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X-Treme X-Men (2001) (Collected Editions)
X-Treme X-Men, Vol. 7: Storm – The Arena
Collects X-Treme X-Men #36-39.
Storm takes center stage in this special story taking her on a journey of self-discovery. Ororo Munroe, the weather-wielding mutant goddess, ventures into a faraway realm and makes startling discoveries about herself when she's forced to endure brutal combat in a fight-or-die gladiator ring.
Storm takes center stage in this special story taking her on a journey of self-discovery. Ororo Munroe, the weather-wielding mutant goddess, ventures into a faraway realm and makes startling discoveries about herself when she's forced to endure brutal combat in a fight-or-die gladiator ring.
152 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
About the author
Chris Claremont
3,319 books910 followersChris Claremont is a writer of American comic books, best known for his 16-year (1975-1991) stint on Uncanny X-Men, during which the series became one of the comic book industry's most successful properties.
Claremont has written many stories for other publishers including the Star Trek Debt of Honor graphic novel, his creator-owned Sovereign Seven for DC Comics and Aliens vs Predator for Dark Horse Comics. He also wrote a few issues of the series WildC.A.T.s (volume 1, issues #10-13) at Image Comics, which introduced his creator-owned character, Huntsman.
Outside of comics, Claremont co-wrote the Chronicles of the Shadow War trilogy, Shadow Moon (1995), Shadow Dawn (1996), and Shadow Star (1999), with George Lucas. This trilogy continues the story of Elora Danan from the movie Willow. In the 1980s, he also wrote a science fiction trilogy about female starship pilot Nicole Shea, consisting of First Flight (1987), Grounded! (1991), and Sundowner (1994). Claremont was also a contributor to the Wild Cards anthology series.
Claremont has written many stories for other publishers including the Star Trek Debt of Honor graphic novel, his creator-owned Sovereign Seven for DC Comics and Aliens vs Predator for Dark Horse Comics. He also wrote a few issues of the series WildC.A.T.s (volume 1, issues #10-13) at Image Comics, which introduced his creator-owned character, Huntsman.
Outside of comics, Claremont co-wrote the Chronicles of the Shadow War trilogy, Shadow Moon (1995), Shadow Dawn (1996), and Shadow Star (1999), with George Lucas. This trilogy continues the story of Elora Danan from the movie Willow. In the 1980s, he also wrote a science fiction trilogy about female starship pilot Nicole Shea, consisting of First Flight (1987), Grounded! (1991), and Sundowner (1994). Claremont was also a contributor to the Wild Cards anthology series.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
September 2, 2016
From the sublime to the ridiculous, Claremont goes full George Lucas and comes up with a story with no tension, an uncomfortable male gaze, and no impact outside of setting up for the best arc of Storm's Marvel Now miniseries. This is an execrable arc that made me wish I was back in New Orleans with the rest of the X-Men fighting the always-boring Elias Bogan again. The costumes somehow got dumber than the initial sketches, there's nothing to advance the "forced to do arena fights!" plot beyond what Kirby was drawing in 1969, Storm and Yukio's adventures are a shameless retread of Claremont's own "Storm discovers the killer inside" storylines from 1984-1986, and the thought bubbles worrying that Storm actually likes fighting are a desperate attempt to give this plot some shreds of relevance.
Where X-Treme X-Men's previous stories putting characters in new situations actually served as a refresher and a chance to get to know some of the most boring X-Men, the attempt to go back to Mohawk Storm is ten years before its time and executed very poorly. Other writers have done this with a much more natural progression, including Claremont himself; read those instead.
Where X-Treme X-Men's previous stories putting characters in new situations actually served as a refresher and a chance to get to know some of the most boring X-Men, the attempt to go back to Mohawk Storm is ten years before its time and executed very poorly. Other writers have done this with a much more natural progression, including Claremont himself; read those instead.
January 11, 2019
X-reme x-men storm: the arena by Chris Claremont is an extremely good book. It features storm and her best friend Yukio. Both are thrill seekers. Yukio is a ronin who has almost died on multiple occasions. Both of them go to a club to hang out and things turn around. The club is secretly an arena where people fight for their life and the champion title. While two competitors, the silk worm and musclehead, are competing the competition also takes a turn, and then storm has to step in. She ends up wining and automatically gets the title as champion. Many people don’t like that because she just walked away from it. All in all, this book is wicked interesting and I enjoyed it. The art style is very bright and blocky.
September 30, 2022
This is basically just a less terrible retread of X-Men: Beauty and the Beast featuring Storm and Yukio instead of Dazzler and Beast.
July 21, 2018
I really like Strong Guy, who shows up in this volume, but the writing is overall pretty terrible. Claremont's actual writing--the words--is almost unbearably cheesy (a vice he frequently gives in to.) The whole thing is so over-the-top it's cringe-inducing. But it's real flaw is it's almost entirely charmless and forgettable. I never really cared what happened, and even though I only finished a couple of days ago, I barely remember what happened.
February 18, 2016
Really, this is probably a 2.5 in my book because I have mixed feelings about this arc, and even after rereading it, I'm still mixed. I liked where Claremont tried to go with this one, but it was a little shortsighted. I feel this is where X-Treme jumped the shark for me.
January 26, 2023
I have been critical of previous X-treme X-Men arcs not so much because of bad stories (Savage Land mini aside), but because I found the underlying politics surrounding the protagonists unsettling. Otherwise, they have been okay -to-good X-Men stories with a definitive old-school flavor.
Storm: the Arena is different.
It's bad.
It's really bad. So, Storm is supposed to infiltrate this mutant fight club on behalf of whatever government coalition deputized her in the last TPB. Then she walks into a bar and they basically draft her into the Arena. And shocker, she gets off on prize fighting. But she's betrayed! And enslaved! But she was faking her defeat! And then she kicks some ass! And now Storm and Callisto are reshaping the Arena mutants into a secret army for mutant self-determination!
Or something like that. I feel like this story was thrown together, because it feels both meandering and hyper compressed at the same time. As wordy as Claremont tends to be, this book really lacked clarity. It felt at several times like crucial exposition was just left out of the book.
Which would be bad if the storytelling wasn't glaringly predictable.
In my review of Intifada, the previous book in this series, I discussed the long-running plot point of Storm's grievous injury, her incomplete recovery, and her hardassed determination to power through even though several of her friends and fellow X-Men warned her not to go too hard. I wondered how it would play out in this Arena storyline where she would have to go undercover and physically perform at the highest level even though she was still injured. Would she break? Would her body betray her at a critical moment? This plot was foreshadowed for over a dozen issues; how would Claremont play it out?
He didn't. It didn't come up at all. Storm beat the fuck out of everyone without breaking a sweat. Because her nerve endings are apparently as indomitable as her will.
Also, her mission to break up the trafficking ring that fed the Arena? Yeah, didn't really do that. Kinda just let that one go. Good on you Storm. I mean, there was some lip service about mutant liberation at the end but Storm did fuck all in terms of systemic change. In a gladiatorial slave ring. Pretty much left that whole thing in place.
I think Claremont should address this in the next and final collection of the series, but since he forgot about the whole thing where Storm was in danger of becoming paraplegic from misusing her injured body, l kind of expected this to go nowhere.
Oh, look: Bad Kordey is back. The last couple of books featured some decent Kordey art, but this book looks like he was fighting a deadline. And losing Also, Storm's Arena costume designs were straight up hideous.
I was going to give this 2 stars, but I've talked myself out of it. This arc had so little redeeming value. It could have been something special; it had a lot of the groundwork laid already. But, well, nope. I guess there's one more arc of X-treme X-Men to read. I want to say it can't get any worse...
Storm: the Arena is different.
It's bad.
It's really bad. So, Storm is supposed to infiltrate this mutant fight club on behalf of whatever government coalition deputized her in the last TPB. Then she walks into a bar and they basically draft her into the Arena. And shocker, she gets off on prize fighting. But she's betrayed! And enslaved! But she was faking her defeat! And then she kicks some ass! And now Storm and Callisto are reshaping the Arena mutants into a secret army for mutant self-determination!
Or something like that. I feel like this story was thrown together, because it feels both meandering and hyper compressed at the same time. As wordy as Claremont tends to be, this book really lacked clarity. It felt at several times like crucial exposition was just left out of the book.
Which would be bad if the storytelling wasn't glaringly predictable.
In my review of Intifada, the previous book in this series, I discussed the long-running plot point of Storm's grievous injury, her incomplete recovery, and her hardassed determination to power through even though several of her friends and fellow X-Men warned her not to go too hard. I wondered how it would play out in this Arena storyline where she would have to go undercover and physically perform at the highest level even though she was still injured. Would she break? Would her body betray her at a critical moment? This plot was foreshadowed for over a dozen issues; how would Claremont play it out?
He didn't. It didn't come up at all. Storm beat the fuck out of everyone without breaking a sweat. Because her nerve endings are apparently as indomitable as her will.
Also, her mission to break up the trafficking ring that fed the Arena? Yeah, didn't really do that. Kinda just let that one go. Good on you Storm. I mean, there was some lip service about mutant liberation at the end but Storm did fuck all in terms of systemic change. In a gladiatorial slave ring. Pretty much left that whole thing in place.
I think Claremont should address this in the next and final collection of the series, but since he forgot about the whole thing where Storm was in danger of becoming paraplegic from misusing her injured body, l kind of expected this to go nowhere.
Oh, look: Bad Kordey is back. The last couple of books featured some decent Kordey art, but this book looks like he was fighting a deadline. And losing Also, Storm's Arena costume designs were straight up hideous.
I was going to give this 2 stars, but I've talked myself out of it. This arc had so little redeeming value. It could have been something special; it had a lot of the groundwork laid already. But, well, nope. I guess there's one more arc of X-treme X-Men to read. I want to say it can't get any worse...
May 15, 2022
Another mutant gladiator story? This time, Storm finds herself part of a Tokyo Arena where she quickly reaches the top, but she needs to continue winning in order to maintain her freedom. It becomes more challenging when she learns that the Arena is led by former Morlocks Masque and Callisto.
There are just too many inconsistencies in this collection to make it enjoyable. We get to see both Yukio and Guido again, but both don't really feel right in their roles. Callisto is the former, storm-willed leader of the Morlocks, but it is Masque who is controlling her -- and the entire sophisticated, black-market business operation. Not bad for somebody who has always been the lackey. I am not even sure how Masque changed his appearance since he can't alter his own appearance, and why is he presenting himself as a woman without explanation? And to top it off, Chris Claremont continues to inject slaver Tullamore Voge in what feels like an attempt to make this uninteresting character relevant.
Perhaps the biggest oddity is how much Storm loves being in the ring. While she frequently engages in reckless thrill-seeking activities, it has never been portrayed as a pathological need. Her desire for the cheers of the crowd overrides her normal concerns about exploitation. She abandoned her values and that makes this unpleasant run irreconcilably bad.
There are just too many inconsistencies in this collection to make it enjoyable. We get to see both Yukio and Guido again, but both don't really feel right in their roles. Callisto is the former, storm-willed leader of the Morlocks, but it is Masque who is controlling her -- and the entire sophisticated, black-market business operation. Not bad for somebody who has always been the lackey. I am not even sure how Masque changed his appearance since he can't alter his own appearance, and why is he presenting himself as a woman without explanation? And to top it off, Chris Claremont continues to inject slaver Tullamore Voge in what feels like an attempt to make this uninteresting character relevant.
Perhaps the biggest oddity is how much Storm loves being in the ring. While she frequently engages in reckless thrill-seeking activities, it has never been portrayed as a pathological need. Her desire for the cheers of the crowd overrides her normal concerns about exploitation. She abandoned her values and that makes this unpleasant run irreconcilably bad.
July 17, 2017
Continuing the (most x-treme) x-read of 2017…
I don’t really know what to say about this volume. While I typically like Claremont’s melodrama and slower moving stories, this one just did nothing for me. Some of the background characters were fun to see again (just seeing Guido/ Strong Guy again was nearly enough for a whole extra star for this volume – it was so great to see him again…) but the story basically went nowhere. It retreads old ground with Storm and does nothing to add to her character.
It is not the worst volume of the x-books by far, but it is easily skippable for someone pursuing a journey through continuity (unless something major comes out of this arena plot, but even so – I imagine that it would be better to just read a quick summary and stay away from this one unless you are a die hard Claremont fan or you really want to read every step of the way along the journey.)
I don’t really know what to say about this volume. While I typically like Claremont’s melodrama and slower moving stories, this one just did nothing for me. Some of the background characters were fun to see again (just seeing Guido/ Strong Guy again was nearly enough for a whole extra star for this volume – it was so great to see him again…) but the story basically went nowhere. It retreads old ground with Storm and does nothing to add to her character.
It is not the worst volume of the x-books by far, but it is easily skippable for someone pursuing a journey through continuity (unless something major comes out of this arena plot, but even so – I imagine that it would be better to just read a quick summary and stay away from this one unless you are a die hard Claremont fan or you really want to read every step of the way along the journey.)
November 3, 2021
This was pretty dark and only really included Storm. Interior art was okay to bad with spectacular covers. This series is feeling less and less like a continuous arch and I'm not sure if that's because I sometimes left 3 or 4 months before moving on to the next graphic novel or just because it's not a continuous arch. I'm definitely hoping that the newer X-treme X-men series is better (for me) than this one.
December 14, 2017
I'll read pretty much anything having to do with Storm from the X-Men. That being said, this was good, but not great. It was interesting enough, but I felt there was too much missing between the pages and even the panels sometimes. I would say read it if you like / love Storm and it's certainly not the worst thing I've read, but it is easily passable if you are looking to efficiently read comics.
March 29, 2025
Awful, truly awful. Arts bad, stories woeful and actually drove me to write a bad review. Don't read, there's nothing in this that has any value and doesn't really affect even the following (and final) arc of the book. Don't bother.
November 16, 2018
Struggled to make it through this one, total throwaway story. The art was ok.
October 15, 2021
I'm not sure why I like this, but I really do. Maybe I just like to see Storm front and center even in the most absurd situations
July 6, 2025
2025 Readthrough Update:
I think this benefits from taking place at the same time as Frank Tieri's dreadful Wolverine run and Chuck Austen's embarrasingly bad back half of his Uncanny X-Men run. It's not a great story, and the art isn't my favorite, but it's not terrible. It's just underwhelming.
If you're into gladiatior stories but can't afford to buy a copy of The Incredible Hulk: Planet Hulk, this will do. You can probably find it in the discount trades section of the nearest comic book store.
***
Original 2018 Reveiw:
Another abrupt swerve in storytelling by Claremont, he abandons every character in his run except for Storm, in order to tell a story where she gets to run into other X-characters no other writers were using, all while....fighting in a gladiator arena?
It's a supremely dull story, no matter how many exclamation points are used when he reveals the involvement of a long unused character.
Kordley's sense of anatomy is wonky, as well. Sometimes heads are so large, and necks are so bendy strawed, you expect the characters to just fall over.
I only recommend this for Storm enthusiasts who want to know all of her continuity. And maybe people who really jones for stories involving Callisto and Strong Guy.
I think this benefits from taking place at the same time as Frank Tieri's dreadful Wolverine run and Chuck Austen's embarrasingly bad back half of his Uncanny X-Men run. It's not a great story, and the art isn't my favorite, but it's not terrible. It's just underwhelming.
If you're into gladiatior stories but can't afford to buy a copy of The Incredible Hulk: Planet Hulk, this will do. You can probably find it in the discount trades section of the nearest comic book store.
***
Original 2018 Reveiw:
Another abrupt swerve in storytelling by Claremont, he abandons every character in his run except for Storm, in order to tell a story where she gets to run into other X-characters no other writers were using, all while....fighting in a gladiator arena?
It's a supremely dull story, no matter how many exclamation points are used when he reveals the involvement of a long unused character.
Kordley's sense of anatomy is wonky, as well. Sometimes heads are so large, and necks are so bendy strawed, you expect the characters to just fall over.
I only recommend this for Storm enthusiasts who want to know all of her continuity. And maybe people who really jones for stories involving Callisto and Strong Guy.
May 17, 2017
My rating for this book has changed... After a reread after many years you start to see the cracks in Claremont's writing in this series. Whether it is editorial issues or not (as you can see that the overall story in his run of the book had change) it certainly started to lack something.
February 17, 2008
This was just horrible, teaming Storm and Callisto together against Masque. Just don't bother with it.
August 11, 2013
Huge stinky turd. Do not waste your time on this.
Want to Read
March 25, 2016Edición española. Tomo especial dedicado a Tormenta.
June 11, 2017
Storm goes undercover in a arena for mutants.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews