RRP £25.99 Lowest New Price £14.52

Marvel Comics Number of pages: 336 Language: English (Original Language) Language: English (Unknown) Language: English (Published)

RRP: £25.99
Morrison's Concluding New X-Men Hardcover
Review date: 2004-10-27 Rating: 8 out of 10

This oversized hardcover collects the paperback editions of Assault on Weapon Plus, Planet X and Here Comes Tomorrow. (New X-Men Issues #142 - #154). These are the last issues of the title (well ignoring #155 and 156 which were written by Chuck Austen and thankfully are collected with the rest of his dross in the Uncanny X-Men trades, Bright New Mourning I think. Seriously, you won't be missing much) and allow Morrison to provide nice closure to his entire X run. He establishes himself as a true master plotter, revealing two good surprises which really do make such sense and will make you go back and look previous volumes as if your eyes were open for the first time. Of course, I won't reveal those here. Unfortunately, the artwork brings down the side a bit, not because it's particularly bad, but because it's once again a hodgepodge of contrasting styles. The, ahem, "stylised" Chris Bachelo is followed by artists of a more realistic approach (one that I personally much prefer), such as Jimenez and Image founder Marc Silvestri (not seen on an X-book since the "80's Outback era" of Uncanny X-Men).
Anyone who considers themself to be a real X-Fan shoud own this book (or the paperback versions) and probably already does. Readers returning after a hiatus from the X-universe and especially new readers would do well to get the first two New X-Men hardcovers before this, as well as Joe Casey's Poptopia tpb from Uncanny X-Men that runs concurrent with the first NXM hardcover (If only because it's a very under-appreciated book.)