Next up in my X-Men Reading Project is Operation Zero Tolerance. When I picked up my copy, I was only able to find a pretty old edition, pictured above. Shortly after I got my old collection, there was a Milestones Edition released (just a few months ago in March 2020), pictured here. (I’ll bypass the ISBN and issue listings this time and just recommend the newer collection.)

If you’re going to grab one, I’d definitely go this route, as the prices are very reasonable, and because the copy I got literally started falling apart as I was reading it. It wasn’t a huge deal, and honestly it wasn’t all that surprising considering it was printed around 20 years ago. It was a pain to read however, as at first sections and then single pages came completely loose. Again, I wasn’t really upset, especially considering that I snagged it for really cheap, and this is the first time I got a beat up book in this entire big reading project (not bad out of 51 trade paperbacks so far).

I enjoyed the artwork, as this was still during the area I started on as a kid, and I’ve always been a fan of these X-Men and the looks they sported then. The backgrounds, inks and colors were good, too.

As far as the story (I’ll stay clear of details for potential spoilers as usual), I personally found this to be one of the least interesting so far. While I love the characters, I just didn’t find it exciting, and the end felt very anti-climatic.

As far as catching up on all of the major X-Men stories, I’m giving it a Recommended but with an Asterisk – I would at least read issue summaries to find out what happens if you don’t want to drop the money on the collection since it is one of the main stories. As far as adding it to your collection, I’d probably only go for it for the sake of completion.

2/5

Next up will be a single issue!