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This collection is labeled as “Days of Future Past” but seeing as the feature presentation is only a two issue story, there’s a great deal of padding on either side of it and while DOFP is tremendous, everything else in here kind of sucks.

Before the stories even begin, we’re given a massive amount of history bringing us up to date on what has been going down in the X-Men universe. We’re treated to lots of epic storytelling involving the birth of Phoenix, the death of many mutant brethren, and Cyclops’ departure from the group, leaving Storm as team captain.

From there, we’re thrust into a story involving Doctor Strange and the team's venture into a version of Hell inspired by Dante’s Inferno. Nightcrawler is accused of murder and his punishment is brought about by a demon. Sounds cool, right? Well, I was bored to tears and this is mostly due to the horrifically bad dialogue. Tip to Chris Claremont - when you’re using a visual medium like comic books, there’s no need for your characters to tell the reader every single thing they’re doing using the very limited space you have for dialogue. Let the images carry you.

The Days of Future Past story line itself was fantastic and I’m beyond excited for the big screen adaptation in just a few short weeks. From the trailers I've seen, it looks like the screenwriters are playing around with a few of the roles each character has in the original story - which is fine by me. I already have a deep rooted appreciation for anything post-apocalyptic and Claremont and company really nail it. Again, aside from a few complaints about dialogue, DOFP is one of the great stand-out X-Men tales I've read.

The final story involves Christmas and while that’s all well and good in playing to my inner Christmas fanatic, it was in a tough spot having to follow the book’s title track.

If you’re interested in brushing up on the original source material for Marvel’s upcoming X-Men big screen presentation, pick this book up and skip everything else inside. DOFP is the only thing worth checking out here.

Also posted @ Every Read Thing.