Monday, October 13th 2008
CrazyFish.net
Authors
Chris Claremont
Daniel Clowes
R Crumb
Will Eisner
Neil Gaiman
Stan Lee
Jeph Loeb
Frank Miller
Alan Moore
Terry Moore
Dave Sim
Rumiko Takahashi
Yu Watase

Characters
Batman
Cerebus
Daredevil
Elektra
Fantastic Four
Hellboy
Justice League
Sandman
Spawn
Spider-Man
Star Wars
Superman
X-Men

Comic Strips
Alex
Andy Capp
Bloom County
Calvin & Hobbes
Doonesbury
Far Side
FoxTrot
Fred
Giles
Peanuts
Red Meat

Graphic Novels
Fantasy
Horror
Mystery
Science Fiction
Superheroes

Manga
Fantasy
Horror
Mystery
Science Fiction
Shonen Boys
Shojo Girls
Superheroes

Publishers
Dark Horse
DC Comics
Drawn & Quarterly
Fantagraphics
Image Comics
Marvel
TokyoPop
Viz

Reference
Cartooning
Price Guides

Information
Contact Us
 

Essential X-Men, Vol. 6 (Marvel Essentials)

Essential X-Men, Vol. 6 (Marvel Essentials)


Price: $4.09
Price subject to change!
To view Amazon.com's best price click on the above link. Please note that you are under no obligation to buy. If you decide to add your selection of "Essential X-Men, Vol. 6 (Marvel Essentials)" to your Amazon shopping cart. You may then return to CrazyFish.net to shop for additional comic books & graphic novels or continue shopping at Amazon.com.

Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 741.5973
EAN: 9780785117278
ISBN: 078511727X
Label: Marvel Comics
Manufacturer: Marvel Comics
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 656
Publication Date: 2005-09-28
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Studio: Marvel Comics

Customer review of: Essential X-Men, Vol. 6 (Marvel Essentials)

Customer Rating: Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5
Summary: Should have left out Thor and X-Factor Issues
Comment: 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 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.

Customer Rating: Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5
Summary: Graphic SF Reader
Comment: 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.




Customer Rating: Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5
Summary: Graphic Novel junkie
Comment: Ok, ok, I should say comic book junkie, because that's what they were called when I 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

Customer Rating: Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5
Summary: Solid Era of X-Men in Affordable Format
Comment: 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 color and better paper but that's not the point - this is made for people who love to read comics!

Customer Rating: Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5
Summary: Asgardian adventures, mutant massacres, and more Chris Claremont classics!
Comment: 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 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 attempt by the publisher to stave off some of the inter-series mystery, non-X-Men books are included for the 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 first one will even come out).

Exhibit B: the Mutant Massacre. The first crossover that brought all of Marvel's mutant titles together (and Power Pack and Thor, apparently), the Mutant Massacre famously came about because readers weren't becoming enamored with the homely, sewer-dwelling Morlocks, despite their multiple across-the-board appearances. Therefore, author Chris Claremont rolled up his sleeves, crafted a new villain team called the Marauders, and sent them down into the Morlock tunnels to waste anything that moved. A previous reviewer commented that there was little point in offering the entire Mutant Massacre in B&W when it has long been available as its own trade paperback in color. While I agree to a point (I've owned the TPB myself for over a year), I feel that the Massacre was an event that greatly affected the X-Men world and that the entire sordid affair belongs in the X-Men reprint series so that any level of reader can understand it.

That's about all I have to tell about the Essential X-Men 6. I'd say that it's required reading for any true X-aficionado, and still a very entertaining read for anyone. As a longtime fan, I can say that the only thing that would make me happier is a second Essential for the original `60's X-Men. Until then, face front, true believers!



Editorial Reviews:

"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 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.

Shop Worry Free

Shopping for comic books & graphic novels is worry free at CrazyFish.net! You won't find any popups, popunders, spyware or adware on our shopping site. We collect no personal information and your selection of "Essential X-Men, Vol. 6 (Marvel Essentials)" will be checked out on Amazon's secure servers!

Thankyou!

Thanks for shopping at CrazyFish.net! I hope you found your visit worthwhile!



If you found this page helpful? Please consider bookmarking it as a favorite for future reference.

Book Appraisals
Book Appraisals

Buy Essential X-Men, Vol. 6 (Marvel Essentials) at CrazyFish.net!

http://www.crazyfish.net/ - Copyright © 2005 All rights reserved!