X-Men: Age of Apocalypse Omnibus (New Printing) Hardcover – April 19, 2016

GENERAL OVERVIEW:The Age Of Apocalypse is one of the most relevant X-Men storylines in all of its ever expanding mythos. It's an indisputable must-read/must-have for any serious X-Fan. The premise is very simple and appealing: Xavier was murdered, so the X-Men were never created, and without their strugle for peaceful coexistence between humans and mutants everything went TERRIBLY wrong. So wrong that there was no one to stop Apocalypse from seizing control of America and create an eugenics-based empire. And now it's up to Magneto and a ragtag assembly of mutants to fight back against their own species in order to stop this madness once and for all.What makes AOA such a treat for the X-Men aficionado is both its huge epic scope and its even greater cast of alternate versions of longstanding iconic characters. This Post-Apocalyptic (in such a literal sense) reality allows for extreme character revamps. Just to give an example, we get to see charming and sensitive Hank McCoy turned into as a sadistic geneticist working for the Apocalypse regime.ABOUT THE ART:This book features BIG names, some of them real current STARS of the comic-book field, and we get to see them in a time when they were either starting to break through or starting to consolidate their names. So, if you want to study the evolution of their art, this book is a perfect chance. We have a front seat for a very young and promising JOE MADUREIRA, a very "Imagesque" TONY DANIEL and novice SALVADOR LARROCA as well. We have the KUBERT brothers, ADAM and ANDY, who where both big names already in the AOA days. We can see an incredibly young and talented STEVE SKROCE, a dark and beautiful CHRIS BACHALO and a very classy STEVE EPTING, sporting an art style far away from the '90s trend. Unfortunately we have to suffer from Roger Cruz (illustrating the Alpha and Omega bookends no less...) and a very mediocre Ken Lashley.So we have a real showcase of the landscape of comic-book art at the time: a post-Image, Amerimanga-in-developement epoch. You can either love it or hate it, but as an avid enthusiast in comic-book history as a pop-culture phenomenom, I can't help but find this volume incredibly relevant and compelling as both a case study and testimony/documentation of the time. When Lee, Liefeld and Silvestri left the X-Books, they left a void that was filled with these artists (among others, check X-Cutioner's Song for more of them). Before Bryan Hitch and John Cassaday forebode the current cinematic-art age of comics-books, Joe Madureira was the rising star that in this very pages heralded the Amerimanga trend that dominated the market for years and that still resonates.ABOUT THE STORY:This book is primarily written by Scott Lobdell and Fabian Nicieza, with Larry Hama, Jeph Loeb, John Francis Moore and Warren Ellis. This is a very "90s" comic-book, but it's surprisingly good, in great part due to its succesfully depicted ambitious scope and the harsh, extreme revamp of old characters. Don't expect Age Of Apocalypse to be a literary masterpiece, but let me assure you that this book has SO MUCH GUT, that if you like and know the X-Men you will find it very hard not to fall in love with it. And let's be honest, some post-Claremont X-Men and X-related storylines sucked so much that AOA was true manna from heaven at the time. As for the relevance of the storyline, it's top high, just as Rick Remender's Dark Angel Saga reminded us last year. In conclusion, AOA remains a true landmark in the X-Men mythos.ABOUT THE EDITION:This Omnibus follows the standards of the line: high quality hardcover sewn-binding, excellent paper stock and silver metal printing on the front and the spine when you remove the dust cover. The binding is really solid and allows to read the book quite confortably with little to none gutter loss. It's the kind of book that will last for a lifetime. But there's a serious issue with this edition: the quality regarding the reproduction of the illustrations. Many of the pages seem to be scans of the printed comic-books, with both poor reproduction of line art and color. Many other pages feature a good reproduction of line art, but have issues in the color end, that you can specially notice in textures. If you compare this book to the recent X-Men by Chris Claremont & Jim Lee Omnibuses, you will see that the art reproduction is no near as crispy as in those ones. I'm not sure if this is due to the files Marvel used to print this volume, due to the coloring process of the time (when Marvel was just begining to use digital coloring), but the case is that the art really suffers from this. I won't go as far as to say that this ruins the book, but it's a real letdown and it's good to know before buying it. I dont't own The Complete AOA Epic TPBs, but if someone does it would be great if you can point if this also afffects that editions.This book includes the Legion Quest saga that run in the pages of Uncanny X-Men, X-Men and Cable and kickstarted the Age Of Apocalypse. It's great that Marvel collected this comic-books, because they are an essential reading. Unfortunately, this Omnibus has some missing issues from the original 1995 storyline: X-Men Chronicles #1 & #2 and X-Universe #1 & #2. They are not absolutely essential, so it's not a major problem, but it would have been great to have them included to complete the set of the original AOA run. Also collected is AOA: The Chosen, featuring character's files and the promotional X-Men Ashcan #2. Other extras are quite few, just 18 pages of ads, illustrations and related material.FURTHER READING:After the AOA ended, some special issues were released: one shots, limited series and related issues of regular series. NONE of them are collected in this volume, but I think that's fine, because this book deals with the original AOA run. In case you are interested, these "missing" issues would be Tales From The AOA: By The Light, Tales From The AOA: Sinister Bloodlines, X-Man Annual 1996, X-Man # -1, X-Man #53 & #54, Blink #1 to 4 and X-Men: Age Of Apocalypse #1 to 6 (the 2005 limited series). In The Complete AOA Epic TPB Vol. 1 you can find some of this issues (both X-Men Chronicles, both Tales From The AOA, the X-Man Annual and # -1, and the Blink limited series). Now this is just speculation of mine, but I bet Marvel will eventually release an "AOA Omnibus Companion" collecting all of this material (as they did with the tie-ins of Inferno and Frank Miller's special projects for Daredevil).FINAL VEREDICT:If not fort the art reproduction problems, this would have been without doubt a 5 star book.

EDIT: I miscounted the number of title sets included. There is also Astonishing X-Men as well as X-Men Alpha and X-men Omega (the two intro and conclusion issues), so all told the original face value of the comics contained in this omnibus exceeds $130, and that's not counting the appreciation in value, so this really is a great value, even at the stated MSRP (and you can easily get it for less, obviously direct from Amazon, and sometimes even much less from independent sellers).I'm so happy this has been issued because to me this is the most amazing storyline in all comic and graphic novel history because it's the only storyline that builds on decades of comic book history and uses a rich cultural treasure trove of characters, ideas, themes, etc to deliver an incredible reimagining of everything within Xmen/Marvel universe.I loved it when it came out, collected all the issues and spent many happy hours just marveling at all interesting takes and twists that the creative team produced during this special run...then my evil mother threw them away because I left them at home and she decided to do some cleaning...For a long time it was just this ever fading memory of fantastic scenes and characters (I never forgot the heartbreaking sadness of reading Husk's last scene as she fights alone, swarmed by enemies, and no hope of rescue as Colossus and Shadow Cat abandon her, and I loved how Sabretooth was recast as a hero in a very believable manner, etc).And then this came out!Hallelujah!Not only is this all of the Age of Apocalypse issues bound beautifully together, it also contains some prequel material I didn't even realize existed because it was special edition issues that weren't part of the actual X-men titles.It's not really even as pricy as it might seem because if you consider that each issue was about 4$ at time of release (I think they were 3.98), and that each title set, Astonishing X-men, X-man, X-Factor, X-Calibur, Generation Next, X-ternals, Weapon X, all had 4 issues, then that cost was over 100$ and that doesn't include cost of the prequel Legion special release.So this is actually a good deal because it's a single compilation in a well done hard cover format which will probably last forever with good care.For me, this would be the all time must have comic/graphic novel as not only is the story and writing phenomenal, innovative, and unique- this came out when the X-men titles had some of their best artistic work ever, particularly in the stunning combination of Mark Buckingham, Steve Buccellato, and Electric Crayon. I can just look at the Generation Next artwork for hours, amazed at the stunning and distinctive style that just saturates every single panel with remarkable details and effects.

Apocalypse is the ultimate X-Men villain, however he has been neglected in favour of Magneto in the films and although he was in X-Men Ultimate Collection [DVD] the full story could not really be squeezed in to a few episodes.Sadly Wolverine and the X-Men Complete Collection [DVD] was cancelled, despite the excellent build up to The Age Of Apocalypse and so the best place to experience the story is this book.The artwork is excellent and the story is the best of all the X-Men I have read, the price put me off but seeing as it was reduced from £95 to £60 it seemed the best time to get it and I was not disappointed.Hoping for an Apocalypse cameo at the end of X-Men: Days of Future Past!

A great Collection brings back fond memories of this as a comic book and also fills in missing gaps. It brings many stories from multiple comics into one.However no mention of the AOA versions of F4 and Avengers sure they existed.

Very 90s X-Men story and probably not a good introduction to the books however, if you know a bit about the team and have some slight knowledge that this is set in an alternate reality, then you are in for a real treat. Great story and artwork!

Enjoyed it but quite confusing

Excelent choice of cover artwork. A timeless classic for every X-man fan! Mandatory!