X-Calibre (The Age of Apocalypse)

Rating:
Summary: Another great story by Ellis
Review: Warren Ellis's X-Calibre is perhaps the best contribution to Marvel's Age of Apocalypse. In many ways, the story is like the Elseworlds tales that DC comics run. Ellis has taken the characters we all know and love and placed them in a very different, darker world, which is perfectly suited for his style of writing. This is worth reading for the new spin on Nightcrawler alone. The art is also terrific (even for an "X" book, which is saying something). i think some people may have avoided picking up X-Calibre if they weren't fans of the Excalibur series, which is too bad because they missed out on the best written chapter of the whole Age of Apocalypse.

Rating:
Summary: A tad above average AoA story
Review: Welcome to hell on earth. North America is ruled by an evil mutant called Apocalypse. His kingdom only lives by one rule: Survivial of the fittest. Humans are regarded as the lower class and even not all mutants will be survive in this world. This all happened because Professor Charles Xavier never existed. Thus he never got to form the X-Men to appose Apocalypse.

But there is a sole sanctuary for the unchosen in this world. It's the island of Avalon. Humans and mutants go there the escape the cruelty of Apocalypse's America. And among them is a prophet called Destiny. She is one of the key characters to save the world. So Magneto assigns Nightcrawler, and his mother Mystique, to find her and bring her to the X-Men.

The story is a bit above average with some suspence and the art is on par with most of the other Age of Apocalypse books. It's another good stand alone story, but it won't mean much if you haven't read this AoA storyline from the start though. If you get this, I recommend you get all the other AoA TPBs too. For a complete reading list of it, see my X-Men: LegionQuest review.