X-Men by Chris Claremont & Jim Lee Omnibus, Vol. 1

X-Men by Chris Claremont & Jim Lee #1

by Chris Claremont, Terry Austin, Ann Nocenti

What happens when you combine an industry veteran at the top of his game with a hot, up-and-coming young artist, and let them loose on Marvel's mightiest mutants? You get a fan-favorite, multi-year X-Men run unequaled in style, pizzazz and wall-to-wall action! It's Chris Claremont's most ambitious story arc ever, featuring Jim Lee's dynamic debut issues and major changes to the X-Men's status quo! Jubilee debuts just as the X-Men disband, granted new lives by the Siege Perilous! The Reavers enact gruesome revenge on Wolverine and decimate MuirIsland, while Psylocke is transformed into a ninja! The Shadow King makes his play for Storm, culminating in the action-packed introduction of Gambit! Wolverine's hidden past with Captain America and the Black Widow is revealed! And this is just the first volume! Collecting UNCANNY X-MEN #244-269, X-MEN ANNUAL (1970) #13 and CLASSIC X-MEN #39.

Genres: Comics, Marvel, X Men, Graphic Novels, Graphic Novels Comics, Superheroes, Comics Manga

681 pages, Hardcover

First published October 19, 2011

About the author

Chris Claremont is a writer of American comic books, best known for his 16-year (1975-1991) stint on Uncanny X-Men, during which the series became one of the comic book industry's most successful properties.

Claremont has written many stories for other publishers including the Star Trek Debt of Honor graphic novel, his creator-owned Sovereign Seven for DC Comics and Aliens vs Predator for Dark Horse Comics. He also wrote a few issues of the series WildC.A.T.s (volume 1, issues #10-13) at Image Comics, which introduced his creator-owned character, Huntsman.

Outside of comics, Claremont co-wrote the Chronicles of the Shadow War trilogy, Shadow Moon (1995), Shadow Dawn (1996), and Shadow Star (1999), with George Lucas. This trilogy continues the story of Elora Danan from the movie Willow. In the 1980s, he also wrote a science fiction trilogy about female starship pilot Nicole Shea, consisting of First Flight (1987), Grounded! (1991), and Sundowner (1994). Claremont was also a contributor to the Wild Cards anthology series.

Reviews

[Lance Grabmiller · Rating 2 out of 5]

Collects Uncanny X-men #244-269, Annual #13 as well as some supplemental material which covers May, 1989 to October, 1990.

An incredibly mixed-bag, the collection starts off weakly with a "girl's night out" story followed by a "boy's night out" story and the usual rather ridiculous annual. It gets going pretty rapidly after that as everything completely falls apart. This collection deserves the moniker "Fall of the Mutants" much more than the crossover from a couple of years earlier. The entire team disintegrates. Storm is killed (and you know it isn't going to last because they bury her and move on too quickly), Longshot quits the team (good riddance) and four of the other X-Men step through the Siege Perilous to be reborn. There really is no X-men through most of the book. Banshee teams up with Forge to try to relocate the old X-Men while Muir Island falls apart (mostly thanks to Legion). Then all the who died or went through the Siege Perilous have individual adventures as they start anew. Storm comes back as a child (I really, really wish Claremont would let Nanny and the Orphanmaker go away). Wolverine is saved from the Reavers by Jubilee and Psylocke becomes a ninja. WAY too much going on here and it's often very, very confusing. You can really tell Claremont is trying to reorient the team but isn't given enough time to tell the stories properly (Uncanny X-Men was coming out twice a month during most of this run). Some important new faces (Jubilee and Gambit) and some old ones return (Banshee and Forge) so I'm excited to see where this is going but it's a real mess, with only the Wolverine/Jubilee stories seeming really coherent and consistently engaging. Really wish they would have taken a breather to mourn Destiny as well as she was so important to Mystique and Rogue. Also, Jubilee's dialogue is awful. Claremont always was bad at using non-stop, already outdated slang for younger characters and here it is at it's worst. Some good stuff within but it's surrounded by mediocre or not well fleshed-out ideas.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is great stuff, with the dissolution of the X-Men and their slow reappearance--overall, a very brave storyline to run at the time, especially with keeping some characters offscreen for over a year. Some arcs particularly stand out, such as the the Reavers issues, both in Australia and when they attack Muir Island. The Psylocke arc is also a classic.

[OmniBen · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Zero spoiler review)
I thought this was a lock to be one of the best books I'd ever read. Claremont, Lee and Silvestri. Talk about a sure thing. Turns out the only sure thing here is frustration and disappointment. The last X omni I read was Inferno, so there was a little bit of a gap, but fook me, there has been quite a bit going on in the interim.
I've never been a big fan of Jim Lee, less so for the person than the art, but hot damn his stuff is pure fire here. It's just a shame that Claremont turns in some pretty dire stuff here. Not only is the writing not great, but there is far, FAR too much of it. Convoluted, some what meaningless and boring at times, too. At least it made for some pretty looking most of the time. Though Jim Lee getting top billing above Mark Silvestri despite him doing three times as many issues is poor form. 3/5


OmniBen.

[Myles Likes Tacos and Rice · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is smaller than your typical omnibus, however 90s Claremont is so wordy that going through this is like reading all of the War of the Realms tie-ins

In terms of story,this is more setup for X-Men #1 (next volume) instead of a cohesive story. After reading this, I can understand why X-Men became so popular in the 90s

The extras are excellent, tons of Jim Lee covers from other titles, sketches, and even some of the 90s trading cards he illustrated

Modern X-Men makes so many references to the lore, so this is a must have on a bookshelf when you need to look something up. Yes I know there is google and Duck Duck go, but that is so boorrrrrinnnnnnggggggg and a search engine doesn't look cool on a bookshelf

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty close to a 4 star book. I read the last half in one big gulp. Pretty decent reading. At this point Uncanny was coming out twice a month, so you might think that would make for a faster paced story. It doesn't. It has the opposite effect. Back in the Cockrum/Byrne days X-men adventures were mostly tidy little affairs, wrapped up in an issue or two with some plot threads weaving a bit wider.

Not here in the late 80's - there's definitely some pacing problems. And problems with logic and continuity. Some things just don't make sense or aren't explained at least. Oddly as a team book, the Uncanny folks spend most of this volume spread wide and far away from each other. Often not even knowing that they even have other team members in the book.

I'm also utterly baffled as to why this book features Jim Lee so prominently in the title. He's not the lead artist of the book. Marc Silvestri is. Jim Lee draws the 2 issues featuring Psylocke turning into an Asian ninja. And that's about it. I'm a bit miffed about it. I laid out a hundred bucks on this book and the headline artist draws 2 pages out of a 1,000. What a bleeding rip-off. It's not as if he's that great of an artist either, at least to my taste.

[Aildiin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok lets be honest here, the stories and especially the art in this Omnibus haven't aged well, except that is the few issues penciled by Jim lee which have a much more modern look but sadly out of 27 issues in this Omnibus Jim lee only penciled 8 (which by the way makes calling this a Jim lee Omnibus quite a lie, end of rant).

That being said this is an interesting look at the end of Chris Claremont run and at how the X-Men stories were before the big crossover age at the beginning of the 90s.

In the end I would recommend this for collectors or anyone interested in comic history or any X-Men fan ( I am part of the third group).

[Rumi Bossche · Rating 3 out of 5]

A big mess story wise, but alot of great stuff as well, the X- Men ar spread out all over the word, and lots of different stories but not alot of connection. The Jim Lee issues are amazing, and its great to see the start of my favorite period with the X Men. Still there is greatness in this book and i would recommend for the X fans.

[Remxo · Rating 5 out of 5]

1990's X-Men perfection

I made an exception for Hickman's current run and Morrison's New X-Men, but other than those two runs, I've been reading Uncanny X-Men chronologically for a couple of years now, picking up an omnibus every now and then. I think it's worth noting that I am reading this material for the first time; I am not affected by childhood nostalgia.

I had to give this 5 stars (8.5/10) because this was pretty much 1990's X-Men perfection. The rather large cast is dispersed across the globe and beyond. The setting changes constantly. The narrative structure is a lot like a soap opera's. Claremont is very much in command of his characters and their various story beats. There's wasn't a single weak issue in this volume, which is pretty amazing considering the fact that the release schedule changed from monthly to bimonthly. Claremont, Lee and Silvestri clearly were having a ball and it shows.

[Jonathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'll start with the positives- there's some cool iconic stuff here: the introduction of Jubilee and Gambit, Savage Land Rogue, Wolverine in Madripoor... But there's also a whole lot of bullshit. I knew Claremont X-Men was convoluted but this is a continuity clusterfuck. So many villains and characters are thrown in without introduction, there's so many different X teams with different line ups, and worst of all, so much goddamn mind control and memory loss and body swapping and don't even get me started on the fucking "siege perilous." It's very tedious and disjointed, and doesn't work very well as a story to follow. Also, I just don't understand why Jim Lee has this reputation as a superstar artist. While some of the designs have an undeniable 90s charm to them, there are so many terrible expressions and unnecessary edginess, and the panel-to-panel storytelling is not very effective. And that's not even getting started on the way he draws women, which is just embarrassing.

[Vincent · Rating 4 out of 5]

People tend to not like this era very much because the X-men are split up, so there’s a lot of switching perspectives and sometimes you might not see your favorite character for several issues. Personally I think all the individual storylines make for some interesting character work. Especially the focus on Forge, the re-introduction of Psylocke and the dynamic between Wolverine and Jubilee was a lot of fun.

The actual Jim Lee issues (only about 7 out of 27) are an obvious highlight, not just because of the art but also because a great artist tends to bring out the best in Claremont’s writing as well. Silvestri’s art is great too. Unfortunately there’s also a couple of issues with very bad art (for X-men anyways), but the story makes up for it. As usual, I can’t wait to keep reading to see what happens next.

[FrontalNerdaty · Rating 2 out of 5]

This omnibus features a collection of stories from the ‘golden era’ of X-men by writer Chris Claremont and superstar artists Jim Lee and Marc Silvestri.

What I liked -
These ‘classic’ tales are somewhat more grounded and entirely more random than more modern comics. The teams are wonderfully random too. The stories involving Wolverine, Jubilee, Psylocke and Rogue/ Carol Danvers are decent albeit brief.

What I disliked -
Having never read the ‘classic’ X-men I figured this was a good place to start. I was wrong. The stories are so convoluted and random that they become hard to follow and enjoy. The teams are random but in a way that is fun but all too often the writing makes it confusing as to when/ where everyone is/ what they’re doing. Jumping from team to team or character to character makes it hard to get involved with the story as it’s constantly changing.

Favourite issue/ moment -
Seeing Betsy’s transformation in to the Asian body was an interesting story that, given the time of writing, is mostly just glossed over.

2/5.

[Ferzem Khan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not the best part of Claremont's X-Men era, but definitely still has some great moments and is overall worth reading. It's honestly admirable to completely dismantle the entire team and just go in a new and unexplored direction, which results in some great stories and character moments. Also, even though it's titled and marketed for Jim Lee art, most of the work is by Marc Silvestri, which is honestly for the better as Silvestri, along with Dan Green as inker, produces some of the best artwork of his run to close off the 80s era X-Men with a bang.

Girl's and Boy's Night Out (#244-245): 7/10
Return of Master Mold (#246-247): 6/10
Dissolution (#248-252): 6/10
Transitory Period (#253-264, #268-269): 7/10
Remy and 'Ro (#265-267): 8/10

[Jeff · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not some of Chris Claremont’s best writing here. It was sprawling. So there were good bits and lots of not so good bits. There wasn’t a strong overarching narrative here though. After Inferno, it felt like Claremont was just looking to destroy the X-Men in a rather chaotic way by using the Seige Perilous as a plot device to reset all of the major players and in many cases this makes no sense.

However there was some great art by Marc Silvestri and Jim Lee. In addition, we get the introduction of Gambit and more character development of Wolverine and Forge.

[dillen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some really good stories in here, but also a couple of REALLY dull ones. Loved the issue with captain America and Wolverine as well as the arc in which Wolverine and Jubilee were working together. Psylocke’s arc was a bit weird, but also really fun and enjoyable. Overall, I liked it a whole lot more than uncanny omnibus 5. I would’ve given it 4 stars if it was just a bit more consistent. Here’s hoping that happens in vol 2!

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gems include 'Ladies' Night', 'Men's Night', 2parter of Nimrod killing Sen. Kelly's wife, the apparent death of Storm, 2part crucifixion of Wolverine, 3part formation of Muir Island X-Men, the 3part transformation of Psylocke, 4part Muir Island X-Men & X-Factor team-up, 3part debut of Gambit, Wolverine/Black Widow/Captain America flashback, & Magneto killing the Ms. Marvel from Rogue's mind

[Cameron H · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s such an odd time for the X-Men as the team is, for the most part, are separated, but it’s also the kind of experimentation you don’t see anymore in superhero comics and only possible due to Claremont’s decade plus tenure on the book.

Weird that Gambit’s powers were initially green and seemed to manifest from his eyeballs….

[Pete · Rating 4 out of 5]

The dissolution and rebirth story arc. Is a problematic one. We have amazing art from Silverstri and Lee but we have a strange deconstructionist storyline that separates the team. Pysclocke is sexed up, as is Rogue, and colossus! A lot of iconic moments. Well worth the read.

[Ed · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's really good stuff in here (X-Men #268 has been a favorite of mine since I was a kid) but large chunks of this are very dull or very confusing or both. Claremont had too many irons in the fire at this point and the quality suffered.

[Bruno Poço · Rating 3 out of 5]

-dissolucao e renascimento do xmen
- fantastic o arco com so carrascos a perseguir wolverine (251) E X-men
- mais de Metade da arte é de silvestri
-tem bastantes momentos de humor mas tb de horror com morlocks e vampiros
- Estreia de gambit

[Bruno Carriço · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was going to give it 2 stars because it has some of the worst X-men stories I ever read.... but the art is pretty good, so im keeping it a 3 :)

[Jerome Gordon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the best x-men omnibus ive read, but lays the ground work for omnibus vol 2.

[Burton Olivier · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gotta admit, this was kind of a slog to get through. It was more interesting than actually good and fun to read. And it felt like a weird chunk of X-Men to collect as a first volume.

[Gabriel Lamonica · Rating 3 out of 5]

It really sucks that the story is so bad, because the 90s X-Men art and designs are the greatest to ever do it

[Levi · Rating 4 out of 5]

The content of this omnibus is really quite a mixed bag: good but not great. As usual a lot of claremont's stuff it is solidly wordy and can be burdensome at times. Additionally, when you read this omnibus you really need to be able to step back and look at a larger picture because of the amount of seemingly non-related things happening in the story; of course helps to have prior knowledge of the events leading up to this in genosha and such. The thing that makes this a rather tough read is at any given moment you have 3-4 different story arcs going on at once and each issue alternates one arc; i had a hard time understanding exactly what was happening in a lot of cases, but after finishing the book and having a chance to step back, I feel like I have a better grasp of what exactly was happening. The story arcs with wolverine and psylocke are amazing, easily the best part of this entire book, and ultimately justified the purchase in my mind. The arcs with storm and gambit were also pretty solid, but as I alluded to earlier, some of the other issues were just absolutely a burden to read through (looking at you Nanny issues.)
Generally, I find the art to be great throughout the book and really enjoyed surveying it throughout the entire omnibus, so no worries there. Silvestri and Lee make somewhat lackluster arcs fun to read and make the great arcs into an absolute treat. There were moments where I just stopped reading because I was blown away by a panel, its that good.
Overall, an okay omnibus; I personally, am big on the story arcs and plots when I read comics; I love the art but tend to put more weight upon the story. The omnibus really is a roulette of good and bad arcs intertwined and thats why I would rate this 3.5 stars. If you are more drawn to artwork when you read, then I could see this being a 4 to 5 star omnibus, but for me it just wasn't everything I was hoping for. Additionally, i think the fact that the second volume begins to tie up some of the loose ends, so I would definitely recommend picking that up along with x-tinction agenda HC.
It looks like this is going out of print and naturally prices are rising. Personally, i would not pay more than cover price for this book.

TL;DR Superb artwork, classic xmen, hit or miss story arcs, good but not great.

[B · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty much a mess. It seems like all of Claremont's books are "just one thing after another."

By the end of this volume, it almost appears that a coherent story is going to be told: Storm vs. Shadow King and Forge trying to put his life back together. For that reason, I was almost tempted to give it three stars.

Everything else -- well, there are threads but they don't make any sense. It almost feels like five writers wrote character arcs for each character and Claremont chose to show Chapter 1 from writer A, Chapter 5 from writer B, Chapter 4 from Writer C . . . . And the Reavers are a theme throughout the book, but they feel like, e.g., The Shredder in the 1980's animated series. They show up with an evil plan, get defeated, and return to the status quo. There's no development. No back-and-forth of the battle.

I like that "original" Gambit charged objects with his eyes. Mostly because it's so bizarre and unworkable.

[Rosa · Rating 2 out of 5]

So this omnibus was just confusing. It picks up after the X-Men have been brought back to life after dying on national television in Dallas. No one knows they are alive and hiding in Australia. Various members leave to discover themselves, then the remaining members go through a portal and are reborn. Then there are a few sidelines with Dr. McTaggart and the Shi'arr that feel very left field. The volume also abruptly ends in what feels like the start of the story line that the cover appears to come from.

Now I admit that some of why this was confusing was because I had to essentially stop reading it to read things for work. There were also some interesting completed story lines, such as Jubilee's joining and Psylocke's time as the Hand's assassin, but mostly I just found this very confusing. The art style felt very 80s.

[Nash Bork · Rating 3 out of 5]

For a book titled Chris Claremont and Jim Lee Omnibus there is not a lot of Jim Lee in it. This book collects the stories that fall between Inferno and Extinction Agenda and is a mixed bag. The low points include Colossus as a painter in love with a mysterious, disappearing woman and Dazzler stalked by a scorned,coked-out, former movie producer. The high points are the teaming of Jubilee and Wolverine with the later addition of Psylocke and a couple of stories where Forge takes center stage. I have nostalgic feelings for these stories and characters, otherwise I would probably have given it two stars.

[Colton Skaleski · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was just okay. Way underwhelming compared to the uncanny earlier claremont stuff. Besides a couple stories in this book that were good, most were just eh. No good arcs. There were just too many single one and dones.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's pure nostalgia (this is a collection of assorted X-men comics from the late 80's-early 90's), and some of these issues have aged a lot better than others, but I still kind of love it.

[Janika Puolitaival · Rating 4 out of 5]

Muistan kun sain käsiini ensimmäisen Jim Leen kuvittaman Uncannyn...olin ihan tohkeissani piirrosjäljestä Claremontinkin tuntui saavan uutta tulta alleen