This weekend, Marvel announced their most-anticipated omnibus via my friend and colleague Omar’s YouTube channel, Near Mint Condition: Uncanny X-Men, Vol. 5!
(That isn’t an exaggeration; the online omnibus community produces a yearly secret ballot to determine its most-wanted books and this one tops the list, as also reported by Omar.)
This is the last omnibus X-fans need to complete their oversized bookshelf of Uncanny X-Men (1963) #1-321. That means it’s time for the celebration to begin! Let the X-villagers rejoice!
Well… not quite.
The hesitation comes down to the initially-announced contents of the book, what fans assumed it would contain, what Marvel has recently reprinted, and how Marvel plans to continue collecting Uncanny X-Men in omnibus in the coming years.
(Note: Omar very kindly invited me to a discussion of this topic on his channel, but I couldn’t make it work across time zones. Plus, I’m trying to keep my X-Men X-Posure contained to CK, at the moment.)
Uncanny X-Men Omnibus Vol. 5 Contents
The contents of this volume, as announced by Omar on Near Mint Condition, are:
Uncanny X-Men (1963) #194-209 & Annual 9, New Mutant Special Edition (1985) #1, Nightcrawler (1985) #1-4, Longshot (1985) #1-6, and material from Marvel Fanfare (1982) #33.
I’ll explain why all of those issues are in the omnibus in just a moment. First, let’s talk about what’s missing. Or, should I say “missing” – since not everyone agrees.
What is Uncanny X-Men Omnibus Vol. 5 “missing”?
The initial solicited contents of Uncanny X-Men Omnibus Vol. 5 skips two runs that many buyers of all of the X-Men omnibus line anticipated it would include, for reasons I’ll cover below.
Here is what the contents do not currently include:
- Uncanny X-Men (1963) Annual 10 and New Mutants (1983) Annual 2
- Avengers (1963) #263; Fantastic Four (1961) #286; X-Factor (1986) #1-8 & Annual 1, and potentially some other related material
If you know your X-mapping well, you will immediately see the problem with these exclusions! By leaving Annual 10 out of this volume, Marvel has invented a difference between the mapping of the X-Men “Classic Omnibus” line that begins with Volume 1 and the X-Men “Event Omnibus” line that begins with Mutant Massacre. But, there’s no reason that difference has to exist!
If you’re not a X-Men mapping X-Pert yet, keep reading for a complete X-Plainer. [Read more…] about Newly Announced: Uncanny X-Men Omnibus Vol. 5 (+ the problem with its mapping explained)