I’ve been an X-Men fan since the mid 80’s. I’ve followed the Children of the Atom with a fondness and love that has always been my go-to anchor in this world.

At my lowest of lows, the X-Men were always there to bring me up.

This new crossover event though. It’s rough.


The quick and dirty is Doug Ramsey, since Krakoa, modified his abilities (originally just translating languages) and has achieved his ultimate form of being able to manipulate language in any form, be it control over others, zeros and ones, etc. essentially giving him the power to “save the world” from a mysterious X-Virus that has mutated or killed most of the population. That coupled with his mentorship by Apocalypse during the Krakoan era seems to have tipped his hat to the “Survival of the Fittest” mantra that Apocalypse held so near and dear.


There’s a great premise to be had here but I feel like the execution went awry. An Age of Apocalypse style crossover has turned into a Secret Wars II event where the story fell short, the crossover books were done just to sell more books and the shock value and repercussions of all of it will be fleeting if not completely unmemorable. While the original AoA style crossover has been tried (and failed) within the X-book before (Age of X-Man) this one seems particularly grossly negligent as far as producing anything worth furthering the story other than an opening book, an ending book and a few cosmetically changed main books.


I’m gonna run this down book by book. I’ve read 90% of the books in this event and I’m disappointed. While the original AoA event was a book for book switch, this event has opted to make seventeen different 3 issue minis replacing the 5 or so ongoing x-books they had running prior to the event. Yes, I said seventeen. I’m both overwhelmed at the sheer amount of books and at the same time underwhelmed at the way it’s being handled both story-wise (so far) and the individual stories.


Amazing X-Men – Replaces X-Men. This is a decent story that follows the actual X-Men book’s main characters. It ties in to the basic overall concept of the crossover. This book does some cool stuff with Cyclops and Beast as well as Magik / Darkchylde. It’s a good tie-in. Nuff said without spoilers.


Binary – Replaces Phoenix? (it ended right as this started) Carol Danvers gets the Phoenix force. The story covers her protecting ONLY her home town in Massachusetts which seems like a complete waste. There’s zero point to this story, it furthers nothing in the event and quite frankly is an embarrassment to the Phoenix legacy. Again I haven’t finished the full crossover yet but if it ends in some other way than Phoenix retconning the Age of Revelation, it’s doing a disservice to the character and the power of Phoenix.


Laura Kinney: Sabretooth – Replaces Laura Kinney: Wolverine. Giving Laura the moniker of Sabretooth makes no sense and is pointless. It disjointedly alludes to a romance she had with a progeny of Sabretooth? Maybe? They have a kid. It brings all the Wolverine family books together but not Wolverine who only shows up for a few panels. Akihiro and Gabby are inconsequential and this entire story could have been handled in a one issue “World of Revelation” type book.


Longshots – Replaces nothing. This is a Mojo-verse story that does zero for crossover plot development, fails miserably at comic relief and pokes fun at the original AoA subplot of Bishop as the time traveler that remembers everything but you probably won’t get it.  The Longshots are Bishop, Hellcat, Wonderman, Rhino and Kraven the Hunter. At the end they mention an upcoming Hellcat / Wonderman book but I could care less and if I owned a bird and had as much disrespect for comics as Marvel’s X-office seems to have for its readers, it would be lining the bottom of a cage right now.


Unbreakable X-Men – Replaces Uncanny X-Men. Look. I love Gail Simone’s writing. I really do. I’m not completely in love with Gail Simone’s X-Men. Yet. Unbreakable ties the Uncanny characters into the main story crossover. The story seems to be a continuation of one of her previous story arcs rather than be a bigger part of the overall crossover. There was a lot more potential for what the characters in this book could have done in the overall story.


Iron & Frost – Replaces Iron Man? This book doesn’t need 3 issues. It tells us where Tony Stark and Emma Frost are during the crossover and it’s also trying to bring the Emma / Tony “ship” back into the spotlight from the Fall of X crossover. It’s cool to see what happened to Emma, but that could have been part of a main book, and didn’t need 3 issues to say Tony left a massive hole in her heart, literally and figuratively.


Sinister’s Six – Replaces X-Force. Putting the cure for this world’s “X-Virus” in the hands of Sinister? Wasn’t that just done in the Sins of Sinister crossover? Or something similar? I’m kinda sick of Sinister as no one has ever got him right past Inferno with the exception of Hickman during Krakoa.


Rogue Storm – Replaces Storm which also ended. She’s in Avengers and it looks like she's getting a new ongoing book or mini in 2026. This book puts Storm at odds with “evil” Rogue who was split into Green and Red Rogue… based on the two outfit colors she’s worn over her 50 year tenure in the Marvel Universe. Ask me how to take a beloved character and reduce her to nothing more than her fashion sense and I give you the Age of Revelation Rogue(s). I’m not even sure what’s happening in this book as Ororo not only fights with Red Rogue but also some other demon spirit that may have crossed over from her main book? The ruler of Arrako deserved better.


X-Men: Book of Revelation – This seems to be the main story and plotline of the crossover but in 3 issues barely gives a full storyline of what actually is going on. Issue 2 has a great reveal but I think this format of seventeen books times 3 issues each telling a story that could have been done in a 6 – 10 part main book is both mind-numbing and insulting to anyone who signs on for this event. The entire crossover should have been this book and maybe 3 other replacement books.


Omega Kids – Replaces nothing. This is the story of Quentin Quire trying, with zero experience and even less talent, to shape a strike force of psychic children into finding and eliminating Revelation dissenters. It makes no sense. Revelation’s powers are already that he sees and hears anything and everything going on in his territories with his communicative powers through the environment. This was a known thing throughout Krakoa and he has Fabian Cortez and others boosting his power. There’s no need for Quentin Quire, his pink beard, his Children of the Psychic Corn or this book at all. Tiny subplot at best.


The Last Wolverine – This is another example of creating a new character, based on an old character, repackaging it and praying for the new break-out character of 2025.

“Kid Wendigo” is not gonna be that. Ever.

Putting him in the iconic yellow and black suit won’t do it.

Calling him Wolverine won’t do it.

Making him friends with Kurt won’t do it.

This book doesn’t do it.

I hate the concept. I hate this book.


Radioactive Spider-Man – This is another book that should go in a World of Revelation side book. I don’t care what happened to Spider-Man during this or that Aunt May is a mutant kaiju. It’s fine as a side story but it definitely didn’t need its own book.


Expatriate X-Men – Replaces Extraordinary X-Men. I only read Extraordinary X-Men for Emma and Kitty. The rest of the new characters and story arcs are already being done in Uncanny. Having a second X-book doing it is completely unnecessary. Thank God Jed McKay had the good sense NOT to also do this on the main X-Men. I just don’t care about the new mutants on Uncanny or Extraordinary. They’re gonna be side notes in the history of X in 3 years or whenever those writers move on. You’ll find them in the dollar boxes soon.


X-Vengers – Replaces Avengers? Dani Moonstar as Captain America. OK. I dig it. I grew up with the New Mutants. They were my age. They were my heroes. Having Dani, Sam and Roberto in a book about taking down evil Doug Ramsey is great! This should be a bigger part of the main story and should have every New Mutant they could cram into it. Doug was the first of them to die. Now he’s evil and taken over the world. Why wouldn’t the entirety of the New Mutants even remotely be involved? Great concept, failed delivery.


Undeadpool – Replaces Deadpool. This is a side book that also brings nothing to the table. Kinda like the current Deadpool book and the plethora of Deadpool crossover books that are popping because… catchphrase, Deadpool.

Not even joking there have been at LEAST 10 Deadpool crossover books in 2025.

Kinda sick of him at the moment.


Cloak or Dagger – 100% needless book. Cloak and Dagger was always a great concept that was never given its due which now carries over right to here being absolutely meaningless in the Age of Revelation.


The last 6 books aren’t out till next week. While I’ll be reading them, I’m not happy with the fact that by the end of this I’ll have purchased 54 comics and got maybe 10 issues of decent storyline to this event. It feels like all the writers are phoning these crossover books in. They seem to have taken their current story arcs, got told “it’s crossover time” and then shoe-horned Age of Revelation into it.

To say the X-Office at Marvel is disappointing at the moment is an understatement.

This is the first time in forty years I’ve actually considered taking X-books off my pull list.

This is the first time in forty years it feels like a chore to read X-Men.

This is the first time in forty years that my heroes aren’t my heroes anymore.

This crossover breaks my heart more than anything.



~ RJ Marchese