Reviews

Essential X-Men, Vol. 5 by Barry Windsor-Smith, Steve Leiloha, Bret Blevins, Michael Golden, John Romita Jr., Chris Claremont

thaakier_am's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious relaxing tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

jayshay's review

3.0

This is the X-men that I grew up with. Reading it now? Soap opera for boys (or at least this boy). Long before Smallville, Claremont had figured out teen-angst mixed with kicking butt. Surprised just how talky this stuff is today. And dude, I don't think Claremont can go a page without a thought-bubble.

In this Volume the spectre of the 80's rears it's ugly head - just check out Kitty's head-band and mullet on the cover. Ow. On the plus side Storm continues her new-wave punk look, waaaaay better than the goddess stuff.

plaidbrarian's review

3.0

Still a fun mix of superheroics and soap opera elements, but at this point, the X-book inertia is starting to settle in. This is around the point when the X-Men started being insanely popular, have already garnered one spin-off (New Mutants), there's another not too far down the pike (X-Factor), the various spin-off mini-series are really starting to pile up, and everything's starting to passively crossover into one another. But we don't get all of those crossovers in this book (no New Mutants issues, nor the Kitty Pryde & Wolverine mini), so references are made to things happening in the other books, but as far as this one is concerned, that's all off-camera. It's a bit disjointed at times as a result.

If you're a fan, there's lots of fun reading here, but to be completely honest, this is the point where the Essential X-Men series pretty much stops being truly essential.