X-Men: Revolution by Chris Claremont Omnibus

X-Men (1991-2001) #100-109, Annual 2000

by Chris Claremont, Joe Pruett, Len Wein

Legendary X-Men writer Chris Claremont returns - to usher in a mutant revolution! And his uncanny roster mixes returning favorites with fresh additions including Cable, Cecilia Reyes, Tessa and the new Thunderbird! But who will lead the revamped X-Men? Would you believe Gambit and Rogue?! Foes both old and new threaten - from the nefarious Neo and the Crimson Pirates, to Stryfe and the N'Garai! But whose side are Lady Deathstrike and Senator Kelly on? And when Rogue's powers are scrambled by a Skrull, will she ever be the same again? Meanwhile, Mystique's Brotherhood of Mutants has deadly plans - and their machinations could mean the very literal death of Xavier's dream! COLLECTING: X-MEN (1991) 100-109, ANNUAL 2000; UNCANNY X-MEN (1981) 381-389; X-MEN UNLIMITED (1993) 27-29; X-MEN: BLACK SUN 1-5; BISHOP: THE LAST X-MAN 15-16; CABLE (1993) 87

Genres: Marvel, Comics, X Men, Graphic Novels, Comic Book

904 pages, Hardcover

First published August 14, 2018

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

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 2 out of 5]

In the '90s, the X-Men lost their shine. Claremont, the creator of the team's success, had been forced out due to Marvel's obsession with artists over writers. Though the comic had a few hits in the decade that followed, most notably X-Men: Age of Apocalypse Omnibus, in general this period dominated by Scott Lobdell was the franchise's weakest since the '60s. Bringing in Alan Davis in 1999 could have reversed its fortunes, but his crossover-laden run never caught fire, so in 2000, Marvel went back to the source: Chris Claremont himself.

The "Revolution" encompassed all of the X-titles and is today most notable for Warren Ellis' "Counter X" work on X-Man, X-Force, and Generation X. Claremont's work on X-Men and Uncanny X-Men unfortunately turned out to be ... less notable.

The Revolution began with a nine-month gap, and quite simply, Claremont did nothing interesting with that time jump. He of course set up his new teams, and his inclusion of new member Thunderbird was almost interesting — except for Claremont's use of a native American name for someone from the Indian subcontinent, as if he couldn't differentiate the two. Other than that he takes away Psylocke's TP and Jean Gray's TK, or something like that.

But then, when Claremont gets into the main comic itself, it's ... awful. He concentrates what would be the first half of his run (X-Men #100-106, UXM #381-385) entirely on a new group of foes called the Neo, who are mutants from a different race or something. And "new group" is the key phrase here, because there are apparently an infinite number of them, all popping up now for no particular reason. So the X-Men fight the Warclan, then the Shockwave Riders, then the Lost Souls, then the Goth, then the Crimson Pirates, then the Twisted Sisters. Claremont makes no use of classic continuity, and there's really no continuity between these groups. It's just a painfully long set of clashes against entirely generic, poorly defined, poorly characterized foes.

Meanwhile, Claremont doesn't really develop any subplots, which were what kept his X-Men so intriguing in the '70s and '80s, and in fact his X-Men are pretty poorly defined in general. There's a notable sequence between Wolverine and Rogue for "Who Will Lead the X-Men!?!" and little else in these 12 long issues.

When Claremont isn't obsessing about the Neo, the comics are a little better. Not good, but better. The Annual has some depth to it. Bringing in a villain (Lady Deathstrike) as a member of the X-Men is an old, used trope ... but at least it's not more of those damned Neo. Unfortunately, it gets totally ignored afterward. The Black Sun miniseries nicely combines the N'garai with Belasco and Limbo, but turns out to be five issues of the old X-Men fighting the new X-Men (and the N'garai seem more like Brood than the classic monstrosity that Kitty fought back in the day). The Maximum Security crossover is almost interesting because it involves Xavier and his silly skrulls and Lilandra ... except we don't get enough of the crossover for it to really make sense, and the whole idea of making Earth an alien prison is pretty ludicrous.

Then we finally get to "Dream's End", and it's actually good. It's a story deeply embedded in X-Men mythology: it purposefully mirrors the modern day elements of Days of Future Past, but shows how both Senator Kelly and the Brotherhood have changed since them. The story has major repercussions, and Claremont deals with them well — but sadly it's the only story in this whole hardcover where you can say that, because the rest of his "Revolution" is totally forgotten.

The setup for X-Treme X-Men that ends Claremont's run here is interesting, and that series would at least be better than this Neo-focused garbage.

The real shame is that Marvel would choose this volume for an omnibus. Why Not his X-Men: The New Era, which despite its flaws at least had interesting continuity, or his longer (but still flawed) run of X-Treme X-Men? Heck, why not the Alan Davis run that proceeded this, which despite its crossover-itis had characters and continuity?

[TR Naus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chris Claremont is back! After a decade away, the legendary X-Men scribe (and my favorite writer) returned to the team that he placed at the top of every fanboy's read pile. He took both of the core titles just as the X-Men movie hit the theaters.

Marvel reset the X-Men franchise with a reboot they called Revolution. The new direction starts six months after the events of Powerless in which the X-Men manage to stop the High Evolutionary and Mr. Sinister.

Chris Claremont started by creating an entirely new society that has been secretly living amongst us without anybody noticing. That is a tricky thing to pull off (even in comics), and it does not work here. We never really get an understanding of who the Neo are or what makes them different from humans and mutants. The most mind-boggling unanswered question to me: where have they been living this entire time? We get a glimpse of the tribal dynamics but there a lot of inconsistencies. For example, they appear both low or high tech. The only thing we know for sure is that they are in pain from what the High Evolutionary attempted to do, but that is about as deep as we get. I thought maybe the Neo would be an unfolding mystery over the next year, but that was not the case.

Chris Claremont does a good job of getting into the characters. Nightcrawler left the X-Men for the priesthood. Kitty found love and looks to a future outside the X-Men. Pyslocke deals with her newfound power (and the loss of her primary abilities). His excellent handling of Dr. Cecelia Reyes really stands out and is reminiscent of his style with strong women. She never wanted to be an X-Men, but she is forced to learn new ways to use her powers to survive the Neo and to protect Nightcrawler. Claremont really captures her personality, and we see her dealing with a life she still dislikes under extreme circumstances. On the downside, Claremont introduces a new character with the confusing codename Thunderbird (did we really need another one?). He is an introductory character for us to see the new team from an outsider's point of view, but Thunderbird isn't explored as much as I would've expected in that role.

Buried inside this run is a three-issue Maximum Security tie-in. Company-wide crossovers can play havoc with creators trying to tell their own stories. It is clear that Chris Claremont was going in a specific direction with his Revolution arc, but this set doesn't seem to really fit. Maximum Security is such a big event that it is a little hard to follow if you didn't read the many different issues.

Finally, Senator Robert Kelly is running for President on a platform to deal with the mutant threat, and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants plan to assassinate him before he can get into office. The elements of past stories are all blatantly visible. An anti-mutant presidential nominee being secretly protected by the X-Men in order to (unsuccessfully) prevent an assassination. Mystique and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants attempting to murder Senator Robert Kelly.

The comic stars aligned, and I was excited when the news of Chris Claremont's return. Alas, my enthusiasm was tempered. These were not the X-Men tales of my youth. It is sad to say that Chris Claremont's return was not a memorable event. I applaud the attempt to try something new with the X-Men, but Revolution introduces elements and characters that never go anywhere (and are often forgotten).

I am a huge fan of Leinel Francis Yu's and Adam Kubert's artwork, and I had enough faith in Chris Claremont to give this batch a read. It was almost there, but not quite.

[Jameson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I held off on getting this one because I have mixed feelings about this short-lived era in the history of mutantkind. Do I really need to own the X-Men vs. the Neo omnibus? Chris Claremont’s much-hyped, disappointing return to Xavier’s? Sure, the scans out there are crappy and the art is good to great, but won’t I probably skip these issues in most of my future re-reads?

But I did get it. Because for better or worse, it is a kind of record of a piece of X-Men history, and therefore a must have.

For all its flaws, and those have been greatly exaggerated, these issues are actually pretty good. Great team line-ups, interesting team combination choices allowing for some fresh character dynamics, a chance for some wallpaper-ish characters to get more panel time, a few—not all—nice costume redesigns, and a ton of fun superhero action set pieces with an overarching mystery tying it all together. Unfortunately, the Neo. Nuff said.

Now, I’m one of those unique people that is obsessed with Claremont’s original run but not afraid to both defend and criticize him. Most of the flaws in the early issues are clearly down to Yu. He’s an amazing talent but this was early days. He struggles with storytelling. He struggles with perspective. And he struggles with knowing x-history as well as Claremont. No surprise there. I think Yu lets Claremont down in a lot of ways but people are so quick to blame Claremont that he gets a pass.

Not that Claremont is blameless. There is one panel in UXM 382 where Gambit essentially has a “Live, Love, Laugh” moment and it’s tres cringey, hein? And all the usual excesses of Claremont apply, of course. (Comprenez? Understand?) My biggest gripe is that he revisits some of his favorite and my least favorite tropes: pirates, slavery, and mind control. These things make my eyes glaze over. But his strengths are on display, too. Fun use of superpowers, character dynamics. And Claremont, like Agatha Christie, is very good at giving some personality to very small characters.

Overall, as a package, I have to recommend this. I do suggest that when you read it:

1) don’t linger on the narrative captions like you would with Claremont’s earlier work

2) pretend the Neo speak an untranslatable language. It reads much better this way: they come off like some kind of messed up club kid Klingons.

For all the grief this gets, some of these ideas will be used by future writers in stories with much better street cred (for example, Mike Carey basically re-writes the Neo story, and makes it work, and Grant Morrison recycles the idea of a mutant ability-enhancing drug almost immediately.) Claremont isn’t firing on all cylinders here but Decent Claremont is better than most superhero comics then or now. The medium is all but dead, sadly. Marvel Comics seems determined to go out of business.

Favorite Bits:
The splash page of X-Men #102 is a beautiful shot of Wolverine slashing through some metal in a tunnel. The narration is very familiar: Claremont is writing Wolverine. If you’ve read any good X-Men stuff you know what I mean. My claws are covered in unbreakable metal, yadda yadda yadda. But instead of ending his intro with “I’m Wolverine, and I’m the best there is at what I do,” we get “I’m Wolverine, I’m here on business.” The icing on that cake, he’s working with Dani Moonstar and Forge to investigate Sinister’s lair underneath a certain orphanage.

Strong women are a Claremont cliche for a reason. Two of the best, Phoenix and Storm, each get a nice issue in the spotlight, #381 and #383, respectively. Both are drawn beautifully by Adam Kubert and both make you realize how underused and badly written these characters were before Revolution.

Random observation: I happened to be reading X-Men Revolution by Chris Claremont at the same time as The Elementals by Michael McDowell and I have a feeling Claremont was reading the latter while writing the former because he names one character Beldame and another character mentions she likes lox from Zabar’s. What are the chances of that being a coincidence?

——-

Anyone else’s omnibus have a weird printing error in X-Men #108? A piece of Colossus’s chest is printed outside the margins and that bit of paper is folded over itself.

[Blindzider · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm using this as a placeholder. I did not read every issue contained in this hardcover, only Uncanny X-Men 381-389. Since there isn't a TPB specifically for those issues, I wanted to make sure I captured these issues being read.

This is one of Claremont's return to the X-Men and it's very, very much like his earlier work. Whether by design or because his style has never evolved, the stories read much the same. There are still captions describing the scene, although there does seem to be less of them, but that's been replaced by more of the characters and their thought balloons or speech bubbles. In other words, lots of reading.

Many of the same plot devices used previously are reused again: the X-Men get caught up in a mission where they run into a new team/group who hates mutants. They battle, and the new team is left dangling out in subplot purgatory. Or the X-Men go on a small rescue mission where you can see just how the X-Men use their powers as a team to help people. Throughout all this, the members lament at how the world hates them, and what it means to be human/mutant and still struggle despite how much it hurts or tires them.

All of that is there, just like when Claremont used to write the book. It has the feeling of nostalgia if you were there in the beginning, but it also has the feeling of "I've seen this before and I'd rather have something new." It's a mixed bag. Seeing what makes the X-Men heroes despite their struggles is a nice feeling, because that whole allegory has been lost by many of the modern books. This run intersects at least one crossover and a couple story arcs require you to read other books, so reading just this run straight through is very disjointed.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Until the “Dream's End” crossover almost all the villains suck, but there's much to like here including some great art & gems like the Black Sun mini, X-Men 100 covers Uncanny 100, Jean & Hank enjoy Venetian Carnival, Kurt & Cecelia take refuge in an illegal Brooklyn clinic, a psychic rescue of Jean, Logan & Dani investigate the aftermath of a battle, Ororo & Moscow's Kingpin reenact Little Nemo, Rogue becomes leader, Jean & Cable encounter Onslaught on the psychic plane, Rogue's squad finds a slaver spy in the Hong Kong elite, Rogue's & Remy's squads battle, Bets's & Warren's date is interrupted, Rogue & Jean go to a zydeco club but Cable is a buzzkill, Pitor gives Rogue his power in Kurt's church, the Dora Milaje visit Ororo, & Kurt reunites w/ Cerise

[B · Rating 2 out of 5]

Blah. It's just a series of villains, all of them with too much design. The best one is "What if the Shadow King were blue?"

The Cable redesign is.the most notable but loses a lot of personality.

Just generally all these stories felt like treading water rather than building. Then we get part of Maximum Security. Goodie.

[Jase · Rating 4 out of 5]

the Neo hit hard and come for the X-Men over Uncanny/X-men V2. Claremont uses his creations along with Cecelia Reyes to take down the Neo and spawn into more of the Legacy Virus. We have unfortunate deaths of Moira, Piotr & Senator Kelly. Some decent art and Cyclops returns.

[Cameron H · Rating 5 out of 5]

Claremont is great. Yu is great. Together they don’t really…coalesce. That being said, there’s a lot of good stuff in here.

[Ribrarian Not]

Libro de historietas con ISBN propio. Recopila toda la era "Revolution" de Claremont y colaboradores.