X-Treme X-Men: Savage Land

X-Treme X-Men (2001) (Collected Editions)

by Chris Claremont, Kevin Sharpe (Illustrator)

Team member Rogue's powers have gone out of control and she is experiencing recurring nightmares about sentient dinosaurs. To help her, the X-treme team begins a journey to the Savage Land, where both dinodsaurs and old foes await the team.

Genres: Comics, Marvel, X Men, Graphic Novels, Comic Book, Superheroes, Science Fiction

96 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2002

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

[Miloš · Rating 3 out of 5]

pictures are fantastic but the story was a little dull... that's why only 3 stars...

[C · Rating 3 out of 5]

I see a lot of complaining about this volume and I can't say that I disagree with much of it. That said, there's a sort of nostalgic warmth about this volume that isn't present in a lot of later Claremont work - this feels like an arc of the 80's X-Men. In a way, that is ok with me.

That said, there are fairly major issues with this one (with beast in particular) and it really doesn't impact continuity so if you are being crazy (like myself) and rereading the full chronology of the x-books, it is one you could probably skip...

[Trike · Rating 2 out of 5]

Surely the writing wasn’t this bad back in the heyday of X-Men? Now I’m afraid to go back and reread those. Maybe it was John Byrne’s influence on Claremont that made them so good. This just feels… messy. Like he’s phoning it in, without considering proper story structure.

I love the idea of the Savage Land — superheroes and dinosaurs! C’mon! — but so few stories set there are any good. The X-Men back in the 70s was one such, and Claremont was the writer for those. Oh well.

[Alex Cahill]

I willingly went back to find this story, but I didn't really like it.

I like the Savage Land and wanted to know more about it, but this version of it felt really different to other versions and I wasn't interested.

I was confused at many points about what was going on, and the plotlines left rushed and unresolved. Honestly I thought there was going to be another issue, but, no... The climax happened, was averted, and ended all in the last 12 pages.

[Trevor · Rating 2 out of 5]

The X-Men travel to the Savage Land where they find themselves in the middle of a conflict between two groups of dinosaur people.

Like the rest of X-Treme X-Men so far, this was fine. It didn't really evoke any feelings in me at all.

[Klaus · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were some cool and interesting moments; some new things with Rogue, cool science facts, and the art is really good. The storyline pretty average, though.

[Adam Stone · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've been lacking access to this volume for years, and was happy to see it pop up in a collection I was triaging. Unfortunately, as I suspected, it's not great. Chris Claremont really wanted to write novels at this point, so he's in full-on over-narration mode for the whole book. The story itself is pretty dull, and you can see why it wasn't even important enough to be included in the regular issues of the X-Treme X-Men, which, itself, wasn't very good.

This is purely for fans of the X-Treme X-Men team. It's hard to track down but check dollar bins and discount racks, and you might get lucky and find a copy of this underwhelming story that begins with "What if the X-Treme X-Men were dinosaurs in someone else's dream?" and gets much less exciting from there. It really feels like this volume crawled out of the early 80s mind of Claremont and he held on to the story until the 2000s before he released it.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 2 out of 5]

Savage Land (SL #1-4). Claremont has some weird obsession with dinosaur people (they're all over Excalibur, and there's a dinosaur guy in the "War" arc in the main X-Treme title as well), and it rarely results in great stories. Case in point: this weird refugee story that ends up being yet another fight with the Savage Land Mutates (and has yet more mind control of the X-Women). Perhaps not quite as horrible as it sounds from the premise, but not great [2+/5].

[Jason Tanner · Rating 2 out of 5]

Trite and boring. I have no idea why this miniseries exists. It has absolutely nothing to do with the X-treme team's mission, it's overly preachy, and it's completely forgettable. I recommend skipping this one and sticking to the main series.

[Courtney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall the art work is amazing! But the story itself was so so, the end felt rushed and not really flushed out. The ending with storm was in my opinion didn’t feel like it was completely ended. Yes she was transformed into an older predator but she didn’t have a good ending to it. Just felt blah.

[XMCU · Rating 1 out of 5]

i read this issues through the X-treme X-Men Omnibus Vol 1. there's a few things i like about what occurs in these issues, but it's mostly boring and overal disappointing and mediocre. this book is skipable.

[Rob Marney · Rating 1 out of 5]

While his main X-Treme X-Men series was firing on all cylinders, shaking up characters, and giving plenty of room for lengthy exposition about the role of X-Men in a changing world, Claremont decided to repackage some of the Savage Land plots he'd written before Morrison's run kicked off and put them into their own miniseries. It turns out that Grant Morrison's requisition of Beast for his own book unintentionally saved us from one of the worst Claremont runs. This Savage Land arc is basically just an excuse for the artist to draw dinosaurs, bikinis, and jungles for four issues, with warmed-over plots and character ideas that will immediately get revisited - and better - in the main series. This is all of Claremont's eye-rolling character tics without the compensation of actual consequences for the characters. Storm going wild and crazy to show how sexy she is! Villains you didn't care about! Et cetera, et cetera.

[Jeff Harris · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the focus on Rogue in this book as she tried to deal with her power issues and nightmares. A trip to the classic Savage Land should have been a real treat, but to me, it felt like a bit of a retread on old plotlines and really... sentient dinosaurs? This doesn't have much in the way of permanent impact on the X-Men in general or the X-Treme team specifically, so it was just okay for me...

[Deanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great story line

[Mina · Rating 2 out of 5]

#1-#4

[Frans Kempe · Rating 2 out of 5]

The x-treme X-men goes to the Savage land to help a group of Sauri refugees.