Claremont’s X-Men run is generally referred to as an indisputable comic book classic, one that ran for no less than seventeen years (more if you include his various returns to the books after departing in 1991). There’s no question that it is where the greater world began to take notice and fall in love with X-Men’s suddenly complex and tragic mutants, and the special mix of science fiction, horror, action, and soap opera that Claremont brought to the book continues to define the mood of the franchise all these many years later.
With many of the X-Men’s greatest hits in the bag (The Dark Phoenix Saga, Proteus, The Brood Saga, etc.), this is where we truly start to see the stories diverging and expanding into a more sprawling and convoluted X-Continuity. Soon, Claremont would no longer be the only X-Writer, and we would see more and more of the spin-offs and crossovers that sometimes diluted and sometimes advanced the franchise. Though The Uncanny X-Men Omnibus Vol. 4 might read as more of a sporadic collection of B-plots than a saga, longtime readers and those newer readers that don’t mind being thrown into the deep end of the pool will be able to appreciate the character dynamics alongside many resolving and developing plot threads alike. [Read more…] about Uncanny X-Men Omnibus, Volume 4 Review!