Getting through the Silver Age Era of the X-Men is the most difficult time I've had reading X-Men comics. It's not any worse than the convoluted late 90s where storylines just disappeared as their hacky writers got too overwhelmed to figure out endings. But as I grew up in the 90s and was familiar with that style, I found it easier to eyeroll over those speedbumpy pages than the "Holy, Hannah, it's time for another dull alien or mutant to monologue through a few pages before we never have to think of them again!" era of the X-Men.

I made it through this time, though. And while I didn't exactly enjoy it, I finally feel comfortable saying that it doesn't suck, it just isn't for me or very many modern readers. Ed Piskor's Grand Design, which is also not exactly the pinnacle of great writing, is a much more compact way to read the silver-age material, and you really don't miss much.

Apart from Neal Adams's evolution in panel design and X-Men costumes from the last dozen or so 1960s comics, there's not a lot of historically relevant art or writing after the first couple of hacky storyarcs in the original series.

You'll find that nothing from this post ends up in my headcanon. It doesn't mean this is all bad or that you shouldn't pick it up without gloves, tongs, and a ton of bleach. If you can stomach Silver Age writing, this post is filled with books that provide is a mostly mediocre X-perience. There's certainly no dearth of story here. It's just a repetitive story without a ton of development or interesting villains.

X-Men First Class Mutant Mayhem by Jeff Parker, Roger Cruz, Kevin Nowlan, Paul Smith, Mike Allred, Nick Dragotta, and Colleen Coover
X-Men: Prof X, Angel, Cyclops, Beast, Iceman, Jean Grey
1st Appearances: Invisible Woman, Mr. Fantastic, Thing, Human Torch, Mad Thinker, Hulk
Also featuring: Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, Blob, Juggernaut, Dragon Man

 While not So Good You Don't Have To Read The Original Stuff, Just Read This Instead, this is a solid addition to the early X-Men canon. Sure, it provides a little headache, as the technology and cultural references place this in the early twenty-first century instead of the mid-twentieth, but Parker's ability to get the general feel of the early X-books but infuse more personality and character into the, well, characters. I still recommend this as a buffer between the silver age Epic Collections.

In particular, the story where Sue Storm and The Fantastic Four allow Jean Grey some time to spend time with a role model who isn't an angry old man, and Beast and Iceman's road trip to The Florida Keys.

X-Men First Class Brand Of Brothers by Jeff Parker, Roger Cruz, Craig Rousseau, and Colleen Coover
X-Men: Prof X, Angel, Cyclops, Beast, Iceman, Jean Grey
1st Appearances:  none
Also featuring: Sentinels, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Mastermind, Magneto, Blob

Unfortunately, Marvel's collections editors are rarely ever good at their jobs, so there's a bunch of repeat material in this collection. The new material is okay but not as strong as the previous volumes. 

This is an entirely skippable chapter of the original team's adventures. It's not part of continuity, it's not very fun or original, and it doesn't add anything to mythos that surrounds it.

X-Men First Class The Wonder Years by  Jeff Parker, Roger Langridge, Nick Dragotta, Roger Cruz, Karl Kesel, Patrick Scherberger, David Williams, Colleen Coover, Dean Haspiel

X-Men: Prof X, Angel, Cyclops, Beast, Iceman, Jean Grey, Machine Man
1st Appearances: Galactus, Mysterio, Venom, Doop, Medusa, The Wizard, Spider-Man, Scorpion, Beetle, Gwen Stacy, Agent Baker
Also featuring: Sue Storm, Mr. Fantastic, Thing, Human Torch, Zelda, Skrulls

Jeff Parker ran out of ideas for his First Class series really quickly. This volume begins with an agonizingly bad "meta" fourth wall breaking story where a group of comic store employees called...prolonged sigh...The Continuiteens have read the previous collections of First Class and find themselves intertwined with the plot. It doesn't even sound like a good idea but it's much worse than it sounds.

From there, it gets a bit better, as Angel heads off to spend time with family, and Machine Man briefly joins the team. It's not terrible but it's also not an interesting addition to the X-Men canon. For a series that began with a lot of promise and some creative ways to slip modern stories into the 60s and 70s continuity, this was disappointingly bland. I don't recommend it.​

In 2017/2018, I read through most of the X-Men related trade paperbacks and hardcover collections that I owned. This is somewhere around 4-500 books. I rated many, but not enough, of them on a website to keep track of what I loved and what I never wanted to read again.

Well, I'm going to read them all one more time. This time, cataloging my reading experience here.

Consider this a companion to The X-Men In Five Seasons Worth Reading. A much longer, in-depth look at what books do and don't make it into my X-Men Headcanon. My Headcanon isn't focused on the Big Event Must Read Collections that many people my age and older cobweb poetic about, it's just books that I enjoyed, and I explain why I enjoyed them. 

This first entry is made up of a few books that are set before the original X-Men run in 1963 but which were written much later, mainly in the 21st century. I just don't think modern readers should have to start out by reading Silver Age books. It's just not a fun way to get into comics unless you're an early reader who hasn't experienced serialized storytelling before.

I'm not starting with Wolverine Origins or including much of Wolverine's pre-Hulk #181 appearances in the early chronology because the entire first forty years of his character depended on him not knowing his history, so we will get to see his pre-X-Men adventures but not for a long while.

All numbered titles in BOLD are those I'd consider part of the Headcanon of X-Books I recommend. Anything not boldfaced or numbered is a book I read but will probably skip, should I ever do another readthrough. Understand MOST books will not be numbered or boldfaced. There are going to be at least 500 books on this readthrough. At most, 50-100 will make Headcanon. At most. I hope.

1. Magneto Testament by Greg Pak & Carmine Di Giandomenico
X-Men: none
1st Appearance: Magneto

If you've seen an X-Men movie, you've almost definitely seen a scene of a youngish Magneto in an office of a concentration camp using his powers of magnetism to kill someone. You've seen iron gates ripped from the ground, projectiles launched at Nazis.

That's not what this book is.

Interspersed with historical data about The Holocaust, we get the story of a young teenage Max (he has not yet taken the name Erich...his father's name) who's targeted at school because of his Jewishness, as the nation of Germany descends into anti-semitism and genocide. We get brief glimpses of important moments in his young life. He falls in love based on almost nothing. He rebels when it seems convenient. He protects his family when he can. But his powers are a hint, not a weapon.

When his family is murdered, he survives presumably because of his power of magnetism but we don't know. They could have just missed him or not delivered a fatal wound. He ends up in a concentration camp where he eventually is in charge of leading other Jew to their deaths.

It is, of course, a grim book. There is no moment of catharsis where he rips open an iron gate. He does not kill any officers by hurling cutlery at them. He survives. He does what he has to do to survive and to try and save a girl he loves, even though he doesn't seem to know very much about her.

I think this is a great starting point for a read-through of the Marvel Mutant Universe. It clearly sets the tone that, despite what your drooling, all-caps, anti-woke, right wing nutjob uncle thinks, this is a story about overcoming the harms of prejudice, bigotry, and racism/anti-semitism. Marvel's mutant sector, in particular has ALWAYS been about civil rights. Anyone who tells you otherwise lacks reading comprehension skills, and you should never give credence to anything they tell you about literature or writing because they're clearly too stupid to understand the basic premise of a comic series that's mostly directed at children and teenagers.

Carmine Di Giandomenico's art is superb, and I think the muted grey color palette helps the book feel like something from our past without that visual metaphor overwhelming the story.

The story is affecting but not devastating to read. If you're familiar with the basic horrors of The Holocaust, you're likely to learn some new details, and maybe get a better feel for the timeline but it doesn't delve so deep into the story that you're likely to be weeping.

or ​2. X-Men First Class Mutants 101 by Jeff Parker, Roger Cruz, Kevin Nowlan, Nick Dragotta, Paul Smith, Colleen Coover, Victor Olazaba, Michael Allred, Laura Allred, Val Staples, and Pete Pantazis

X-Men: Prof X, Angel, Cyclops, Beast, Iceman, Jean Grey
1st Appearances,: Lizard, Jarvis, Dr. Strange, The Vanir, Ymir, Skrulls, Gorilla Man
Also Featuring: Blob, Sentinels, Juggernaut, Thor, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, Bernard, Zelda

If you just can't stomach the Silver Age comics, this is an alternative introduction to the first proper team of X-Men. Written in 2007, it takes place during Children of The Atom. While it never contradicts the stories there, it does muddle history a bit by including more modern technology. Also, the characters are more in-tune with their modern selves rather than everyone being a reactionary fool like they are in The Silver Age.

There's a ton of fun tie-ins to the original X-run, but none of them are necessary to follow the stories. Also, each issue is a one-off story, usually featuring a member of the wider Marvel Universe. 

If you're a completist, or just wanting to read the adventures of the original team, I would place this between the two epic collections of the original run, Children Of The Atom and Lonely Are The Hunted.