Customer Reviews

X-Men: The Complete Onslaught Epic, Book 1

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Here is the first of 4 X-Men books, chronicling the Onslaught Saga from the late 90's. Many people will praise it. Many people will hate it. This is one of the those books that marked the beginning of a downward trend for Marvel.

I grew up in the 80's/90's. I was in Elementary school when the X-Men cartoon first aired. To me and my generation, that was our X-Men. We bought the toys, watched the show, read comics like "X-Cutioner's Song" and loved every minute of it. I think Onslaught marks the end of our era. "Fatal Attractions" was the highpoint, and "Onslaught" was the swan song. There was a lot that I remember and liked about this story. For my generation, Onslaught is a quiet classic.

However, for those who grew up in the 60's/70's, Onslaught is one of those moments that burns them. They can't stand the bizarre, ridiculous plot twists, and cheap shocks. From an unbiased standpoint, I can see their point. This is not the X-Men they grew up with. This is not their style. It was our style.

Essentially, the X-Men are facing a mysterious threat known as Onslaught that has been haunting them since the end of the "Age of Apocalypse". In this book, Onslaught is revealed and his plans for evolution and domination are set in motion. The story brings in the entire Marvel Universe and this was essentially the prelude to the Heroes Reborn series that relaunched Captain America, Fantastic Four, Iron Man, & the Avengers.

At $30, the price is a bit high and should only be considered by people who know what they're getting into. My only disappointment with the book is the lack of material from the months of build-up to the story. In the original trades, the book starts with the Juggernaut story where he first utters the name "Onslaught". I think that would have been a nice addition to this new release.

This really is a nostalgia book. Those who grew up with this era, should have a lot of fun remembering this story. Those who were already adults when this came out will loath it. Those who recently started reading comics recently will find it simplistic and lacking depth. Choose your path!

Last year when Marvel printed the Age of Apocalypse storyline in 4 volumes for 29.99 each, I took the opportunity to read the entire storyline that would have been impossible to collect otherwise. It made me think, "Boy, I hope they're working on Onslaught next!"

But now that it's here, I feel like I'm being ripped off. Again, the series is being presented across four volumes. There's significantly less content here, so each volume is signigicantly smaller. That's not too bad seeing how the AoA volumes really were so heavy that they were a little hard to read and I was constantly worrying about the spine. However, the powers that be have decided that the 29.99 price point should stick. We're talking 68% of the pages from the AoA books, but at %100 of the price.

Ah, well... it's still cheaper than getting the individual issues or the original TPBs...

This story arc came out when I was a teenager, and it was right after I had my first serious experiences in reading comics. I've always loved Marvel, and got caught up in this story line to the point of near obsession. Unfortunately, due to personal circumstance I was never able to find out the resolution to the story arc, and subsequently never followed back to comics as a whole until just recently. I had been reading wikipedia articles about the Marvel universe, and really wanted to immerse myself back into this story arc and read to it's conclusion. I was able to get this first volume at a discount, and add a free gift card into the mix, it was probably more palatable to me than the other reviewers. I can't wait for the other volumes, and to get back into the rest of the Marvel univers.

This is the first book about Onslaught treat, I think that the art is really great, and they try to resume the story because this crossover is too huge that involves all the X-men, avengers, spiderman and hulk, they resume all this books and describe you only the important facts that happens in other books (only a page) and of course that makes this collection more easy to read and less expensive. In this book begins the fighting with this monster. I can't wait to read the other 3 parts.

This is a prime example of why people left comics. Publishers thought they could publish terrible art with writing lacking any substance and people would buy it, regardless.
Yes, there is always mediocre comics published today, but they are not as plentiful as back in the '90's.
This story and artwork hurt my stomach and heart, for I love comics. Do yourselves a favor and read Mike Carey's X-Men or Ed Brubaker's Uncanny X-Men.

Beginning as a storyline in the X-titles, and eventually becoming a massive crossover spanning the entire Marvel universe, the Onslaught saga sent plenty of distinctive groans throughout fanboys, not to mention the aftermath of which and the whole Heroes Reborn storyarc, but I disgress. Needless to say, I don't have good memories about the Onslaught storyline, but this first volume (packaged much like the Age of Apocalypse books a while back) contains various issues of X-Men, X-titles, and Avengers as Onslaught makes his first moves in conquering the world. The X-Men, the Avengers, Cable, X-Force, and Nate "X-Man" Grey are a handful of those opposing Onslaught, but the story as a whole just doesn't get all that riveting. The plot twists are boring and contrived (particularly Onslaught's origin) and the book as a whole just represents what was going so wrong with Marvel at the time. There are some nice moments of artwork to be found here, but not enough to warrant the list price. All in all, if for some reason you enjoyed the Onslaught saga way back when, this is worth picking up I guess, but for the rest of us, leave it on the shelf.

Great read. This represents why comics were more creative and fun just a few years ago in the 90s in comparison to the overwhelmingly maudlin nostalgia fad that is currently dragging comic down to the creative depths (especially over at D(ullC comics, home of the mid life crisis of infinite reruns. Onslaught was fun, fresh and compelling. Well worth the read.