X-Men: Age of Apocalypse [Hardcover]

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.

Collecting: Uncanny X-Men (1963) #320-321
X-MEN (1991) #40-41
CABLE (1993) #20
X-MEN ALPHA
AMAZING X-MEN #1-4
ASTONISHING X-MEN (1995) #1-4
FACTOR X #1-4
GAMBIT & THE X-TERNALS #1-4
GENERATION NEXT #1-4
WEAPON X (1995) #1-4
X-CALIBRE #1-4
X-MAN #1-4
X-MEN OMEGA
AGE OF APOCALYPSE: THE CHOSEN
X-MEN ASHCAN #2

Bonus: Art sketch gallery

Age of Apocalypse is another home-run in the Marvel Omnibus collection. Age of Apocalypse collects a massive (over 1,000 pages) amount material in a beautiful hardcover volume. Like the other Omnibus editions, the presentation is absolutely gorgeous: glossy, slick pages; solid sewn binding, a thick dust jacket with great art. The paper quality allows these reprints to look better than they ever did in the original magazine format.

Age of Apocalypse was originally printed in the mid-1990s. It encompassed a story of a dystopian alternate future ruled by Apocalypse. Interestingly, some of these alternate-earth X-Men have played high-profile roles in recent X-books (particularly Dark Beast and Nightcrawler) making the Age of Apocalypse very relevant reading material for X-fans looking for some deeper backstory on current events in the X-Men universe.

There are a few aspects of Age of Apocalypse that may turn off some current X-fans. The artwork in these volumes is very typical of mid-1990s marvel. The proportions tend to be less realistic than in current comics. The faces tend to be a bit elongated. And there is less use of shadow and texture, giving the characters a more "flat" appearance. The narrative of Age of Apocalypse can be a bit convoluted as well. Since the crossover tried to cover so many teams, it does feel drawn-out and is down right confusing sometimes.

If you are looking to collect X-Men, this omnibus edition is the way to go. You would be hard-pressed to find all the issues collected here for less than the cover price. Age of Apocalypse is on the more significant long-lasting events in the marvel universe. X-Fans would do well to pick up this omnibus.

I was very happy with the AoA omnibus that marvel put out. The book looks amazing and looks good on my bookshelf. The story is definitely from the 90's but it still holds up and is very enjoyable. The artwork is amazing and I am still stunned by it even with not having read these comics in over 15 years. My only down point is I was looking forward to a forward from the writers and artists that lined out the inspiration or influences to the story, and fond memories of the time. But, it's a minor gripe and not enough to lower its rating. I strongly recommend any X-men or Marvel fans to not pass this one up.

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