X years from now, the world is transformed! Revelation, the heir of Apocalypse, is tasked with ensuring that only the fit survive — and only mutants are fit to survive! Now, with one of his precious Choristers assassinated by the X-Men, Revelation brings a new mutant into the fold, welcoming her to Philadelphia. But the capital of the Revelation Territories hides many dangers — not the least of which are her rival Choristers, including the ruthless Fabian Cortez! But who are the heroic Longshots at the center of Mojo mayhem? Mojo promises you can vote for the winner with your dollars — but you probably can’t! Is the X-Virus-decimated New York a friendly neighborhood for Peter Parker? In a desperate gamble to hold the infection at bay, he doses himself with lethal radiation — but survival comes at a cost. Meet the radioactive Spider-Man! Why are Rogue and Storm on a deadly collision course? Where do Ms. Marvel, Bronze, Melee and Rift — the Expatriate X-Men — call home? Can they hold together when everything’s on the line? And in Vancouver, outside the Revelation Territories, will the Last Wolverine uphold his mentor’s legend…or burn it all down?
COLLECTING: X-Men: Book of Revelation (2025) #1-3, Longshots (2025) #1-3, Radioactive Spider-Man (2025) #1-3, Rogue Storm (2025) #1-3, Expatriate X-Men (2025) #1-3, The Last Wolverine (2025) #1-3
Written by Jed Mackay, Gerry Duggan, Jonathan Hickman, Murewa Ayodele, Al Ewing, Saladin Ahmed & Joe Kelly Penciled by Netho Diaz, Alan Robinson, Francesco Mortarino, Edgar Salazar & Kev Walker
The second of three Age of Revelation books falters a little more than the first one, not offering quite as much in terms of 'essential' reading. There are some solid entries amongst the chaff, thankfully.
We open with Book Of Revelation, a companion piece to Amazing X-Men, focusing on Revelation's camp as a new Chorister is inducted into the ranks. This one's by Jed MacKay (so you know it's important), and Netho Diaz, who's been helping him out on X-Men these days. I really enjoyed how much of the established Arakko lore comes into play here. MacKay's famous for keeping continuity in mind, and he uses it perfectly here, with a twisty, turny plot that sets up the end of the saga nicely.
Expatriate X-Men features most of the Exceptional X-Men cast, as well as writer Eve L. Ewing, plus NYX artist Francesco Mortarino. This story's not particularly important for...anyone involved, really. It's a lot of backstabbing and yelling at one another, but nothing that really fleshes out the Age of Revelation or does a service to any of the characters involved. It's fine, but inconsequential overall.
Radioactive Spider-Man, by Joe Kelly and Kev Walker, is sad. It's very well done, and hammers right to the heart of Peter Parker as a character, with a devastating ending. It's not required reading for the overall story, but I'd suggest checking this one out if you like Spider-Man...at all, really.
Longshots sounds like it should be good, with Gerry Duggan and Jonathan Hickman on board, but it's really just a load of faff for three issues. Some of the meta commentary is fun, and Mojo's reactions to everything are priceless, but it feels kind of cheap, as well as pointless overall, for Age of Revelation and just in general. Duggan and Hickman are both better than this.
Rogue Storm is also kind of...bad? Storm writer Murewa Ayodele tells a sweeping story of a falling Storm and a split-personality Rogue, but it doesn't have the same gravitas as the previous series he's written. There's a lot packed into three issues, and I don't think it does either character very much of a service - one or the other might have been better. The artwork from Roland Boschi is sketchy and insubstantial, which doesn't help matters at all since it's ill-suited for the sweeping story trying to get itself on display.
And lastly we have The Last Wolverine, by current Wolverine scribe Saladin Ahmed and Edgar Salazar, which puts the focus on Leonard, the current Wendigo. This one ticked both boxes, in that it felt important to the Age of Revelation overarching story, and it was good in its own right. Leonard feels like a character here since he's allowed to talk more than he does in the main title, and Nightcrawler's mini-arc is heartbreaking too.
Weaker than the first collection, with just a few of the stories on display feeling 'worth it'. Hopefully the final collection sticks the landing a little better.
As with the first volume, there were a couple of miniseries here I didn't even try, because they're dark future versions of books I already rejected in regular continuity, plus one I attempted but abandoned: Exceptional X-Men was a fun, low-stakes hang-out series, precisely none of whose appeal transferred to extraction thriller (minus the thrills) Expatriate X-Men. And if anything, although I completed it, Longshots was worse: I was thinking 'Yay, comedy Hickman, we don't see that enough and I loved New Mutants', while forgetting that it was a co-write with that hack Duggan, and even had I not had the bar pushed higher by watching Camp Miasma last night, I do need a little more from my meta riffs than characters reading the script of the incoherent dud they're in, lamenting "I can't believe they needed two writers for this", and getting the response "Look, they're not very good these days", which is true without being amusing.
But! Book Of Revelation, the one bit of core story in the collection, is the best piece of the whole thing so far, backstabbing among Revelation's inner circle playing into MacKay's gift for writing fuck-ups, plus our first glimpse of something recognisable as Doug Ramsey behind the veneer of Apocalypse's heir... unless, of course, his fluent code-switching is working the other way, and this affable survival of who he used to be is the pretence. The ambiguity is the first tension to really grab me in the whole event. And then Radioactive Spider-Man is, if you'll forgive the pun, a revelation. I've already rejected Joe Kelly's main Spidey run, but unlike Rogue Storm or The Last Wolverine, this has Kev Walker art to earn it at least a skim. And then it turns out that, as against the slog of a regular series of Peter Parker self-sabotaging and letting monsters live to ruin more lives, if you have a doomed timeline and can turn that up to 11, it becomes interesting again. So he's mutating himself as a treatment to stay alive in territory inimical to flatscan life, even if it's gradually killing him, while he desperately tries to find a cure that clearly doesn't exist for Aunt May, who herself has become something like the Hulk except not half so biddable or presentable. It sounds ridiculous, but ends up as a surprisingly moving miniature on the themes of love, family, and how hard it is to let go even when a person isn't there anymore. You know, exactly the sort of stuff that wins serious awards, except better, because it's got a massive man-eating monster as well as the teary bits.
Much more of a mixed bag (for me) than Overture. It just feels like a brainstorming session for what all the most popular X-Characters got up to during The Age of Revelation just got out of control.
The Mojo stuff was particularly regrettable, and the Rogue Storm story had potential that didn’t get realized.
For the 30th anniversary of Age of Apocalypse (an innovative and well executed comic book event if ever there was one) Marvel followed the same formula by pausing all of their ongoing mutant featured series and launching sixteen new, three issue miniseries this time focusing on a future dystopia ruled by former new mutant Doug Ramsey who has weaponized his language powers to conquer the Eastern United States and kill untold millions of people. The concept is cool. I like the concept of weaponized language as a metaphor for our world now as well as elevating a character who was initially killed in the New Mutants because writers couldn’t figure out how to have a character without “fighting powers” incorporated into a team book. The results of the event are mixed. Also, instead of publishing the whole thing as an omnibus the event is divided into three 400ish page trade paperbacks. The end of the event doesn’t feel as rushed as the individual series do as they are forced to race through world building plot and resolution in about 60 pages of comic book and the whole thing is actually a more successful nod to Days of Future Past than Age of Apocalypse for the way it ties back into Jed MacKay’s ongoing X-Men series. Big hunks of this are a real slog and no one really got the message that what was cool about AoA was seeing know characters in new circumstances with different team dynamics. Most of Age of Revelation tears down or kills off character in this potential future rather than build anything new which is why it likely won’t have the legacy of AoA, Morrison’s X-Men run or, god forbid, Krakoa which Marvel seems determined to pretend never happened. Here’s a quick star breakdown on the one shots and series
Book of Revelation series and one shots
X-Men: Book of Revelation **** Jed MacKay is running this show and this is one of the best series in the collection. Longshots *1/2 Even if you like Mojo stories (and I don’t) this is bad and I love both writers. Radioactive Spider-Man ***** Tragic and lovely. The ending made me cry for real. Rogue Storm ** Expatriate X-Men ***1/2 pirates or an immigrant/refuge story Ewing didn’t have enough time to be both here but it was still good The Last Wolverine ** This series only exists so Wolverine (Logan) can Wolverine for a couple panels in the finale and the finale isn’t in this collection.
3.5 Stars continued. So far, this full crossover isn't what I wanted it to be. Not bad, but thick of odd ideas that seem a little disjointed.
Summaries/Opinions: Book of Revelation - Arguably the major title of this collection. We really get to see Revelation and his Choristers here. A new Chorister, Elbecca, is actually an Arrako spy for Apocalypse, and we see that Doug knew the entire time and wanted the invasion to happen. Definitely going to see the events of this in future issues.
Expatriate X-Men - Ms Marvel, Rift, and Bronze lead a ragtag team of adjacent X-characters into battle against Magik and Colossus in Limbo. Didn't really enjoy this one.... kind of all over the place.
Radioactive Spider-Man #1-3 - Probably the best and most emotional story of the collection! A mutated Peter still works to be Spider-Man in a world of mutants, opposing them at times. In a cool twist, Peter is in a relationship with Cecelia Reyes, who helps control his biology. Both Miles and Gwen have moved out of the area and are defending other parts of the world, but Peter has stayed. Why? Turns out May is not only still alive, but when she loses her patience, she turns into a huge killing monster. Peter is holding off because of his love for her, but know she must die for the greater good at the end.
Longshots - Hellcat, Bishop, Wonder Man, Kraven, and Rhino are hired to be "The Longshots", a superhero team for Mojovision. We see the X-Babies involved too, but it's typical oddball Mojo hijinks. Entertaining enough.
Rogue Storm - Storm has lost her mind, gone primal, and frozen the Sahara Desert. Gateway, Warpath, Iceman, Fantomex, Akujin, and Red Rogue have joined together to stop her. "Red" Rogue is different from "Green" Rogue, who are a split psyche in two bodies. (Slightly explained) Turns out Storm is connected to a very dark entity that must be stopped.
The Last Wolverine - We are shown that Wolverine interacted with Wendigo, and thus became split. One, the Wonderful Wolverine, a Wendigo based hero, and the other, a brainwashed Logan, enforcer of Revelation. Ending up fighting and losing his arm Logan comes to his senses and wants to join the fight against Doug.
Looking forward to seeing how this will all end up. Recommend, but wish the art was more consistant.
Overall, this series feels too disjointed, with many of the issues barely feeling like they tie to the Age of Revelation at all. Bad leads and no overarching storyline to some of them really make you wonder why some of these miniseries exist.
Book of Revelation 1-3 - 3/5 -Not bad, and clearly the most relevant to this series and you get the most lore, backstory, and overall plot. It also actually sets up for the finale. But it’s not the greatest or more interesting story in and of itself.
Expatriate X-Men 1-3 - 3/5 -I love the team and characters featured, but one of their team seems very overpowered for the work they have him doing. I expect this one to also push this more towards the end goal, but seems like we’re missing some good stuff about how they all ended up where they are.
Radioactive Spider-Man 1-3 - 2/5 -Didn’t really like how these characters were written, and it seems far away from achieving the end goal of the age of revelation. I wanted more from spider-man turning into a mutant, otherwise why is he included?
Longshots 1-3 - 1/5 -Reading this for free on my phone made me so happy I didn’t go all-in on buying all these comics for this event, because these were terrible. I get the tongue-in-cheek style with Mojo, but Longshot wasn’t even on the team! And then there are baby X-men? I’m not sure which market this was for but it did not connect with me at all, when from the summary I thought it would be the most fun to read.
Rogue Storm 1-3 - 1/5 -While Storm is bad-ass, there either wasn’t enough time for us to care about what’s happened with these characters in the X years since revelation, or it just wasn’t done well enough. They are style is good, but the wording style - adding emphasis to all sounds and actions - makes it seem very amateur, when there are some very serious moments. It’s a different style but it pulled me out of enjoying the story.
The Last Wolverine 1-3 - 4/5 -Definitely thought this would be the worst of the group, but was very pleasantly surprised. It had heart, interesting character development, and relevance to the end goal. I think the only bad part is we probably won’t see more of the interesting characters, and instead the same old reliable ones will make it to the finale
Just not digging this so far. The book is less than the sum of its parts. 1) Main story: pretty good. More insight into Doug's plan and why Apocalypse doesn't like it. 2) Expatriate story: this might be okay if I knew anything about these people and what brought them together. Eventually it dawned on me that some of these characters were the Exceptional X-Men cast, but that only helped a little because I already forgot most of what happened in that series. Also, Ms. Marvel is here in a form I do not recognize. 3) Radioactive Spider-Man: This was pretty good. Joe Kelly can write a whole story in three issues and make you care about the characters even though they're part of a throwaway Elseworlds crossover. It could have come off really stupid, but Kelly made it a decently emotional horror story. 4) Longshots: Dumb fun. Don't look at it too closely and enjoy the ride. Besides, who would have expected Patsy Walker to lead a miniseries in an X-Men crossover? 5) Rogue/Storm: There were some really interesting ideas playing out in this book, but there was so much lore necessary to establish the status quo that I felt like I was reading a word cloud instead of an allegedly complete published story. 6) Wolverine: decent. Has a heart and tries to make you care about New Wolverine. Mostly effective for me, even if a little simplistic at times. Uses alternate universe trope effectively by killing almost everyone in the main cast, but not before making them feel like developed characters.
In all, kind of a slog with a few highlights. As a tribute to Age of Apocalypse, this is falling short. I hope the last book is more satisfying.
What a bizarre mixed bag this continues to be. It feels like these are truly entertaining offshoots of all the individual narratives prior to the launch of this timeline, and yet they all feel pretty rushed so as to not be totally effective. Take Spider-Man, for instance. None of the stuff with May lands based on recent plot threads, but given what we all know about Peter and May and Miles, it still sorta works? Same with Wendigo and Wolverine + Kurt. The stuff with the Ex-Patriate X-Men didn’t work for me, and the mainline Revelation run was kinda lame (I want to get to more time with Apocalypse and Revelation squaring off, but it defers so much of that). I want to like Mojo stories more than I do — they just feel too simile to Deadpool in humor and the satire doesn’t feel super compelling. Storm and Rogue was a mess. I wish there was a unity holding these stories together. If this had been built up a little slower, it would probably be much more interesting and if it felt like the threads were progressing towards a logical unity, maybe it would be more fun. As it is…I don’t really get it.
I guess this is the in-between collection. While my landing place with Age of Revelation is that it should have been contained within McKay's X-Men book and not expanded out, this collection is generally a better average than the other two.
Book of Revelation - I was pleased by this book: still learning McKay's style, I saw in this potential for his writing. I was genuinely surprised by the turn.
Longshots - Needless, but I enjoyed the meta humor and silliness.
Radioactive Spider-Man - Still kind of a throwaway but with Kelly writing, he actually makes this worthwhile for telling you who Peter is.
Rogue Storm - If I am honest, I didn't fully follow the story in my rush through all these books, but I liked the art.
Expatriate X-Men - The best part of Eve Ewing's X-Men tenure? probably. That's not praise though.
Last Wolverine - Maybe this was fine. It might have mattered more if I was reading Ahmed's Wolverine book.
As the stories continue to flesh out the world of what life underneath Revelation’s influence has become, the event series begins to reveal that the comics following the end of the Krakoa era may be necessary to fully enjoy this event. I’ve read plenty of these but I can see someone who has not kept up with X-Men somewhat lost with all the changes that have occurred in the lead-up to this timeline.
Better than the other volume but still not great. The best story in here was Radioactive Spider-Man because they got regular ASM writer Joe Kelly to do it. It also had Kev Walker drawing it so it has the best art. An honorable mention to The Last Wolverine which was better than I expected.
More story lines feed in. It gets more confusing. Somehow, Rogue has split into green Rogue and red Rogue, and red Rogue has to attack Ororo?getting the feeling ghat i came into a three-act -lay on act 2.