X-Men: Dream's End

Uncanny X-Men (1963) #388-390

by Scott Lobdell, Joe Pruett, Robert Weinberg

The death of Colossus, reprinted here for the first time For too long mutants were threatened by the twin specters of the Legacy Virus and anti-mutant politics. Now, the X-Men hope to end both threats, but at what cost to their oldest and dearest? Are there deaths from which even the X-Men can't return? Featuring Mystique, Cable, and the last issue of Bishop's solo series Collects Uncanny X-Men #388-390, Cable #87, Bishop #16 and X-Men #108-110.

Genres: Comics, X Men, Graphic Novels, Marvel, Graphic Novels Comics, Comic Book, Superheroes

192 pages, Paperback

First published December 29, 2004

About the author

Scott Lobdell (born 1960) is an American comic book writer.

He is mostly known for his work throughout the 1990s on Marvel Comics' X-Men-related titles specifically Uncanny X-Men, the main title itself, and the spin-off series that he conceived with artist Chris Bachalo, Generation X. Generation X focused on a number of young mutant students who attempted to become superheroes in their own right at a separate school with the guidance of veteran X-related characters Banshee and Emma Frost. He also had writing stints on Marvel's Fantastic Four, Alpha Flight, and The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix mini-series with artist Gene Ha. He wrote the script to Stan Lee's Mosaic and an upcoming film from POW Entertainment featuring Ringo Starr. He also participated in the Marvel Comics and Image Comics (from Jim Lee's WildStorm) crossover mini-series WildC.A.T.s/X-Men.

Reviews

[Baba · Rating 3 out of 5]

Claremont's weak return to the X-Men did have a highlight... this is it, the wrapping up of the Senator Robert Kelly anti-mutant politics AND Legacy Virus plot-lines. Featuring an awesome incarnation of the Brotherhood which included Sabretooth, the female Mastermind and Post! It also features a truly amazing sacrifice by one of the core X-Men!!!
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Well deserved 8 out of 12 for Claremont's X-Men swansong?

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

You know, I really enjoyed this. It's Scott Lobdell doing some of his best work (he always was better at the tiny character pieces), and it's probably some of the last good work Chris Claremont put out. It's not a perfect story, and the science of the Legacy Virus is... sketchy at best. But it's a compelling tale with some great character moments, from everybody from Cable to Senator Kelly to Colossus. And I totally sniffled at the end. Well worth reading, especially for people like me who came to the X-Men through Whedon's Astonishing X-Men and Morrison's New X-Men, and are curious about what came directly before.

[Valentin Derevlean · Rating 3 out of 5]

Plusuri și minusuri.

Un PB care adună mai multe numere diverse, toate legate cumva de senatorul Robert Kelly și candidatura sa la Președinția Statelor Unite cu un discurs violent contra mutanților, de unde și asasinarea sa în cele din urmă. Apoi implicațiile asasinatului, descoperirea unui tratament contra Legacy Virus, ca totul să ducă la noi pierderi în rândul celor din X-Men, printre care la final și a unuia dintre oamenii importanți din echipa profesorului Charles Xavier.

O parte din numere fiind scrise Claremont, trebuie să vă așteptați la dialoguri multe, introspecții, text mult, ce să mai. Tema de fundal e frica oamenilor când vine vorba de mutanți, de ceva ce le e străin și nu înțeleg, lucru care duce la un conflict previzibil între o parte a mutanților care-și dorește puterea și nimicirea oamenilor simpli și o altă parte care dorește intregrarea muntanților în societate și luptă contra primei tabere. E, de fapt, conflictul care stă la baza seriei X-Men de la origini până în prezent.

Minusuri evidente? O pagină cu dialogurile din bule greșite, identice cu cele de pe pagina alăturată, apoi în unele părți ilustrații haotice, unele chiar caraghioase. Sunt mai multe povești, legate cumva între ele, dar împinse aproape forțat în volumul de față pentru a construi o poveste importantă din istoria X-Men. Moartea unuia dintre oamenii de bază mi s-a părut neașteptată și nu neapărat justificată, deși acel penultim număr nu e rău deloc, mai puțin fontul ales. Unele pagini par destul de lipsite de logică în cadrul poveștii cadru, plictisitoare pe alocuri. Dar, una peste alta un număr decent.

[Adam Stone · Rating 4 out of 5]

While this isn't my favorite, or even in my top ten or twenty favorite X-Men storylines, it's a refreshing change of pace from the exhausting Fabien Nicieza, Scott Lobdell, and Alan Davis runs.

There's no giant villain necessitating a massive crossover, there's no threat of the team disbanding, no "shocking" betrayals that turn out to be a ruse, no massive retcons. This book is some small moments closing off some of the major storylines from the super-messy previous decade of continuity. We, FINALLY, see the end of the Legacy Virus storyline, we see Cable help resolve the Senator Kelly storyline, we see Colossus's grief over his constantly dying and reemerging family take a different turn, and we get some moments of the characters just relaxing and trying to be normal.

Much of this is Claremont returning to the title. His writing had already started to seem dated when this came out, but his over-reliance on narration boxes and characters giving soliloquies about things you can actually see in the artwork is, at least, a change of pace from the tone deaf 1970s action movie dialog from the previous collections.

The art also seems to settle more into a House Style for the books, which makes reading it less jarring, even though Leinil Francis Yu still can't draw necks without making everyone look like the X-Giraffes.

I recommend this for Claremont fans, people who like to see the X-Men have occasional down time, Colossus-philes, X-book readers who prefer a book that focuses on the wider X-universe than a single team.

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

Umm, the end to Claremont's second run of X-Men. It is better than the rest of that run, but that is not saying much. You can also see the influence of the first movie coming out around this time.

Scott Lobdell returns to bide the time between Claremont and Morrison. He begins well enough, which is contained here-in. His best stories are the very personally focused character one-shots he does. Both the Colossus death and the Kitty Pryde leaving issues are just that. So herein he plays to his strengths. Just don't ask about Eve of Destruction right after this story...

There are two parts to this story. Dream's End is technically the conclusion to Robert Kelly's run for President as well as the culmination of Moira MacTaggert's attempts to cure the Legacy Virus. The next part of the story is Colossus sacrificing himself to cure the Legacy Virus. There are a bunch of major X-Men events wrapped up herein. Both of the writers have not aged well, but these are the better parts of both of their second runs.

Salvador Larroca begins his X-Men work that will continue for many many years to follow. Very anime inspired. Not my favorite but he is consistent and clean so it works.

Leinel Yu is the regular on X-Men at this point. His art is... fun to look over. I can't decide where exactly I place this period for him. But I enjoy looking it over if for no other reason but to question how I feel about it.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have been kicking myself for missing on how Colossus "died" due to the Legacy virus, so I was glad to read this. As the majority of this was written by Chris Claremont, it has that 80s X-Men feel, complete with much internal dialogue.

[Alex E · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is definitely a book with high and lows for the X-Men as they celebrate the discovery of the cure for the legacy virus, but lose one of the greatest X-Men in order for the cure to take effect.

Claremont returned for a bit and this is the end of his return run, which is fitting because the legacy virus has been such a constant within the book, that it was good to see the most historically significant writer of the X-Men be the one to finally close the chapter on the virus itself. And he even had some of that classic Claremont tragedy occur when it's revealed that the cure can only be activated through the death a mutant. Colossus, being the heroic bastard that he is, decides to be the one to do this, so that others don't feel the pain he did when his sister Ilyanna died. Pretty heroic stuff.

Other than that, Senator Kelly gets assassinated as well, and it seems that at the very end, he has a change of heart about mutants, decrying peace between mutants and humans, as he is gunned down. To be honest, that story, which is the bulk of the book, was disorganized and messy. Things jumped around and the dialogue was stiff and robotic. Unfortunately this didn't really capture me the way I think Claremont wanted, and the story fell flat for me personally.

There is no denying that Claremont is the most important X-Men writer... probably ever. He revolutionized and created so much of what is still being used even today. And while this was a bit of a miss, it still has some good stuff that would please any X fan. However, if you are a casual fan, I would say you can skip this one by just knowing the story beats.

[B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Parts of this were collected in other books. There was just, I think, one issue that didn't belong.

There are a lot of threads here. A lot of mutants keep trying to kill Senator Kelly. Moira MacTaggart dies (portentous given the current run). Colossus has to kill himself to stop the legacy virus. Kitty gets deleted from the X-Men.

It was al fine but none of these moments were big enough moments.

[Ciarán Ó Maolchallann · Rating 3 out of 5]

UXM #388 - 3 stars. Not much story, bit of a rushed ending.
Cable #87 - 4 stars but I hate the image inducer, such lazy writing and completely negates the abilities of Mystique and Copycat.
Bishop #16 - 4 stars. Great story, great character development. Love mystique and rogue's story.
Xmen #108 - 4 star. Only let down by some weird art changes midway and Beast's bizarre out of character language.
Xmen #109 - 3 stars. Just a filler episode/issue
UMX #389 - 3 stars.

[Shane · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember reading X-men as a kid, and I've read some of the more modern stuff as well as a collection of the first 10 or so, but this was REALLY fun. It had a retro look and feel, but I loved the story lines and the characters. I also haven't read much Cable or Bishop, so it was cool to get some history on them too. Looking forward to reading a lot more X-men.

[Yuri · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was reading solely for the “Legacy Virus” but, considering how few issues used it as a plot, this comic wasn’t worthy. Boring characters, some of the art style wasn’t of my liking and confusing storyline.

[Jdetrick · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oy, Chris Claremont is back, and he's overwriting these books just as much now as he did then.

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

From 1975 until his firing in 1991, Chris Claremont played the primary role in building the X-Men from obscurity into the most popular title in comics. After 16 years, he was dismissed in favor of artist Jim Lee (who himself left the X-Men a year later and now is co-publisher of DC Comics), and the X-Men suffered from aimless plots and countless marketing schemes for almost the entire decade. But when Marvel finally invited him to return to writing the book in 2000, the results were uneven at best, absolutely dire at worst. He left for a spinoff title after less than a year. This book collects the final storyline of that aborted run, plus some crossover and epilogue issues.

It's tough to tell in hindsight whether Claremont's purple prose and stilted dialogue had deteriorated, or if the times had simply changed. His characters had always tended toward sentimentality and speechifying, but almost every page of Claremont's chapters in this book have X-Men spouting treacly declarations at each other and at the villains. Affectations that readers like myself used to overlook have hardened into unshakable tics. But there are a few places, such as the aftermath of the death of longtime supporting character Moira MacTaggart, where Claremont's old style feels right and proper. But it's usually contrasted with overblown melodrama and terrible accents (conveniently combined in the single character of Rogue). The volume ends on a nice note, though, as Scott Lobdell and Leinil Francis Yu present a touching quiet tribute to another fallen teammate.

The book itself, though, suffers from some egregious production mistakes. This looks like it was slapped together during a drunken weekend. Two pages have the completely wrong word balloons, and errors from the original comics aren't even fixed. Claremont's name itself appears on the table of contents but not on the back cover of the book, despite writing at least half it (Joe Pruett, who co-wrote one chapter, is listed, however). If I'd bought this instead of getting it from the library, I'd want my money back.

[Christopher E. · Rating 2 out of 5]

An acceptable-yet-unremarkable spiritual conclusion to the X-Men as they existed in the 90s. Chris Claremont did not have the same magic when he returned to the title for extended go-arounds, though his tender character moments still shine through. The right call was made to bring Scott Lobdell back to close out the Legacy Virus storyline, and the emotional ending is an effective one. Regrettably, most of the book is dull and the major stunts don't land as well as they should.

[Evan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read during the great Blackout of '08...

I'm sure some editor somewhere thought this would be a "colossal" (tee-hee) way to wrap up (read: cure) the Legacy Virus that had been afflicting mutants for almost a decade. So why does this TPB read so "small scale" to me? A main character's sacrifice seemed to come out of nowhere, and then has no lasting impression when Joss Whedon resurrected him within his Astonishing X-Men title not too long after.

Sadly, this is just another collection in a long line of collections that made me glad I skipped this portion of X-Men history the first time around...

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of those that spans like four different comic runs, so there are different writers and different priorities. Basically that means there were some parts of it I was less interested in. And the thing that really annoys me is that one minute Kitty was MIA and then she's back, gets Peter's ashes, and leaves. Where did she come from? Guh!

But there were a couple of parts that made me cry. I really like Claremont.
It was good, just slow in some places (I don't care about Betsy).

[Willow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even knowing that most of the deaths in this story arc get retconned (and having previously read many of said returns) the writing and art styles make the losses heart wrenching and worth the read.

At times I almost wished the characters in question had stayed dead, so powerful was their send off.

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love everything Marvel. The storylines are incredible! They have everything you could want: action, adventure, comedy, romance, political intrigue, allegories, metaphors, etc. Some stories drag, some end too soon.

[Matthew Ledrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

The worst. Without a doubt the lowest point in the entirety of X-Men. 4 major characters killed off and neither of them in an emotionally impactful way. This was a trial to get through, very page feeling like ten. An absolute bore despite boasting so many "shocking" deaths.

[Knotty · Rating 5 out of 5]

The death of Colossus and Moira MacTaggert brought a lot of punch. Colossus' death was by far the saddest!!!

[Jolene · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing wasn't bad but the printing was. On a few occasions, dialogue clouds were filled in with the same dialogue on multiple pages. That is disappointing.

[C · Rating 2 out of 5]

Continuing the great X-men catch-up fest...

This one is very uneven with two *major* printing errors (there are two pages that have the wrong dialogue overlay printed on them which really ruins things and is something that really should have been caught by a professional press...).

The characterization growth between Rogue and Mystique from just a few issues ago is completely thrown away for unknown reasons.

Plot-wise, this isn't awful and I enjoyed Kitty's leaving the team and Colossus' sacrifice made sense if it was a bit anticlimactic. There are a few bad character moments that just don't work, though.