something i posted on tumblr some time ago
X-Men is one of the hugest and often most confusing corner of the Marvel Universe. Therefore despite its popularity it can be hard to get into. I’m hardly the most well read X-Men fan ever - yet - but I’ll try my best to give some pointers.
Old stuff
X-Men had a pretty rocky start which is frankly not looked back very fondly, and wasn’t very successful commercially either. I’ve heard some slightly more positive stuff about the Neal Adams era, but it’s not something I’ve read yet so I can’t rec it in good faith.
For the chronologically inclined, you’d be better off with reading some of the more recent reimagining.
X-Men Mythos is a gorgeous and rather dark one off story strongly inspired by Bryan Singer’s X-Men movies.
X-Men Season One was Hopeless’ more recent revisiting of the origin with a focus on Jean Grey.
X-Men First Class (no connection to the movie) is a very fun series focusing on the kids. (in their follow up there was also Wolverine: First Class which happens during the middle of Claremont’s era, with a focus on Kitty Pryde)
Claremont stuff
Claremont was undoubtedly the one author who had the most influence on the overall direction of the X-Men franchise, its characters and themes and moods. Under his writing it shaped out as having a sometimes melodramatic atmosphere, strongly focused on characters and thematics.
If you want to have an introduction of Claremont’s style without jumping right in a pretty damn long run, your best call is God Loves, Man Kills, a gorgeous and pretty dark graphic novel.
You could also try some of the most iconic stories, such as Phoenix Saga & Dark Phoenix Saga or Days of Future Past… but it’s the way each stories built onto one another and how you get attached to the characters that really makes this, so while the beginning is somewhat weak and funky, I’d recommend reading all of Claremont, at least once you get into the ’80s material.
Classic X-Men, a re-edition of early Claremont issues slightly reworked, is also worth checking for the back-up stories which explore various characters and offer some of the best, most subtle work characterization wise. I think most of them are gathered in a trade called X-Men: Vignette.
By the mid ’80s, X-Men also started becoming a franchise, with several spin of titles as well as some miniseries.
New Mutants portrayed a class of younger students. The beginning is a bit weak, but the characters definitely have a lot of appeal. Maybe skip to the third volume of TPB (starting with #18) to go to the best stuff. And stop when Simonson was on the title (she didn’t have a great handle on the characters).
Simonson’s X-Factor by Simonson (& Simonson ;) however was good, with a focus on the Original 5 (that’s Jean Grey, Cyclops, Beast, Iceman & Angel, aka the original cast of X-Men at its beginning minus Xavier) trying to deal with the growing anti-Mutant hysteria by setting themselves as an anti-Mutant team in order to rescue and form mutant kids - just start with Mutant Massacre and go from there, skipping the first few issues (which had another writer)
Excalibur is another spin off following on from the Fall of the Mutants storyline revolving around a team made of Nightcrawler, Kitty Pryde, Rachel Grey plus UK based superheroes Captain Britain and Meggan set in the UK. It’s pretty fanciful and light-hearted (compared to the darker turn X-Men titles took at that time).
There are several good miniseries with a focus on one or two characters, too, like the Wolverine mini from ‘82, Kitty Pryde and Wolverine, Fantastic Four vs X-Men, or Magik: Storm & Illyana.
90’s X-Men
The 90’s were a pretty confusing times for the X-Men… and I’m only barely halfway through the era in my own reading anyway. The Lobdell & Nicieza era isn’t awful, but it is, err, very 90’s.
The one thing I can unreservedly recommend for now is Peter David’s X-Factor - and to a lesser extent the follow up by Lobdell and then DeMateis (so far) -which were also solid. They deal with a team who works in cooperation with the government, and usually handle some of the political ramification themes better than other X-Men titles.
So we skip a fair amount of stuff I haven’t read forward to…
’00s X-Men
Grant Morrison’s run on X-Men (aka New X-Men) is very acclaimed and certainly made a splash and helped rejuvenate the franchise.
I have some very mixed feelings on this run. Otoh it’s got some brilliant ideas, especially in term of how it plays up the basic X-Men themes, and has fun writing and gorgeous art and efficient flow. Otoh Morrison has this tendency to sacrifice characterizations to his beautiful ideas in a way that makes me want to bash my head against a wall at times (Magneto especially suffers from some character assassination which was thankfully retconned) and often come across as mean spirited. Still it’s a good run overall, and not a bad way to start reading about X-Men. It’s a quite wacky and surrealist at times, which I don’t personally mind but might not be to the taste of everyone.
Also Mekanix by Claremont, is a Kitty Pryde focused miniseries that deals with some consequences of Morrison’s run that was good.
(Note: there are a lot of stuff contemporary to Morisson’s run which I haven’t actually read and therefore can’t rec, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t good).
It is followed by Joss Whedon’s run on Astonishing X-Men.
It builds well from Morrison while also trying to recapturing a more classic vibe, and it’s pretty good, profiting from Whedon’s gift for writing ensemble dynamics in a fun and witty way. It’s fairly separate from comicverse events so easy to get into without bothering with all that mess.
New Mutants (v2) & New X-Men (Academy X)
Was the ’00s era book for young mutants. It is divided in two runs, Academy X by Weir & DeFilippis before Decimation (New Mutants v2 #1-12+ New X-Men#1-19 + Hellion miniseries), and the run after by Kyle & Yost (#21-46). The former is kind of basic high school drama; and the latter is about giving a lot of poor innocent kids PTSD. Love the characters but it’s pretty uneven in terms of stories; so it’s rather superfluous.
Excalibur v3, by Claremont (#1-14)
If you like Xavier and Magneto having a lot of slashy interaction you should read it. If not, you can probably skip it. I also like that it deals with some of the consequences from Morisson’s run on X-Men, and it’s also a good lead up into House of M.
House of M
THE big crossover event that has influenced the most X-Men status quo by bringing on Decimation, in which the large majority of Mutants in the world were suddenly depowered. It’s not extremely good, but it’s kind of important for that. Also the art is gorgeous; and, if you like melodrama, the stuff dealing with Magneto and his family can be appreciated in a kind of epic tragedy way.
Decimation era of X-Men
X-Factor v3 by Peter David (starting with the Maddox miniseries; #1-still on going) is a very good, kind of Noir series about a detective agency ran by mutants in New York, as the impact of Decimation is being felt. It’s got nice ensemble chemistry and witty writing. It mostly does its own thing on the side of the other X-Titles so it’s a pretty easy way to start for newcomers.
X-Men by Carey (#188-204) (aka Adjectiveless. Because it’s the X-Men title not preceded by an adjective, ‘natch)
Deals with one X-Men team led by Rogue. Carey’s writing is very good and so is the art, Rogue in it is awesome (if you still remember her fondly from the first movies ^^), Mystique is also in it, and it leads well into the next big X-Men event.
Another series that is really peripheral to X-Men but I love to death is the Cable & Deadpool series (#1-50). It is hilarious and raises some interesting ideas as well; and is the most slashy text I’ve ever read or watched without technically being canon gay (and it’s a very thin technicality).
Messiah Complex
Is the following big X-Men crossover event. It deals with the birth of the first Mutant baby since Decimation, and the battle for seizing it. It’s okay-ish (as far as event goes).
At this point Carey’s run on X-Men is renamed X-Men Legacy, and starts focusing onto Xavier mostly and does a lot of continuity porn.
Latter on the run starts featuring Rogue again (#226), and dealing with some of the young X-Men as well. There was also the Age of X crossover with New Mutants (you don’t need to read New Mutants to appreciate it).
Carey’s writing overall is pretty damn good, with one of the best handle of characterization and X-Men continuity.
The next X-Men event is Utopia, detailing the mutants installing themselves on that island in San Francisco’s bay. I liked it.
Another minor but good title is New Mutants by Wells (v3 #1-21). It’s largely a nostalgia focused title, reuniting the original New Mutant team from the 80’s (now all grown up), but it has some very solid and epic storytelling, especially focusing on the effects of Magik’s return (in New X-Men, and then in the X-Infernus minseries). Much better to read about the old New Mutants before you try this one out, though, so not good for newcomers.
(I didn’t like the follow up by Abnet & Lanning as much but it’s hardly awful either)
The next big crossover is Second Coming, when the new Mutant baby comes back all grown up, which pretty much sets the most recent status quo for X-Men. It’s not bad.
Remender’s Uncanny X-Force dealing with a black op team doing the dirty jobs of going after their enemies before they can attack was an excellent piece of epic and horror storytelling with sober, tragic characterization. I mostly like the first half of it (up to #18, the end of Dark Angel saga), but most people also liked the second half.
Gillen’s run on Uncanny X-Men (#534.1-526) was very good. It strongly follows from the stuff from Fraction and Brubaker before him - but if you’ve read the big crossovers I have highlighted, it shouldn’t be too confusing without reading them (I haven’t). Gillen has an excellent eye for thematic and politics, and does some very solid work characterization-wise, shaping it into an excellent tragic story that leads into A vs X.
This all brought us to Schism,a pretty good event in which Wolverine and Cyclops argued about the role younger X-Men should play in combat ending with Wolverine leaving Utopia to found a new school, taking half the X-Men with him.
Gillen’s UXM was renumbered after Schism (and Wolverine & the X-Men was launched, for the other side of things, but I don’t like it much so I won’t rec it) but it’s definitely a whole, unified run thematically.
The last event with a big impact is Avengers vs X-Men, the big crossover in which the Phoenix came back, and the X-Men believed it would empower Hope to repower the mutants, and the Avengers thought it would destroy the earth and it had to be stopped; and everyone was assholes. I didn’t like AvX much, it’s a pretty awful, badly written event in which nobody looks good. The tie up are mostly okay though, especially UXM, and its impact are very important to the current status quo obviously. I might rec to just read the UXM tie up issue, and the A vs X: Consequences mini by Gillen to get the hang of the overall stuff. Otherwise just read some summaries (Comics Alliance had some hilarious ones).
For some miniseries with narrow focus during that era, I especially liked:
SWORD by Gillen
Best read after Whedon’s Astonishing (and before Gillen’s UXM) as a follow up on the agency protecting the earth from alien species - and vice verca - also featuring Beast.
Wolverine & Jubilee by Kathryn Immonem, for the Jubilee lovers, after the Curse of the Mutant crossover - and before her return in Adjectiveless (the Ghischler era of Adjectiveless is solid but pretty average and has very little depth character wise so is hardly essential in case you wonder)
X-23: Innocence Lost & X-23 - Target X
X-23 - the teenage female clone of Wolverine trained as an assassin & living weapon before she managed to escape - is probably one of the best recently created X-Men characters. Those minis tells her origin story and are pretty awesome (especially Target X). You might also want to check the Liu penned X-23 on going.
The two NYX miniseries aren’t exactly X-titles, but feature young mutants dealing with being mutants in New York with a very grunge and street level sensitivity and are pretty good.
Wolverine & the X-Men: Alpha & Omega by Wood is also a very solid story about Quentin Quire and Wolverine, and since I’m not reccing the actual W&tXM on going might be a good way to get that side of the story.
NOW X-Men
Lots of new titles as a result of the big NOW shake up. Since most of them are pretty green, it’s hard to really tell which ones will be great yet, but for a few introductions:
All New X-Men by Bendis is supposed to be the flagship title. It involved the very young O5 from the past being brought to the present and everyone dealing with it. A good title for new comers, since they provide fresh eyes to have things explained to them.
Cable & X-Force is a heist style series, so far with dynamic writing and some very good characterization. Probably better if you’re familiar with Cable & Hope (and Domino).
Uncanny X-Force has only just started, but I really liked its beginning, and it has some of the slickes redesigns ever, with a mostly female team.
X-Men Legacy is a slightly weird but promising so far title focusing on Legion, Charles Xavier’s son, dealing with his death after the events of AvX. It has a great pulp & weird vibe and some solid character work.
Also the current Gambit on going by Asmus is very good, with fast-paced, fun heist stories with gorgeous, male objectified art.
Beyond that, Wood’s Adjectiveless, with an all female team, sounds like it’s going to be interesting. I reserve my judgment for now on Bendis’ Uncanny X-Men dealing with Cyclops’ team of revolutionary mutants. Liu’s Astonishing X-Men is shaping up to something pretty good after a rather rocky start, too.
We’ll see for the rest!
Ask away if you want precisions, explanation, or additions; or if anything is unclear.
comments at the original post on Dreamwidth
Old stuff
X-Men had a pretty rocky start which is frankly not looked back very fondly, and wasn’t very successful commercially either. I’ve heard some slightly more positive stuff about the Neal Adams era, but it’s not something I’ve read yet so I can’t rec it in good faith.
For the chronologically inclined, you’d be better off with reading some of the more recent reimagining.
X-Men Mythos is a gorgeous and rather dark one off story strongly inspired by Bryan Singer’s X-Men movies.
X-Men Season One was Hopeless’ more recent revisiting of the origin with a focus on Jean Grey.
X-Men First Class (no connection to the movie) is a very fun series focusing on the kids. (in their follow up there was also Wolverine: First Class which happens during the middle of Claremont’s era, with a focus on Kitty Pryde)
Claremont stuff
Claremont was undoubtedly the one author who had the most influence on the overall direction of the X-Men franchise, its characters and themes and moods. Under his writing it shaped out as having a sometimes melodramatic atmosphere, strongly focused on characters and thematics.
If you want to have an introduction of Claremont’s style without jumping right in a pretty damn long run, your best call is God Loves, Man Kills, a gorgeous and pretty dark graphic novel.
You could also try some of the most iconic stories, such as Phoenix Saga & Dark Phoenix Saga or Days of Future Past… but it’s the way each stories built onto one another and how you get attached to the characters that really makes this, so while the beginning is somewhat weak and funky, I’d recommend reading all of Claremont, at least once you get into the ’80s material.
Classic X-Men, a re-edition of early Claremont issues slightly reworked, is also worth checking for the back-up stories which explore various characters and offer some of the best, most subtle work characterization wise. I think most of them are gathered in a trade called X-Men: Vignette.
By the mid ’80s, X-Men also started becoming a franchise, with several spin of titles as well as some miniseries.
New Mutants portrayed a class of younger students. The beginning is a bit weak, but the characters definitely have a lot of appeal. Maybe skip to the third volume of TPB (starting with #18) to go to the best stuff. And stop when Simonson was on the title (she didn’t have a great handle on the characters).
Simonson’s X-Factor by Simonson (& Simonson ;) however was good, with a focus on the Original 5 (that’s Jean Grey, Cyclops, Beast, Iceman & Angel, aka the original cast of X-Men at its beginning minus Xavier) trying to deal with the growing anti-Mutant hysteria by setting themselves as an anti-Mutant team in order to rescue and form mutant kids - just start with Mutant Massacre and go from there, skipping the first few issues (which had another writer)
Excalibur is another spin off following on from the Fall of the Mutants storyline revolving around a team made of Nightcrawler, Kitty Pryde, Rachel Grey plus UK based superheroes Captain Britain and Meggan set in the UK. It’s pretty fanciful and light-hearted (compared to the darker turn X-Men titles took at that time).
There are several good miniseries with a focus on one or two characters, too, like the Wolverine mini from ‘82, Kitty Pryde and Wolverine, Fantastic Four vs X-Men, or Magik: Storm & Illyana.
90’s X-Men
The 90’s were a pretty confusing times for the X-Men… and I’m only barely halfway through the era in my own reading anyway. The Lobdell & Nicieza era isn’t awful, but it is, err, very 90’s.
The one thing I can unreservedly recommend for now is Peter David’s X-Factor - and to a lesser extent the follow up by Lobdell and then DeMateis (so far) -which were also solid. They deal with a team who works in cooperation with the government, and usually handle some of the political ramification themes better than other X-Men titles.
So we skip a fair amount of stuff I haven’t read forward to…
’00s X-Men
Grant Morrison’s run on X-Men (aka New X-Men) is very acclaimed and certainly made a splash and helped rejuvenate the franchise.
I have some very mixed feelings on this run. Otoh it’s got some brilliant ideas, especially in term of how it plays up the basic X-Men themes, and has fun writing and gorgeous art and efficient flow. Otoh Morrison has this tendency to sacrifice characterizations to his beautiful ideas in a way that makes me want to bash my head against a wall at times (Magneto especially suffers from some character assassination which was thankfully retconned) and often come across as mean spirited. Still it’s a good run overall, and not a bad way to start reading about X-Men. It’s a quite wacky and surrealist at times, which I don’t personally mind but might not be to the taste of everyone.
Also Mekanix by Claremont, is a Kitty Pryde focused miniseries that deals with some consequences of Morrison’s run that was good.
(Note: there are a lot of stuff contemporary to Morisson’s run which I haven’t actually read and therefore can’t rec, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t good).
It is followed by Joss Whedon’s run on Astonishing X-Men.
It builds well from Morrison while also trying to recapturing a more classic vibe, and it’s pretty good, profiting from Whedon’s gift for writing ensemble dynamics in a fun and witty way. It’s fairly separate from comicverse events so easy to get into without bothering with all that mess.
New Mutants (v2) & New X-Men (Academy X)
Was the ’00s era book for young mutants. It is divided in two runs, Academy X by Weir & DeFilippis before Decimation (New Mutants v2 #1-12+ New X-Men#1-19 + Hellion miniseries), and the run after by Kyle & Yost (#21-46). The former is kind of basic high school drama; and the latter is about giving a lot of poor innocent kids PTSD. Love the characters but it’s pretty uneven in terms of stories; so it’s rather superfluous.
Excalibur v3, by Claremont (#1-14)
If you like Xavier and Magneto having a lot of slashy interaction you should read it. If not, you can probably skip it. I also like that it deals with some of the consequences from Morisson’s run on X-Men, and it’s also a good lead up into House of M.
House of M
THE big crossover event that has influenced the most X-Men status quo by bringing on Decimation, in which the large majority of Mutants in the world were suddenly depowered. It’s not extremely good, but it’s kind of important for that. Also the art is gorgeous; and, if you like melodrama, the stuff dealing with Magneto and his family can be appreciated in a kind of epic tragedy way.
Decimation era of X-Men
X-Factor v3 by Peter David (starting with the Maddox miniseries; #1-still on going) is a very good, kind of Noir series about a detective agency ran by mutants in New York, as the impact of Decimation is being felt. It’s got nice ensemble chemistry and witty writing. It mostly does its own thing on the side of the other X-Titles so it’s a pretty easy way to start for newcomers.
X-Men by Carey (#188-204) (aka Adjectiveless. Because it’s the X-Men title not preceded by an adjective, ‘natch)
Deals with one X-Men team led by Rogue. Carey’s writing is very good and so is the art, Rogue in it is awesome (if you still remember her fondly from the first movies ^^), Mystique is also in it, and it leads well into the next big X-Men event.
Another series that is really peripheral to X-Men but I love to death is the Cable & Deadpool series (#1-50). It is hilarious and raises some interesting ideas as well; and is the most slashy text I’ve ever read or watched without technically being canon gay (and it’s a very thin technicality).
Messiah Complex
Is the following big X-Men crossover event. It deals with the birth of the first Mutant baby since Decimation, and the battle for seizing it. It’s okay-ish (as far as event goes).
At this point Carey’s run on X-Men is renamed X-Men Legacy, and starts focusing onto Xavier mostly and does a lot of continuity porn.
Latter on the run starts featuring Rogue again (#226), and dealing with some of the young X-Men as well. There was also the Age of X crossover with New Mutants (you don’t need to read New Mutants to appreciate it).
Carey’s writing overall is pretty damn good, with one of the best handle of characterization and X-Men continuity.
The next X-Men event is Utopia, detailing the mutants installing themselves on that island in San Francisco’s bay. I liked it.
Another minor but good title is New Mutants by Wells (v3 #1-21). It’s largely a nostalgia focused title, reuniting the original New Mutant team from the 80’s (now all grown up), but it has some very solid and epic storytelling, especially focusing on the effects of Magik’s return (in New X-Men, and then in the X-Infernus minseries). Much better to read about the old New Mutants before you try this one out, though, so not good for newcomers.
(I didn’t like the follow up by Abnet & Lanning as much but it’s hardly awful either)
The next big crossover is Second Coming, when the new Mutant baby comes back all grown up, which pretty much sets the most recent status quo for X-Men. It’s not bad.
Remender’s Uncanny X-Force dealing with a black op team doing the dirty jobs of going after their enemies before they can attack was an excellent piece of epic and horror storytelling with sober, tragic characterization. I mostly like the first half of it (up to #18, the end of Dark Angel saga), but most people also liked the second half.
Gillen’s run on Uncanny X-Men (#534.1-526) was very good. It strongly follows from the stuff from Fraction and Brubaker before him - but if you’ve read the big crossovers I have highlighted, it shouldn’t be too confusing without reading them (I haven’t). Gillen has an excellent eye for thematic and politics, and does some very solid work characterization-wise, shaping it into an excellent tragic story that leads into A vs X.
This all brought us to Schism,a pretty good event in which Wolverine and Cyclops argued about the role younger X-Men should play in combat ending with Wolverine leaving Utopia to found a new school, taking half the X-Men with him.
Gillen’s UXM was renumbered after Schism (and Wolverine & the X-Men was launched, for the other side of things, but I don’t like it much so I won’t rec it) but it’s definitely a whole, unified run thematically.
The last event with a big impact is Avengers vs X-Men, the big crossover in which the Phoenix came back, and the X-Men believed it would empower Hope to repower the mutants, and the Avengers thought it would destroy the earth and it had to be stopped; and everyone was assholes. I didn’t like AvX much, it’s a pretty awful, badly written event in which nobody looks good. The tie up are mostly okay though, especially UXM, and its impact are very important to the current status quo obviously. I might rec to just read the UXM tie up issue, and the A vs X: Consequences mini by Gillen to get the hang of the overall stuff. Otherwise just read some summaries (Comics Alliance had some hilarious ones).
For some miniseries with narrow focus during that era, I especially liked:
SWORD by Gillen
Best read after Whedon’s Astonishing (and before Gillen’s UXM) as a follow up on the agency protecting the earth from alien species - and vice verca - also featuring Beast.
Wolverine & Jubilee by Kathryn Immonem, for the Jubilee lovers, after the Curse of the Mutant crossover - and before her return in Adjectiveless (the Ghischler era of Adjectiveless is solid but pretty average and has very little depth character wise so is hardly essential in case you wonder)
X-23: Innocence Lost & X-23 - Target X
X-23 - the teenage female clone of Wolverine trained as an assassin & living weapon before she managed to escape - is probably one of the best recently created X-Men characters. Those minis tells her origin story and are pretty awesome (especially Target X). You might also want to check the Liu penned X-23 on going.
The two NYX miniseries aren’t exactly X-titles, but feature young mutants dealing with being mutants in New York with a very grunge and street level sensitivity and are pretty good.
Wolverine & the X-Men: Alpha & Omega by Wood is also a very solid story about Quentin Quire and Wolverine, and since I’m not reccing the actual W&tXM on going might be a good way to get that side of the story.
NOW X-Men
Lots of new titles as a result of the big NOW shake up. Since most of them are pretty green, it’s hard to really tell which ones will be great yet, but for a few introductions:
All New X-Men by Bendis is supposed to be the flagship title. It involved the very young O5 from the past being brought to the present and everyone dealing with it. A good title for new comers, since they provide fresh eyes to have things explained to them.
Cable & X-Force is a heist style series, so far with dynamic writing and some very good characterization. Probably better if you’re familiar with Cable & Hope (and Domino).
Uncanny X-Force has only just started, but I really liked its beginning, and it has some of the slickes redesigns ever, with a mostly female team.
X-Men Legacy is a slightly weird but promising so far title focusing on Legion, Charles Xavier’s son, dealing with his death after the events of AvX. It has a great pulp & weird vibe and some solid character work.
Also the current Gambit on going by Asmus is very good, with fast-paced, fun heist stories with gorgeous, male objectified art.
Beyond that, Wood’s Adjectiveless, with an all female team, sounds like it’s going to be interesting. I reserve my judgment for now on Bendis’ Uncanny X-Men dealing with Cyclops’ team of revolutionary mutants. Liu’s Astonishing X-Men is shaping up to something pretty good after a rather rocky start, too.
We’ll see for the rest!
Ask away if you want precisions, explanation, or additions; or if anything is unclear.
comments at the original post on Dreamwidth