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X-Men: The End (Collected Editions) #1-3
X-Men: The End
The epic finale to the story of the Children of the Atom!
Renowned X-Men scribe Chris Claremont (Uncanny X-Men) joins with star artist Sean Chen (Wolverine) for a trilogy in the style of the Lord of the Rings movies, one that spans the length and breadth of the X-Men canon and brings the saga of Marvel's mutants to a climax!
Collects X-Men: The End -- Dreamers and Demons #1 to 6, Heroes and Martyrs #1 to 6, and Men and X-Men #1 to 6.
Renowned X-Men scribe Chris Claremont (Uncanny X-Men) joins with star artist Sean Chen (Wolverine) for a trilogy in the style of the Lord of the Rings movies, one that spans the length and breadth of the X-Men canon and brings the saga of Marvel's mutants to a climax!
Collects X-Men: The End -- Dreamers and Demons #1 to 6, Heroes and Martyrs #1 to 6, and Men and X-Men #1 to 6.
448 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
About the author
Chris Claremont
3,349 books932 followersChris 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
November 29, 2019
More like a 2.5...this got old real fast. It's the same storyline with Claremont...let's bring back the Phoenix and the Sh'iar....blah.
January 10, 2012
In a lot of ways, this is a fitting finale to the X-Men mythos. It's loud, has way too many characters, an overly-convoluted plotline, ridiculous dialog, gaping (or, perhaps, simply unexplained) plot holes, overused characters no one cares about, resurrections, clones, unbelievable plot twists, dialog where thought bubbles should be, and tons of fighting. If you look back fondly at the Claremont era of the X-Men, then this will satisfy something.
Having said that, I grew up on the Claremont era of X-Men, which I can go back and read with enjoyment, but the same plot lines used in the new millenium seem infantile. It's exactly like reading a classic novel. I might enjoy, say, a Dickens occasionally, but if you write a book like that now, I'm just going to make fun of you. So this book seems sort of ridiculous at face value, meaning I'm reading it more as an homage than as a book in its own right.
Claremont does a fitting job of bringing in a TON of plotlines together for this story, for better or worse, and it does provide at least some semblance of an end to things. It has some very satisfying moments, some annoying moments, and at least one moment that leaves me scratching my head about canonicity (the twist involving Gambit (this isn't canon, right?))
Unfortunately, even for what this book is, the ending is ridiculously cheesy--just when things are looking like there's going to be a true finale, everybody holds hands and flies to heaven together. (Just kidding--but really only partly kidding.)
Anyway, this book is what I thought it would be--it's Claremont 2004 (or whatever) still being Claremont 1977 (or whatever). But at least this time he has an excuse.
Having said that, I grew up on the Claremont era of X-Men, which I can go back and read with enjoyment, but the same plot lines used in the new millenium seem infantile. It's exactly like reading a classic novel. I might enjoy, say, a Dickens occasionally, but if you write a book like that now, I'm just going to make fun of you. So this book seems sort of ridiculous at face value, meaning I'm reading it more as an homage than as a book in its own right.
Claremont does a fitting job of bringing in a TON of plotlines together for this story, for better or worse, and it does provide at least some semblance of an end to things. It has some very satisfying moments, some annoying moments, and at least one moment that leaves me scratching my head about canonicity (the twist involving Gambit (this isn't canon, right?))
Unfortunately, even for what this book is, the ending is ridiculously cheesy--just when things are looking like there's going to be a true finale, everybody holds hands and flies to heaven together. (Just kidding--but really only partly kidding.)
Anyway, this book is what I thought it would be--it's Claremont 2004 (or whatever) still being Claremont 1977 (or whatever). But at least this time he has an excuse.
August 20, 2016
Esto es Claremont siendo Claremont, quien no haya disfrutado su run con los X-Men en los 80 tampoco disfrutará de esto. Todo está lleno de referencias y guiños y algunos agujeros en la trama, pero la historia es tan grande en su escala que incluso deja de importar.
Sé que es una opinión impopular, pero a mí me encantó la revelación (no canónica) del origen de Gambito.
Practicamente todos los personajes conocidos hasta la fecha de publicación de esta serie hacen hasta las más mínima aparición y el final es apoteósico en tal manera que si este fuera el verdadero final de toda la saga de los X-Men, estaría más que conforme.
Sé que es una opinión impopular, pero a mí me encantó la revelación (no canónica) del origen de Gambito.
Practicamente todos los personajes conocidos hasta la fecha de publicación de esta serie hacen hasta las más mínima aparición y el final es apoteósico en tal manera que si este fuera el verdadero final de toda la saga de los X-Men, estaría más que conforme.
January 3, 2010
The only reason that I even liked this was it was Claremont being epically Claremont by bringing in a ridiculous amount of characters (many of them his own creations from the past few decades), having clones, and throwing in some good nineties plot devices to create something that you could only really understand if you have a good amount of X-Men background knowledge.
September 19, 2013
A wasted concept. Considering it's a total of 18 issues, you'd think there would be something that looked like an ending. It's just a mess. Minor characters get major screen time and big death moments but major characters never or briefly appear. Not good.
February 15, 2014
I've been away too long and most of the historical story lines are ones I've missed. But this was a fun read. Curiously I almost completely missed the real story until the very end. And I think I prefer it that way.
February 16, 2012
Never get tired of Jean coming back from the dead.
June 10, 2014
Once again, Chris Claremont doesn't disappoint. The characters are still fresh. I really enjoyed this story.
March 29, 2020
7- This is admittedly a bit of a mess, but to me a very entertaining one, thus the almost four stars. This entry in the 'The End'-series of Marvel comics, which purported to tell the final stories of their characters, based on the lore at the moment they were written (continuity can change pretty quickly these days). Here this pretty big series (18 issues) tries to tell the final story of the X-men. Even if not the end of all the X-men themselves, it's pretty much the end of the team. At the end of this book there are no more stories to tell about the X-men, because even if there are still mutants around, there are no X-men. This is written by the famous Chris Claremont, who shaped a lot of the X-men lore in the '80s and here combines all that with for example the 'New X-men'-run by Morrison. In his chance to tell the ultimate fate of the X-men Claremont adds everything and the kitchen sink. There's even for 18 issues an overload of characters. And almost all villains the X-men have fought are here as well: the Skrull, Mr. Sinister, Slavers, and even the Brood ... And the Phoenix of course! It leads to a lot of fighting, and a lot of deads (that due to the frantic pace of story telling do not really have the emotional effect they deserve). Almost all story lines at that moment of the X-men continuity are resolved in one way or another. It leads to an epic, even bombastic climax where (of course) the existence of the universe itself is on the line. The fun thing with this series is that it doens't have to make way for a new installment, so it doesn't have to end in the old status quo, which makes me ejoy it a lot more than regurlar super hero comic. It didn't all make sense, I must confess. Still, an A for effort. And the progressive views of Claremont come through beautifully as he has Kitty Pride run for mayor of Chicago against a candidate running on an anti-mutant platform. That storyline is tense, and added a lot of heart to the series. So, all in all, even seeing the cracks in the design, I enjoyed the story a lot.
May 9, 2019
Hace unos años, Marvel lanzó una serie de series, valga la redundancia, en las que de una forma o de otra, ponía fin a su propio universo. Y cuando decidieron hacerlo para X-Men, lo hicieron contando con el que sin duda es el guionista más importante para la franquicia sólo por después de su creador, Stan Lee. Y Chris Claremont lo hizo con tres series limitadas de seis números cada una, a lo largo de las cuales se lanzó unos quince años al futuro para presentarnos el mayor ataque que jamás había recibido la Patrulla-X, y cómo tenían que hacer frente a numerosos enemigos y sufrir bajas a puñados (total, era el Fin). Así que nos encontramos con Kitty Pryde postulándose para ser alcaldesa de Chicago frente a una candidata de la liga antimutante llamada Pureza, y con Rachel Grey y Karma como ayudantes; a Cíclope, Emma Frost y Loba Venenosa al frente de la Escuela; a Pícara y Gambito casados y padres... Y de pronto, todo parece venirse abajo.
Lo cierto es que Claremont tomó muchos elementos de la historia de la Patrulla-X de aquellos tiempos, tanto propios (las XSE, Khan, Shaitan, Magneto y Xavier en Genosha...) como ajenos (gran parte de la historia bebe directamente de la etapa de Grant Morrison al frente de New X-Men). Si bien la historia es buena, la sensación que me da es de prisas, y es que a pesar de los dieciocho números que forman la historia completa, el enfoque de Claremont es tan amplio que muchos personajes quedan por completo desdibujados y se quedan reducidos a meros comparsas que aparecen como deus ex machina en determinados momentos dependiendo de sus poderes (Ángel, Estrella del Norte, Hub... o una de las protagonistas, Aliyah Bishop incluso). La labor de Sean Chen a los lápices es eficaz, aunque no brillante (creo que esto es lo que caracteriza a este dibujante en general en sus trabajos).
En fin, una buena historia que leer, sobre todo si eres muy fan de Claremont y sus X-Treme X-Men...
Lo cierto es que Claremont tomó muchos elementos de la historia de la Patrulla-X de aquellos tiempos, tanto propios (las XSE, Khan, Shaitan, Magneto y Xavier en Genosha...) como ajenos (gran parte de la historia bebe directamente de la etapa de Grant Morrison al frente de New X-Men). Si bien la historia es buena, la sensación que me da es de prisas, y es que a pesar de los dieciocho números que forman la historia completa, el enfoque de Claremont es tan amplio que muchos personajes quedan por completo desdibujados y se quedan reducidos a meros comparsas que aparecen como deus ex machina en determinados momentos dependiendo de sus poderes (Ángel, Estrella del Norte, Hub... o una de las protagonistas, Aliyah Bishop incluso). La labor de Sean Chen a los lápices es eficaz, aunque no brillante (creo que esto es lo que caracteriza a este dibujante en general en sus trabajos).
En fin, una buena historia que leer, sobre todo si eres muy fan de Claremont y sus X-Treme X-Men...
February 26, 2020
The End is Claremont’s farewell to the franchise and and characters he brought into the limelight. The X-Men have aged and we’re seeing their legacy play out. Bishop and Deathbird’s daughter liberates one of the most iconic characters, Jean Grey. The rise of the Phoenix (a story line originating in Claremont’s Phoenix Saga) forces the Shi’ar to unleash the War Skrulls, who attempt to exterminate the X-Men and nearly succeed. We watch beloved characters sacrifice themselves in moments of emotional heroism. Plot points from the Dark Phoenix Saga, Inferno, and the Mutant Massacre weave together beautifully to give us the closure Marvel denied its fans. It’s a brutal goodbye, while unfilled questions set up in the 80’s and 90’s are finally answered. Ultimately, if this were the final arc for the X-Men, it’d be tough, but I would say it couldn’t have unfolded any other way.
Reviewed for the Geekorama Podcast on https://www.superhero-fiction.com
Reviewed for the Geekorama Podcast on https://www.superhero-fiction.com
September 29, 2017
This is a great little time capsule of the X-Men circa 2004. All the irrelevant late 90s characters show up (yes, even Lifeguard and Slipstream), the major villains are the ones who were just appearing in the comics, and Claremont tries desperately to make this relatable by adding a subplot where Kitty Pryde runs for mayor. It doesn't all work, and in particular the final pages where Phoenix shows up are full of handwaving, but this is way better than other alternate future tales like X-Men Forever.
February 5, 2024
I remember reading this many years ago and lately felt I wanted to reread it. This might not be the greatest X-Men story, it makes some weird choices that don't always work, but I still love it and think of it fondly. Plus it has some good old Emma-Scott pairing which is now a rare thing.
January 18, 2018
A big story with insane plot twists, meaningless character deaths and insufficient resonance to tie it all together. A shame.
October 13, 2019
I never knew this existed and it was awesome!
December 15, 2023
It’s a race to finish line. It’s messy but kind of wraps up nicely.
August 12, 2013
Chris Claremont, one of the greatest of all the X-Men scribes, takes us through the end of the X-Men. This is his vision of what would happen, who would live, die, and what changes would occur. It is jammed full of characters, from the originals (Cyclops, Beast, Iceman, Angel) through more modern ones (Cable, Bishop, Rachel Grey) and everyone in between.
The story shows a future where things are a little different, and the X-Men have known relative peace after the Phoenix has been gone from Earth so long. Many of the characters now have families, and that will be a big part of the story; many are retired, and some of our favourites have gotten old.
We also have some interesting revelations about people we didn't expect, along with appearances of some major antagonists.
It's a great story, epic in the aim and breadth/depth it goes into. One can only imagine if John Byrne had actually been part of this, like originally planned.
In many ways, even though this isn't cannon, and stands outside the accepted Marvel Universe chronology, this would be a worthy and fitting send off to the X-Men.
Strongly recommended.
The story shows a future where things are a little different, and the X-Men have known relative peace after the Phoenix has been gone from Earth so long. Many of the characters now have families, and that will be a big part of the story; many are retired, and some of our favourites have gotten old.
We also have some interesting revelations about people we didn't expect, along with appearances of some major antagonists.
It's a great story, epic in the aim and breadth/depth it goes into. One can only imagine if John Byrne had actually been part of this, like originally planned.
In many ways, even though this isn't cannon, and stands outside the accepted Marvel Universe chronology, this would be a worthy and fitting send off to the X-Men.
Strongly recommended.
May 10, 2013
This was a pretty intense ride. I enjoyed the return of the Phoenix and the ending was pretty crazy. From the moment I opened the book, I was sucked into this adventure, wondering what was happening to the world of the mutants. Cool imagery and an interesting storyline as well.
September 12, 2012
Ridiculous plots with cool graphics. Well, if anything, this led me to Wiki characters no one otherwise cares -- or knows -- about. Good thing this isn't canon.
September 20, 2014
Ridiculous but truly epic.
October 15, 2015
Chris uses the X-Men and their recent challenges to create a possible end for the team, both tragic and hopeful, this is Claremont at his best. Far better than much that has marked his later career.
February 28, 2012
A good read albeit I got confused more than once.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews