I am currently in the process of reading all the X men books in order of release, and the most recent book I finished was Essential X men volume 5. The essential volumes are a great way of reading decades old material in a sizeable amount and quite cheap, all you have to put up with is black and white art, which is fine because the majority of the art in this volume is Joh Romita Jr or Barry Windsor Smith, both of which draw great pencil work, though the constant rain in Lifedeath made it a little difficult to follow.

The part of the timeline is the late 180's and 190's of the Uncanny X-Men run. After a hundred issues of X men, Claremont is realy hitting his stride with the standard of his writing and characterisation. As he enters the mid-80's,comics were starting to be seen as a more adult medium, and it clearly shows in the subjects he tackles. The struggle of Storm losing her powers and the two part Lifedeath series is spectactular and should be read by anyone who believes Storm to be quite boring. The issue where Rogue's head gets taken over by Ms Marvel's psyche is heartbreaking, particularly when she confesses her love to a man who loved Ms Marvel and he doesn't recognise her at all. These psychological tales are more than your traditional superhero fare, but never fear there is still plenty of spandex clad fighting if thats your thing. Stories that stand out in particular are the two parter where New York is turned into a medieval kingdom and everyone forgets who they are but fill similar roles in a medieval fiefdom and the 100th issue anniversary Warhunt 2 where Thunderbird's brother returns to avenge his brothers death.

One thing that stands out when reading twenty issues in a row of this period is how clever Claremont was in building plotlines, Magneto's redemption, Rachel's appearance in the timeline and Nimrod are all mentioned and alluded too, building up to stuff happening in the next volume. But most of all the small mentions that all is not right in the Morlock Tunnels and when you consider that by the end of the volume you're only ten issues away from the first big X men crossover "Mutant Massacre" you realise how far back he planted the seeds.

Finally special mention has to go to Uncanny X Men #182. Many moons ago when I was knee high to a grasshopper, I found a bin of second hand comics which I raided and found this classic issue. Wolverine and Nightcrawler take Colossus to a bar to get him drunk after he dumps Kitty Pryde, and the issue culminates in a pitched battle between Colossus and Juggernaut. Pure genius, super heroes with true feelings. I love it. Roll on Volume 6.