The Uncanny X-Men

This book is a black and white X-Men reprint volume in pocketbook format. The 3 comics presented have been chopped up so that there are 2 to 4 panels per page. The reprint quality is decent and the story flows fine, even with the material broken down into a smaller format. The cover is a little misleading (as are many comic covers) in that it depicts a scene from the Phoenix Saga, when the comics inside have nothing to do with that story. The stories included are: Uncanny X-Men #110 by Chris Claremont and Tony DeZuniga and Uncanny X-Men #123 and 124 by Chris Claremont, John Byrne and Terry Austin. The last two stories are part of the classic Claremont/Byrne run and feature the X-Men being captured by Arcade who deposits them in Murderworld from which they must escape or die. Spider-Man makes a quick appearance as well. I find it interesting that Uncanny #110 was reprinted here as it was a fill in issue in the original series and the Classic X-Men re-print series skipped it altogether. It isn't a very good story featuring a goofy villian named Warhawk in his only appearance trying to break into X-Mansion to kill the X-Men. The thing that makes this issue unique (and a bit of a continuity buster) is that back in the early days of the "New X-Men," Claremont has said that Wolverine's claws were never meant to be part of his body. On the next to last panel of this issue, Logan is clearly wearing some sort of wrist gauntlet from which the claws are emerging. The subsequent issues of the monthly comic quickly determined that the claws were, in fact, part of Wolvie's body, but here in this fill-in issue, somebody goofed and it is the only place he is shown as having external claws. Thus endeth the comic book geek lesson.

I think almost anything this guy writes is golden. Very good writer. Made the Pheniox Saga come alive, and has showed us many tales of the x-men.