X-Men Epic Collection, Vol. 2: Lonely Are The Hunted

X-Men Epic Collection

by Roy Thomas, Geof Isherwood (Illustrator), Gary Friedrich (Writer)

Join the original X-Men - Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Beast, Angel and Iceman - in adventures from the days when Marvel's merry mutants were more the quirkiest quintet in comics than the worldwide wunderkinds they are today. This Epic Collection presents early classics including the first appearance of Banshee; the brief tenure of the sixth X-Man, Mimic; the complete Factor Three saga; the "Origins of the X-Men" feature exploring Professor X's formation of the team; and the debut of new costumes. Then, the X-Men's lives take their most tragic turn. Their leader is killed.

COLLECTING: Vol. 2; X-Men (1963) 24-45; Avengers (1963) 45; material from Not Brand Echh (1967) 4, 8

Genres: Comics, X Men, Graphic Novels, Marvel, Fiction

520 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2016

About the author

Roy Thomas was the FIRST Editor-in-Chief at Marvel--After Stan Lee stepped down from the position. Roy is a longtime comic book writer and editor. Thomas has written comics for Archie, Charlton, DC, Heroic Publishing, Marvel, and Topps over the years. Thomas currently edits the fanzine Alter Ego for Twomorrow's Publishing. He was Editor for Marvel comics from 1972-1974. He wrote for several titles at Marvel, such as Avengers, Thor, Invaders, Fantastic Four, X-Men, and notably Conan the Barbarian. Thomas is also known for his championing of Golden Age comic-book heroes — particularly the 1940s superhero team the Justice Society of America — and for lengthy writing stints on Marvel's X-Men and Avengers, and DC Comics' All-Star Squadron, among other titles.

Also a legendary creator. Creations include Wolverine, Carol Danvers, Ghost Rider, Vision, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Valkyrie, Morbius, Doc Samson, and Ultron. Roy has also worked for Archie, Charlton, and DC among others over the years.

Reviews

[Baba · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read the comic books The X-Men #24-45 and Avengers #53 covered in this volume. Without Stan Lee the great creativity dropped off and we were left with the debuts of Banshee, Mutant Master, Changeling, Candy Southern, Cobalt Man, Factor Three, El Tigre, Locust and more, as well as the likes of Count Nefaria, Puppet Master, Warlock, etc. Plus all-colour, new costumes and a new X-Man! Like a few of the Marvel books in the 1960s, Stan Lee leaving them saw a demise in quality, but it was the X-Men who were probably hit the worse, as sales never really picked up again for the original team from here. 5 out of 12, Two Stars.

2014

[Sean Gibson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Underrated: Werner Roth’s clean, heroic line work.

Overrated: The first of many deaths of Professor X.

Properly rated: Beast’s affinity for always active and agile alliteration, assholes.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dated and cheesy, but a whole lot of fun.

[Aisling · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5

In the imperishable words of Plato- - ‘Nuff Said!

[Timothy Shea · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love silver age art.
I love the quieter character moments that take place between the overhanded plot and the over-dramatic character dialogue.
I love the ingrained goofiness of the stories.

Despite all the things I love about this book it doesn't cover up how repetitive the stories. Every villain is an over the top megalomaniac. Honestly they might as well have just fought Magneto every issue. It was all basically the same character with minor variations.

It makes a kind of sense. At this point X-men sales weren't good and I'm sure it became low on the priority scale.

Still, it's a lot of fun if you can appreciate it for what it is and the era it came from.

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm really not a fan of the marvel writing from the 60's. The stories are mostly episodic and a waste of time. You can tell they're just cranking them out on a conveyor belt. This one included the X-Men fighting the Frankenstein monster for some reason. Also, whatever needs to happen just does regardless of what kind of sense it makes. Prof X dies but before that he also gifts Jean with his mental powers? I didn't realize you could pass them along like a car or house, but there you have it. I knew Jean didn't start off with telepathy, but I was hoping that her acquiring that power would have made a little more sense than that.

[Edward Davies · Rating 3 out of 5]

More from The Juggernaut, my fave villain at this stage in the X-Men, and the first appearance of Banshee, plus Spider-Man and... Frankenstein's monster? Okay, so the stories are still a little silly, but we have the awesome origin stories of the X-Men starting in issue 38, which is a plus! And a crossover with the Avengers following the "death" of Professor X.

[Ronald Esporlas · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one is a fun to read. Like every comic book in this era it has long dialogue. The art is not that good and not memorable.

[Dan McNamara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was very slow in the early going but certainly picks up a lot towards the end of the book. I really enjoyed reading probably the last four or five issues especially when Professor X dies and the X-Men fight Magneto!

[Doug Duncan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honestly some of the worst comics I may have ever read. The series took a huge quality nosedive after Lee left and this book suffered greatly from that. The stories are borderline unreadable at times and this felt like a chore to read.

[Michael Emond · Rating 2 out of 5]

One of the weaker X-Men Epic collections I have read. The one before has Kirby and Lee establishing the team and doing their usual magic of coming up with some memorable villains (Magneto, Sentinels, Juggernaut) and the next one has the Neal Adams run with the jaw dropping art. This one? I don't think one new villain was interesting enough to ever repeat - Cobalt Man (dime store Iron Man), Locust? El Tigre? Warlock (not the cool one from Starlin). And that is why Roy Thomas is (IMO) a second rate Stan Lee. Stan (with Kirby and Ditko helping him) had the knack for inventing villains that lasted and Thomas did not.

I struggle to call out one story or storyline that was a "classic". Other than the introduction of the Banshee there really isn't one truly cool story. The longest story line with Factor Three had potential but was fumbled bad. The idea was - an Alien posed as a Mutant Master and got the bad mutants to attack the Earth with the cover of "this is good for mutants" when really they were being used to help soften Earth for an alien invasion. Cool premise, but the execution of it was bland and lacked focus. Professor X dies? Cool idea but again - lacked punch. We will find out in the next volume it was all a ruse (for no real reason).

The two things I liked in this volume were Werner Roth's art and the back up stories about the origins of the X-Men (Cyclops and Ice Man in this volume). Werner's clean art and the way he captures the X-men in their civies is something that always has appealed to me. If he had some better stories and Thomas was better at the "out of uniform" soap opera stories I think this run would have been better. When Werner left in the last half of this volume was when it really went downhill. Even a semi-cool Avengers team up didn't help.

Overall - for X-Men completists only.

[Shannon Schmelzle · Rating 3 out of 5]

X-Men: Lonely are the Hunted.

Or, X-Men: They are Lonely because nobody are hunting them, these stories suck

I'm not going to lie, this was a rougher read than I was expecting. In many ways the X-Men find their footing here, but in other ways this era is full of trash.

Roy Thomas and Werner Roth kick this off and I think the first issue is a good sign post of where we are. They fight a lunatic scientist calling himself the Locust who predicted some kind of radiation would make bugs bigger, when it didn't happen he became a laughing stock, so now he has invented a way to make them big, control them, and is off to make himself a credible scientist again through....terrorism?

Next came El Tigre, and it pretty much goes on from there. A large chunk in the middle is related to a mysterious organization, Factor Three, which is a dud of a storyline. Then after slogging through this Roy Thomas departs in the last couple issues, bringing in Gary Freidrich (by now Roth as been long replaced by Don Heck) and they aren't bad. Giving me hope that volume 3 will be a step back in the right direction.

Oh, and also, if you get this you get to witness the first death of Professor X. And no, it is nowhere near as good as the cover of the issue it takes place in.

[Mr. Stick · Rating 2 out of 5]

"HERE IS WHERE MY TRUE DESTINY LIES... ON THIS ROCKBOUND ISLE,FAR FROM THE MADDENED, MEDDENING MOB CALLED HUMANITY... A UNIVERSE AWAY FROM THAT LIFE I ONCE LED... AS AN AVENGER!"
- Quicksilver, returning to Magneto's lair and gang.

Prior to starting this volume, I finished Spider-Man epic collection 3 "Spider-Man no more." The difference is staggering. Old spidey is a bit corny, but still very readable. Pre-Claremont X-Men is a struggle. Bizarre plot devices. Kooky villains. Non-sensical motivations. This is neither the animated series from my adolescence nor the live-action films of my twenties. Those later adaptations learned (a lot!) from the mistakes of the early magazines.
I found the "origin of the x-men" b-stories to be more interesting (and digestible) than the main stories.
So painful. So much unnecessary dialogue. It got a little more palatable near the end, but I think most books like this do. Skip this volume (and the next two) and go straight to volume 5 "second genesis."
I could recommend this less, but not by much. Two stars.

[Gary Kuhlmann · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not too far into it yet, but I can say, it's not bad. I mostly read comic books from this time for the artwork. So, for me, this volume of collected early X-Men comic books is merely not bad, not great--"great" will come when illustrator Neal Adams takes over around issue 55. The artwork is still rather primitive and simplistic, and the plots are overly dramatic and quite formulaic. Nevertheless, I'm enjoying the inherent goofiness of these stories about the world's strangest teenagers. As an exception, John Buscema turns in some fine strips. I have Vol. 1, the collection of the earliest issues, on order, and I have a feeling I'll enjoy those more, if for no other reason than the chance to better understand the X-Men origins. And then, of course, there's Vol. 3, due out shortly, which, as I understand, will include the great Adams issues and more art as well from Buscema.

[Charles Etheridge-Nunn · Rating 2 out of 5]

This one was pretty rough. The old run of X-Men set some foundational elements at the start and the end, but the mid-point.... not so much. Roy Thomas actually gets better once Neal Adams is around (that'll be volume three). Here, Werner Roth and Arnold Drake aren't really challenged or do anything noteworthy. It's not a surprise that most of the villains from this run are either returning enemies, borrowed from other titles or vanish pretty much immediately afterwards.
I read this first when it came out and forgot about literally everything inside it until recently where I've been reading an issue a day. It's for people filling this gap in their collection rather than anything else.

[Bob · Rating 3 out of 5]

On the one hand, Werner Roth doing King Kirby impressions are awesome (if nowhere near as good as the King himself), Banshee is my childhood favorite X-Man, & the hyperbolic glimpses of the swinging 60s Greenwich Village scene are delightful.

On the other, I want to like Rascally Roy Thomas much more than Stan the Man, & I do love Roy's work on Doc Strange, but the wordiness of this is brutal, worse than Stan.

However, I strongly disagree with all the reviewers claiming Silver Age X-Men fell off a cliff after Stan's last issue #19 in the last volume. #19 is awful. The series fell off after the last issue of the King's, #17, where he was still plotting & doing layouts.

[Lance Grabmiller · Rating 2 out of 5]

Collects X-Men #24-45 (September 1966-June 1968), Avengers #53 (June 1968) and Not Brand Echh #4 and 8 (November 1967 and June 1968).

Very much in the Silver Age tradition of a single battle with a villain (or villainous group) per issue so it's nice when the occasional larger story arch kicks in. Not particularly great or coherent. Some things seem too rushed and some things take too long and much of it seems even wordier than the Claremont run, even when it has no reason to be.

[Jase · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's a lot of hokey issues here but the Mimic, Banshee and the Juggernaut all make great returns and Magneto's gang starts back up after Wanda/Pietro make their way back from the Avengers. We finally get multiple issue storylines along with Origin stories for Cyke & Bobby.

The passing of Xavier is interesting and is the death of Magneto. We all know they come back, but how. One more book before Claremont takes on the universe and creates a Marvel universe of characters.

[Harry Rubin · Rating 2 out of 5]

The old X-men comics certainly have their charm but they are definitely too dated for the casual reader. I'm mostly reading these stories as a long time fan of X-men. The stories here are honestly not written well despite having a few good characters like Banshee, Magneto, Blob, etc, but most of the characters are just villains of the month. Absolutely forgettable.

[Bryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Woof. This is a bleak era for the X-Men. Constantly changing creative teams and poorly paced and plotted stories that meander aimlessly. There’s a reason this book is canceled a few issues after this collection ends.

[Matt Fuller · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not great silver age comics, the new villains are lame and Scott Summers is the only interesting X-Man at this point but that’s just because he’s an asshole. Forgettable and too wordy. 1966-1968. 5/10

[Felicia Corbett]

Mann :/ b

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ahhh! 1960's Marvel

[Paul Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

Glad the Avengers book was included! And I enjoy catching the inconsistent costuming in flashbacks. I mentally explain it away and award myself the no-prize!

[Gabriel Lawrenz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tirando a aparição dos uniformes individuais, essas edições aqui são bem esquecíveis. Histórias genéricas com personagens novos muito esquecíveis. Não é atoa que a revista foi suspensa posteriormente

[Chad · Rating 2 out of 5]

If I wasn't determined to read these blind spots in my X-Men history, I would have given up on this days ago. It was so boring. Roy Thomas is mind-numbingly dull, at least in these stories.

[Kauã Fillipe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nossa, bem melhor que a edição anterior! As aventuras estão um pouquinhos mais elaboradas, o que já torna a leitura mais interessante, e as histórias se conectam mais umas às outras, o que também é legal.

Gostei muito das trocas de uniformes, de darem um descanso pro Magneto e focarem mais em novos vilões e no Fator Três - mesmo ainda sendo vilões meio idiotas.

A inclusão da série satírica no final é bem legal também. Todas as menções misóginas a Jean continuam a me incomodar, mas é aquilo né: tem que considerar a época em que foi produzido...

[S]

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