Essential Classic X-Men, Vol. 2 by Roy Thomas

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book collects 25-53 of the original X-men series along with Issue 53 of the Avengers.

The first 20 issues are the latter part of Roy Thomas' run on the book and it's mostly fairly mediocre villain of the month stuff. Even the two part return of the Juggernaut isn't all that impressive until Issue 35. The big highlight is Issue 35 with Spidey v. the X-men, Issues 37-39 with the X-Men battling a group of evil mutants, and Issue 42 with the death of Professor X. Also, in Issue 38, the book began to be divided in a similar to the Thor series, with the first sixteen pages dedicated to the main story and five or six dedicated to telling the backstory of the X-men. This was helpful in a way because the X-men were not as well-developed characters as other Marvel groups such as the Fantastic Four or the Avengers.

Gary Friedrich took over with Issue 45 and his idea was to separate the X-men into three different groups with the FBI giving the order. As established in this book, Xavier is established as having federal permission from them to start the School for Mutants. It was an early attempt to address the problem that all these Marvel Superhero teams were in New York, but in retrospect it looks kind of silly because even in three groups, five X-men can't cover the whole country. Given the massive number of X-men in recent years, this actually could work.

Friedrich's tenure was short and he gave to Arnold Drake in Issue 48. Drake was best known for creating the Doom Patrol for DC at about the same time as the X-men. The Doom Patrol had many commonalities with the X-men excepts they were actually more interesting. Drake reunited the X-men fairly quickly and then introduced Lorna Dane in an epic story arc as "Queen of the Mutants" and apparent daughter of Magneto. The legendary Jim Steranko took over the art chores for Issues 50 and 51 in what is the highlight of the book. Steranko art is unique and it gives Drake's story an epic feel. It's a shame that Steranko didn't stick around to finish it in Issue 52 but Don Heck is no slouch. The book concludes with a melee against Blastar.

Overall, despite its failings, there's a lot to commend the book. The Arnold Drake stories are the best and Steranko makes the Lorna Dane story extra special. But even beyond that, the art is consistently good from cover to cover and a Spider-man guest spot and the Death of Professor Xavier (which wouldn't last of course) are enough to make this a worthy read for X-men fans.



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