Taken as a whole, this series is okay. But this collection of the last third (or so) of the original run was deeply disappointing. The entire story was never mind-blowing in the way the best X-Men and Fantastic Four runs were when Byrne was involved, but they were somewhat entertaining. But toward the end, it seemed like Byrne was heading toward one ending, then felt it wasn't impactful enough, pivoted toward either a second ending, or a last-minute plot twist, then slid back to that original ending.

Either way, the pivot was stupid, unnecessary, boring, obvious, and somewhat confusing. Most of the ending was somewhat confusing, to be honest, seeming to take jumps forward and leaving out some key scenes to leave in that unnecessary pivot, and to devote a few pages to cameos by Hellboy, Concrete, and a few other comics characters that served no purpose other than to say, "look who I got in my comic run!"

It seems that there are a lot of writers and artists that I once idolized that have let me down with their work in their later years. Frank Miller. Alan Moore. Howard Chaykin. Dave Sim. And now John Byrne.

Thank god Terry Moore, Garth Ennis, and Warren Ellis are still kicking ass. ( )