why so many x-men titles?

spooydermot

Hi there,

Someone gave me a few issues of the 'astonishing x-men' to read there a while ago, its the one written by Josh Whedon, so i thought i might look at a few more issues.

Anyway it appears that there are many many x-men titles (i had noticed before but it never really struck me until recently) theres 'uncanny x-men','ultimate x-men'....'x-men unplugged in new york'

So i was just woundering, do all of these tie in togeather, or are they seperate universes?

Also what title came before Astonishing x-men, from the gist of it i got that it was part of some continuity?

cheers
D

][cEMAN**

It's Marvel taking a popular title and squeezing as much royalties out of it as possible. They do the same with spiderman.

The spin off series usually don't match up to the usual universe, but then they're normally so abstract that it doesn't matter. They have I think about 4 regular titles though, which they make sure they keep in the same universe and timeline (but different stories) so that they can do crossovers where people have to buy other series to read it that they wouldn't normally have bought before.

For big fans of the titles, who get the books anyway, crossovers are fantastic running stories. For people who might just read 1 title, they're a waste of money in most cases, and can put some people off.

Epitaph

Pretty much stopped reading X-Men after Milligan took over from Austen. Not because I liked Austen/hated Milligan, but I just couldn't be bothered. Absolutely no interest.
Claremont's Uncanny is as boring as anything, only a few character pieces save it.

(Yes, I know Austen had Uncanny, but Milligan took his characters for X-Men. Claremont practically carried on when X-Treme was cancelled, just renamed it Uncanny.)

Picked up Astonishing based on Cassaday's unbelievable art in Planetary, Whedon's doing well.

New X-Men (formerly had the Academy X subtitle) is interesting, current and previous arcs not as good as prior stories, but love the new characters. It's an excellent read for younger readers too, IMO.

(Also, FYI Astonishing was titled "New X-Men" under Grant Morrison's pen, before Whedon took over - excellent stories, check the TPBs if you can).

Not mentioning Cable & Deadpool (mismatched pairing but hella funny), and District X (Bishop: "Hey, I'm a cop. Let's roll, Shipowitz").

Ultimate X-Men's gone to the dogs since Millar left. Neither Bendis nor Vaughan can seem to bottle lightening again.

spooydermot

Epitaph wrote:

(Also, FYI Astonishing was titled "New X-Men" under Grant Morrison's pen, before Whedon took over - excellent stories, check the TPBs if you can).

ah..so I need to read 'new x-men' for a lead into Whedons Astonishing x-men?

Epitaph

spooydermot wrote:

ah..so I need to read 'new x-men' for a lead into Whedons Astonishing x-men?

If you want to, yes. The "old" New X-Men, not the "new" one with the kids.

Christ almighty, you'd think that they'd invent some new names instead of recycling the adjectives!

Anyone remember/care when they reissued...
Deadpool = Agent X (lasted emm 13 issues)
Cable = Soldier X (lasted similar pathetic length)

Nothing wrong with the quality of the writing (Gail Simone on Agent X was excellent) but X this, X that

"I'll X this up your fupping X!"

Drastic

Epitaph wrote:

Ultimate X-Men's gone to the dogs since Millar left. Neither Bendis nor Vaughan can seem to bottle lightening again.

this weeks issue was great.
although i love BKV, I'm just not getting his UXM. pretty strange

superfly

i was a massive fan of all the x-comics but stopped buying comics about 10 years ago
what would you recommend to get in TPB?

][cEMAN**

Personally I recommend God loves man kills.

If you can pick up the age of apocalypse that was pretty good too.

I loved the Phalanx saga. It was the first time I saw the X-men being hunted down and outmatched. Though i've only been collecting since about 92/93.

Recently (since "the twelve") i've not been interested at all in the story. They changed the characters after the first film came out. That was hard to adapt to, then the new writers came on and I just gave up. I found myself reading the comic but not even paying attention to it. It became a chore to read them.

I moved onto Ultimate X-Men though. As they started this in a completely new way, the stories didn't have to stay in the same timeline and continuity, and they had freedom to do what they wanted. The stories have been pretty good for what i've read.

I still have a load of issues in boxes though that I just haven't gotten around to reading yet.

superfly

i collected seriously, roughly from about X-men 200 until about 300 and slipped away, but i'd say i still have about 5000 American comics and about 10,000 old british ones
my attic and spare room is heaving with them :roll:

][cEMAN**

I was from about 290 through to around 4xx? Can't even remember what the last issue was that I bought because I really just wasn't interested in them by that point.

They were becoming comics about movie super heroes (sunglasses and tans) rather than the standard superhero comics I loved.

But I wanted a comic with some semi serious emotional plot lines, but thrown in with some ass kicking goodness. I could have gone for a 'realistic' comic, but the plot lines would have annoyed me, and 'normal people' beating each other up is boring. If I wanted to see that, i'd just head up the town and watch it there.

iguana

Uncanny X-men really lost it in the mid-80's. At around the time of the first big, big crossover The Secret Wars. I remember reading them as a kid, so I had fond memories until I read them again recently.

Most of the stories make no sense. Stupid thing happen for no reason. They try to be funny, but end up being stupid. They try to do the real emotional issues, but end up worse than a bad soap opera. The action stories are pointless and contradict each other. Many of the new characters were ridiculous. What kind of mutant power is "good at languages," "lucky" or "can invent stuff?"

I can't help but notice that this was also around the same time that the spin-off's really started. New-mutants, for example, which I've read little of but can't comment on. But it would be within a year of their beginning that X-men went stupid.

I quite liked some of the original X-factor, possibly because I was 11 when I read about Jean Greys death and I mourned for years. And some of the later issues of Excaliber weren't bad, and Cable, X-man an Wolverine all had their moments. But all the spin-offs just destroyed the ability for there to be a consistently good book.

I think much of the 90's was spent both struggling to get out of the hole so many books were creating but also trying to make readers buy them all. Every year for a while there was a big X-crossover. AOA, Onslaught (tied to Hero's Reborn), Operation Zero Tolerance, The Twelve, AOA2, The Neo, some Evolution story were they all became human (I'd stopped buying several years before, I went as far as OZT then realised I'd stopped caring). Making it impossible to know what was going on if you only read one book. I remember getting 11 X-titles a month at one stage.

I started reading again just before Morrison's run. New X-men were fantastic for the 1st year, then they started getting too convoluted, this time I couldn't bring myself to care about JG's fate. The X-men were also not bad during this time. I liked the Juggernaut/Sammy relationship- the rest was kind of take it or leave it, esp anything with Paige. EXtreme was god-awful, esp the God Loves Man Kills 2 story. That was a form of heresy, nothing but an attempt to justify the awful X2.

Ultimate X-men has been great, esp no. 17. But I like the new take on the universe and the chance to see how the different relationships work out, without 40 years of history weighing it down.

Astonishing is fantastic in spite of the resurrection! It's the best the books have been in 20 years. The others are ok, read them if the cost isn't a problem, if it is; don't bother. Apart from Uncanny, avoid that like the plague. Claremount was terrible 20 years ago but now you get to compare it to the likes of Astonishing and see just how much it sucks.

TCamen

Like others, I read X-Men comics religiously in the early-mid 90s, re-reading the older TPB like 'From The Ashes', but also collecting the monthly titles of 'X-Men', 'Uncanny X-Men' and 'Generation X'. I just had to give up after the Onslaught Mega-Marvel-crossover-event-cash-in. It just all became so lame and tired, and there was NONE of the spark evident in the storylines compared to the previous ones like 'Phalanx Covenant', 'Legion Quest' and 'Age of Apocalypse' ('95). Like iguana, around the mid-90s, I was getting the monthly range of X-titles that I just didn't care about so I cancelled my order and just stopped.

What has rekindled my interest in comics again was when I read about the (then) upcoming 'Phoenix Endsong' miniseries last December. Which of course led me to wonder what was going on with Jean Grey (easily my favourite character), so I was sucked into buying Grant Morrison's "New X-Men", which I enjoyed apart from some very very awful artwork (and annoyingly, in some of the more action-heavy issues too!). After I read that, the first TPB of Joss Whedon's "Astonishing X-Men" was out so I hopped on board with that, after I found out that it carried on directly from "New X-Men" with the characters and team roster. I enjoy Whedon's quips and banter between the characters, but I feel some of the storylines, like the current 'Danger Room' one, are a bit hackneyed and uninspired. Hopefully we'll see some nice arcs appearing towards the end of his first year on the title (Both Whedon and Cassaday are staying with Astonishing for another year, so at least there will be consistency...I hope!).

Of course, reading just one lineup of characters with 'New X-Men' and 'Astonishing X-Men', when I saw older teammates appear in 'Phoenix Endsong', I too had questions about all the various X-titles, and who was in what, and if they were any good. I found a particularly useful reference on Answers.com, though I wouldn't recommend anyone who plans to read 'New X-Men' go all the way down the page, as spoilers are particularly bad for that title. The article greatly helped me understand the various titles, and more importantly, give me a quick overview of the main arcs I'd missed in the past decade.

Answers.com - X-Men

For the most part, I'm quite happy just collecting 'Astonishing' for now, and re-reading the older 'Uncanny X-Men' through the Marvel Masterwork hardback books. I've been tempted to get the TPB of 'Avengers Dissasembled' because apparently it's important to read before 'House of M' (this year's Mega-Marvel event). I also decided to get the 'House of M' prologue chapter in 'Excalibur' #13/14. And in doing so, I've reminded myself why Marvel sometimes goes too far with its hype and $$$$ about the 'events'.

Basically, I picked up 'Excalibur' #13 because it was supposed to give some info on 'House of M'. Now, the comic is 90% taken up with the final part of a storyline that is irrelevant (for me as a non-Excalibur reader), and only the last 2/3 pages have anything regarding 'House of M', and even then it is 100% missable, as nothing really happens at all. So it certainly raises concerns, particularly for collectors who will want every issue of the 'House of M' crossover (it totals 40 odd comics from X-Men, Hulk, Spider-man, Fantastic Four, Cable & Deadpool etc). I'm provisionally going to invest in the 8 issue 'House of M' main comic, and then see if I'm bothered with any of the mini-arc follow-on stories, but so far, it leaves me feeling cheated into buying a comic that REALLY wasn't relevant, but they knew if they made it SEEM relevant, then suckers would pay - it was only €3 or whatever, but not really the point!

Like others have mentioned, Morrison's "New X-Men" and Whedon's "Astonishing X-Men" follow one team of X-Men, and the other titles "Uncanny" etc. are NOT necessary to read because the storylines are self-contained in "New.." and "Astonishing...". So unless you really care about every single X-Men member and the different teams, I wouldn't bother with them. Listed below is the continuity outline for the "New X-Men"/"Astonishing X-Men" strand.


New X-Men Vol 1 "E is for Extinction"
New X-Men Vol 2 "Imperial"
New X-Men Vol 3 "New Worlds"
New X-Men Vol 4 "Riot at Xavier's"
New X-Men Vol 5 "Assault on Weapon Plus"
New X-Men Vol 6 "Planet X"
New X-Men Vol 7 "Here Comes Tomorrow"
Astonishing X-Men Vol 1 "Gifted"
Astonishing X-Men Vol 2 "Dangerous" - Due September 2005

Fysh

Ah, marvel and crossovers. Yeah, Bendis was on about how people wouldn't have to buy everything to understand what House of M was about. The exact quote was "Again, our advice to fans is basically we'd love for you to buy them all, but at the end of the day buy what interests you and buy what you can afford".

Of course, he then followed this up with "I will be honest, though, the way it's laid out, you're going to read what happens to Spider-Man in "House of M" and we're going to make it impossible for you not to want to pick that up. You could pick up what you want, but we're going to play hardball. Except for "The Pulse," you have to buy "The Pulse.""

More here

Frankly it sounds like your typical Marvel "event" - another excuse to throw around the old cliché that "nothing will ever be the same again" while not actually committing themselves to any change other than introducing a couple of characters and *gasp* people having a bit of a row.

All a bit too Desperate Housewives for me to take it seriously (like, in fact, most bloody comics Marvel put out). But then again, Marvel's ideal target audience seems to be about half my age (and I'm only 23).