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Rating: 
Summary: Byrne/Claremont's Fitting Swan Song
Review: After reaching comic immortality with the "Dark Phoenix Saga", John Byrne and Chris Claremont hit another one out of the park on this 2-issue story ark near the end of their amazing run on the Uncanny X-Men. In it, they bring us into a dark future where the Sentinals have obliterated nearly all superhero's and a few remaining send an adult Kitty Pryde back to the present to prevent this nightmare from happening. Its practically over before its begun, but the story packs an emotional wallop, nonetheless. And its hard to pinpoint exactly why. Certainly the haunting images of the endless rows of superhero tombstones and the heroic deaths of Wolverine and Storm contibute to that end. Perhaps its just the case of the whole being greater than its parts. These issues can both be found in the "Essential X-men Vol. 2" graphic novel, but its nice to have them in color, as Stan Lee intended!
Rating:
Summary: Byrne/Claremont's Fitting Swan Song
Review: After reaching comic immortality with the "Dark Phoenix Saga", John Byrne and Chris Claremont hit another one out of the park on this 2-issue story ark near the end of their amazing run on the Uncanny X-Men. In it, they bring us into a dark future where the Sentinals have obliterated nearly all superhero's and a few remaining send an adult Kitty Pryde back to the present to prevent this nightmare from happening. Its practically over before its begun, but the story packs an emotional wallop, nonetheless. And its hard to pinpoint exactly why. Certainly the haunting images of the endless rows of superhero tombstones and the heroic deaths of Wolverine and Storm contibute to that end. Perhaps its just the case of the whole being greater than its parts. These issues can both be found in the "Essential X-men Vol. 2" graphic novel, but its nice to have them in color, as Stan Lee intended!
Rating:
Summary: Classic X-Men story
Review: At a low price, this one is a definate keeper for the comic fan. 'Days of Futures Past' is an excellent story regarding a possible future for the mutant characters, a post-apocalyptic tomorrow where all superhumans have been hunted down. A single mutant gets sent back in time to attempt to prevent this from happening. This is definately a classic X-Men story and should be purchased.
Rating:
Summary: THIS IS NOT THE DARK PHOENIX TPB!!!
Review: I am in complete agreement with the other reviewer's sentiments regarding the "Dark Phoenix" saga. There's just one problem: THIS IS NOT A REPRINGT OF THE DARK PHOENIX SAGA!!! This is a reprint of the also classic "Day's of Future Past" storyline, which was also penned by Chris Claremont and John Byrne. That storyline actually consists of only two issues, but for this newest edition the good folks at marvel were kind enough to also include issues 138-140, and issue 143 in addition to issues 141-142. A wonderful collection consisting of the issues that FOLLOWED the "Dark Phoenix Saga". So buy this book people, but please Amazon, get your act together.
Rating:
Summary: The Gold Standard of Comics
Review: I still remember the day when X-men #137, the finale of the Dark Phoenix saga, came out at my local comic shop all those years ago. I got the last one there, and it was hidden in the magazines. Even then, I had the sense that this was a major event in comic book history - possibly the best comic book story ever written. It's amazing to me that, after all of this time, that still holds up. Other comic epics are routinely compared to the Dark Phoenix story, and I have yet to read or even hear about anything that approaches it. For those that think comics are exclusively for kids, I hold this book up as Exhibit A. After seeing the X-men movies, my wife actually read it out of curiosity. She's the antithesis of a comic book person and had never heard of the X-men. She was actually impressed enough to read the rest of Byrne's X-men in Essential X-men Volume 2, and now looks down her nose a bit less at my childhood hobby. From the reviews I've seen so far, I don't need to go into detail about the story. For those of you who are relying on the X-men movies to give you the scoop, I have one word of advice: DON'T. The movies are really messing with the stories in an unacceptable way. While it's clear that they're going to attempt some kind of Phoenix plot in the next movie, it won't do the real story justice. The only way to truly experience this story is through these pages, panel by panel. I moved on from the X-men and comics a few years after the Dark Phoenix story was done, and I missed the whole return of Jean Grey. When I heard about it, I was severely disappointed that Marvel would take such a tragic character that transcended comics and reduce her to just another super hero that avoided death. Phoenix was so much more significant at the end of X-men #137, and bringing Jean Grey back has made both much less so. Most unfortunate. Still, it doesn't change my view of this story - truly amazing.
Rating:
Summary: Marvel's Greatest Story Ever Told - It Has It All!
Review: In the Dark Phoenix Saga, Chris Claremont and John Byre, firing on all cylinders, create the greatest comics story ever. It is a story that fits logically in the greatest run by an artist/writer team in a comic series ever (chronicled in the Essential X-Men Vol.2 graphic novel), but one that also stands so well on its own. In a story where so many things are done right, it stands out because it is a primarily a story about conflict. There is conflict on virtually every page. Not just shot-em up, video game violence, but internal, character-driven conflict. There is conflict between Prof. X and Cyclops over leadership of the X-men; between the fiery Wolverine and the control-freak Prof. X; Jean Grey struggles to control her dark side; Cyclops tries to mold the fiercly independent members of the X-men into a tight-knit team; Jean & Scott try to maintain their relationship thru the mounting chaos.... The X-men, the ultimate ousiders, rely on each other time and again and yet, their most powerful member turns on them and then saves them - repeatedly. The X-men have a truly worthy opponent in the Hellfire Culb. Obstacle after obstacle is overcome before the truly life and death battle at the climax. The escalation of tension is evere bit as gripping as when I read the original comics as a kid. Its lost none of the magic or mystery. There is none of the letdown so often felt when we re-visit the source of our nostalgia. There have been a half dozen stories that were much more revolutionary than the Dark Phoenix Saga - from the death of Gwen Stacey in Spider-Man, to The Dark Knight, the Watchmen and Crisis on Infinite Earths over at DC. Yet, for my money, Dark Phoenix is better - not for its novelty or originality or life-like art, but because its that good.
Rating:
Summary: One of the most important comic stories of all time
Review: The Dark Phoenix saga has too much backstory to really mention in a review. Both the history of the character of Jean Grey and the writer/artists conflicts with the then editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics isn't found anywhere in this book (and believe me, it adds a lot to the tale) but the co-plotters Chris Claremont and John Byrne (assisted by Terry Austin on inks and a huge acknowledgement to the overlooked Tom Orzechowski and his lettering) have written such an engaging tale that you can jump in anywhere and enjoy the story. The best thing is that they were not consciously setting out to write a "saga" and therefore, they weren't pressured to create something that would sell in the trade paperbacks twenty years on. It's just far and away a story with a punch: a gut wrenching finale and some of the most beautiful artwork of the era. This latest edition of the trade spruces up the artwork (no more dot matrix colors) and includes (for the first time) the much needed cover gallery, which was absent from previous printings. The art and story have hold up so well that almost a quarter of a century later it still stands as one of the best comic stories of all time.
Rating: 
Summary: Overrated and Dull
Review: Time travel has really messed up the X-Men series continunity and we have characters like Cable, Bishop, and X-man all coming from alternatime times. It can all be traced to Days of Future Past, a story that has haunted the X-Men and it;s readers with all sorts of time travel stories that have never made sense, and they still don't make sense in the current books today.
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