Before I started working in comic book stores, I had read a handful of DC graphic novels and a few of the more famous Vertigo books but I'd mostly dipped in and out of the X-Men titles between 1986 and 2005ish. 1991 was probably the year I felt most invested in. I read X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, and X-Factor in issues. When trade paperbacks became a regular things, I bought what I could find of the 90s X-runs.  I was fully invested in what is, by and large, not a very good period of comic book history.

These four books have some fun stories that are going to lead into yet another big X-crossover. While three of them don't make my headcanon, and I am highly critical of them, they're all still ​very representative of this time in comics. X-Force being representative of the absolute worst of 90s comics, and while it has been trendy to mock Rob Liefeld's art for over thirty years, an equal amount of blame must go to Fabien Nicieza who has brazenly moved from terrible idea to terrible idea for over thirty years now, and he still somehow gets work.

X-Factor Epic All New All Different by Peter David, Larry Stroman, Dale Keown, Tom Raney, Kevin West, and Brandon Peterson
X-Factor: Val Cooper, Havoc, Polaris, Madrox, Wolfsbane, Quicksilver, Strong Guy
1st Appearances: Slab, Gorgeous George, Ramrod, Ruckus, Hairbag
Also Featuring: Mr Sinister, Stryfe, Hulk, Rick Jones, Betty Ross, Forearm, Reaper, Wildside, Thumbelina, Strobe, Tempo, Zero, Cannonball, Professor X, Cyclops, Cyber

While not as iconic and near-perfect as his second run as X-Factor scribe in the 2000s, Peter David's 90s run did a wonderful job of fleshing out Madrox, Strong Guy, and Quicksilver who had always seemed fairly flat before this run. He also is the first writer to make a compelling Polaris storyline that isn't "she's crazy" or "she is too powerful and is therefore tied to some sort of portal so as not to make her an important part of the story." Her obsession with Havoc at the beginning makes it so that she Wolfsbane fail to pass the Bechdel test but as the series goes on, each of them is defined less by who they're in love with (Havoc, in both cases), and more with how their actions in battle affect them. 

The villain and hero names in this book are purposefully dreadful: Strong Guy, Hairbag, Ramrod? It's part of Peter David's career-long dad-joke plotting and narration. It is sometimes distracting in this early part of his X-Factor run but it's still a thousand times better than the non-plotting ADHD nonsense happening to The Extreme in some of the other X-books.

For me, the art is the weak spot of this book. I don't think anyone, including Larry Stroman's mother, thinks his blocky anatomy is in competition with the Image Founders who are working on the other X-books, apart from Liefeld. Stroman and Liefeld are on equal terms as neither of them are exceptionally talented but they both have committed to stylistic choices that have defined their careers. That said, this book is easy to follow and not at all ugly, which can not be said about Stroman's return to X-Factor in the 2000s, which looks like it was drawn by a four year old with a bad cocaine habit and no concept of anatomy.

This almost made my Headcanon. It's not the art that keeps it off the list, though, nor the dad jokes. It's just nowhere near as good as David's return to X-Factor fifteen years later, and I'm going to be including a bunch of those books. But I do recommend this, if you're jonesing for a 90s X-book, this is on-par with the two flagship books and miles better than the rest of the X-spinoffs.

X-Force Epic Under The Gun by Rob Liefeld, Fabien Nicieza, Todd Macfarlane, Greg Capullo
X-Force: Cable, Cannonball, Boom-Boom, Warpath, Shatterstar, Feral, Domino
1st Appearance: Kane, Bridge, Tyler Tolliver, Phantazia, Thornn
Also Featuring: Stryfe, Forearm, Zero, Kamikaze, Wildside, Reaper, Thumbelina, Deadpool, Gideon, Sunspot, Black Tom, Siryn, Spider-Man, Juggernaut, Toad, Blob, Sauron, Pyro, Masque, Hydra, Baron Von Strucker, Sumo, Rictor, Wendigo

Much critique of this title in particular, and this era of the X-Men in general, focuses on how bad Rob Liefeld's art is. While I'm not a fan of his, this fails to take into account that Rob Liefeld is a considerably better artist than Fabien Nicieza is a writer.

There are no decent ideas anywhere in this book. Sure, there are plot points in issue #9 that are sort of relevant to other X-books, but is it necessary to read them here? Nah.

I recognize that "Hey, there's a bad guy, let's have a two issue fight scene about it," isn't a surprise when you're reading a mediocre comic but the X-books were usually much more focused on characters and tended to keep fight scenes just a few pages long while building up things like suspense. Nicieza doesn't know how to do that now, and certainly had no idea how to do that thirty years ago. So we get sprawling battles with occasional weird reveals that are quickly retconned by better writers (which is most writers).

If you like dumb, extreme violence from the 90s with the puzzlingly frequent use of the word zit, then this is the kind of book to pick up and laugh at. But if you're looking for a story? This is not the book for you.

Wolverine Weapon X Unbound by Larry Hama, Marc Silvestri, Fabien Nicieza, Gerald DeCaire, Andy Kubert, and Darick Robertson
Also Featuring: Jubilee, Sabretooth, Silver Fox, Professor X, Jean Grey, Nick Fury, Jubilee, Cyclops, Forge, Mystique, Albert, Elsie-Dee, Spiral, Mojo, Shatterstar, Gambit, Matsuo, Mariko, Sunfire, Skullbuster Cylla

I haven't laughed so hard at unintentionally bad writing in a long time. The first issue deals with a bad boy who murders his dad, roughs up his mom, and kills indiscriminately to get his sweet, sweet drugs. It's written with the nuance and subtlety of a fourth grader who has never left their house, where they've been subjected to 1950s and 60s filmstrips about "greasers" and "pill poppers."

I don't know that I can ever take Larry Hama's writing seriously again. I hope he also gets a good laugh when he remembers he got paid to publish this steaming pile of cow patties.

Once the Don't Do Drugs Afternoon Special is over, Hama gets back on familiar turf, and while I don't love the story, it's miles better than that first issue. There are some decent character moments with Mystique, and an assortment of X-Men but the overall plot didn't grab me. The fact that the Elsie-Dee/Albert story keeps going even though it seemed like it was mercifully ended in the last volume is also disappointing.

Unless you read this as a kid and have some nostalgic fondness, I don't see this being the kind of book a casual or moderate comic fan would enjoy. Marc Silverstri and Andy Kubert's art is Incredibly 90s but in a Top Of The Class at 90s Comic Art School sort of way. I wish the stories were coherent enough to be worthy of their art.

If you liked the previous Larry Hama stories then I think you'll enjoy this one (apart from the first issue), and it does play off well against the early 1990s X-Men series fairly well, consistently using members of both the blue and gold teams.

This was an overwhelming mess when I read it without the full context of the thirty years of comics that preceded it. It's a mistaken identity clone story, it's a family drama, it's a medical mystery, there's a few pages dealing with refugees, it's an intergenerational conflict, it's an action movie, it's A Lot to have to process without all the proper history before it.

With the proper history, it's ok. It's real strength is the combination of writers on this. Peter David had been writing dad-joke centric noir satire in X-Factor, Jim Lee and company had been writing classic superhero drama in the adjectiveless X-Men, and Fabien Nicieza had been writing family drama and time travel adventures in Uncanny X-Men while writing bland and unfocused action movie dialogue in X-Force. Together, the writing team tempered each other really well. David had to get focused on the intricacies of plot and inter-personal drama to balance Nicieza's action movie style so he dropped the dad jokes while finding a way to include the parts of his ongoing story that didn't seem like they meshed with the crossover. Lee and Lobdell seemed to be guiding the overall arcs to get the various books to move in new directions. Nicieza mostly got the fight scenes, which is clearly what he wanted to be doing. It made for a pretty fluid read. Again, if you've read everything before it.

There was also an odd but smart visual connection that all of the artists did for this book. While many of them had differing styles, they all took the second and third pages of their stories and paneled them landscape style instead of portrait style, so you had to turn the book sideways after you read the intro page, and then turn it back for the rest of the book. It didn't add anything other than a visual connective tissue but it was a neat device.

I had never realized before that Jae Lee, whose work I didn't start recognizing until he and David teamed up on The Gunslinger Born well over a decade later. Much of his work here is also focused and engagingly staged characters with minimal to no background images, which is a stark contrast to the noisy paneling of most 90s X-books. I'm going to have to do a read through of as much of his art as I can at some point.

I also forgot that Greg Capullo was involved with this era of X-books. I've always loved his DC work, particularly on Batman, and I even appreciate his work on Spawn, even if that isn't my favorite series to read.

So there's a lot to love, art-wise and editorially in this book. And if you're an X-pert (sorry) on Marvel's mutant section, I think this is a fun read but it was really frustrating as a reader who'd only read many X-books before, as opposed to pretty much all of them. So if you're a completist or deep into X-lore, this is a great pick. But if you're new to the X-books or a casual reader, this isn't where you should start.

It's also annoying that these volumes heavily overlap but they also each include stories pivotal to the readthrough that aren't published anywhere else.

Hoof.

I'm almost at a major turning point in X-history, the Muir Island Saga/X-Men #1 relaunch. An era of complex storylines, new characters, bold reimaginings, and a lot of storylines that were just dropped because 90's X-scribes Fabien Nicieza and Scott Lobdell generally never have any idea what they're doing from page to page, nevermind issue to issue.

But before we can get there, Alan Davis tries to make Chris Claremont's Excalibur run make sense, Larry Hama and Marc Silvestri change the focus on how Wolverine books are written, and Chris Claremont concludes his sixteen year run on Uncanny X-Men.

I want to just write "ibid".

I'll at least credit the creative teams who tried out new ideas that were just too similar to Claremont's previous ideas. None of them made me care about any of these characters nor did I express surprise when every time a friend shows up it turns out to be a Nazi dimension duplicate or a war wolf. I find the whole 20th century Excalibur title an absolute chore to read.

Excalibur Epic Girls School From Heck by Chris Claremont, Scott Lobdell, Mike Higgins, Simon Furman, Sue Flaxman, Dana Moreshead, Dave Ross, Ron Wagner, Tom Morgan, Bryan Hitch, Mark Badger, Dave Hoover, Gavin Curtis, Ron Lim, Brian Stelfreeze, Dwayne Turner, Butch Guice, Mark Leonardi, Erik Larsen, and James Fry

​Wolverine by Larry Hama & Marc Silvestri Vol 1 by Larry Hama, Marc Silvestri, Mike Mignola, Walt Simonson, and Alan Davis
Also Featuring: Apocalypse, Archie Corrigan, Tyger Tyger, Puck. Lady Deathstrike, Donald Pierce, Bonebreaker

This is a collection of stories from a series that you can tell is trying to get better but hasn't reached there yet.

The opening story with art by Mike Mignola suffers from Walter Simonson's thirty years out-of-date storytelling. I don't mean that I am looking at it in 2024, and thinking it's thirty years out-of-date, that would be fine, it was written over thirty years ago. The thing is, I was alive and reading comics in 1991, and this seems like it came out thirty years before that. Well-intentioned maybe but definitely racist tropes, twists you can see coming from outer space, none of the characters behaving like they do in other books. It's just terrible, and while it's a cool look at what Mignola could do with Wolverine thirty years ago, it's not nearly as cool as what this book would have looked like if he'd made it ten years later.

The Alan Davis material could have come right out of his or Claremont's Excalibur Classic, Vol. 1: The Sword is Drawn run. That's not a compliment.

As for the thrust of the collection, Larry Hama and Marc Silvestri slowly move the Wolverine story out of Madripoor and into the wider Marvel Universe. That's a great thing. And while I enjoyed how they brought Puck into the series, I just don't have an affinity for Nazi storylines, particularly not after having read so many of the terrible Claremont Nazi-Universe Excalibur stories. Still, the story is good enough that I have hope for the next volume by this creative team.

​Wolverine by Larry Hama & Marc Silvestri Vol 2 by Larry Hama, Marc Silvestri, Peter David, Andy Kubert, and Larry Stroman
1st Appearances: Albert, Elsie Dee
Also Featuring: Storm, Forge, Jubilee, Cable, Sabretooth, Lady Deathstrike, Donald Pierce, Bonecrusher, Nick Fury, Masque, Wolfsbane, Sunspot, Cannonball, Boom-Boom, Rictor, Warlock

The saga of a widduh chiwud andwoid and a duplicate of Wolverine is better than I remember. I don't like it but I managed to get through it this time. I think I put it down after the second or third cutesy-wootsy turn of phrase the last time I tried to read this run.

While hardly The Best Wolverine Story, it does feel fresher now that the series isn't stuck in Madripoor. Getting to see Storm, Forge, Cable, and Jubilee drop in and out of the plot was certainly more interesting than Jessica Drew and Lindsay MacCabe. Still, the story kept going well past the point of interesting. I felt like once they blow up a character, they'd be done with, but two characters have big finale explosions, only to pop again a couple of issues later.

The collection ends with another fantasy-based Wolfsbane story. This is the first one in the Wolverine series but there were a few when she was a member of The New Mutants. I didn't care about those. I don't care about this one. I enjoy Wolfsbane the mutant with conflicted feelings about her religion and her place in a superhero team. I don't care about how she dreams of being a fairy princess and just might actually be one.

While this is an improvement over the previous books, and I would definitely say Wolverine fans should peruse this and see if it speaks to them, it's not enough for me to add it to the Headcanon. Nor do I imagine I'll be reading it again.

8. X-Men Epic Mutant Genesis by Chris Claremont, Fabien Nicieza, Jim Lee, Whilce Portacio, Peter David, Ken Laminski, Kirk Jarvinen, Tom Raney, Terry Shoemaker,  Paul Smith, Andy Kubert, Jerry DeCaire, Ernie Stiner, and Steven Butler
X-Men: Professor X, Forge, Storm, Banshee, Wolverine, Psylocke, Gambit, Jubilee
X-Factor: Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, Iceman, Angel
1st Appearances: Foxbat, Gauntlet, Psynapse, Barrage, Hard-Drive, Askani, Shinobi Shaw, Fabien Cortez, Delgado, Birdy
Also Featuring: Magneto, Apocalypse, Cable (as a baby), Captain America, Thing, Human Torch,      She-Hulk, Cameron Hodge, Tusk, Opal, Trish Tilby, Charlotte Jones, Black Bolt, Medusa, Gorgon, Crystal, Karnak, Lockjaw,  Sebastian Shaw, Shadow King, Lian,  Rogue, Strong Guy, Moira MacTaggert, Legion, Siryn, Madrox, Colossus, Stevie Hunter, Val Cooper, Mystique, Polaris, Chief Magistrate Anderson, Matsuo, Nick Fury

There's a ton of story packed into this penultimate Claremont storyline. Unfortunately, this trade starts with Fabien Nicieza's "Kings Of Pain" storyline already collected in the New Mutants Epic End Of The Beginning. Good news is, you can definitely skip it this time, if you didn't previously.

From there we dive into the conclusion to the X-Factor/Apocalypse storyline, which adds the Inhumans into the mix, and has big consequences for everyone, especially baby Cable.

From there, it's time to finally piece the X-Men back together as The Shadow King's rule over Muir Isle leads to the return of Professor X and a whole slew of changes for every X-Team besides Excalibur.

This collection also features X-Men #1-3. Personally, I would have put this in the next collection, as it truly feels like the beginning of a new era, even if it also wraps up Claremont's FIFTEEN YEARS-long run on the title.

I'll be calling the next post something akin to The Transitional Era, but that could have served to describe these books to. Cable shows up and helps The New Mutants evolve into X-Factor, Wolverine continues to do Wolveriney things, there's time travel shenanigans involving the Summers and Richards families, and even though Cable's been around for like ten minutes, we are already introduced to two villains who look like alternate versions of him. Oh, and we have another death, and some more roster changes on teams.

Sadly, none of these books make the Headcanon.

X-Men Visionaries Jim Lee by Chris Claremont, Jim Lee, Whilce Portacio, Klaus Janson, John Byrne, Rick Leonardi, Marc Silvestri, Michael Golden, Larry Stroman
X-Men: Storm, Wolverine, Banshee, Forge, Psylocke, Jubilee, Gambit
X-Factor: Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, Iceman, Angel
New Mutants: Cable, Cannonball, Sunspot, Boom-Boom, Ricctor
Also Featuring: Professor X, Shadow King, Rogue, Magneto, Lillandra, Captain Marvel, Moira MacTaggert, Polaris, Amanda Sefton, Legion, Nick Fury, Trish Tilby, Gladiator, Deathbird, Corsair, Ch'od, Hepzibah, Smasher, Raza, Titan, Tempest. Bolt, Oracle, Lila Cheney, Ka-Zar, Brainchild, Skrulls

The last couple volumes featuring the X-Men had the team split up into solo adventures. Here, they are brought together, along with X-Factor to set up  Claremont's grand finale on the title, which is also the beginning of Jim Lee's tenure on the book.

It is fun to see Claremont's hand gently nudged by Jim Lee's ideas, as we still get the intense continuity Claremont built over a decade but the stories feel more focused than they have since The Mutant Massacre

Ignoring the issues repeated from Dissolution & Rebirth,, this volume sees Rogue battle her inner-demons (who happens to be Carol Danvers) before being shunted off to The Savage Land to help Magneto and Nick Fury battle the same ol' Savage Land shenanigans that always seem to be taking place. 

The rest of the X-Men, X-Factor, and New Mutants are trying to work out how to share the mansion, and maybe set themselves up as a functional military unit (Cable's idea) when Lila Cheney shows up and tosses the somewhat reunited, somewhat new X-Men team off into space where they are either saving Professor X from Deathbird or vice-versa. 

It's fun to see the new characters: Jubilee, Gambit, and Forge, have zero loyalty to Professor X, whom they've never met before, and thus help the rest of the team figure out the twists and turns of this plot. 

I would totally make this headcanon but I've had this trade paperback forever, and the few editions available online start used at over $50. But if you're an X-Men fan, and you can find this trade or the issues it contains, it's a treat that you deserve to read. Hopefully, it will pop up in an Epic Collection soon.

​New Mutants Epic The End Of The Beginning by Chris Claremont, Louise Simonson, Jon Bagdanove, John Caponigro, Jim Lee, Rick Leonardi, Rob Liefeld, Fabien Nicieza, Marc Silvestri, Guang Yap, Mark Bagley, Terry Shoemaker, Tom Raney, Kirk Jarvinen, Jerry DeCaire, and Steven Butler
X-Men: Forge, Banshee, Storm, Gambit
New Mutants: Cable Wolfsbane, Cannonball, Sunspot, Warloc, Rictor, Boom-Boom, Thunderbird
X-Factor: Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, Iceman, Angel
New Warriors: Nova, Speedball, Firestar, Marvel Boy, Silhouette, Night Thrasher, Choro, Namorita
X-Terminators: Archie, Leech, Wiz-Kid
1sr Appearances: Deadpool, Domino, Gideon, Feral, Shatterstar
Also Featuring: Trish Tilby, Stevie Hunter, Strong Guy, Lila Cheney, Cameron Hodge, Genegineer, Havoc, Wolverine, Jubilee, Psylocke, Moira MacTaggert, She-Hulk, Reed Richards, Dr Moreau, Robert DeCosta, Rusty, Skids, Blob, Avalanche, Crimson Commando, Super Sabre, Pyro, Polaris, Siryn, Madrox, Legion, Tower, Frenzy, Stryfe, Wildside, Forearm, Reaper, Zero, Masque

The bridge between New Mutants and X-Force takes us back to Genosha for the decent but not wonderful X-Tinction Agenda, and then we get a series of issues where the old New Mutants leave the team, and Cable beings to recruit/offer refuge to an almost entirely new team rebranded as X-Force. It's a steady, if not spectacular series of stories.

While the debut of Cable, in the previous volume of New Mutants provided us with an interesting new character, Deadpool debuts here and is nothing special. Liefeld had envisioned him as just another assassin with 1980s style action quips, and it would be a few years before he became an irreverent, fourth wall breaking character. Still, Liefeld's brief run as the head writer for New Mutants is decent, if not exceptional.

Unfortunately, it's followed up by a series of annual stories called "Kings Of Pain" by Fabien Nicieza, one of the hackiest hacks to dribble his quarter-baked ideas over the X-Franchise. He doesn't get off to a good start here, as he throws New Mutants, New Warriors, X-Factor, and the X-Men into a nonsensical crossover where the government and two shadowy masterminds set out to...checks notes...create a new Proteus, a character the government has previously had nothing to do with? Sure. And on the last page, the two shadowy figures are revealed to be...Gideon, the advisor to Sunspot in the New Mutants, and Toad, the long ignored and mostly forgotten member of the Brotherhood Of Evil Mutants. It's a crusty goosehonk of a reveal that, like many of the ideas introduced during Nicieza's time with the books, goes absolutely nowhere.

While I didn't love this period of X-books, it was a nice change of pace from the preceding era of Magical Silliness and movie homages.

This is the decline of the Claremont/Simonson era of X-books, as the titles are transitioned to Rob Liefeld, Jim Lee, Whilce Portacio, and Fabien Nicieza. While none of those writers are destined to be my favorites, they all, at the very least, bring something different after Claremont's decade-long stranglehold over the X-Men portion of the Marvel Universe. It takes to the end of this section for their voices to start to creep in, but their impending creative injections begin to crack the foundations here.​

You may note that, again, there aren't any books here that make Headcanon. That doesn't mean these are all bad. I'm just not going to suggest anyone but me buy/read 100 X-Men graphic novels, even that's not even 1/5th of what I'm going to read for the project. 

Wolverine Epic Madripoor Nights by Chris Claremont, John Buscema, and Peter David
1st Apprearances: Roughhouse, Bloodscream, Nguen Ngoc Coy, Archie Corrigan
Also Featuring: Jessica Drew, Lindsay McCabe, Silver Samurai, Karma, Hulk, Sabretooth

Wolverine's  first ongoing series is the basis for a million future Wolverine cliches. The adventures take place in Madripoor, they have an element of noir, Wolverine battles organized crime and political power, he gets amnesia for a time, he runs into women from his past, and he's the best there is at what he does, and what he does ain't wearing Bret Hart onesies.

After the initial issues by Chris Claremont, there's a tonal shift when Peter David comes in, drops in some humor and even has a few issues where Wolverine torments the Gray, Mr. Fixit-era Incredible Hulk. 

Since this is the template of most Wolverine stories for the next thirty years, you could do worse than pick this up and see if the title is going to be for you. But it's not necessary to understanding the X-books around it, and it's not so much fun that you should make an effort to read it.

Marvel Comics Presents Wolverine 2 by Chris Claremont, Marv Wolfman, Erik Larsen, and John Buscema
Also Featuring: Spidier-Man, Mary Jane Watson

Even though this is a new, and very talented creative team, this is the same lather, rinse, repeat that we've seen in the previous Wolverine books. Madripoor, a woman in danger, corrupt police, a teamup with a big hero (this time it's Spider-Man instead of Hulk). 

If you love Wolverine comics, this is probably great.

While there are some Wolverine comics that I love, and am excited to read soon, the early stuff just isn't for me.

X-Factor Epic: Judgment War by Louise Simonson, Walter Simonson, John Byrne, Art Adams, Paul Smith, Terry Shoemaker, Rob Liefeld
X-Factor: Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, Iceman, Angel
Post Inferno Storyline Also Featuring: Artie, Leech, Rusty, Skids, Rictor, Boom-Boom, Ship, Cable (as a baby), Wiz-Kid, Nanny, Orphan Maker, Blob, Mystique, Pyro, Dani Moonstar, Wolfsbane, Cannonball, Sunspot, Warlock, The Celestials, Professor X, Lilandra, Sikorsky, Apocalypse, Loki, Caliban

 The end of the Claremont Era, which was also the end of Louise Simonson's era in the X-titles, was sad to experience.

The X-books went from a longform tale about overcoming prejudice with a subcurrent of soap opera relationships to a weird take on magic and alternate dimensions that just wasn't fun to read. After the dull but not terrible X-Men: Inferno, Vol. 1 crossover the X-Factor team has a brief battle with gold-greedy demons in the UK, and then is shunted off into space by their Ship for reasons neither it, nor the writers can explain. They just wanted a space story and couldn't figure out how to move from New York Is Overrun By Demons to Let's Go To Space And Have Conan The Barbarian Story logically, so they just tossed in a random plot device.

In theory, I was happy we were moving on from the Jean/Madelyne/Phoenix storyline, as well as getting out of Magic New York. But this wasn't the direction I was hoping it would go. I was incredibly bored by the entire space saga. When I finished reading the last issue, I tried to think back to what I liked and didn't like, and my mind was blank. It was as though I'd sleepread this.

This runs parallel to Excalibur hopping around the multiverse with Widget, and the X-Men each doing their own things while presumed dead in Australia. None of it was fun to read, and none of it has really been revisited in any other popular or fun storylines. I can't really recommend this to anyone but completists.

​Wolverine Epic Back To Basics by Archie Goodwin, John Byrne, Peter David, Walter Simonson, Mike Mignola, Jo Duffy, Gene Colon, John Buscema, Klaus Janson, Barry Kitson, and Bill Jaaska
1st Appearances: Tiger Shark, La Bandera
Also Featuring: Storm, Gateway, Roughhouse, Bloodscream, Tyger Tyger, Archie Corrigan, Daredevil, Nuke, Havoc, Psylocke, Colossus, Dazzler, Magneto, Karma, Jessica Drew, Lindsay McCabe,  Nguyen Ngoc Coy

More of the same from the first volume. Wolverine is in Madripoor, sometimes in his Patch disguise. He's battling criminals and assassins. His stories border on noir. The only slight difference between these volumes is that we are given two quick glances of his life outside Madripoor that firmly set this as the time when the X-Men are believed dead and operating out of the Australian Outback. Otherwise, these stories could have taken place at any time.

If you love Wolverine books, this is part of the early template but it's neither the very first nor anywhere near the very best of Wolverine's solo books, so it can easily be skipped over.​

Marvel Comics Presents Wolverine Vol 3 by Rob Liefeld, Fabien Nicieza, Michael Higgins, and Dave Ross
Also Featuring: Wildchild, Heather Hudson, Hulk, Mimic

Wolverine's solo adventures finally move away from Madripoor for a bit, as he ends up back in Canada and embroiled in more Alpha Flight drama, as Wildchild goes on a killing spree, and Heather Hudson joins in the investigation to take him down. Because it's a Fabien Nicieza story, it doesn't really go anywhere in the end, and proves inessential to Wolverine continuity.

The second storyarc brings The Hulk and Mimic back into the fold for an interesting, if inessential Wolverine story. This is actually the kind I prefer. Even though it's by no means great, you can tell the author, [author:Michael Higgins|243378] is having fun, and the low stakes story seems to serve as a bit of a model for how The Animated Series treated Wolverine and Mimic's relationship.

Worth it for Wolverine fans, and pretty decent if you skip over the Nicieza story.

When I started this project, I mentioned that I had never made it through The Silver Age X-Men books before. I'd tried several times but only ever made it four or five books in.

Inferno is only two volumes, but I sturggled to get through them, too. As I will mention below, Chris Claremont saw Ghostbusters and Nightmare On Elm Street and decided to insert blatant, literal, homages to them as a magic New York Is Taken Over By Demons (instead of ghosts, see, it's different from Ghostbusters) storyline.

It's an absolute mess of a story. It has several writers, and it's pretty clear that Claremont is the only excited to be working on the project.

There are a couple of fun moments in many of these books but overall, none of them are even close to being in my Headcanon.​

​Excalibur Epic: The Sword Is Drawn by Chris Claremont, Alan Davis, Michael Higgins, Herb Trimpe, Ron Lim, Marshall Rogers, Arthur Adams, and Erik Larsen

Excalibur: Captain Britain, Meggan, Kitty Pryde, Nightcrawler, Rachel Grey, Lockheed

1st Appearances: Widget, Kylun 
Also Featuring: Saturnyne, War Wolves, Juggernaut, Gatecrasher, Bodybag, Joyboy, Thug, Waxworks, Scatterbrain, Courtney Ross, Arcade, Miss Locke, Madelyne Pryor, Nastirh, Crotus, Dani Moonstar, Wolfsbane, Cannonball, Sunspot, Warlock, Magik, Jean Grey, Moira Mactaggert, Callisto, the X-Babies, Major Domo, N'Astirh,

This is a book to be read almost in halves. Something I don't want to recommend too often in this readalong. But....

The Sword Is Drawn special and  issues #1-5 introduce the Excalibur Team, Widget, Gatecrasher, the War Wolves and more. It's a decent primer for the absolute weirdness that is going to be this title. Then we get a couple of issues that take place during Inferno, and then...well...then we get the beginning of Dimension Hopping Excalibur, and it begins with the team being all Nazis! So...*whew*...yea.

Regarding the first portion: I don't know whether Chris Claremont intended Excalibur for a younger audience than X-Men but I've always felt Excalibur was the bottom of the barrel X-title. It's villains are silver age throwbacks, the dialog is more wooden than usual, Claremont relies on the absolute laziest of tropes in their stories (no comic writer should include Alice In Wonderland characters/references/storylines, it's been a stale cliche since the 1970s), and I just can't care about the magical world of Saturnyne or Merlyn or any of his other ideas of sorcery. My eyes glaze over almost immediately.

I understand that the childlike wackiness of the title appeals to some people, and I don't begrudge them. There are plenty of people who don't like/understand the appeal of the superhero comics I love. If I'm allowed to like often satirical sci-fi and fantasy, people are certainly allowed to love this tedious doggerel.

X-Men Inferno Book 1 by Chris Claremont, Louise Simons, Jon Bogdanove, Sal Velluto, Walter Simonson, Terry Shoemaker, Marc Silvestri, and Bret Blevins

X-Men: Storm, Wolverine, Colossus, Rogue, Havok, Psylocke, Longshot, Dazzler, Madelyne Pryor
X-Factor: Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, Iceman, Angel
X-Terminators: Rusty, Skids, Artie, Leech, Rictor, Boom-Boom, Wiz-Kid
New Mutants: Magneto, Dani Moonstar, Wolfsbane, Cannonball, Sunspot, Magik, Warlock
Power Pack: Destroyer, Molecula, Counterweight, Starstreak
1st Appearances
Also featuring: Mr Sinister, N'astirh, Malice/Polaris, Gateway, Sabretooth, Scrambler, Vertigo, Arclight, Scalphunter, Riptide, Prism, Blockbuster, Harpoon, Trish Tilby, Candy Southern, Cameron Hodge, Nanny, Orphan Maker, Blob, Mystique, Pyro, Spiral, Avalanche, Crimson Commando, Ship, Frenzy, Tower, Stinger, Timeshadow, Cable (as a baby), Jim Power, Maggie Power, Bogeyman, J Jonah Jameson, Slug, Kofi, Yrik, Byrel, Friday, Shatterbox #1, Shatterbox #2, Speed Freak, Big Top, Monitor, Crotus, S'ym, Gosamyr, Emma Frost, Sebastian Shaw, Selene

There's a lot of mediocre but not terrible story crammed into this volume. Compared to some of the 90s crossovers, it's positively coherent and streamlined, but compared to the crossovers that preceded it, it's a bit messy.

The crux of the story is that New York has been turned into more of a hellscape than usual where inanimate objects come to life and eat people. Most of the scenes are silly, and you can tell that Chris Claremont had just seen Ghostbusters when he wrote this. He even tosses in a parody team of them. Most of the violence is corny and hard to get behind but there is a lovely two page spread at the very beginning of Uncanny X-Men #239 where a family is visiting the Empire State Building and, after some typical family bickering, they are eaten by the elevator, their blood seeps out, and is mopped up by a custodian wearing headphones who appears not to notice the horror that just occurred. Honestly, it's one of the smartest Claremont pages I can remember reading. It's legitimate horror.

Most of this volume focuses on X-Factor, which has been broken up into two teams: X-Factor (the original X-Men) and the X-Terminators (their trainees). X-Factor tries to track down Cyclops's missing son, and runs into Nanny and Orphan Maker, two of the least interesting villains in the X-Men universe. They have the potential to be interesting: a mutant locked in a cybernetic suit of her own making who kidnaps children, and her partner, an armored mutant she kidnapped who now assists her in capturing other children. They were used extensively during the Krakoan era in the 2020s, and they were somehow boring in that series as well.

While X-Factor tries to save babies from Nanny and Orphan Maker, the X-Terminators battle baby-kidnapping demons, and end up teaming up with The New Mutants, who have their own problems with the demons.

Also, the Marauders and Mister Sinister are involved somehow with the babynapping, and helping and hindering Madelyne Pryor from ascending into The Goblin Queen who is kind of sort of maybe responsible for the demon infestation.

While all of the pages and issues seem straight-forward while reading them, I felt like a lot of logic was missing in the connective tissue between the various very similar stories.

I was delighted when X-Men '97 boiled this whole crossover to about three minutes in a larger episode.

If you love big event crossovers, there are definitely worse X-crossovers than this one, but it's also probably the weakest crossover Claremont and Simonson were involved in.

X-Men Inferno Book 2 by Chris Claremont, Louise Simonson, Terry Austin, Julianna Jones, Mark Gruenwald, Marc Silvestri, Alan Davis, Walter Simonson, Bret Blevins, Mike Vosburg, June Brigman, Rob Liefeld, and Jim Fern
X-Men: Storm, Wolverine, Colossus, Rogue, Havok, Psylocke, Longshot, Dazzler, Madelyne Pryor
X-Factor: Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, Iceman, Angel
Excalibur: Captain Britain, Meggan, Nightcrawler, Rachel Grey, Kitty Pryde
X-Terminators: Rusty, Skids, Artie, Leech, Rictor, Boom-Boom,    Wiz-Kid
New Mutants: Magneto, Dani Moonstar, Wolfsbane, Cannonball, Sunspot, Magik, Warlock
Power Pack: Destroyer, Molecula, Counterweight, Starstreak
Also featuring: Mr Sinister, N'astirh, Malice/Polaris, Sabretooth, Blockbuster, Nanny, Orphan Maker, Ship, Cable (as a baby), Jim Power, Maggie Power, Bogeyman, J Jonah Jameson, Crotus, Cloak, Dagger
​​
Even less intriguing to me than volume one, this volume focuses mainly on Excalibur's trip to NYC for the Inferno event, as well as giving us a sort of After Dinner Mint X-Men/X-Factor story, as they have their final final battles with Sinister and what's left of The Marauders, even though Inferno technically ended for them in the last volume. The Power Pack/Bogeyman storyline is also resolved with the help of The New Mutants and The             X-Terminators. We also see Cloak & Dagger's involvement in the event, which is confusing if you haven't read the Cloak & Dagger series leading up to this, as I haven't.

Unlike many Giant Crossover Events in the Marvel 80s and 90s, there are major repercussions from this. Teams are rearranged, characters are altered. As far as resonance, this is an important event but it was so widespread and silly that I lost interest in most of the characters. There's a ton of expository dialogue that seems hacky, even for the late 80s. I don't blame the creators, apart from Chris "I Just Saw Ghostbusters And Nightmare On Elm Street" Claremont, I don't think any of the other writers wanted to be involved in this, and it shows. 

Excalibur Epic: The Sword Is Drawn by Chris Claremont, Alan Davis, Michael Higgins, Herb Trimpe, Ron Lim, Marshall Rogers, Arthur Adams, and Erik Larsen

Excalibur: Captain Britain, Meggan, Kitty Pryde, Nightcrawler, Rachel Grey, Lockheed

1st Appearances: Widget, Kylun 
Also Featuring: Saturnyne, War Wolves, Juggernaut, Gatecrasher, Bodybag, Joyboy, Thug, Waxworks, Scatterbrain, Courtney Ross, Arcade, Miss Locke, Madelyne Pryor, Nastirh, Crotus, Dani Moonstar, Wolfsbane, Cannonball, Sunspot, Warlock, Magik, Jean Grey, Moira Mactaggert, Callisto, the X-Babies, Major Domo, N'Astirh

Now that Inferno is over, we can pick up the second half of this book. If you really want to. This is the beginning of Excalibur's Weird World Tour, where we learn about similar dimensions. In this one, a dimension where lizards are the primary human-like lifeform, shows up (I'm on board), and the dimension of evil Nazi versions of the main characters show up to create havoc because Claremont ran out of ideas long before this series started, and is basically just spewing TV tropes and movie cliches during this era.

​I wish I'd skipped it.