Essential X-Men, Vol. 1 (Marvel Essentials) [Paperback]

Chris Claremont (Author), Dave Cockrum (Illustrator), John Byrne (Illustrator)

Book Description

Grade Level: P and up

Relive the genesis of the All-New, All-Different X-Men - and discover the human within the hero... and the truth behind the legend! Featuring the Juggernaut, Magneto, and more!

Product Details

• Paperback: 520 pages
• Publisher: Marvel (May 21, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0785132554
• ISBN-13: 978-0785132554
• Product Dimensions: 1 x 1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #750,269 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

91 of 102 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars So this is what comics were like..., September 20, 2005

By 

D. Frankham (Adelaide, SA Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Essential X-Men Vol. 1 (Paperback)

I missed out on comics as a kid. It wasn't that I was denied them, I just wasn't very interested, being more of a book kid.

Oh, I read a few, but very few of the sort of comics you probably think of when you think of comics. I read all the Tintin and Asterix books, for instance, and collections of Peanuts comics were among my favourite books, and still are. But as for American 'comic magazines', my only experience of them was a stack my grandparents once bought for me from a book exchange for a couple of dollars. Of those, I have vague but fond memories of some early 70s Batmans, and of what I presume were reprints of the famed EC horror comics. And I remember some fairly improbable claims about sea monkeys and X-ray glasses. But otherwise, my knowledge of comics is pretty much limited to what I've picked up on the Internet, where my interests often seem to bring me into contact with comics fans.

So comics are a gap in my pop culture knowledge that's been bugging me for a few years. Hence, when I saw these 'Essential' books going so cheap I bought one, picking the X-Men because I liked the movies. The 'Essential' series collects consecutive sequences of old Marvel comics, in cheap, poorly-made, monochrome editions, printed on thin grey paper like newspapers used to use, and with cheaply-glued covers that are likely to fall off within minutes (mine did, and I'm a careful handler of books). In other words, you probably won't be able to pass this down to your grandchildren unless you already have some. They are, however, cheap enough for some harmless ("Approved by the Comics Code"!) entertainment, or to satisfy your idle curiosity about what kind of things American comics are (or were). A fan would probably prefer a book that reprints the comics with their original colour, on nice white paper, properly bound. And such books are available, for a price.

The comics collected here are not, as a neophyte might expect, the first issues of the X-Men comic. Those were published in 1963 (yes, I've done some research), with a cast consisting of Professor X, Cyclops, Jean Gray -- who we new readers know from the movies -- and the less familiar Beast, Iceman (a minor character in the movies), and Angel. (Unlike the other X-Men, Jean Gray's superhero name isn't used in the movies, and in this book we discover why -- it was 'Marvel Girl'.) Later, Havoc and Polaris were added to the cast. The comic was cancelled in 1969, after 93 issues. The first 20-odd issues are available as Essential Uncanny X-Men.

The comic was revived in 1975 with a partly new cast, more closely resembling that of the movies. Essential X-Men Vol. 1 collects the first 27 issues of the revived comic. The first, Giant Size X-Men #1, introduces angry Canadian secret agent Wolverine, Russian farmboy Colossus (seen briefly at the start of X-Men 2), German circus performer Nightcrawler, angry Native American Thunderbird, Irish screamer Banshee, and African goddess Storm. It's something of a disappointing 'origin' for these characters; which may be inevitable when so many characters must be introduced in so few pages. Wolverine's backstory, as seen to good effect in the movies, seems to have gradually developed over many years in the comics, and there are only occasional hints of it in this book. Of the original cast, Cyclops and the Professor stick around, with the rest departing in a huff. Jean Gray would return fairly soon; and Thunderbird, with a personality rather too much like Wolverine's, but less interesting, would depart.

The early issues are fun, in a comic book sort of way, but there's something missing there. It's too much what I expected comics would be like: ridiculously-costumed people fighting and tough-talking; bad guys saying "Now I will kill <X-MAN'S NAME>!", and then another X-Man saying "Not while <OTHER X-MAN'S NAME> lives!", and then hitting them, and so on. Everyone seems to be able to make long speeches during apparently rapid action, as if they're somehow all talking at thirty words a second. It's a bit like TV wrestling, if TV wrestlers were more eloquent. And audience research seems to have revealed that the fans loved it when the new X-Men fought the old X-Men, so there's a continuing effort to find new ways to make that happen, sometimes within just a few issues of the last time.

And then Chris Claremont began writing the comic and, later, John Byrne began drawing the pictures, and I think contributing to the writing. These were names I recognised from comics fans encountered on the internet, who would speak them with awe. And fair enough. Pretty soon, the quality and sophistication of the writing and artwork take a vast leap upward; now we have non-linear narratives; original, epic cosmos-spanning story-lines; convincingly evoked emotions besides anger and revenge; and some neat mythic stuff. These guys aren't content with giving the audience what it thinks it wants; they're giving it something a hundred times better, something it couldn't have known it wanted till it saw it, because if it could have imagined anything half that much fun it would have been writing comics, not reading them. And there seems to be a rapport between writer and artist, the writer creating stories that enable the artist to draw to his strengths, creating striking, memorable images such as the fairground scenes in issue 111.

Now we find some storylines that I can understand comics fans remembering fondly decades later: the 'Phoenix' sequence, which sets up the later 'Dark Phoenix' saga which is said to be pretty good, and is collected in Essential X-Men Vol. 2; the epic storyline in which the mystery of Professor X's nightmares is solved and we meet his intergalactic soulmate, while the X-Men participate in a Star Wars inspired adventure in another galaxy; the X-Men fighting a resurrected morally ambivalent god in a tropical Antarctic 'lost world'.

Some of the better aspects of the comic, or of comics like this in general, have found their way into episodic TV in the last decade or so, especially the long-running 'story arcs', and the planting of 'seeds' for future stories many issues before they would begin.

In amongst this great stuff, there's still plenty of quirky 1970s comic silliness. Several consecutive supervillains wear nothing but underpants, a big belt, a cape and a helmet. There are constant references to previous issues, including issues from the 1960s, and to events that happened in other comics, so it's got more footnotes than a Penguin Classic. Storylines evidently in progress in other comics are mentioned, possibly with the intention that the reader will feel a need to buy the other comic to find out what's going on. Characters from other comics repeatedly appear for no particular reason, sometimes playing some minor role that could have gone to any random extra or been omitted entirely without harm, sometimes just appearing for a single panel because someone seems to have thought 'I'll bet the readers will want to know what the Avengers think about all this!' I lost count of the number of times now-obscure big-haired 1970s blaxploitation-inspired heroine Misty Knight showed up. But I was enjoying myself too much to be annoyed by any of this. All just part of that old-time comic reading experience. And Misty was kind of cool.

It was a little sad to realise that these comics would have been in my local newsagent at about the time I was the right age to start reading them. Was that cover a little familiar, I would ask myself occasionally. Did I once glance at it in passing, 25 years ago, on my way to the book section? I think they would have been a great part of my childhood.

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Saga begins., July 17, 2001

By 

Jon Berger (Oslo Norway) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Essential X-Men Vol. 1 (Paperback)

First - a warning - there's a very specific reason why this book, which ordinarily would warrant 5 stars, only get 4, and that's because it's printed on very cheap paper, in black & white and with a very soft and fragile cover.

There. Grumbles out of the way, this is THE place to start for those curious about the saga of the X-men, but can't be bothered to search out the original comic books in second hand stores and feel intimidated by the massive amount of other titles readily available.

Another thing, this really should be called "The Complete X-Men, vol. 1", not the "Essential", because this is the entire "modern day" saga, starting with Professor Xavier assembling the "new" team of X-men.

It's well deserved that this version of the X-Men became a leading force in modern comics, as Chris Claremonts writing, which was excellent throughout his entire spell with the series, for the first time brought focus to the STORY. Sure, there were good stories written within the field of super-hero comics (DC were better than Marvel, in my opinion), but this was the first time quality of writing became as much a tour de force as quality of drawing.

Later on, Claremont drew upon the (then) formidable talents of John Byrne, more or less re-defining what super-hero comics were about.

The fact that Claremont also managed to make all the characters, supporting cast included, come alive within the confines of the genre, rather than just including a card-board-cut-out supporting cast, stands as a testament to the quality of the series.

Long live the X-Men.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The "Second Genesis" of the Uncanny X-Men, April 9, 2003

By 

Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Essential X-Men Vol. 1 (Paperback)

I greeted the new and improved X-Men with less than open arms. I had been a big fan of the original Uncanny X-Men, which had gone out in a blaze of glory with comics drawn by Jim Steranko and Neal Adams. When Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum revived the title in 1975, after "X-Men" had been reduced to a reprint comic, I was not overly thrilled with the decision to jettison most of the original group. If Cyclops had not stayed then I might have given up on the title right then and there, but this was the old days when you could still buy every title in the Marvel universe for about five bucks (remember, this was when you could fill up your car and get change back on a $5 bill). So I stuck around and saw how Claremont, Cockrum, and John Byrne turned the "X-Men" into one of the premier comic books in the land.

The original strength of the X-Men was that their being hunted mutants served as a subtext for various issues involving social prejudice. Claremont and Cockrum put that in an international context by having Professor X go around the world to recruit his second generation of merry mutants recruiting from the mountains of Kenya to behind the Iron Curtain. This time around we find not only that the X-Men are no longer all white, they are also not all as young as before (Banshee qualifies more as a contemporary of Charles Xavier). Also thrown into the mix is their disparate temperaments; early issues always have Wolverine and Thunderbird in a contest to see who can blow up first.

This first volume in the "Essential X-Men" series (not to be confused with the single volume released of the "Essential Uncanny X-Men") contains "Giant Size X-Men" #1 and issues #94-119 of "X-Men." The new X-Men are put together to rescue the old X-Men, at which point the question becomes: what do you do with thirteen X-Men? The answer is to get down to a half-dozen by having all of the original X-Men leave except for Cyclops, to have one of the new X-Men decide not to play, and then you are down to seven, one of whom is doomed to die (and if you pay attention to the group logo on the cover you can see that they telegraphed their choice from the start).

All things considered, the new X-Men are an improvement over the original group, not only in terms of their powers but also in terms of their secret identities. I mean, all things considered all Angel could do was fly and the Beast was a muscular acrobat with lots of brains (the decision to make him blue and furry admits to the character's liabilities). Storm is an exotic elemental queen trying to fit in with regular folk and Colossus remains a man-child at heart, even in this brave new world. Most importantly, Wolverine makes the Thing look like a cuddly teddy bear, giving the group a dangerous edge. Claremont liked to skate as close to that edge as possible, and eventually he would send the series over the edge with his Dark Phoenix plotline.

Ultimately the idea of recreating the X-Men is more interesting than most of the particular stories being told in this collection. Far and away the best storyline is after Bryne comes on board as an artist when the new X-Men have to encounter the first and still greatest villain in the series, Magneto (#111-113). As Cyclops says when the bad guy finally emerges, "Lord, no! We're still nowhere near ready." What makes this work is that this is not an ultimate battle, but rather it is the first of many major conflicts between these characters. The aftermath in Ka-Zar's Hidden Land (#114-116) is also above average and the arrival of Lilandra holds the promise of taking the X-Men to the stars and beyond. Clearly Claremont and Byrne work best when they open up the scope of their stories to three issues or more. This first collection is devoted primarily for establishing the foundation for what is to come, but by the end Claremont and Byrne are clearly moving upward and onward.