This era of X-books is so full of Huge Events that there's barely time to breathe between The Mutant Massacre, The Fall of The Mutants, and The Inferno. And while there are some huge shakeups during these events, it's tough to recommend them. There are so many characters involved with intricate backstories who just keep repeating the same expository dialogue in every issue while chaos occurs around them. If you keep counting how many times Jean Grey or Scott Summers explains their history and Cyclops's abandoned family, you'll get lightheaded and pass out two issues in.

​This is also the beginning of The X-Men are "dead" and living in the Australian Outback era, which has not yet been collected in trade paperback form, which says a lot about its importance to canon.

No books in this section end up making my Headcanon, even though a couple of them have plot points that have major impacts on the X-Universe. 

X-Men Fall Of The Mutants Vol 2 by Louise Simonson, Walt Simonson, Ann Nocenti, Peter David, and Marc Gruenwald
X-Factor: Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, Iceman, Rusty, Skids, Artie, Leech, Caliban, Rictor, Boom-Boom
1st Appearances: 
Also Featuring: Angel, Apocalypse, Cameron Hodge, Trish Tilby, War, Pestilence, Famine, Starstreak, Molecula, Counterweight, Destroyer, Hulk, Rick Jones, Clay Quartermain, Hulkbusters, Betty, Doc Samson, Daredevil, Black Widow, Karen Page, Captain America, Falcon, Redwing, Nomad, Vagabond, Battlestar, Black Panther, Thing, Human Torch, Crystal, Carol Danvers, Dr Doom


This will probably not come as a shock to people who've spent years reading Marvel and DC graphic novels: This should actually be volume one of Fall Of The Mutants as all the stories take place before the events in X-Men: Fall of the Mutants, Vol. 1. I often wonder if the collection editors at The Big Two comic companies even read comics.

This volume mainly focuses on X-Factor's first major battle with Apocalypse (they faced him once before in X-Factor Epic Collection, Vol. 1: Genesis & Apocalypse but he's a much bigger threat in this collection). We also see Warren as Archangel/Death for the first time.

This is a battle scene comic where much of New York is destroyed in a battle between mutants. We even get to see the events from the perspectives of Captain America, Daredevil, and the Power Pack. It's...fine. Like most of the early X-Factor run, Scott and Jean Grey spend a great deal of time talking about the various Jean Grey clones that Cyclops dated and/or married while she was "dead". And there's a b-story where X-Factor is hired to hunt down a mutant who turns out to be the new grey Incredible Hulk. Those stories are also okay.

Despite the big stakes, and the Worthington storyarc, not much of this volume grabbed me. I mentioned this in my review of the other Fall Of The Mutants story: I just don't know if I can get excited about any of these X-books until we're past X-Men: Inferno, which I remember hating when I've tried to read it before.

If you like X-Factor or Apocalypse, this is a nice little romp, even if it's not quite as good as its much more concise Animated Series counterpart.​

X-Factor Epic Angel Of Death by Louise Simonson, Walt Simonson, Marc Gruenwald, Tom DeFalco, Sal Buscema, Jon Bogdanove, Terry Shoemaker, Steve Lightle, Tom Artis, and Paris Cullins
X-Factor: Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, Iceman, Rusty, Skids, Artie, Leech, Rictor, Boom-Boom
1st Appearances: Ship, Infectia, N'Astirh
Also Featuring: Caliban, Angel, Cameron Hodge, Trish Tilby, Apocalypse, Pestilence, War, Famine, Energizer, Lightspeed, Zero-G, Mass Master, High Evolutionary, Blob, Mystique, Destiny, Spiral, Avalanche, Pyro, Crimson Commander, Super Sabre, Stonewall, Thor, She-Hulk, Black Knight, Dr Druid, Lord Zano, Tower, Time-Shadow, Frenzy, Orphan Maker, Nanny, Candy Southern

This volume leans heavily on the X-Factor trainees: Rusty, Skids, Victor, and Boom-Boom, as they try and navigate their relationships with their mentors while also being curious teens. We see them help the rest of X-Factor bond with their new base of operations: Ship, a piece of Apocalypse's technology that almost literally fell into their hands.

The focus on this book is X-Factor deciding to try and win people over by publicly working to repair a city broken by a fight with a supervillain, as opposed to their previous plan: pretend to be humans hunting dangerous mutants, and then training them. The new technique works much better.

While the Archangel version of Angel is on the cover, and the book is named after him, he's really more of a background character in this book, trying to decide how reintegrate into society with his new appearance and wings.

While this didn't quite make it into my headcanon, it's a solid read that I recommend to fans of B-level mutants having some main character moments.

X-Men issues #228-234 (Not collected in trade yet) by Chris Claremont, Tom DeFalco, Rick Leonardi, and Marc Silvestri
X-Men: Storm, Wolverine, Colossus, Havok, Rogue, Psyclocke, Dazzler, Longshot, Madelyne Pryor
1st Appearances: Gateway, Bonebreaker, Pretty Boy, Skullbuster, Wipeout
Also Featuring: The Brood, Henry Peter Gyrich, Roma, Dani Moonstar, Cannonball, Wolfsbane, Sunspot, Magik, Warlock, Magneto, S'ym, Jean Grey, Cable (as Baby Nathan), Trish Tilby, N'astirh

​There's a lot of story packed into these ten issues as Claremont bridges X-Men: The Fall of the Mutants and the first part of the X-Tinction Agenda. The heroes end up in Australia, then Genosha. The world believes them dead, so a bit of magic makes them invisible to technology, enabling them to operate with more impunity.

It's an interesting concept that I don't really remember, even though I'm pretty sure I've read much of this era before. There is also the best pre-Broo Brood storyline I remember reading. It's not a classic but it's not as formulaic as most of the X-Men vs Brook encounters, as the Brood in this instance are all made from mutants so they have different powers and personalities. It was fun to read.

I have a newfound respect for Claremont's run because of this read-through. I've always been impressed by his decade plus run on the flagship book but I don't think I've read it as closely. Very little of it is bad. I understand why both X-Men The Animated Series and X-Men '97 draw so heavily from this era of stories.

If you can find these issues in a library or a comic book store, by all means grab them, or check them out online. But it's not The Best of Claremont's run.

Introducing the original X-Men as a team called X-Factor eventually ended up letting the proverbial "breath of fresh air" in, but it takes a while for the circulation to get going. Especially since the background for much of the first few years of the series is: Cyclops abandoned his wife and child for his high school sweetheart who happens to look precisely like the wife he abandons. It's weird. And it plays out much better in the X-Men '97 cartoon.

The Mutant Massacre, itself, is the first epic tragedy in X-history where a huge swath of mutants are killed off. And it's by a set of villains who weren't used before this crossover, and most of them don't get used too long after this event.

​The highlight for me, though is how the X-Men interact with other teams in the post-Massacre status quo.

All numbered titles in BOLD are those I'd consider part of the Headcanon of X-Books I recommend. Anything not boldfaced or numbered is a book I read but will probably skip, should I ever do another readthrough. Understand MOST books will not be numbered or boldfaced. There are going to be at least 500 books on this readthrough. At most, 50-100 will make Headcanon. At most. I hope.​

X-Factor Epic Genesis & Apocalypse by Roger Stern, John Byrne, Bob Layton, Bob Harras, Louise Simonson, Tom Defalco, Chris Claremont, John Buscema, Butch Guice, Keith Pollard, Paul Neary, Rick Leonardi, Marc Silvestri, Terry Shoemaker, John Bolton, and Mike Collins
X-Factor: Cyclops, Jean Grey, Angel, Beast, Iceman, Cameron Hodge, Rusty, Arthur
1st Appearances: Cameron Hodge, Rusty, Arthur, Skids, Tower, Frenzy, Apocalypse, Crimson Dynamo, Trish Tilby, Apocalypse
Also Featuring: Captain America, Photon, Hercules, Namor, Black Knight, Wasp, Mr Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch, She-Hulk, Madelyne Pryor, Cable (as a baby), Vera Cantor, Carl Mddicks, Nick Fury, Iron Man, Spider-Man, J Jonah Jameson, Jon Robertson, Mary Jane Watson, Betty Brant, Mystique, Blob, Avalanche, Pyro, Spider-Woman

I struggled with whether or not to include this in Headcanon. I don't believe in needing to include Important Moments in my chronology, so I didn't really care that an early version of Apocalypse is seen here for the first time. He's not interesting in these issues.

The real story is that they bring Jean Grey back from the dead, and Scott has a crisis of "My first ever girlfriend died, and then I dated an alien entity that I thought was here but was actually an evil cosmic monster using her appearance, and while I was mourning the dead monster I stumbled into someone who I don't yet realize was just a clone of my first girlfriend who I married and had a kid with, then my original girlfriend was discovered alive somehow and I abandoned my wife and son to be a superhero with her and now I'm too much of a coward to tell her about the family I made while she was dead and too much of a coward to tell my family that my dead girlfriend is back and booooohooohooo life is hard. Cyclops has been The Worst X-Men since X-Men Epic Collection, Vol. 1: Children of the Atom but he's particularly loathsome here.

The other major storyline is that the original X-Men team are posing as mutant hunters in order to hunt mutants. It could be an interesting story but they keep bringing up how conflicted they are but they don't ever do anything about it in this volume. Their time is split between pretending to be the mutant hunting group, X-Factor, and being a mutant terrorist group called X-Terminators. Eh.

In addition to Apocalypse, this volume introduces Rusty, Skids, Cameron Hodge, and Trish Tilby, who are all a bit important to the late 80s/early 90s X-cast. It also feeds directly into the events of the next big crossover, X-Men: Mutant Massacre​

X-Men Mutant Massacre by Chris Claremont, Louise Simonson, Walter Simonson, John Romita Jr, Sal Buscema, Alan Davis, John Bogdanove, Jackson Guice, Rick Leonardi, and Bret Blevins
X-Men: Magneto, Storm, Wolverine, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Kitty Pryde, Rogue, Rachel Grey, Psylocke
New Mutants: Dani Moonstar, Wolfsbane, Sunspot, Cannonball, Magik, Magma, Warlock, Cypher 
X-Factor: Cyclops, Jean Grey, Angel, Iceman, Beast, Cameron Hodge, Rusty, Arthur, Skids
1st Appearance: Malice, Scalphunter, Riptide, Scrambler, Arclite, Harpoon, Sabretooth, Boom Boom
Also Featuring: Dazzler,  Sebastian Shaw, Selene, Callisto, Vertigo, Analee, Sunder, Moira MacTaggart, Magus, Beautiful Dreamer, Caliban, Leech, Blob, Mystique, Trish Tilby, Candy Southern, Apocalypse, Plague, Prism, Blockbuster, Thor, Hela, The Power Pack, Franklin Richards, Masque, Vanisher, Sharon Friedlander, Tom Corsi

​The first megacrossover of the X-books delivers a ton of death, radical shifts in storylines, and action. If you haven't been reading the X-Men, New Mutants, X-Factor, and Power Pack, this is Not the place to start. If you're only reading one or two of the titles, then at least a third of this book is going to be very confusing as ever issue is pretty much in media res from a previous storyline. The action is dizzying and feels, sometimes, like it's being told slightly out of order across issues. There are also way too many characters to keep track of if you weren't already keeping track of them in their various titles, plus the Thor book.

It is rewarding if you have been keeping track of everything, though. There are character debuts, and newish characters finally getting fleshed out. The tone switches weirdly from time to time, as one of the titles in this collection is Power Pack, a group of elementary school aged powered kids who've dealt with The Morlocks before. Having them show up and battling a group of villains who've brutally murdered thousands of Morlocks before they arrive, and who've also taken down some of the X-Men, seems a bit odd. There's no way The Power Pack is strong enough to take on this level of villains, and yet...it happens right before an X-Men issue where the characters who get outbattled by first graders then nearly kill Wolverine. It's very odd.

I recommend this highly to X-fans who've read much of the material that leads into this, but I do Not recommend this to those who aren't already invested in 80s X-Men. This is an absolutely terrible jumping on point.

6. X-Men Vs Fantastic Four by Chris Claremont,  John Bogdanove, Barry Windsor-Smith, Jackson Guice, Marc Silvestri, and Dan Green
X-Men: Magneto, Storm, Havok, Wolverine, Kitty Pryde, Rogue, Psylocke, Longshot, Dazzler
Fantastic Four: Mr Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch, Thing, She-Hulk, Franklin Richards
Also Featuring: Dr Doom, Malice, Juggernaut, Madelyne Pryor, Polaris, Lila Cheney, Moira MacTaggert, Banshee, Alicia Masters, Sharon Friedlander, Tom Corsi

I'm including X-Men issues #314-#319, which have not yet been collected into trade paperback but serve to bridge the gap between Mutant Massacre and X-Men Vs Fantastic Four.

This uncollected storyline is not an epic but it's a fun series of two-issue stories where the X-Men battle Malice, then Wolverine goes berserk while Storm lives out The Most Dangerous Game against some WWII era heroes who've aged into unethical vigilantes, and then Dazzler and a bunch of the X-Men on Muir Island battle Juggernaut. They're all fun, if not Important To Continuity, and help setup the interpersonal relationships we see in Fantastic Four Vs X-Men.

​​This was the first comic series I ever read. So there's definitely some nostalgia inspiring my review.

The story involves the X-Men needing a device from Reed Richards of The Fantastic Four in order to save their youngest member, Shadowcat during the aftermath of The Mutant Massacre. Through a series of dream sequences and a jubilantly nitpicky Doctor Doom interventions, Reed doesn't trust that his machine will help. Thus the Vs. part of the title, as the teams do squabble a couple of times. But, mostly, this is a team up book that doesn't have Universe Changing Consequences. It's superhero friends calling superhero friends to help solve a very specific team-focused problem. I enjoy that level of stakes.

The dialogue is Chris Claremont hokey. But I think it's some of his better hokey work. The art is standard 80s Marvel.

I recommend this more for X-Men fans than FF fans, as that's Claremont's wheelhouse, and if you do love continuity, there's a ton of fun events in this self-contained mini-series. If you're the type that gets really frustrated that Jennifer Walters behaves in a different manner than you would imagine based on She-Hulk Issue 31, maybe steer clear of this one.

Not Yet Collected
X-Factor: Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, Iceman, Angel, Rusty, Arthur, Cameron Hodge
1st Appearances: War, Famine, Ariel, Rictor
Also Featuring: Skids, Boom Boom, The Vanisher, Callisto, Caliban, Leech, Masque, Ape, Master Mold, Apocalypse, Plague, Trish Tilby

​***As of this writing, X-Factor (Vol 1) #12-17 haven't been collected in trade paperback form. So this is a review for those six issues.***

These six issues follow X-Men: Mutant Massacre all the way until X-Men: Fall of the Mutants, Vol. 2. It involves the pivotal story of Apocalypse recruiting the first Four Horseman we encounter as readers, it sees the amputation of Angel's wings, and the rise of X-Factor's second wave of characters: Rusty, Arthur, Skids, and Boom-Boom, in more pivotal roles. We also see how The Morlocks recover from The Mutant Massacre.

So why hasn't it been collected?

It's two issues' worth of story spread across six very repetitive stories. I don't, in any way, blame Louise Simonson for this. This was the Jim Shooter (commonly regarded as the worst editor in the history of Marvel Comics) Era of crossovers and there were clearly plans for the main characters of this book to be heavily involved in the crossovers. 

The most interesting part of this story takes place in the final two issues where the B-team of X-Factor make a deal with Masque, the most ethically bankrupt Morlock since Analee the childsnatcher was killed, to heal a woman that Rusty accidentally burned when he received his powers. Instead of the usual Victim Of Mutant Crime Hates Mutants And Refuses Help, the burn victim blames her aggressive sexuality for why she was burned, and is devoting her life to the healing power of Christianity, which she then decides to spread to The Morlocks. It's creepily sweet? Sweetly creepy? I disagree with what the character's intentions but she clearly thinks she'll be doing good.

Even if this were a tight, two issue story, this wouldn't be a terribly exciting storyarc. It progresses the story in an interesting direction there is neither a ton of action, nor much character growth (apart from, perhaps, the burn victim). Apocalypse is in the background of several of these issues recruiting his Horsemen but since we don't know why, and since he hasn't yet been A Major Villain, it's hardly riveting. I understand now why they've released all of the issues around this storyline but haven't bothered to collect these particular issues yet.

X-Men Vs Avengers by Roger Stern, Tom DeFalco, Jim Shooter, Marc Silvestri, and Keith Pollard.
X-Men: Magneto, Storm, Wolverine, Rogue, Havok, Dazzler, Longshot, Psylocke
Avengers: Captain America, Thor, Photon (as Captain Marvel), Black Knight, She-Hulk, Dr Druid
1st Appearances: Ursa Major, Titanium Man 2, Vanguard, Darkstar
Also Featuring: Crimson Dynamo

​A solid follow-up to the Trial Of Magneto. Like most Heroes vs Heroes book, there are minor kerfuffles between the teams but they mainly end up working together because they're heroes.

There's also a fun additional dynamic to this series in that it's X-Men vs Avengers vs a Russian mutant superhero team. Their involvement is hugely important to the action and the plot.

The centerpiece of the battles is that Magneto has been led to a remnant of Asteroid M and has decided to destroy most of it, lest it fall into "the wrong hands", while keeping some mind control circuitry for himself.

Apparently, the author of the first 3/4 of this story intended to turn Magneto back into a villain at the end of the series and refused to rewrite his ending so notoriously evil editor Jim Shooter put a new creative team on the final issue.

While I do hate editorial interference, the use of Magneto as an anti-hero, as opposed to a villain, was a great transition in Marvel history, and Claremont definitely needed him not to be evil for at least a few more years of his run. I don't dislike the ending of this series, even if it conflicts with Stern's original vision.​

​7. New Mutants Epic Fallen Angels by Chris Claremont, Jo Duffy, Jackson Guice, Bret Blevins,  Kevin Nowlan, Alan Davis, Rick Leonardi, Sal Buscema, Kerry Gammill, Marie Severin, and Joe Staton
New Mutants: Prof X, Magneto, Wolfsbane, Dani Moonstar, Sunspot, Cannonball, Karma, Magik, Magma, Warlock, Cypher
1st Appearances: Siryn, Renegade, Gomi
Also Featuring: Stevie Hunter, Magus, Kate Power, Sym, Carol Danvers, Corsair, Lilandra, Ch'od, Hepzibah, Waldo, Sikorsky, Storm, Sebastian Shaw, Selene, Tessa, Impossible Man, Sabretooth, Scalphunter, Vertigo, Harpoon, Empath, Roulette, Catseye, Shaman, Jetstream, Boom Boom, Ariel, The Vanisher, Beast, Iceman, Moon Boy, Devil Dinosaur

After the Mutant Massacre, the New Mutants were separated and shunted through time with Magneto and the remaining X-Men thinking they're dead. Each team has ended up in an alternate future while Magik, who was separated from both teams ends up encountering Professor X and the Starjammers.

The alternate future timelines where each team sees the aged-up versions of their missing teammates living in a different type of dystopia is a ton of fun, as is Professor X becoming part of the story again.  We also see the showdown between Magus and Warlock before we return to the X-mansion in the proper timeline for a mediocre retread of the New Mutants vs The Hellions, and a very odd adventure with the Fantastic Four villain, Impossible Man.

This is the volume where the series veers away from the horror, and into the usual Claremont wheelhouse of superhero time travel/ space epic, and I think it's an improvement. We do have the typical team infighting, resulting in a brief spin-off series featuring Sunspot, Warlock, Siryn, Madrox, Boom Boom, Ariel, Renegade, and Gomi isn't a great story but it does let some lesser used Marvel mutants and lobsters shine.​