X-MEN: INFERNO

Hardcover, 2009. Collects 1988-89's X-FACTOR #33 - 40, X-TERMINATORS #1 - 4, UNCANNY X-MEN #239 - 243, NEW MUTANTS #71 - 73, and material from X-FACTOR ANNUAL #4.

"Inferno" has the distinction of being the final X-MEN yearly event of the eighties, running throughout the mutant titles in late 1988. It was also the first Marvel event to feature its core "spine" in one family of titles while nearly every other regular monthly title in the Marvel line participated in some capacity at the fringe of the story (several annuals had, however, just spent the summer of '88 embroiled in "The Evolutionary War"). The formula proved so successful it was revisited again a year later for the AVENGERS-centric "Acts of Vengeance" storyline.

X-MEN: INFERNO returns to the layout of MUTANT MASSACRE, telling its story in the best chronological reading order rather than breaking up into per-series segments as was the case with FALL OF THE MUTANTS -- which makes sense, since X-MEN and X-FACTOR spend the bulk of the event in biweekly crossover status. The X-Men's portion of the story focuses on the corruption of Madelyne Pryor, and as such this volume opens with a recap page explaining what the X-teams were up to just before "Inferno", then continues with a handful of excerpted sub-plot pages from recent issues of X-MEN, focusing on Madelyne. These pages are rendered somewhat moot now, thanks to the publication of X-MEN: INFERNO PROLOGUE in 2014, but for those who simply want to read "Inferno" on its own, they're a nifty little lead-in.

X-MEN: INFERNO PROLOGUE

Hardcover, 2014. Collects 1988's X-FACTOR #27 - 32, X-FACTOR ANNUAL #3, UNCANNY X-MEN #228 - 238, UNCANNY X-MEN ANNUAL #12, NEW MUTANTS #62 - 70, NEW MUTANTS ANNUAL #4, and material from MARVEL AGE ANNUAL #4 and MARVEL FANFARE #40.

As noted in December's THE UNBOXING, I recently acquired Marvel's newly released X-MEN: INFERNO PROLOGUE hardcover volume. This book fills a long-present gap in Marvel's collections of the UNCANNY X-MEN series and its related titles. The full details are on my X-MEN COLLECTED EDITIONS page, but the short of is that, thanks to this book bringing us issues 228 - 238, we now have the entirety of UNCANNY X-MEN, issues 220 through 306, collected in oversize hardcover format (and issues 220 - 337 collected in some format or another, between oversize and standard size hardcovers and trade paperbacks!).

But that's not all -- INFERNO PROLOGUE also brings us X-FACTOR issues 27 - 32, NEW MUTANTS issues 62 - 70, plus a few assorted annuals. That means, for those keeping track, via previous books plus this one, we now have X-FACTOR 19 - 40 in oversize hardcover and NEW MUTANTS 55 - 73 in the same format (in fact, thanks again to various trade paperbacks and other collections, most notably the NEW MUTANTS CLASSIC series, every issue of that title is collected save for issues 74 - 85 -- not bad!).

So for completists, the issues contained in this book are greatly appreciated. But what about the quality of the material and the volume itself?

THE UNBOXING - DECEMBER 2014

Merry Christmas to all! It's been a busy couple months for me, but there's always time to unbox a new shipment of books. First up this month is something we actually already covered a couple weeks back, DANGER GIRL: MAYDAY -- so I won't waste any time talking about it here. A full review of this story, as well as all the other Danger Girl installments to date, is available on the DANGER GIRL reviews page.

Marvel, meanwhile, brings me two books this month: One is INVADERS: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION volume 2, the second and final volume in the series. Now, along with Volume 1, all of the original INVADERS series from the seventies is collected. These World War II adventures of Captain America and his cohorts are stories I've wanted to read for quite a while, so I may crack these two open sooner rather than later.

Lastly is the X-MEN: INFERNO PROLOGUE volume. As I've noted in the comments to my X-Men Collected Editions chart, this welcome book fills in a notable gap in the Chris Claremont X-Men canon, as well as covering several issues each of X-FACTOR and NEW MUTANTS. And it's an oversize hardcover to boot, something which has become rarer and rarer for the X-Men these past couple years!

And that's a wrap on a year's worth of Unboxings. What will 2015 bring? I know of a few items, which I've already pre-ordered, but for the most part I'm eager to find out which classic collections will come my way next.

CAPTAIN BRITAIN PART TWELVE - EXCALIBUR CLASSIC, VOL. 2

Note: EXCALIBUR CLASSIC volume 2 contains the 1989 EXCALIBUR SPECIAL EDITION comic, "Mojo Mayhem".  Even though it's written by Chris Claremont, I did not read that story as part of this marathon, due to its negligible contributions to the series' ongoing continuity.

The six issues in EXCALIBUR CLASSIC volume 2 comprise two main story arcs.  The first is EXCALIBUR's segment of the 1988 X-Men crossover, "Inferno".  With New York overrun by demons, Rachel senses that her baby brother Nathan is in danger and takes off to find him, and Excalibur pursues their teammate.  In New York, the demon infestation affects each member of the team in a different way.  Meggan is corrupted and becomes the Goblin Princess, with Captain Britain acting as her bodyguard/slave.  Kitty manages to free the two of them with the use of the Soulsword, a demonic blade which once belonged to her friend, Illyana.

The "Inferno" crossover gives us some potentially interesting character development, but overall it feels like a time-killer -- a case of the title participating in a crossover because it must, not because it has anything interesting to contribute.  This seems especially odd considering Rachel's connection to Nathan and Kitty's connection to Illyana, as both those characters are integral to the main crossover event in UNCANNY X-MEN, X-FACTOR, and NEW MUTANTS.  Doubly peculiar is that Chris Claremont, one of the masterminds behind "Inferno", wrote the EXCALIBUR segment and could easily have given the group a larger role in the proceedings if he had so chosen.