[.ca] X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills Premiere HC (ISBN 0785127615)

a Claremont classic:
The Fall of the Mutants is another one of Chris Claremont's classic stories. It takes place when the original X-Men have formed X-Force and Wolverine leads the X-Men. Storm and Forge are elsewhere. And this is when the supposed death of the X-Men happens. Very good for those of us who remember it and those who are new to it.

For the fan...:
One of my biggest hopes realized when this volume was released. This is the story that made me love the X-Men when I was a kid. And finally it's in one handsome reprint volume. It collects the classic "Fall of the Mutants" themed story-arcs in the X-Men, X-Factor and New Mutants books. The whole thing is not a crossover, it's a themed-collection of stories. A turning point and one of the darkest eras in the X-history. 1) The X-Men dies in Dallas... in full public view. 2) The X-Factor face Apocalypse in Manhattan (in my opinion, the greatest Apocalypse story ever written and drawn) 3) The New Mutants confront issues of life, freedom and death... and loses their innocence. What more do you need to know?

Classic X-Men story:
This classic X-Men story from the golden years of Chris Claremont's legendary run on the book is one of the most well known and well regarded tales to ever hit the X-Men. The story revolves around William Stryker; a powerful bible banging televangilist with an agenda for mutantkind. The X-Men are thrown into the thick of Stryker's would be crusade, with Magneto waiting in the wings with plans of his own. Claremont's superb and powerful storytelling is at his best here, and maybe is his best next to the classic Dark Phoenix Saga. The art is great as well, although some may find it a bit too 80's. The basic story of God Loves, Man Kills, would be used in the X2: X-Men United movie which used a villian named Stryker, only instead of him having power through religion he had it through the military. Even though this story is out of print, you can find it in the X-Treme X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills 2 book.

Disappointing...:
I was a comic reader way back when...during what I consider the glory days of comics in the late 70s and early to mid 80s. I was a big fan of the X-men during the Byrne/Claremont years, but ran out of time to indulge my misspent youth shortly after X-Factor showed up. I'd noticed recently that the X-men seem to be everywhere, and more popular than ever, so I thought I'd give this novel a shot. Bad move. I've always enjoyed Walt Simonson's work, and Apocalypse is an excellent villain, so the X-Factor story was great. However, the X-men tale paled in comparison to the stories I remembered from the Byrne/Claremont days. These characters don't even feel like the same people that were around during the Dark Phoenix saga. It's a shame, because they're much less interesting and feel more like characters in a kid's story, where you can just make up something to solve a problem. The New Mutants storyline was difficult to comment on, since I don't really know the characters or their history. Ho hum. Also, if you're expecting three stories that are related in some way, you'll be disappointed.

A Decent X-Over:
"Fall Of The Mutants" is nothing special at all. It's not even a crossover as each of the x-teams have their own stories that don't interconnect one bit. The stories were not exactly that thrilling or climatic and I found myself bored reading parts of it. The X-Men story takes place in Dallas where they must defeat the Adversary, who twisted the city by making an almalgam of different realities. Freedom Force also makes an appearence and helps out. The art is great, but the ending is ehhh. The big thing here is that the X-men pretend to die and move to Australia where they stay for a while. I was expecting some really good fights, but not really. The X-Factor story isn't much better. You do get to see the first appearence ever of Archangel, which is memorable. But I found myself bored to death reading this. The horsemen are easily defeated and Apocalypse doesn't even fight X-Factor. The big drama is when Apocalypse sends his Ship rampaging through New York City, and it's up for X-Factor to save the city and help repair it. Along the way they deal with the bigotry of humans and blah blah blah. However, X-Factor does announce to the public that they are mutants and were masquerading as mutant-hunters, making this story important to their history. My favorite story is the New Mutant's one. The art is great and so is the story. The students take their new friend Bird-Brain to Animator's island, filled with more animate hybrids like Bird-Brain. The New Mutants take on Animator and everything is looking good for them, until the Right and Cameron Hodge show up and give the animates and the mutants a pounding. Then Animator murders a New Mutant while the other mutants finish defeating the Right. It was really sad and emotional watching the kids deal with their friend's death. This story really came to life for me and was written really well. All in all, this isn't the best book to buy. I basically bought it for the classic issues. Instead of buying this book, I recomend you to buy "X-Men: Inferno" or "X-Men: X-Tinction Agenda". Those were outstading x-overs in my opinion. "Fall Of The Mutants" is decent and your average run of the mill storylines. It did leave lasting marks on the lives of our favorite mutants, and that's what makes it good in a sense.