Author name:
Chris Claremont,
Barry Windsor-Smith,
Louise Simonson,
Walter Simonson,
John Romita Jr.,
Rick Leonardi,
June Brigman,
Bret Blevins,
Alan Davis,
Art Adams,
Terry Shoemaker,
Walt Simonson,
Jackson Guice,
John Bogdanove
Regular marked price: $16.99Discount Price: $11.55
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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 741.5973
EAN num: 9780785117278
ISBN number: 078511727X
Label: Marvel Comics
Manufacturer: Marvel Comics
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 656
Printing Date: September 28, 2005
Publishing house: Marvel Comics
Sale Popularity Level: 141344
Studio: Marvel Comics
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Product Description:
'Mutant' means 'change,' and there was plenty of that when the Uncanny X-Men counted down to the Marvel Mutant Massacre, beginning with the trial of Magneto! Rachel Summers became Phoenix and the Brotherhood became Freedom Force! Lady Deathstrike became a cyborg, Moonstar a Valkyrie, Colossus a killer, and Psylocke an X-Man! And Sabretooth very first set his clawed foot into the X-Universe alongside his fellow Marauders! Guest-starring the original X-Factor, Power Pack and Thor! Gods, Morlocks, talking frogs and more! Collects Uncanny X-Men #199-213, New Mutants Special Edition #1, X-Men Annual #9, X-Factor #9-10, New Mutants #46, Thor #373-374 and Power Pack #27.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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I've read all of the X-Men Essential collections. The issues included in this volume originally were published at about the same time that I was picking up comics as a kid, so on a personal level, they hold a very high nostalgic value for me. The whole mutant massacre concept was an incredibly dark introduction to the X-Men for a 9 year old. Events are set in place that would reverberate for pretty much the rest of Claremonts run on the X-Men (as far as who leaves the team due to injuries, and just the direction that the team takes due to line up changes and unfortunate events that happen as a part of dealing with the marauders post massacre). Anyway, it's a great book, but I've got one complaint about the inclusion of the Thor and X-Factor Issues. First of all, they are both also included in X-Factors Essential Collection. Second, even though the Thor and X-Factor issues deal with the Marauders and the Morlock Massacre, nothing in the issues really pertain to anything that happens in the Uncanny Issues. I'd even go so far as to say that the Power Pack issue is more important to the X-Men story than the X-Factor or Thor issues. The closest that they come to directly interacting, is that Magneto and X-Factor make eye contact outside of the Hell Fire club, and this same scene plays out from each sides perspective in thier respective titles.
So, that complaint aside, there is still a lot of value here. You get an awesome Hell Fire/Nimrod fight, and a few Sabretooth/Wolvie fights, and, it feels like the massacre was one of the very very first battles where main characters get seriously hurt in a way that they're still affected 20-30 issues down the pipe. Pretty interesting stage in the X-Mens history that's not to be missed.
Rated by buyers 
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This includes the classic Mutant Massacre, and some great Barry Windsor Smith stuff. A team of mutant assassins is hired to slaughter the Morlocks living in the tunnels after the city. Most of them fall, but they manage to get word to the X-Men, and their absentee leader, Storm. The X-Men come to help, at great cost to themselves. There is also an appearance by Thor.
Rated by buyers -
Ok, ok, I should say comic book junkie, because that's what they were called when I very first started reading them some decades ago. This whole series of Essential X-men books are a fun read unless you get bogged down in details. I never did, I just enjoyed reading them. This is a great book. Enjoy
Rated by buyers -
I love this "phone book" format - I remember reading these and have since sold mucgh of my collection. This book gives me the opprtunity to enjiy those issues in one setting! Only way to improve this is to add colour and better paper but that's not the point - this is made for people who love to read comics!
Rated by buyers -
I can thank the X-Men for my present love of Marvel comics. When I was ten, the superlative X-Men animated series premiered on Fox and my good friend Nick offered to share with me his almost exclusively X-Men comic collection (which was begun by his father in the late 70's). I wasn't able to collect many comics myself until I discovered the Essential series five years ago and made the Essential X-Men #1 my very first purchase. Also, as a casual moviegoer, I am even more thankful that the X-Men movie of 2000 was such a hit and opened the door for all of the Marvel-licensed movies that followed (which have a way of begetting even more Essentials). Frankly, I think that Chris Claremont's revival of the X-Men is probably the most deserving title to be reprinted in its entirety. It seems that Marvel agrees because we now have six Essential X-Men's (the second since the release of the second movie) and I'm just as pleased as punch.
There are so many enjoyable stories in this collection that I'd better just get right to them. Cyclops duels a still de-powered Storm for the right to lead the X-Men. The child who will one day become the time-hopping warrior Cable is born. Mystique's Brotherhood of Mutants receives a pardon for their acts of terrorism by serving under the U.S. government as the Freedom Force (it makes you wonder if our government would let an al-Qaeda agent work for the CIA). Fans of Wolverine are bound to love seeing their favorite Canuck go claw-to-claw with Lady Deathstrike and Sabretooth in their X-Men comic debuts. In the latest Hellfire Club appearance, we learn that the preferred ensemble of the discerning depraved mutant plutocrat can include headbands and bandito masks in addition to double-breasted suits, powdered wigs and lingerie. Also, a recurring villain, who twice before survived a vivisection from Wolverine, suffers a heart attack in the heat of battle and dies (I found it to be a "comedy = tragedy + time" kind of moment). My personal favorite story would be issue #200, the Trial of Magneto. A repentant Erik Magnus Lehnsherr goes on the stand in front of an international tribunal to answer for his crimes against humanity while the X-Men scramble to stop the attacks made by a radical band of mutants called Fenris who (allegedly) want to free Magneto by force. The issue is a great balance of blistering comic book action and realistic characterization and emotion, plus it expertly ties in the events from an important past issue, and it makes for the most interesting courtroom drama from Marvel that I have read (and I've read all three Essential Daredevils).
One of the greater complaints about the fifth Essential X-Men is the amount of plot threads connected to other series that don't get presented or resolved in the pages of the book, and I'm afraid that's still the case here. It's an unfortunate but understandable drawback of reading these stories in reprints two decades after the fact. At this time in comicdom, all roads pretty much lead to (and from) the X-Men, and so more crossovers were featured in this series to get the recent bandwagon-jumpers to invest in other series. Therefore, some stories can't help but feel a little broken. For example, take the sudden arrivals of Spiral and Psylocke. I know who they are and where they came from thanks to outside sources, but you won't learn that from these issues since it's never mentioned. This book also contains a small fraction of the Secret Wars II crossover issues, so only some of the Beyonder's shenanigans on Earth are recorded. However, in what is perhaps an endeavor by the publisher to stave off some of the inter-series mystery, non-X-Men books are included for the very first time in an Essential X-Men for two great crossovers.
Exhibit A: X-Men in Asgard. Although the ninth X-Men Annual is well remembered for sending the merry mutants into the fabled land of Norse mythology, the saga actually began in a New Mutants Special Edition. This book is included, all 64 pages of it! After reading it, I felt that, if it had been omitted, I would have accepted the X-Men's sudden quest to free Storm from Loki's fiendish plan and the unexplained transformation of some of the New Mutants (into valkyries and fairies and the like) as par for the course. Not to mention that the Special raises as many questions as it answers. Why is Storm babysitting the X-Kids on the island of Cyprus when she was last seen starving and alone in the Serengeti a couple of issues back? Why is Karma, who was pronounced dead back in the fourth Essential X-Men, now alive and morbidly obese? Regardless, I still enjoyed this story and am happy to have read it, since it wouldn't otherwise be in an Essential volume until the Essential New Mutants #2 (and don't ask me when the very first one will even come out).
Exhibit B: the Mutant Massacre. The very first crossover that brought all of Marvel's mutant titles together ... Read More
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