already seen so it seems like the creators don't even bother trying to give you any reason to care about them before they're inevitably killed off. Angel: Revelations by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa & Adam Pollina X-Men: none 1st Appearance: Angel A gothic horror take on the origins of Warren Worthington III (aka Angel/Archangel of the X-Men) was a solid read. A rich kid coming of age at a boarding school mixed with the story of a religious psychopath who kidnaps a psychic little girl and uses her to track down and kill mutants. There are a ton of tropes in this collection including a priest who's a sexual predator, teens throwing homophobia at everything they don't understand, rich bullies with powerful parents, the protagonist having toxic parents who make know effort to know their own children, and secrets breaking apart a young romance. Aguirre-Sacasa handles them all well. This is almost a B+ coming of age movie that happens to work as the origin story of an X-Man. Adam Pollina's art isn't my favorite for a long form story. He has a very particular style for how he draws anatomy that I think works beautifully for covers and full page spreads but which end up being distracting over the course of a full comic. Every feature is absurdly long and thin. Necks are almost giraffish, ears are twice the size of heads, and Warren, in particular, is 75% torso in this comic, and he's often walking around shirtless. I do love his backgrounds and shadow work, though. I think if this were a spot illustrated novel with mostly text, I'd love his work. I don't think this is quite good enough for me to put in my headcanon for the best X-Men stories but it's a solid read with very stylized art that might appeal to someone looking for a slightly offbeat X-story. X-Men Children Of The Atom by Joe Casey & Steve Rude X-Men: Prof X, Angel, Cyclops, Beast, Iceman, Jean Grey 1st Appearances: Jack Of Diamonds, Agent Duncan Also featuring: Sentinels, Magneto This is tough to review because it's specifically designed to set up the first issues of X-Men written by Stan Lee in 1963. It does an admirable job of making the characters as melodramatic and overwritten as they are in the original series. I just don't like that style, and didn't like the characters as they were presented in that era. Like many Stan Lee-era comic characters, there is very little long term character growth or decision making. Every character is concerned precisely with what is happening in that panel. They'll be screaming in one panel and then calmly praising the same character in the next, usually mentioning that they were "testing" the character they were screaming at. You know, typical abusive parenting/mentoring techniques of mid-twentieth century America. Anyone who glamorizes that era of our history is a toxic fucken idiot. The problem with this style of characterization, aside from panel to panel whiplash, is that it can render entire storylines within the larger text moot. For example, in this collection, Professor X goes undercover as a guidance counselor in a high school where three of the five future X-Men are students. He interacts with each of them briefly, and in each case they rebuke him and ask to be left alone. He later approaches all of them individually after they are no longer at the school with entirely different and more logical approaches. So you could just eliminate his entire time as a guidance counselor, and the story would be exactly the same. Professor X is extremely frustrating in this book. As is Magneto, who is used very sparingly. But to give credit to Casey, their frustrating characterizations are completely in line with Stan Lee's over-the-top, inane characters during his tenure on X-Men. If you love the silver-age X-Men comics, this is a really interesting setup for it. And it doesn't even contradict either of the two books I consider canon-y (but not Headcanon) that take place before this: X-Men: Magneto Testament and Angel: Revelations. It even sort of lines up with X-Men: First X-Men, which I'm pretty sure No One imagines as part of any canon. 2. The X-Men Epic Collection Vol 1: Children Of The Atom by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Roy Thomas, and Warner Roth X-Men: Prof X, Angel, Cyclops, Beast, Iceman, Jean Grey 1st Appearances: Vanisher, Blob, Mastermind, Toad, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, Namor, Bernard, Zelda, Unus, Lucifer, Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, Ant-Man, Wasp, Ka-Zar, Zabu, The Stranger, Juggernaut, Mimic Also featuring: Magneto, Sentinels Stan Lee is one of the most important people in comics history. He was incredibly creative, prolific, and he co-created almost all of your favorite Marvel characters. But Stan Lee is not, and never has been a writer. He was a carnival barker with a typewriter and some very talented artistic coworkers. (I struggle to call them friends, having read many of his coworkers' opinions on the man.) I find his thesaurized prose agonizing to read. He was just so proud of writing that I find cringey. The characters he created are only beloved by people under eighty because other writers fleshed them out and gave them personalities. Every Stan Lee character is an angry buffoon who acts rashly. If they're a hero they have to constantly apologize for their idiocy. If they're a villain, they must twirl their imaginary mustaches and revel in how evil they are. That's it. That's all Stan Lee ever knew how to write. Every issue of his comics is exactly the same. If there is ever any actual progress in a story (a character moving on or having an epiphany) it will be undone during the issue, or in the following issue. Thanks to editorial asides and Stan's own tortured prose, continuity is always acknowledged but rarely do characters seem to have learned from said continuity. For some people, this is The Best Era of X-Men. I don't begrudge them. I like some terribly written and constructed pop music. I like it unapologetically because it makes me happy, and likely nostalgic for when it came out. You, too should feel that way about comics. But I was born and started reading comics during the Claremont era (which I'm not nostalgic for), and didn't start trying to read the silver age adventures until I was well exposed to more complex and interesting stories. They're important in the history of comics. They were an evolution in writing serialized stories, and shouldn't be forgotten. But even though Homo Erectus was a necessary and important stage of human evolution, I don't dream of hanging out in a cave somewhere listening to one tell me stories about a future that is now well within my past. The second half of the collection matures into more long-form storytelling with an evolving and revolving cast of villains. Mainly, a nebulous space character with a variety of powers gets entangled with Magneto, removes him from Earth, allowing the X-Men to deal with Juggernaut and then The Sentinels before Magneto returns with a much smaller scale scheme than usual. It's the usual hokey Stan Lee yarns, though this volume sees Alex Toth and Warner Roth (as Jay Gavin) step in to pencil a few issues, and we also see the first couple of issues written by Roy Thomas, under Stan Lee's editorship. I don't care about any of the villains in this book. The original concept of The Sentinels: Robots designed by man to protect them from mutants end up rebelling is such an early to mid-twentieth century trope that it requires defter hands than Stan Lee's to make it interesting to anyone over the age of nine. (Which, I understand, is around the target age of comics at the time.) Magneto continues to be a mustache twirling buffoon instead of the complex and conflicted villain/anti-hero he became later. Juggernaut is a great introduction here but The Stranger and the return of the incredibly dull pseudo-Magneto, Lucifer, had me barely resisting the urge to start flipping pages and skimming the stories rather than digesting them. If you love silver-age stuff, this is still probably going to be a blast for you, but if you're not someone who adores 1960s comics, this isn't going to be the collection that changes your mind. As much as this volume isn't for me, I am going to include at least this first one in my X-Men Headcanon, since the more interesting prequel stories do lead directly to the first issue in this collection. But I do it begrudgingly, and also to include the header image for this post, which is from page 8 of X-Men #1 (1963) which accidentally foreshadows something that was made canon in 2016. or 2. X-Men First Class Mutants 101 by Jeff Parker, Roger Cruz, Kevin Nowlan, Nick Dragotta, Paul Smith, Colleen Coover, Victor Olazaba, Michael Allred, Laura Allred, Val Staples, and Pete Pantazis X-Men: Prof X, Angel, Cyclops, Beast, Iceman, Jean Grey 1st Appearances,: Lizard, Jarvis, Dr. Strange, The Vanir, Ymir, Skrulls, Gorilla Man Also Featuring: Blob, Sentinels, Juggernaut, Thor, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, Bernard, Zelda If you just can't stomach the Silver Age comics, this is an alternative introduction to the first proper team of X-Men. Written in 2007, it takes place during Children of The Atom. While it never contradicts the stories there, it does muddle history a bit by including more modern technology. Also, the characters are more in-tine with their modern selves rather than everyone being a reactionary fool like they are in The Silver Age. There's a ton of fun tie-ins to the original X-run, but none of them are necessary to follow the stories. Also, each issue is a one-off story, usually featuring a member of the wider Marvel Universe. If you're a completist, or just wanting to read the adventures of the original team, I would place this between the two epic collections of the original run, Children Of The Atom and Lonely Are The Hunted. Batman as a TV show with defined modern seasons is a cool conceit that somehow hasn't translated well to TV. Batman The Animated Series, a series that freely bounced around the timeline was way more fun than Gotham, or really any of the live action DC shows so far. What I've tried to do here is present whole season arcs that can either be watched from season one to ten, or you can just read a single season and get a satisfying story without needing to move on to the next one. Also, I'm not doing these chronologically by when they were published. I find more modern comics tend to be either much better or much worse reads. Sometimes an old story doesn't age well, so it's nice to see it in updated language and themes. Sometimes, the updates don't work, as they tack on weird continuity retcons that just seem forced. Hopefully, you'll enjoy the way I've set this season out. Season Two: |
May 2024
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