John Byrne is perhaps one of the best known comic writers at both Marvel and DC. Over the years, he’s created Alpha Flight, changed the X-Men from a being a struggling title to Marvel’s flagship book during the 80’s, revamped Superman, and so much more.
In 1999, Byrne returned to writing the X-Men. This new series was titled X-Men: The Hidden Years and featured the original team and told brand new stories set before the Uncanny X-Men period. It ran for 22 issues. All of them as well certain key tie-in issues like Fantastic Four 102-104, X-Men 94, and Amazing Adult Fantasy 14 are collected in the recent X-Men: The Hidden Years Omnibus. The omnibus contains a total of 640 pages of stories and bonus materials and can often be found discounted to around $70. These stories, while fun with great art, are a far cry from the quality of Byrne’s earlier work on the X-Men and certainly isn’t groundbreaking.
On the upside, though, these stories aren’t bogged down by the sort politically dividing tales that Marvel suffers from sometimes today. Still, if you’re a hardcore fan of the merry band of mutants, the omnibus is worth adding to your collection.
