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| X-Men: Day of the Atom | 
 enlarge | Authors: Chuck Austen, Salvador Larroca
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Category: Book
List Price: $19.99
Buy New: $18.34
You Save: $1.65 (8%)
New (6) Used (10) Collectible (1) from $7.46
Avg. Customer Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 227811
Media: Paperback
Reading Level: Young Adult
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 10.1 x 6.6 x 0.6
ISBN: 078511534X
Dewey Decimal Number: 741.5973
EAN: 9780785115342
ASIN: 078511534X
Publication Date: March 2, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: NEW BOOK UNREAD MAY HAVE REMAINDER MARK
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Product Description
Finally putting to rest their own recent past, the X-Men embark on an all-new, all-different era of excitement! Will the surprising return of a familiar character prove to be the saving grace of the X-Men, or will it doom them forever? Plus: a surprise twist in the life of Gambit! Collecting X-Men #157-#165.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 Same old same old... October 19, 2007
This book, reprinting "X-Men" #s 157-165, is a sad return to the same deficiencies that pushed me away from the X-Men in the late '80s/early '90s: perfunctory plots; fetishistic, overly stylized artwork; a profusion of flat, nearly indistinguishable characters that nobody cares about; an utter lack of a dramatic emotional core. At least nobody was yammering on and on about muties and Sentinels, and the alternate realities were kept to a minimum.
Anyway, this was pretty boring and even when they were blowing stuff up I found it hard to care. The dialogue and the scripting for characters such as Iceman, Havok and Gambit were utterly abysmal, as were the rather forced attempts to embue the various bimbos... I mean, female characters... with mysterious emotional depths that puzzle and confound the volatile, quarrelsome menfolk. It was all really pretty terrible -- the same old fanboy tedium, but it's even more tiresome fifteen years later, and plays rather poorly. There have been some great X-books recently, but this run was not one of them. (Axton)
A Case Study in the Importance of Colorists March 27, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Chuck Austin harkens back to the clasic Stan Lee era of the X-Men - classic in the style of UXM #17, where Magneto locks the X-Men inside a steel gondola attached to a hot-air balloon in an attempt to send the merry mutants into outer-space. Classic as in "Bad guys attack! Bad guys smash! Good guys hit bad guys more often than bad guys hit good guys." Though he throws in more random emotional tension, which, since it comes out of complete left-field, is so silly as to not even be funny. The "story" over-all isn't bad, but the execution is so poor that it is depressing. The fact that one of the best selling comics in the world could be written by such a rank amature is startling and saddening, and shows how little respect Marvel holds towards its creations and fans. I've never read any of Austin's other work - perhaps he was working under some obscure Oulipou constraint in order to force his writing to some new, hither-to unplumbed depth of purileness. I recently became addicted to the X-Men again after discovering Astonishing X-Men and Clarmont's return to Uncanny. Austin reminded me why I stopped reading super-hero titles for more than 10 years.
However, this TPB is a must-own for anyone who wants to prove that the role of the penciler is vastly over-blown in the comic world. When I first started reading, I thought that Salvador Larroca was the worst penciler ever. I swore, I tried my wife's patience by repeatedly interupting her work to point to a particularly offensive pannel and shout "Look! Look at how terrible this art is!" The characters were flat, the backgrounds one-dimentional; many splash-pages were worse than the Letter Art at the begining of Wizard. Then I got to the second story-arc, and was relieved to see that they had got a new penciler. The art was 100 times better, with well-rounded characters and deep, lush backgrounds. Imagine my surprise when I checked the credits, and discovered it was still Salvador Larroca doing the pencils. I checked, and it was the same inker.
What had changed? The color studio. The first series had been butchered by Udon Studios; the second had been saved by Liquid! Graphics. Bear that in mind the next time you line up at a convention to have Jim Lee or Silvestri sign your comic. They are undisputed talents, but there work is only as good as the rest of the art team.
'Nuff said.
 Sketchy writing, great art; interesting take on Juggernaut January 5, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
All right. I have mixed feelings about Chuck Austen. There are some moments where he's pretty danged funny and seems to have a screw loose. His sense of humor runs toward being slightly crass at times, but I laugh anyway. In the "Hope" TPB, my favorite line of Iceman's was "Hey, handsome. Nice suit. Come here often?", uttered shortly after almost being killed by the jealous husband of a busty Genoshan refugee. Iceman is still pretty silly in this collection of X-men issues, particularly his rivalry with Juggernaut. Juggernaut's still a villain in this story, but Austen, surprisingly, made him...likable. He has some excellent one-liners.
Other characters don't get great treatment. Havok is still a jerk in this book; I never liked him much to begin with, but I really hated him in this collection. Emma Frost doesn't have much dialogue in this one, either, and she comes across as clueless and useless (i.e., when she ignores Sammy's warning that Black Tom has returned). Polaris is a tad more stable and has a much better uniform. Rogue and Gambit aren't put to great use in this book, though; I like them better in X-Treme X-Men. Gambit blames Rogue for making him lose his sight, even though it wasn't directly her fault (it was a random bullet that hit his card when he was charging it, so there, Gambit).
This story had lots of battles going on, but no concrete resolution for any of them. The Brotherhood escapes, Black Tom is shunted into another dimension (in Xorn's head; go figure), Sabretooth disappears (hello? does that make anyone else uncomfortable? the X-men don't seem to mind), Sammy's history, and Alex doesn't seem to miss Annie after she leaves him, even though he left his bride at the altar for her.
This books also signifies the beginning of several offshoot titles, such as Astonishing X-Men and Excalibur, as Cyclops reassigns the veteran members into different teams, pretty much against their will...
I would have given this collection a higher rating if more of the loose ends had been tied up more neatly. This book is one more reason why I don't routinely read "X-Men" as regularly as "Uncanny X-Men." But it's not for lack of trying.
 not that bad December 12, 2005
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
i agree w/ the other reviewer who said the first arc, w/ the team rescuing xorn's brother from china, is pretty messy and the characterization is off. the biggest annoyance is iceman who is completely childish and whiny.
the second arc is much, much better. the new brotherhood isn't that novel, but juggernaut's story, caught between his old and new lives, is worthwhile. there's yet another showdown between wolvie and sabretooth that's pretty yawn-inducing, but the rest of the fights are pretty good, esp. since black tom really overpowers everyone else. the resolution is a bit unsatisfying, but that depends on what happens next in the series. also, we get to see nocturne from exiles a bit, which is fun.
the holiday issue by claremont is fairly typical, but it's nice to see so many cameos. mostly focuses on x-23, who by now you either like or are bored with for being just more wolvie.
 A spoonful of incompetence weighs a ton May 21, 2005
10 out of 13 found this review helpful
Lord, where to begin with this unholy mess.
Polaris' on-again-off-again insanity - it was never clear if Austen actually even understood that he'd written good old level headed, genius IQ Lorna Dane as a raving nutcase - he's so clueless as to how to write a convincing character he seems to have thought she was just behaving normally when he decided to have her longtime boyfriend inexplicably dump her for a fairly demented nurse (Annie, who seemingly tried to prove every point she was trying to make by offering to sleep with someone) no one ever gave the least little damn about.
The sudden reappearance of Xorn - but it's not Xorn...Xorn never actually existed, no that was um...someone pretending to be Magneto pretending to be someone called Xorn....so this is that Xorn's twin brother...also named Xorn...although the first Xorn never actually existed...did he?....but this is his brother anyway....he also has the healing powers that the first non-existant Xorn turned out to not actually have...and where that first Xorn - who never actually existed, I kind of maybe think - had a star for a head, this Xorn has a black hole. Geez, after reading this I can definitely relate.
The XMen go to China! They are attacked! Why? No one knows! They have to get Xorn's helmet on him or his black hole head will swallow the world! The Chinese know where it is! They tell the XMen to go get it! Why don't they get it themselves? More fighting! Iceman and Juggernaut take a break from fighting the Chinese to fight each other! Why? No one knows! Gambit is blinded! Why? No one knows!
The Brotherhood attacks Philadelphia! Why? No one knows! The XMen are there waiting for them! Why? No one knows! Nurse "I'll sleep with you if you argue with me" Annie decides to leave! Why? No one knows! The Brotherhood attacks the mansion! Why? No one knows! Xorn can now control his black hole head, although the entire point of the last story was that he couldn't! Why? No one knows! Annie and her son Carter, who people cared about even less than her, have a cryptic conversation about his imaginary friend as they leave the mansion! Why? No one knows!
Chuck Austen got paid to write this! Why? No one knows!
If there is any justice in the world, Chuck Austen is now mopping the floor at 7-11.
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