Customer Reviews

The Neal Adams Collection (X-Men Visionaries)

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The Thomas/Adams era of X-Men is mostly forgotten: everyone seems to remember the original X-Men as being complete failures. This book actually shows that the original X-Men could be interesting characters; these were the books that Claremont, Cockrum and Byrne were flipping through during their early days to get the feel of the series. However, it should be noted that the editorial decision to not include any issues -not- penciled by Neal Adams is a bit insane. Because of this we come in half-way through the (first!) Havok storyline, and the first appearence of Sunfire is left out, as is the famous fight with the Hulk, which was also their last issue. Hopefully some day we will see these in reprinted form, as the originals are almost impossible to get.

The 2nd print is very close, but no cigar. After the computer coloring hack job of the first print, Marvel redid some of the issues, as there were originally printed 30 years ago. Unfortunately, there are still some pages, here and there, that still have this bad coloring work. On top of it, I now see some colored pages from the 80's special edition reprints making it an inconsistent mess.
Hopefully by the time Marvel releases the 3rd print, ALL of the coloring for this collection will be brought back to its former glory.

Seriously, what were they thinking when they gave the coloring job on this the green light? For those who love great artwork in comics, this short run by Neal Adams on X-Men in the late 60's is really one of the highlights. So why would Marvel treat it so poorly? One reviewer mentioned the previous print job as being worse but I disagree. This is a mess; costumes change color from page to page, some pages are flat, saturated color while others are dot printed (which looks far worse on high grade paper than on newsprint!). I also hope they give this a third, improved printing. For those of you who can't wait, the great artwork is still there, it's just buried under an inept rush-job. Personally, I would've prefered the thing in b&w.

You have to remember before issue #56 of the "X-Men" came out in 1969 that the comic book was hurtling towards oblivion (which meant it would became a reprint title for Marvel). Jim Steranko had come in and done a few wonderful issues but then we had issue #53, which we all thought was the worst drawn comic in the history of the world. The artist was some young kid off the boat from England named Barry Smith who was clearly trying to imitate Jack Kirby (what we did not know was that Smith had literally drawn the pages sitting on benches in Central Park. In what was clearly a final but big time effort to save the X-Men, Neal Adams was brought in as the artist, the pages inked by Tom Palmer, the stories written by Roy Thomas and then Dennis O'Neil. For those who had suffered through issues drawn by the competent but uninspiring Don Heck, the nine issues drawn by Adams raised the bar for what the art in a comic book could look like. Whereas Steranko was the master of style, Adams provided a realism that was just great, as he went on to show while drawing Batman and Green Lantern/Green Arrow for DC.

Collected in "X-Men: Visionaries - Neal Adams" are issues #56-63, and 65 of "X-Men," published originally in 1969-1970, and since all of them run for over $100 in proverbial near mint condition, this is a nice way of enjoying these great comic book stories. Issue #56 has the Living Pharaoh, #57 the start of an awesome Sentinel trilogy, #58 offers the first appearance of Havok, #59 has Cyclops as the last X-Man standing against the Sentinels, Issues #60-62 offers the Sauron trilogy, which gets the X-Men back to the Savage Land and a meeting with Ka-Zar, #63 is a nice Magneto story (picking up on the Steranko bit of the devil having a daughter), and #64 is admittedly a lame monster story. These were just above well above average stories with the longer storylines working to the advantage of the characters and the artwork. I did not understand the importance of using the name "Sauron" as a villain, since I was still a few years away from reading the Lord of the Rings, but it was cool to have a monster that was a flying dinosaur. The Havoc costume was pretty cool too and I still remember the way Adams introduced Magneto without his helmet in one of the great reveals of all time. There was one more original issue after the run by Adams and then the title started reprinting issues #12-45. Granted, the run by Chris Claremont and John Bryne when the X-Men were brought back as an international gang of merry mutants in 1975 is the highpoint of the series, but the issues by Adams comes in a strong second.

One of the finest runs in the Silver Age of comics were the X-men stories by Roy Thomas and Neal Adams which have been collected here in it's entirety in a single softcover volume. These stories introduced new characters and costumes and featured the stunning artwork of Neal Adams in his first work for Marvel Comics. Neal Adams experimented with storytelling and graphics which have yet to be surpassed on this series. The highlight of the series was the sequence in the Savage Land where the villainous Sauron was introduced and the X-men's arch nemesis, Magneto, was surprisingly reintroduced. The X-men are joined by Ka-Zar and Zabu in their battle with Magneto's minions. The only complaint I have with this package is the recoloring of the stories. I would have preferred to see the original coloring preserved and perhaps enhanced but not completely redone. Altogether it is a breathtaking volume which is a must for every X-men fan and collector.

At times, I have difficulty with the concept of Marvel's "Visionaries" books. When the book focuses on a writer (like Chris Claremont) or a writer/artist (like Walt Simonson or Frank Miller), it's good, as you get grade-A stories that signalled changes in direction for certain books. When the book focuses solely on an artist, however, it's not so good, as no matter how good the art is, there's no telling what you'll get in terms of story quality. Also, you only get issues with that artist's work, so incomplete stories and fragments can be quite prevalent.

Such is the case with X-MEN VISIONARIES: NEAL ADAMS, spotlighting the 1969 X-Men issues illustrated by one of the greatest comic artists of all time. One thing that you should be aware of is that, in 1969, the X-Men, currently the world's most popular super-team, was in the dumpster. The stories were not that great, the art was generally horrible, and as a result, no one would touch this series with a ten-foot pole. But then came Neal Adams to spice things up a bit, drawing issues 56-63 and 65, knocking people out with his realistic depictions of our beloved teenage mutants. Artistically, these issues are excellent, and they rightly got the attention of readers. Even with this artistic jolt, however, Roy Thomas' writing is painfully melodramatic, and no amount of good art can fix that. In addition, Adams' artistic chores began in the middle of an ongoing story, and as this book contains no non-Adams material, you won't get a complete story. Also, the recoloring of these pages is horrible, so even though Marvel trumpets Adams' work, their lack of care in reprinting it doesn't back it up.

So, this book is a great artistic experience combined with some laughable stories. You do get a few great moments in X-Men history, such as the return of Professor X and Magneto, the intros of Sauron and the Savage Land mutants, and cameos by Ka-Zar and the Living Monolith, but X-MEN VISIONARIES: NEAL ADAMS is proof that Marvel should focus on either writers or writer/artists for these books.

A Great Collection of Unccany X-Men issues! Neal Adams was a popular comic book artist during the early 1970s. Uncanny X-men#57-65 was his first professional work for Marvel comics. He inspired many of the later artist like John Byrne, Marc Silvestri, and Jim Lee to draw the X-men. Many people do not remember him because he was popular during the Silver Age of X-men. During that time, Many popular characters like Wolerine, Storm, Rouge,Gambit, and Nightcrawler, did not even exits. The X-men's roster was the original team, Cyclops, Jeany Grey, Iceman, Beast, Angel, Havok and Polaris. Buy this book if you were a fan of the X-Men and Neal Adams during the early 1970's! Buy it! Neal Adams inspired many of today's artist like John Byrne and Jim Lee to become the popular comic book artists they are today!

In 1969 or thereabouts, Neal Adams had a meeting with Stan Lee to see about possibly getting some work. Since this is Neal friggin' Adams, Stan Lee opened up his entire stable of comic books. But Neal asked Stan which title was the worst-selling one, to which Stan's response was: "Worst selling? That would be the X-Men. We're going to cancel it in two issues." Well, then...

X-MEN VISIONARIES: NEAL ADAMS collects issues #56-63 & 65 of the X-MEN title, with Roy Thomas writing and co-plotting. Neal Adams must've had a blast trying his hand at the very unconventional Marvel style, a creative process in which the artist lays down the art and the writer would then find places to insert the dialogue and text captions.

This was all before the dynamic new X-Men roster was introduced. Neal had to work with the original mutant team, so this was very much a case of the art dominating the storytelling, and, boy, I hope this isn't disrespectful to scripter Roy Thomas. There's only so much you can do when second-string characters like Ice Man, the Beast, and Angel are taking up space.

Still, putting aside his fantastic illustrations, Neal Adams manages to get other things done. His contributions to the X-Men mythos include the creation of Havok and Sauron and the resurrections of, first, Magneto and then Professor Xavier whose death in ish #42, by the way, seemed to mark that sense of finality. We must've forgot that this is comic books.

Neal Adams gets plonked in the middle of the Living Pharaoh storyline, but he gets his feet wet quick. Under his auspices, we see the Pharaoh's ascension to his colossal Living Monolith guise and - demonstrating that society's fear and mistrust of mutantkind go back a ways - we witness the re-activation of the Sentinel program (the Sentinels are Neal's preferred X-Men villains). Who would've thunk it that a guy named Larry could cause all this furor? During all this, we track Alex Summers' coming into (and fearing) his mutant powers, and his eventual assumption of the Havok superhero identity. Note that in the Sentinel arc, there is an awesome bit in which Cyclops applies Captain Kirk-like logic to fatally flabbergast the Sentinels.

We then get the two-part Sauron story which then directly leads into the X-Men's jaunt into the Savage Land. There, a guest-starring and really imperious Ka-Zar proceeds to lord it over everyone. He and the X-Men unclench long enough to foil Magneto and his vile scheme of transforming swamp savages into mutants.

Issue #64 is absent in this trade, probably because Don Heck and not Neal Adams drew it. issue #65 presents the menace of... the Z'nox, which sounds more like something you take for male impotence rather than an incredibly hostile alien race that had "perfected the techniques of conquest!" The Z-nox are traveling to Earth with their home planet in tow, and they are almost here. This story heralds Professor X's return (and his explanation to his shocked students), and it turns out he'd put his absence to good use, having come up with a plan to stop the Z'nox. It's a bit insane when you consider that this epic alien attack is averted all in one issue, because nowadays, this sucker would've gotten stretched to multi-parters. So a "nyah-nyah" is extended to the decompression writing style, and to Brian Michael Bendis, and to writing for the trade edition.

Of all the characters here, Warren Worthington - a.k.a. the Angel - comes off as the most unlikable and, wow, what a useless putz. Impulsive and cocky where he's got no right to be cocky, Angel makes all the wrong choices and ends up repeatedly beat down and, in two instances, hypnotized by Sauron. One gets the sense that his constant referencing of himself as "the avenging Angel" is some form of compensation. Although we also get Hank McCoy frequently calling himself "the bludgeoning Beast," so maybe it's just Roy Thomas being alliterative again.

Also, somewhere along here, Alex Summers and Lorna Dane meet and begin to hang out. Bobby Drake, heavily crushing on Lorna, turns the color of Lorna's hair (which is, you know... green).

This trade collection has the following bonus material: Neal Adams' introduction, legendary inker Tom Palmer's afterword as he offers thoughts on his collaboration with Neal Adams, and reprints of the original comic book covers. Neal Adams was approached to draw the X-MEN Graphic Novel "GOD LOVES, MAN KILLS," but this and that happened and he couldn't finish it. Still, the six pages of pencil work that he did finish are reproduced here.

I won't even mention the art other than to remind everyone that this is Neal friggin' Adams. Crazy thing was, even after Adams's coming on board, the X-MEN still ended up canceled. File this in the cabinet labeled "What The Hell Were They Thinking?"

The Good: the stories are all nicely done and this collection makes for some entertaining reading.

The Bad: The coloring takes a lot away from the artwork and on a certain pages even makes it look mediocre. I have a looked at Neal Adams' penciling in b/w art and it is fantastic! I don't know whether this was exactly how the original issues looked or if the coloring is a problem only in this edition. I wish Marvel had done a more professional job on the coloring...

Just as the Original X-Men's run was hampered by ridiculously low sales, Marvel tried to salvage the title by conscripting two greats -- Roy Thomas and Neal Adams -- to come up with some butt-kicking tales. And this they did! Adams can tell a story by himself, really, with his spectacular pencils. His sense of perspective, lighting and presence is truly phenomenal. Unfortunately, even he and Thomas couldn't prevent X-Men from lowering into the depths of reprints, despite their herculean effort.

In these collected tales you'll witness the Living Monolith, Havoc, the Sentinels, Sauron, Ka-Zar and the civilization-destroying Z'Nox. Overall, this is well worth the $$.