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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A 4-star-worthy trio of mutant sagas from 1987-88, marred by slapdash production,
By Cultural Production (Los Angeles, USA) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: X-Men: The Fall of the Mutants (Hardcover)
X-Men: Fall of the Mutants Omnibus collects issues #18-26 of X-Factor, #336-337 and #340 of The Incredible Hulk, #252 of Daredevil, #339 of Captain America, #35 of Power Pack, #312 of Fantastic Four, #220-227 of Uncanny X-Men, and #55-61 of New Mutants, all of which were originally published between 1987 and 1988. Like other Marvel Omnibuses, this one features low-gloss archival quality paper, finished boards, and a sewn binding. Despite these features, however, the Fall of the Mutants Omnibus gives the general impression of having been rushed sloppily through production. The foil-stamped title on the front cover, for instance, looks terrible, having accidentally been left-justified instead of centered. The three individual pages of summarized back-story are amazingly sloppy as well: not only is the writing horrendous, but strange textual characters are accidentally mixed in amongst the text, weird formatting errors are evident, words seem to be missing, and sentences sometimes lack concluding punctuation. These pages are indeed so embarrassingly bad as to be almost comical. Extras include some house ads (randomly scattered throughout the book), a reproduction of a Fall of the Mutants Contest Reply Card, covers to the Fall of the Mutants trade paperback and Essential X-Factor vol. 2, a Fall of the Mutants article from Marvel Age #58, and (dreadfully done) combined cover spreads for each of the main books.
Plot-wise, Fall of the Mutants Omnibus contains three, largely separate stories, each running through one of the main X-Books of 1987. The first, written by Louise Simonson, sees X-Factor struggle both to protect themselves from their traitorous business manager and protect New York City from Apocalypse and his Horsemen. In the second story, written by Chris Claremont, Storm undertakes a quest to murder Forge (who has, ostensibly, become evil) while the X-Men rescue Madelyne Pryor from the Marauders and find themselves face-to-face with Freedom Force. In the last story, also written by Louise Simonson, the New Mutants befriend a strange bird-boy, who leads the group into a dangerous adventure that ends in tragedy. All three stories contain big events important to X-Men history, including the first appearance of Archangel, Roma's gift to the X-Men, and the tragic death of one the New Mutants. New readers encountering these stories for the first time, however, are likely to find them something of a mixed bag. The X-Factor tale is woefully convoluted and--in this reader's opinion--somewhat poorly drawn by Walter Simonson (panels are spare and, with Bob Wiacek on inks, often appear sketchy). Luckily, the Peter David Hulk stories that cross-over into it are beautifully drawn by Todd McFarlane. John Romita Jr. and Al Williamson also provide excellent art for Ann Nocenti's interesting Daredevil cross-over. Chris Claremont's X-Men storyline makes for a more enjoyable read--particularly the now classic Storm segment--but, as with Simonson on X-Factor, Marc Silevstri's art for it (inked by Dan Green) is not his best. The New Mutants bird-boy saga, however, proves to be the most enjoyable of the three. Though by far the least epic part of the "Fall of the Mutants" event, this quirky story manages to be both comical and, thanks to Brett Blevins' gorgeous and sometimes gruesome art (inked by Terry Austin), genuinely nerve-wracking. If you're a die-hard fan of the X-Men and don't already own the trade paperback version of X-Men: The Fall of the Mutants (X-Men), this edition is worth picking up. If you're a more casual X-Men fan or already own the previous version, however, there's no reason to buy this--especially considering its sloppy production quality.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Huge Slice of Marvel: A Massive Moment for the X-Men,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: X-Men: The Fall of the Mutants (Hardcover)
The Fall of the Mutants Omnibus Collects:
X-Factor 18-26 Uncanny X-Men 220-227 New Mutants 55-61 Incredible Hulk 336-337; 340 Power Pack 35 Daredevil 252 Captain America 39 Fantastic Four 312 This is a massive 813-page volume. Taken together it is representative of Marvel in the late 1980s. The book itself is beautiful (and a great way to replace the old comic boxes you might have hidden away): the jacket is a thick glossy high-quality paper. The pages are made from quality paperstock that makes the artwork with look better than it ever did in the original magazines. Given that Fall of the Mutants Omnibus collects so many Marvel titles, it represents what is great and not-so-great about Marvel at the time. Fall of the Mutants begins with X-Factor titles, which are by far the weakest of the collection. Unfortunately, X-Factor took some of the greatest X-Men, kept them in their original corny outfits and added an overly complicated cover story for them (something about helping mutants by disguising themselves as mutant hunters). Power Pack so-so. While Fall of the Mutants Omnibus starts on weak note, it grows into a fantastic crescendo. By the time you get the Uncanny X-Men issues (about halfway through the omnibus), all the framework/set-up is out of the way. This leaves the X-Men ready to battle Adversary in a cosmic struggle that threatens the entire omniverse. The X-Men issues ultimately redefine the direction of the series for several years to follow. These issues are critical reading for any X-Fan. Storm learns to balance her human abilities and desires with her God-like command of the elements. Wolverine is forced to become a team player. Colossus returns from a long recovery. The X-Men and Mystique reach a truce. There are great battle sequences between the Marauders and the X-Men (especially as Havoc is pitted against his love Polaris as possessed by Malice). Without giving away too much, the X-Men issues are phenomenal. In summary: Fall of the Mutants Omnibus could be a 5-star collection; however, the overly drawn out cross-over is both typical of Marvel in 1980s-1990s and frustrating. I don't believe the random tie-ins with Power Pack, Hulk, Capt America, etc were really necessary (Marvel's logic at the time was to encourage readers of their flagship X-Men to buy other titles). However, the highs outnumber the lows. Even if you skipped the weaker issues collected in this Omnibus, you would still have 500-600 pages of great reading. So I give it 4-stars: "I liked it."
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
not bad but overpriced for crossover event,
This review is from: X-Men: The Fall of the Mutants (Hardcover)
If you liked the Inferno HC and Mutant Massacre HC I think they are pretty representative of what you are getting here. Still I wish it would be $20 cheaper without the crossover filling like the Inferno HC (the extra issues are ok but just cause disconnect with different writers & art.
I thought pretty good but I must admit I'm a bit disappointed for over $60. Pay an extra $10 and get the Thor Omnibus which in my mind is the best thing put out in the 80's -amazing.
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