Avengers/X-Men: Utopia (Dark Avengers/Uncanny X-Men: Utopia)

As the dark reign of the goblin king continues, circumstances demand that Osborn and his flying circus( literally thanks to the helicopter) go west to San Francisco to quell riots. Naturally, Osborn takes this opportunity to strengthen his grip on the marvel universe, in this case the mutants, whom do far have remained largely free of his influence. But in San Francisco Osborn encounters something he was not expecting, a true equal and rival in Scott Summers, the Cyclops. This is a man who loves it when a plan comes together, and watching his verbal duels with osborn were the highlight of the book for me. This collection has the whole crossover that is utopia, along with the confession, which caps off the scott/emma pressure that is a major facet of the story, as well as a three part miniseries that explains why the various members of osborns' X-Men team signed up. Also there are two issues of another X-Men book that follow rouge and gambit. Of these other stories, I liked the confession the most. I've always liked Scott and Emma together, and this issue cemented to my why they work so well together. Basically the entire issue is just the two of them confessing( hence the name) various secrets that have built up between them. Emma's secrets are kind of par for the course with her character, but don't require a lot of prior knowledge of her. Scott confesses about X-Force, which if you don't know the book kind of explains but a lot of the impact of what he did is lost without prior knowledge. The art is good the whole way through the collection, Deodato and the Dodsons draw most of the book and they probably some of my favorite artists.

Great condition and a reasonable price

There are ~20 reviews on the plot/graphics, etc, so I'll stick to the presentation.I'd give it 3.5 stars, but definitely not 4. This one has the "comic panel" zoom thing, which helps in many of the "tighter" shots to let you read the smaller/less contrasty text caption that appear, but not always. IF the panel is a wide one, there's not much zoom occurring because it only zooms to, at most, fill the screen. A panel that's 90% the page width only gets bumped up about 10% as a result.The problem with these specific digital versions is that they are crippled compared to a large JPG or PDF rendering. On my Kindle magazines, I can pinch/stretch to zoom, etc. You can't do that on most (all?) of the comics I've tried so far. On a typical single page panel setup, it's not a problem... generally.But the "high impact" shots, two page spreads are STILL rendered as a single page in the digital versions. Worse, you can't tilt the reader on its side and have it auto-adjust to landscape mode with these digital comics (unlike with magazines). That means just when you NEED a zoom the most, you are left seeing the top (and bottom) third of the screen blank. I assume this is a limit on the iwhatever versions too, as this is NOT a Kindle specific problem, as, again, my magazines let me do this as with a regular PDF.All in all, 300+ pages for a ten spot isn't bad (even if 30 are a repeated cover saying swipe to continue), but you're better off with a used softcover version and a automatic document feeder/scanner. I ran into this with all the comics (all marvel) I've tried so far. I may try the Red Sun DC one and see if that's any better, but otherwise I'll likely skip any more for a while to see if they improve the format.

This hardcover contains: [Dark Avengers/ Uncanny X-Men: Utopia, Dark Avengers/ Uncanny X-Men: Exodus, Uncanny X-Men #513-514, Dark Avengers #7-8, Dark X-Men: The Beginning #1-3; X-Men Legacy #226-227, Dark X-Men: the Confession, and parts of The Cabal]Overall enjoyed reading this graphic novel. Storyline's percise with a couple of twists and turns. Artwork absolutely wonderful ( Marc Silvestri and Mike Deodato).Would recommend those who are an X-Men fan or a Dark Avengers fan. Also, this is not recommended for those who are starting to read the X-Men franchise though. Lastly, skip reading "Dark x-Men: The Beginning", because it's redundant and seems like a thirteen year old wrote those.

This book is pretty cool. It pits Cyclops up against Norman Osborn. Who can outwit the other.Emma Frost betrayal to Cyclops and the X-Men. Mostly a backstory into Emma Frost at the end. Cyclops uses the Osborn media press against him in the end. Osborn beat the hell out of Cyclops. Teams fought to a draw. Books also shows Osborn Dark Reign. How he got Daken. Showing him how to be classy. Recruiting Mystique. Dealing with the Cabal and getting outsmarted by Northstar crazy sister. Wtf? Really

I loved this graphic novel cept for a couple of things. 1 on some pages there was a big black bar that goes across the page and it covers up a big part of the panels on that pages. 2 the difference in art from chapter to chapter or book to book is big and was a bit of a turn off but you do get used to it after a page or two.(only a minor quibble but you still will wish it wasn't like that)

I'm familiar with the avengers and many Marvel characters, less so with the X-Men. However, these are the dark Avengers and dark X-Men, so it lead to quite a bit of confusion on my part, particularly with Norman Osborne being the leader of these 2 dark teams. I guess I'll have to go back and read some of the earlier stories. I would recommend this book, but mainly to those who are familiar with the background.I can't really complain about either the artwork or the text, as both were usually good and easy to read with the panel view.I read this on my 7"kindle fire HD.

Gives a little too much credit to Osborn, but overall an interesting concept.

As other reviewers have noted the Amazon product description is not quite right - what you get here is material from X-Men Utopia and Exodus, Uncanny X-Men 513-514, Dark Avengers 7-8, X-Men Legacy 226-227, Dark X-Men The Confession, Dark Reign The Cabal (part) and Dark X-Men The Beginning 1-3. Whilst you get quite a lot of content for your money, the main interest of the book is over about half way through. The X-Men Utopia / Exodus, Dark Avengers and Uncanny X-Men issues tell the story of Norman Osbourne founding his own version of the X-Men as a parallel to his Dark Avengers team. This story is interesting enough and we also get some decent artwork from artists like Marc Silvestri, Terry Dodson and Luke Ross. I think the book suffers a little from having a veritable legion of different pencillers and inkers work on display as the book lacks a consistent look and feel although in fairness this is a relatively minor quibble. A book which included just the foregoing would have been fine. What I found a little disappointing was the second half of the book: the X-Men Legacy issues simply give another take on the main storyline and don't add much that I could spot while the rest of the collection is essentially a series of short stories filling in some of the back story. Most /all of this back story is not needed to enjoy the main narrative and I got bored with quite a bit of it.

You get a bunch of content in this oversized hardback not just what is listed above. From the back of the book you get:.Dark Avengers/Uncanny X-Men: UtopiaUncanny X-Men #513-514,Dark Avengers #7-8,Dark Avengers/Uncanny X-Men: Exoduswhich make up the main story.plusDark X-Men: The Beginning #1-3,X-Men Legacy #226-227,Dark X-Men: The Confessionand material from Dark Reign: The Cabal.There is also a few pages of cover art from the original comics..The main story is well told and worth the price of admission, however the art is inconsistent between the different chapters and ranges from excellent (Marc Silvestri) to pretty average. The rest of the content is nice to have and fills in some of the back story but is not in the same class as the main story.

This book is definitely worth a try, but beware, it isn't an easy reading. The storyline is great, very enjoyable, but You have to be prepared to be able to follow the story. The characters are likable and funny when needed, the art is fantastic, it’s good to look at. I recommend this book to anyone who loves comics or just interested in getting to know the genre.

I'm looking forward to reading this book. Very pleased. Thank you.

This was a great read.And got to me in great time despite the weather at christmas.The only thing I might suggest is that you read the backup stories first,and the main tale last.(I had read them all before, and preferred to leave the best part of story until last)