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Uncanny X-Men (1963) #281-293
X-Men: Bishop's Crossing
When new villains overthrow the Hellfire Club in a bloody coup, a freshly formed team of X-Men is caught in the middle! But their battle is interrupted when hundreds of escaped convicts arrive from the future - pursued by the ruthless mutant policeman named Bishop! Raised since childhood on the legends of the X-Men, how will Bishop react to meeting his idols? What deadly portent of doom does he carry with him? And why will he quickly set his sights on Gambit? Meanwhile, the rest of the team have their hands full as Colossus' long-lost brother comes back wrong, Storm and Forge's romance reaches a dramatic turning point, and trouble brews for Cyclops and Jean Grey!
COLLECTING: UNCANNY X-MEN (1981) 281-293, X-MEN (1991) 8
COLLECTING: UNCANNY X-MEN (1981) 281-293, X-MEN (1991) 8
338 pages, Paperback
First published December 13, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
April 12, 2023
Over in the mainline title, Jim Lee was drawing his signature 90s look extremely well. He invented Omega Red, had a crossover with Ghost Rider (more on that later), wrapped up Longshot and Dazzler, and then went away. The writing was not really… good.
Meanwhile, Uncanny X-Men also had great art but divisive writing. But at least it was trying to be bold. The hot new artist there was Whilce Portacio, with scriptwriting by John Byrne of all people. The first issue opened with immediately killing off so many villains: the White Queens’ team the Hellions and the cyborg Reavers, in order to start introducing new ideas.
Byrne didn’t last long, and neither did Portacio. But the biggest legacy would have to be the introduction of Bishop. The time-traveling mutant cop, the first new member post-Chris Claremont, and he has still withstood the test of time and is a core X-Man to this day. Except for his hair, that aged badly.
That said, with the cool superheroes and fresh new start of it all, the story about Colossus’s long lost brother in another dimension wasn’t great. Like many of these pre-Image Comics hyped artists, the focus on was the drawing, on excuses to draw guns and muscles and weird techy costumes.
About halfway through the arc, Scott Lodbell became the new writer and stuck around to define the X-Men for the rest of the decade. Though the editors were really in charge, together the assembly line would eventually figure out a way to pander to fans and create the successful X-Men crossover machine.
The “gold team” may not have felt as important as the other title, but Wolverine is overused anyway, and I always appreciated the side that let Storm be the leader. It was a rocky start, yet at least they were ambitious. Just can't say it lived up to Chris Claremont’s quality after #281.
Meanwhile, Uncanny X-Men also had great art but divisive writing. But at least it was trying to be bold. The hot new artist there was Whilce Portacio, with scriptwriting by John Byrne of all people. The first issue opened with immediately killing off so many villains: the White Queens’ team the Hellions and the cyborg Reavers, in order to start introducing new ideas.
Byrne didn’t last long, and neither did Portacio. But the biggest legacy would have to be the introduction of Bishop. The time-traveling mutant cop, the first new member post-Chris Claremont, and he has still withstood the test of time and is a core X-Man to this day. Except for his hair, that aged badly.
That said, with the cool superheroes and fresh new start of it all, the story about Colossus’s long lost brother in another dimension wasn’t great. Like many of these pre-Image Comics hyped artists, the focus on was the drawing, on excuses to draw guns and muscles and weird techy costumes.
About halfway through the arc, Scott Lodbell became the new writer and stuck around to define the X-Men for the rest of the decade. Though the editors were really in charge, together the assembly line would eventually figure out a way to pander to fans and create the successful X-Men crossover machine.
The “gold team” may not have felt as important as the other title, but Wolverine is overused anyway, and I always appreciated the side that let Storm be the leader. It was a rocky start, yet at least they were ambitious. Just can't say it lived up to Chris Claremont’s quality after #281.
September 17, 2017
Leave it to Marvel to give us a slightly different collection than the hardcover of a few years ago. This collection has X-Men #8 instead of X-Men #12-#13. X-Men #8 probably makes more sense as it's Bishop's first meeting with the other X-Men team and his first confrontation with Gambit.
The book is a collection of Bishop's first year in comics. The story is rough at the beginning. Chris Claremont had just left the books after a dispute with the editor leaving Jim Lee and Whilce Portacio plotting the book. They were often late with the art and John Byrne literally had to script the books overnight. Then the mass X-odus happened a few issues into this and all the artists bailed to Image. I never thought I'd say this but the book actually gets better when Scott Lobdell came along.
Bishop was a really interesting character when he broke onto the scene with a great costume design (even with the mullet) and unique power set and history. For that alone the book is worth a read if you're interested in the X-Men's history.
The book is a collection of Bishop's first year in comics. The story is rough at the beginning. Chris Claremont had just left the books after a dispute with the editor leaving Jim Lee and Whilce Portacio plotting the book. They were often late with the art and John Byrne literally had to script the books overnight. Then the mass X-odus happened a few issues into this and all the artists bailed to Image. I never thought I'd say this but the book actually gets better when Scott Lobdell came along.
Bishop was a really interesting character when he broke onto the scene with a great costume design (even with the mullet) and unique power set and history. For that alone the book is worth a read if you're interested in the X-Men's history.
September 18, 2026
Actual rating 3.7 stars.
The first CE in this new era of the X-Men.
While I liked the art for the most part, there were other decisions that I questioned. A lot.
Like that thing with Scott and Betsy… ? He and Jean have finally gotten to a good place in their relationship and now the writers want to mess it up again?
Speaking of messing up, I can’t even talk about the Forge and Storm thing without getting mad.
If you want to make Forge leave, just have him leave, don't have him insult and break Ororo’s heart!
I did like the introduction of Bishop and that Storm has taken in the new member, like Xavier has done many times before.
I also liked that moment with Jean and Xavier, how she won’t push him to talk about the loss of his legs (again), yet.
There was also that Emma Frost plot that wasn’t mentioned in the later issues.
It’s going to be interesting the further along this and the new series goes, how much continuity will be kept up.
Overall, while having a mini reset isn’t a bad thing, I don’t know how I feel about some of the changes being made.
The first CE in this new era of the X-Men.
While I liked the art for the most part, there were other decisions that I questioned. A lot.
Like that thing with Scott and Betsy… ? He and Jean have finally gotten to a good place in their relationship and now the writers want to mess it up again?
Speaking of messing up, I can’t even talk about the Forge and Storm thing without getting mad.
If you want to make Forge leave, just have him leave, don't have him insult and break Ororo’s heart!
I did like the introduction of Bishop and that Storm has taken in the new member, like Xavier has done many times before.
I also liked that moment with Jean and Xavier, how she won’t push him to talk about the loss of his legs (again), yet.
There was also that Emma Frost plot that wasn’t mentioned in the later issues.
It’s going to be interesting the further along this and the new series goes, how much continuity will be kept up.
Overall, while having a mini reset isn’t a bad thing, I don’t know how I feel about some of the changes being made.
November 27, 2016
Undeniably dated and at times more than a little nonsensical, this collection was nevertheless a great deal of fun. Admittedly, the four stars I gave the book were the result mainly of nostalgia more than any artistic merit the work could claim, but there is no irony intended in my review. Sometimes you just love things because of who you were when you first discovered them. The best works can bring you back to that time and place all over again. For over three hundred pages I was eleven years old again and it was a hell of a good time.
June 23, 2018
I owned most of, but not all of, these comics as a teenager, and read them enough that, twenty-five years later, I still remember almost every scene. Like Marvel's Epic Collections, there are a ton of stories, and a slew of characters and continunity in this volume. The next generation of Hellions battle for control of The Hellfire Club, a time traveling X-Man from the future follows a group of prisoners from his time into what was the present, a portal to another dimension is opened, two major characters die (but not really), a marriage proposal, a new X-Man who was already an X-Man, guests in the mansion, chaos in the Morlock tunnels. It's A Lot.
This was mostly a fun time to be reading the X-Men. Some of the setups don't quite earn the emotional payoffs at the end of issues/storyarcs but they only feel mildly Over The Top, as opposed to Liefeldian Over The Top.
I recommend this to all X-Men fans, 90s kids, Bishop enthusiasts, X-Men reders who love some down-time melodrama, and people who ship Forgetique and Bishstorm.
This was mostly a fun time to be reading the X-Men. Some of the setups don't quite earn the emotional payoffs at the end of issues/storyarcs but they only feel mildly Over The Top, as opposed to Liefeldian Over The Top.
I recommend this to all X-Men fans, 90s kids, Bishop enthusiasts, X-Men reders who love some down-time melodrama, and people who ship Forgetique and Bishstorm.
March 30, 2020
Overall, I'd say I that if we're comparing the two X-Teams of this era, Cyclops' Blue Team (Adjectiveless) and Storm's Gold Team (Uncanny X-Men), the stronger stories are definitely happening over in Adjectiveless. That being said, I feel like maybe this book doesn't get as much credit as it deserves. For one thing, Jean Grey is finally given a much needed personality injection. Watching her and Colossus' brother/sister dynamic develop is both endearing and charming. Forge, Archangel, and Iceman all have nice character moments as well. I suppose the real losers in this batch have to be Bishop, who at this point, is pretty one-dimensional, and oddly enough, Storm. If the book didn't tell you that she was leading the team, I promise you would have no idea. She spends a lot of time in this volume grieving her failed relationship with Forge, pretty much abandoning her team in a time of peril. In my opinion, that's just as out of character for as it was when Cyclops abandoned his wife and child to be a superhero again. As it's written, they should have just made Jean the leader as that's obviously who they wanted in the first place. It's not like she's not incapable of it, and it would allow Storm to have her character moment without it being a detriment to her leadership abilities.
All in all, pretty good, but not as good as previous volumes.
All in all, pretty good, but not as good as previous volumes.
January 16, 2020
Collects Uncanny X-Men #281 - 293 (October 1991 - October 1992) and X-Men #8 (May 1992).
Not bad but they just blow through ideas way too rapidly without resolving much of anything. The X-men seem tossed into and fall out of situations faster than they can really do anything and there is little care for destroying the past (The Hellfire Club) or even brand new characters (Colossus's brother). Feels like big sensational story after big sensational story with no breathers which sort of lessens the emotional impact of ALL of it. Any big, overarching stories last only a couple issues (though they are rarely fully resolved) so the epic feel of many past stories has been lost.
Not bad but they just blow through ideas way too rapidly without resolving much of anything. The X-men seem tossed into and fall out of situations faster than they can really do anything and there is little care for destroying the past (The Hellfire Club) or even brand new characters (Colossus's brother). Feels like big sensational story after big sensational story with no breathers which sort of lessens the emotional impact of ALL of it. Any big, overarching stories last only a couple issues (though they are rarely fully resolved) so the epic feel of many past stories has been lost.
June 24, 2017
The X-Men have undergone another roster change! The original five have returned to the fold to join with newer members. This collection mainly follows Storm's Gold Team. She has Marvel Girl, Iceman, Colossus and Archangel under her command, and things get hairy right away. They meet with the Hellfire Club to discuss mutual protection from a common foe, only to have said foe attack them while they're meeting, using Sentinels. The White Queen is badly injured in the ensuing battle. Jean seemingly dies, but Professor X can't sense her demise.
As the rest of Gold Team looks for and finds Jean alive, a time traveling mutant murderer by the name of Fitzroy beached the time barrier and joins the fray. His power is to drain life forces to power the creation of time portals. He murders most of the Hellions to bring fellow prisoners into this time to wreak havoc. Unfortunately for him, Bishop and his two lieutenants hitch a ride on the same portal.
Bishop is a mutant and a member of the Xse, a future police force composed of mutants who seek to live up to the legacy of the X-Men, albeit with more violent ethods to adjust to theirs being a more violent time. He is trapped here now (Fitzroy's portals are one-way only), and Professor X decides to induct him into the X-Men. He is assigned to Storm's Gold Team.
The team finds themselves swept into another world where to their surprise, they find Peter's lost brother Mikhail. Mikhail didn't die in a space shuttle accident as Peter and family were told, but was put into a secret program when they learned of his mutant energy manipulation powers. Mikhail accidentally breached the barrier between worlds and found himself in another dimension. He found a wife and a life there, but in trying to save his new people from the destructive wave of the energy portal that brought him there, he accidentally killed them all.
With the help of Sunfire, the team stops the energy portal from endangering the world any further, and returns Mikhail to this world. Still in despair over what happened in that other world, he found the Morlocks and, seeing them as kindred spirits, chose to lead them instead, seemingly to all of their deaths.
This was a fast paced time in X-history, leading up to the X-Cutioner's Song.
As the rest of Gold Team looks for and finds Jean alive, a time traveling mutant murderer by the name of Fitzroy beached the time barrier and joins the fray. His power is to drain life forces to power the creation of time portals. He murders most of the Hellions to bring fellow prisoners into this time to wreak havoc. Unfortunately for him, Bishop and his two lieutenants hitch a ride on the same portal.
Bishop is a mutant and a member of the Xse, a future police force composed of mutants who seek to live up to the legacy of the X-Men, albeit with more violent ethods to adjust to theirs being a more violent time. He is trapped here now (Fitzroy's portals are one-way only), and Professor X decides to induct him into the X-Men. He is assigned to Storm's Gold Team.
The team finds themselves swept into another world where to their surprise, they find Peter's lost brother Mikhail. Mikhail didn't die in a space shuttle accident as Peter and family were told, but was put into a secret program when they learned of his mutant energy manipulation powers. Mikhail accidentally breached the barrier between worlds and found himself in another dimension. He found a wife and a life there, but in trying to save his new people from the destructive wave of the energy portal that brought him there, he accidentally killed them all.
With the help of Sunfire, the team stops the energy portal from endangering the world any further, and returns Mikhail to this world. Still in despair over what happened in that other world, he found the Morlocks and, seeing them as kindred spirits, chose to lead them instead, seemingly to all of their deaths.
This was a fast paced time in X-history, leading up to the X-Cutioner's Song.
June 18, 2024
A good sampling of the post-Claremont era of Uncanny X-Men (including some cowriting from his former collaborator/rival, John Byrne); most of the stories still *feel* like Claremont in their labyrinthine continuity and melodramatic interpersonal dynamics. In other words, it’s what you want from an X-Men comic. I didn’t actually plan on reading this; I picked it up to see if it was a duplicate and got sucked in. It is consistently engaging, even if the art itself is inconsistent (I don’t care to type out the long list of artists involved, but they range from great in a 90s way to terrible in a 90s way). We see the intro of Bishop, a time traveling Judge Dredd ripoff (he literally says “I am the law” at one point); Colossus’s brother; some forgettable (and quickly forgotten) bad guys; and the return of the Morlocks. All in all, it’s a fun time, especially if you love the soapy era of X-Men comics like I do.
March 26, 2024
Another pick by my comic book club. An interesting enough read but I've never been a big X-men fan.
Random thoughts:
* From the perspective of someone who dips in and out of these stories, this was exactly what I expected: complicated histories (and futures), all the pewpewpew, and these guys just never catching a break haha;
* This collection is pretty good at flagging that something happened before (including ref'ing to the comic it happened in) for newer readers, thank goodness.
* Absolutely wild that they went through like 6 pencillers, 10 inkers & 5 colourists in 9 issues - chaos!
Random thoughts:
* From the perspective of someone who dips in and out of these stories, this was exactly what I expected: complicated histories (and futures), all the pewpewpew, and these guys just never catching a break haha;
* This collection is pretty good at flagging that something happened before (including ref'ing to the comic it happened in) for newer readers, thank goodness.
* Absolutely wild that they went through like 6 pencillers, 10 inkers & 5 colourists in 9 issues - chaos!
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews