X-Men Epic Collection, Vol. 9: The Brood Saga

X-Men Epic Collection

by Chris Claremont, Dave Cockrum, Paul Smith

One of the most iconic X-Men arcs, the Brood Saga, collected in its entirety!

The complete Brood Saga, an X-Men extravaganza up there with the very best, is presented in this amazing Epic Collection. It’s storyline that blends space opera—with the X-Men, Starjammers and Shi’ar—and disgusting parasites from the outer limits with the Brood. Featuring art by X-icons Dave Cockrum and Paul Smith, it’s an action-packed adventure with a visual majesty that will leave you awed. Then, the X-Men encounter the darker side of the Marvel Universe in stories that pit them against Dracula and take them to Belasco’s mysterious Limbo realm. Chris Claremont crafts each story, and he tops it off with a character-defining tale that shows us Professor X and Magneto as allies before the philosophical fallout that would shape mutantkind’s future.

 UNCANNY X-MEN (1981) #154-167, X-MEN ANNUAL (1970) #6 and SPECIAL EDITION X-MEN (1983) #1

Genres: Comics, X Men, Marvel, Graphic Novels, Comic Book, Sequential Art, Superheroes

424 pages, Paperback

First published December 26, 2023

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

[Nico D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is kind of a weird read. Overall, I really enjoyed it. The Brood are obviously a love letter to the Xenomorphs of the Alien franchise, and are appropriately threatening. Every character gets a chance to shine and so many big moments occur in this collection which would have far reaching effects even to this day. I don't want to spend forever recapping, so I'll do a quick list of my favorite things:

-- Scott is amazing here. Post-Jean's death, which is something he's clearly dealing with and comes up a realistic amount, but pre-Maddie, it's interesting seeing how he is trying to find his place in the world. He was the leader of the team, but then Xavier came back and Storm took over. He's still a central figure in the group, and he acts as leader in lieu of Storm often, but doing so in her presence causes some turbulence with the team dynamic and their friendship. He lost the chance for a "happy ever after" with Jean, and now he's giving his all for the dream and seemingly unsure of what he has left for himself. Claremont does a great job with him, as always. Special kudos to Scott and Ororo's friendship. This is the most I've seen them interact and I think they have a very special relationship.

-- Storm's dynamic with Dracula is expected but enjoyable (what powerful man doesn't want Storm in the Marvel U?) The scenes where she's Turned and going full Vampire is very creepy and I really dig it. Her relationships with the other members of her team are very well defined, and she had some really cool focus moments I liked. Learning of her mystic heritage was cool.

-- The Belasco stuff was appropriately creepy. Seeing Peter's skeleton was woofin disturbing. Wormtongue!Kurt was also pretty gruesome.

-- Carol gets a lot of focus as an honorary X-Person and I really like that. Her iconic Binary transition occurs here. From the staging, it kind of felt like Claremont really wanted to write a powerful woman on a cosmic scale. Which, I mean, no complaints! She gets some good delving into her character here.

-- Wolvie is perfect. He gets some big focus bits, especially during the Brood arc, which show what a complete badass he is. This is before the oversaturation of the 90s (which continues to this day) and so he feels appropriately like part of the ensemble instead of the figurehead. His reluctance to end the lives of his friends, or to tell them about what occured, is such a human behavior and shows how much he's come to care about his little team. I love his nicknames for people, and was a little surprised to see how tight he and Scott were.

There were a few things I Didn't Love, which is what knocked that star down:

-- A couple of reviews here go into it in more detail, but some of the treatment of Kitty-- esp how she's drawn in a bathing suit-- is egregious for her age. Her relationship with Peter is similarly eyebrow raising. I don't mind her having feelings for him (who can blame her? He's gorgeous) or even their moment in the Brood saga where she propositions him (I realize this is probably an unpopular opinion, but I hold that it makes sense for a young person, scared of being on the verge of death, with all the big feelings of that accompanied with her interest in him, to make such a bold statement. The narrative just needs to have the party in power, i.e Peter, be the one to turn her down) but the weirdness of Peter having a thing for her despite her age is pretty sketch. I don't hold it against Peter exactly, I think this might be a gross thing of the times, but the reciprocation is more the issue than the interest on Kitty's part IMO.

There's also a moment where she gets touched inappropriately by Wormtongue!Kurt which felt like it didn't need to happen. He could've just grabbed her arms too forcefully, cluing her in to his awful nature. Making Kurt so evil that he gropes a child is not the way.

-- Storm's part of the Brood arc is so good, but then she becomes a Space Ghost (Coast to Coast) which kind of works but is also kinda deus ex machina-y in a way the story doesn't really need. Like, does Ororo feel strange being placed back in a body that wasn't originally hers? We're Ship of Theseus-ing this whole bit.

-- I like the Brood 90% of the time, but I wish they had been played a bit more for horror. I think the fact that we can hear them speaking galatically kinda ruins some of their mystique. It would've been much cooler if they didn't speak in a way our characters could interepet until they're implanted with the embryos. Then when they suddenly had traditional speech bubbles we'd be clued in to how wrong things are. Could've been fun.

-- Xavier's relationship with Gabrielle Haller is so ethically fraught that I won't touch it with a sentinel-length pole.

-- Ilyana is sure chill about coming back from a Hell dimension. I realize this could be purposeful, but it's weird to me the other X-Men aren't more openly concerned about what happened. I also would have loved to have seen how Pitor's explanation for Ilyana's all growed-up look to their parents went.

Like I said, overall I thought these stories were great. They have, mostly, held up well. I would want to see an adaptation make a few changes here and there, I'm really glad I picked this collection up.

[Charles · Rating 2 out of 5]

Now I remember why I gave up on the X-Men in the 80's, sorry Chris and Dave. The Brood never did it for me. Corsair, well, how many hottest pilots in the galaxy are there, particularly in thigh-high boots? And the way Kitty, and later Illyana, are portrayed was creepy. Peter is guilty of at least one felony in this collection. Origins of Lockheed and Binary, the former a handy plot device in later books and the least liked dragon in all of comics, and nobody ever gets Carol right.

[Monita Roy Mohan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this for my book club. I had read this volume a long time ago, but I’d forgotten a lot of it. I can’t say I was a fan of this, to be honest. The Brood aren’t exactly the most interesting villains out there. Giant bugs who put their eggs into people that transmute the unwilling hosts into Brood could actually have been a really devastating tale, not to mention an analogy for bodily autonomy and consent, but this was written in the ‘80s, so the story is all about action and spectacle.

Personally, I don’t care for space and cosmic stories when it comes to the X-Men; it’s definitely a huge part of their history, but it always felt like space undermined the reason this group of characters resonated with people—they’re dealing with a problem that can be transposed on real world issues. Space doesn’t figure into it unless you make it so, and the writers of the space stories didn’t.

It’s easy to forget just how problematic early age comics were. Well, comics have always been problematic, and continue to be to this day, but some stuff that was so normalized is, at the very least, frowned upon today.

The biggest issue was how often Storm ends up naked. Like, come on. In hindsight I really think this was intentionally objectifying the sole Black character on the team. Her storylines, in general in this book, were terrible. She’s supposed to be leader of the X-Men, but she’s sidelined throughout and given ridiculous plots like being bitten by a vampire, and then later transforming into some cosmic being. She hardly got to lead, deferring to Cyclops throughout. That was really frustrating to read.

Let’s also talk about Kitty Pryde. Man, I forgot how much I dislike this character. She is annnnnnoying. I know that’s how she’s written, but phew, she’s an exasperating read. It’s also very uncomfortable that she’s in a bikini in weird places, a lot, and she’s only 14. Of course it’s nothing compared to what comes after. I’ve read the New Mutants comics that ran after this series and the disturbing sexualization of the teen girls in that series is burned in my brain even though I read those books years ago.

The most uncomfortable part was Kitty and Piotr’s relationship. I did not remember that she was 14 and he was 18/19 during their relationship. That is so ewwwwww. That’s full on pedophilia. The only line Piotr refuses to cross is them sleeping together, in this volume anyway, but he shouldn’t have been in any kind of relationship with her at all. And what’s worse is, Illyana thinks it’s completely fine and encourages Kitty to go further even though Kitty is grossed out by their age difference, which is all nuts. The writers should really have had their heads checked.

Problematic relationships continue in the vein of Charles and Gabrielle Haller. I did remember this, and it’s deeply distressing that Charles thinks it’s ok to get together with his patient, who he psychically messed with, and who is dealing with untold traumas. Charles, I realize, has always been an annoying character. This re-read cements that thought.

I general, one of the things that comics love to do, is to include oblique, or sometimes direct, references to sexual assault, which the characters never quite deal with afterwards, and this book has that problem too. When Kitty ends up in Limbo, evil Nightcrawler touches her inappropriately but Kitty runs away wondering who turned Kurt instead of, you know, being horrified by what just happened to her. Gabrielle was apparently horribly abused by the Nazis from age 10, which turns her catatonic, but when Charles awakens her, she doesn’t seek counseling for what happened, and instead gets together with him. Later, Lilith, in the guise of Kitty, forcibly does something akin to being intimate with Piotr, which he tells her not to, but he doesn’t react at all when he’s back to being himself. There’s also Corsair’s wife who faced some awful situation. See, my problem isn’t that comic stories include real world issues, my problem is if they constantly use these tropes as a sensational plot plot and don’t actually tackle the aftermath either. Which, in this book, it doesn’t.

What I liked was Cyclops in this book. Without Jean and Xavier, he’s… less hamstrung. He’s more himself. He’s frustratingly, but understandably, controlling about the leadership of the X-Men, but there’s the soap opera drama of him finding his long lost dad and reconnecting with him. At one point Cyke was over the top snarky, but that was soon explained. Really enjoyed all the bits with Cyke, you can tell the writers knew how to structure his story, which is what annoyed me with how they fumbled Storm. Just because she’s a woman, and Black, it’s like the authors couldn’t see her as a fully formed person.

I loved how much Carol Danvers was in here. She’s like an honorary X-Man. I love her and Wolvie’s friendship, and the fact that the relationship doesn’t go beyond platonic is really special. I did find the Rogue battle was too long. I general I thought a lot of the action scenes could have been cut down for more character growth.

The art, for me, was a real sticking point. The panel layouts were chaotic and I sometimes read them in the wrong order because they didn’t follow the general Z rule of reading. The character faces were all over the place, so often the women seemed to be drawn from the same reference and it was a horrid reference since they looked like harpies with bad eyebrows. The body horror stuff was yugh, but tamer than I had expected. At least the characters didn’t have exaggerated proportions, that’s the 90s for you.

While I enjoyed hanging out with the X-Men, the writing was so overly turgid, repetitive and expository, with cop out deaths that had no emotional heft in the end. It was hard to enjoy the actual story. I think they dropped the ball on developing some meaningful relationships and dynamics among the characters, and Storm got short shrift as leader.

[Ben Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ll say at the outset that I have skipped some X-Men, since Proteus and I, Magneto are both woefully out of stock in the epic collections. But I came into this knowing the main cast and the situation with the Shi-ar and the Starjammers. I think this collection was perfectly put together, starting us off with a story about Deathbird and some Brood minions teaming up to take over the Empire from Lilandra. This was a fun story that brought Corsair back into the picture for some soap opera drama with the Summers family finally being reunited. Also, we get familiar enough with the Brood for later… I found this first story really exciting and a great reintroduction to the “cosmic” side of X-Men that I initially really disliked but have grown to enjoy.

Then there’s some “filler” one-issue stories, all of which are enjoyable, although there seems to be an unusual amount of focus on Carol Danvers here for an X-Men comic. Storm falls in love with Dracula, and the team goes to hell. We also get some backstory on Charles and Magneto’s past. Fun issues all, but I wish they did more to progress the character plots. They’re still here as always with X-Men but the emphasis always seems elsewhere. Where we do get it is mostly with Scott’s mixed feelings about his dad’s return, or Ororo’s various times losing herself to some other power. Also Kitty continues to have a crush on Colossus.

Then, we are propelled into the titular Brood Saga, which at first glance might seem like a follow up to the opening story but this time it’s so much more - namely, grotesque body horror and trippy visuals. Wolverine gets a badass solo issue, and then we get some neat, a little heady/out-there space adventuring; and the whole thing ends with a very strange conclusion wherein not one but two X-Men continue life in regrown bodies and there’s a weirdly meta crossover with another major series.

To tie the collection up, we have an annual where Storm is once again compelled to Dracula, although this time it was a little better than before, if a little too long. And the last story is a short piece with Kitty and Illyana. I love these types of stories because they’re more about making you feel at home in the world. Kitty takes Illyana on a tour of the X-Mansion and we get some character moments for them both: Kitty loves Collosus, and Illyana has a weird unspoken 7 years in Limbo that she doesn’t speak of…

Overall, this was an awesome collection of classic X-Men stories. You don’t have to have read all of the previous 50 or 60 issues to jump in here, although it helps to know who everyone is, and the stories themselves pretty much wrap up neatly within the volume aside from really long running ones. While John Byrne isn’t here to bring to spice of the Dark Phoenix Saga,Claremont, Cockrum and later Smith are working at the height of their powers to create a very thrilling, often frightening and creepy story.

[Louis Skye · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading this for my comic book club. I’ve read these comics a long time ago so it was interesting revisiting them.

I keep forgetting how dense the writing was in earlier comics. Just massive paragraphs of text and so much dialogue, a lot of is explaining exactly what we’re seeing in the panels. It’s almost like reading alt text times!

The Brood aren’t interesting villains. They’re big bugs who put queen eggs in people. That’s it. They need Deathbird and her minions to do their dirty work. It’s just an excuse for body horror. But there’s nothing more to them, and that’s the biggest let-down of this arc. Contrast this story with what we now have with Broo, a Brood member who lives on Krakoa among the X-Men, and you can see how deficient this story truly is.

There are so many Storm stories, which I loved. She goes through multiple transformations and she’s clearly the heart and soul of the X-Men. I would have liked to see more of her leadership; she often had solo plots instead. Her love for Kitty helping her overcome Dracula was a highlight. I also like how Storm’s connection to life enables her to overcome the Brood implantation.

Cyclops was interesting in this. Fascinating to read about him when Jean isn’t around. But I’m glad he didn’t spend the entire volume moping. He kinda forgives Corsair a bit too quickly, but it’s fine. That relationship could have been explored more but the moments we got were heart-warming.

Kitty and Colossus. Good grief, I had forgotten their ages. I thought Kitty was 17, not 14. Her being with Colossus, who’s 19, is serious ick. No wonder Krakoa backtracked right out of that relationship. Was it really normal back then? Yikes.

I also had issues with Charles and Gabrielle. She’s his patient and there’s some psychic meddling that Charles takes advantage of. Big yikes. His relationship with Lilandra is much better and on an even keel but it’s barely in this book.

I’d forgotten how much Captain Marvel hung out with the X-Men. She’s basically an honorary mutant. She has a massive arc—going from powerless, to fighting Rogue, the mutant who took her powers, being Broodified, then breaking through and becoming Binary. A lot! I liked that they didn’t make Carol and Logan romantic partners, despite their chemistry. Sometimes, people are just friends.

The art was often good but sometimes it was positively horrifying. Supremely distorted faces that made it hard to tell if our heroes were actually good or not. What was that about?

[Michael Church · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hey so this is 400 pages of Chris Claremont comics. That’s a lot. This is some of the weirder stuff that he wrote. Most of it is the Brood Saga, but there’s a long runway because of how Claremont always set up plot points. You see Corsair return and reconnect with Cyclops, Storm clash with Dracula, Ilyana is trapped in Limbo for years in between panels, and more before the X-Men are launched into space as captives of the brood.

I was curious about this because of the more recent brood storyline in X-Men and Captain Marvel (Carol Danvers was with the X-Men for this saga, and famously became Binary as a result of it). I had also heard coverage of this in Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men, where they said mostly positive things about it.

Having read it now, I don’t know how well it holds up. There is a lot of hand-wavey stuff that happens. Diseases are cured and curses are lifted seemingly just for the sake of fixing the problem. Though there is a near moment that seems to predict Krakoan resurrection in a way. Storm merged consciousness with a space whale (or Acanti). The New Mutants are formed in the background. The mansion is destroyed (again) and seemingly rebuilt in just days. There’s a LOT that happens.

But it’s very much a product of its time. I think part of why we remember Claremont as being so formative for the X-Men is that these issues have so much internal dialogue and narration, that it feels like you’re seeing into every single character. The third person omniscient narrator tells you about motivations and reactions for almost everything on panel, but at times it feels like a shortcut. The Claremont-isms are also pretty repetitive (body and soul, the best there is at what he does, consecrated to life, etc.), which, with my nostalgia glasses on, makes it kind of cute, but imagining reading it in real time I would have been frustrated.

The art is fantastic and consistent, but also of its time. Even the splash pages that were meant to be breathtaking never really made me feel much. Carol gets a couple of good moments, but it also just made me think how much I love the modern Russell Dauterman version of Binary. The medium restrictions of that time do force the grading to be on a bit of a curve, but at the end of the day, I think I preferred the summary media to the actual thing.

[Chaitra · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have no earthly idea what possessed me to read #9 without reading #1 through 8, but I'm roughly aware of the stuff that happens before this. Brood though, was new to me. I had no idea about what I was getting into, and I'm not really glad I did. Brood saga tells me to believe that Wolverine's healing ability was enough for him to kick the crap out of an implanted egg, that Storm could sense an alien life growing inside her and for her to sensibly toss herself and it into the nearest star, but that Xavier would instead fail to beat it with his extraordinary psi-powers.

I also find these older comics creepy. I could never make out why Storm's costume had to be that (there's an update to her costume when she's in Belasco's lair, and that's even worse), but that's the least of it. There's Kitty Pryde at 14 throwing herself at a 19-year-old Colossus, which he takes advantage of knowing that he's too old for her. The whole Illyana thing is terrible also. I did like Binary's origin story, but it was one in too many things I didn't like.

[Nicky · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was another enjoyable Claremont X-Men read but I don't think it hits the heights of volume 7, The Fate of the Phoenix; that's understandable and although the main space adventure is quite fun, it didn't quite connect for me especially with the designs.

I think the horror and mystical focused #160 was probably my favourite issue, with the start of Illyana's story; I need to pick up The New Mutants volume 1!

Overall then it was an interesting volume but a bit like volumes 5 and 6, this didn't feel essential. Looking forward to reading 10, God Loves Man Kills, that I expect to be up there with 7.

[Kauã Fillipe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nossa mil vezes melhor que a saga da Fênix. As ilustrações são incríveis e as histórias muito interessantes, devorei em poucos dias! Amei muito, com claras ressalvas pra algumas questões tenebrosas que suponho que ninguém prestasse atenção na época, tipo a relação da Kitty com o Colossus, vários personagens aleatoriamente quase nus e o flashback super esquisito do Xavier ficando com uma paciente dele? Algumas coisas pra mim também soaram meio forçadas, tipo a conexão da Tempestade com os Ashanti? e o final do Xavier… Mas por se tratar de quadrinhos, dou um desconto. No saldo final, continua muito bom!

[Justin Covey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was getting close to giving up on my mission to read through all of Claremonts XMen run at the start of this one. The last epic collection (I Magneto) had been pretty ho-hum and this seemed to be more of the same, but then the titular Brood Saga injected some much needed energy into the series. Finally, Wolverine gets to cut loose! And the long awaited creation of the New Mutants! Excited to start up on those, as the Sudden Death epic collection is what got me stated on this whole endeavor.

[Arda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a Kitty Pryde book. Just like the DoFP we are seeing her growing as a character. Speaking of growing this book contains the beginning of Illyana’s journey as the Magik. X-Men’s fight with Broods aka Walmart Aliens are also neat but it was a longer read than I expected. Although I had great time. Also Bill Sienkiewicz art on issue 159 was great.
I still despise the idea of forcing a relationship between Pietro and Kitty. So gross and weird

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I forgot just how epicly stupid X-Men gets after Dark Phoenix - the Brood (clearly someone watched Aliens one to many times) and Storm's relationship with Dracula being the prime examples. A few highlights are the arrival of Illyana, Lougheed (Kitty's dragon) and Storm is on the path to becoming the actual leader of the X-men.

But some of it is just so dumb, it is almost impressive. Not dumb enough to become fun or good, just dumb. The art is great though.

[Doug Duncan · Rating 5 out of 5]

while the ending was a bit weird, I really liked the brood saga and the horror element it added to the book. a bit of a overall step up from the last volume, which was still really good, but Claremonts run on the x men continues to be amazing in general.

[Bat Man · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paul Smith's art <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

I hate Chris Claremont he's a freak!!! The romance between Kitty and Peter is sooooooooooo weird

[Matt Aukamp · Rating 4 out of 5]

The height of the X-Men's space opera era. I feel like this ends Claremont's first era of the X-Men, and the next one starts with Paul Smith and the famous like "Professor Xavier is a Jerk!"

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

The storyline that sets up my favorite Marvel characters.

[Steve Owens · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m totally in love with the X-Men

[rylee · Rating 4 out of 5]

least favourite claremont arc so far but i LOVE binary so im giving it 4 stars just for her

[Lew Dominey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kinda sucks honestly. I think the cosmic side of the X-Men just isn’t that interesting, but mainly because it feels too far removed from the social issues stuff.

[Aisling · Rating 4 out of 5]

We love transfem Broodqueen Professor X.

[inhonoredglory · Rating 5 out of 5]

I appreciate the fact that this storyline allowed each X-Man to reflect on death. From Logan's lack of belief and need to avenge his friends, to Nightcrawler's faith, to Colossus' acceptance, to Kitty's desperation. There's also a beautiful thread between Storm and Carol Danvers, two of the most powerful women in the X-Men circle. Carol's anger is contrasted to Storm's compassion. They both gain godlike powers during the course of this, and seeing them used as foils to each other (and to the moral dilemma of the narrative) was a treat. Storm's convictions and emotions are beautifully portrayed and provide the anchor to the resolution.

This story was also a great early story that reveals Logan's character, particularly when he's fighting alone in the Brood world, and when he contemplates the possibility of having to kill his friends. (Side note, I adore Carol and Logan's friendship; they both love a scrap and they are fantastic together!)