Editorial Review:

The X-Men are dead to the world, and evildoers a-plenty are willing to make the hoax a reality! See the debuts of characters and concepts that sculpted the struggles and souls of the mightiest mutants for years to come - including the Reavers, Genosha and the Conover Crusade! The Brood barge in and the Marauders mix it up, topped off with a dose of demons who whip up an awe-inspiring Inferno! Guest-starring Magik and the Goblin Queen and introducing Jubilee! Collecting Uncanny X-Men #229-245, Annual #12-13 & X-Factor 36-39.

Customer Reviews:

Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0

Graphic SF Reader:

The handing over the X-Men to Australia, as the world thinks them dead.
The handing over of art to Silvestri and company I suppose, too, so lots of really long legs and big hair is to be seen in this volume. Still, contract even this with the overinflated styles we get today.
So, time to clean out the Reavers, get themselves a base, and have fun running around while they can't be detected.
There's a fun Mojo interlude tale, but the dead X-Men and X-Factor come into contact after the former... more info

Underappreciated:

Essential X-Men Volume 8, as you can tell by reading other reviews, is a mixed bag of goods: apparently some fans hate the art, while others hate the stories. Personally, I like them both, but that's because I understand the major complications facing the creative staff at the time, factors which I'll try to simply explain.
First, "Inferno," which is [somewhat] collected in this edition, was NOT an X-book/mutant-specific crossover; it was a storyline which ran through every major Marvel comic, so, like... more info

Fair, just a C grade for a comic:

This reviewer has purchased hundreds of X-men titles. Generally, Essentials 1, 2, and 3 are fantastic books and they are well worth their money. Essential #8 is now the weakest of the lot.
The X-men were all killed off at the end of Essential #7 but quickly brought back so the world believes they are dead. Since this fact does not effect the stories at this point you wonder what the bother was.
The problem with Essential #8 is the art. It's terrible. In Essentials #1,2,3, and the rest the artwort... more info

Just ok:

Definitely my least favorite of the Essential X-Men series. Chris Claremont is writing and the majority of the pencils here are by Marc Silvestri, so there is quality talent at work here, but the influx of new and not so new characters is fairly uneventful.
The villains for the first half of the book are The Reavers, and The Brood with references to the Marauders and it's just kind of a blah, blah, blah, paint by numbers, kind of affair, with the antagonists seemingly interchangeable. This is my main... more info

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