I wanted to love the Sandman TV series as much as I loved the books. I wanted gorgeous visuals, the intricate storytelling from the books, and the sense of wonder I've had whenever I've reread the stories. Many of my friends found that in the TV series. People whose opinions I respect were so thrilled to see this universe on TV that they gushed about it and had very little criticism. 

It was not for me.

I thought Morpheus was miscast. I found him utterly dull to watch. While Amazon threw a nation's economy at the tepid Game Of Thrones prequel, it looked like they gave the Sandman director a hundred bucks to spend on CGI and said "Good luck."

The episode "24/7" was a perfect modernization of the storyarc it was based on, and I think you could teach a class on how well it was constructed. I had hoped that would be a turning point for me. Alas, the rest of the series bored me. When I posted about it on social media, friends who loved the books as much as I had berated me for having bad taste or too high expectations. But my friends who hadn't read the books tended to agree, it wasn't fun to watch. It had a very high bar to reach for and it ended up beyong beyond the sound of its wingspan.

I was so disappointed that I stopped reading the Vertigo books for over a year, completely deflated. And that's not fair to the books or the people who enjoyed the TV series that would like to read more of the universe. Maybe some day I'll go back and rewatch the show and find a similar joy to that of my peers but, until then, I'm happy to return to reading the books I loved and sharing how I wish I had experienced them (you know, just the good stuff).

1. Sandman Mystery Theater Book Two
(Matt Wagner, Steven T. Seagle, Guy Davis, Vince Locke)

We open this first Gaimanless season by following the sordid adventures of Wesley Dodds, the golden age Sandman. Running concurrently with Gaiman's series, this look at the human sleuth whose gas mask resembles the one stolen from Morpheus at the beginning of the first episode, takes place just after the American Depression. Our point-of-view character is Dodds's love interest, Dian, the daughter of a police woman who likes to party and solve her father cimes. Think of her as a more sexually adventurous Batgirl. There are a few things in this volume that haven't aged particularly well, but when it was published it was a solid examination of misogyny, class warfare, and racism in the 1930s with a very slight occult bent.

2. Lucifer Book Three
(Mike Carey, Peter Gross, Ryan Kelly, Dean Ormston, David Hahn)

An Asgardian ship of fingernails, a pool flowing with the thoughts of Yahweh, a garden of human souls sewn into lanterns, the rise of gods of chaos, and a brief glimpse back into The Dreaming. There's a lot to love in this volume. I've said it before but it bears repeating: every word in this book seems a necessary part to reach its climax. No plot point is wasted, nor does Carey waste time getting from point to point. Storyarcs that most writers might draw out for twelve issues, Carey condenses to three or four, and it never feels forced. 

3. Hellblazer All His Engines
(Mike Carey, Leonardo Manco)

Just after his long run on the Hellblzer books, Carey put out this side story where Constantine and Chas head to America to stop ... the usual Hellblazer thing ... a demon has taken a step too far and has impacted the life of someone tangentially related to Constantine. And then Constantine must work with other demons to double cross the original demon but he's also got to double cross them or else ... sigh. So, while it's the same old same old Hellblazer plot, it's done deftly here with fantastically spooky art by Manco.

4. Hellblazer The Gift
(Mike Carey, Leonardo Manco)

As much as I wanted to love Mike Carey's run on Hellblazer, much of it was a build up to an apocalypse that mostly sat in the background while John Constantine's life was ruined in a bigger and more spectacular way than ever before. Until the next storyline where his life was ruined in a bigger and more spectacular way than ever before while an apocalypse happened in the very background. There's a wilting Swamp Thing storyline, and he even manages to make a "main character forgets all the trauma in his life and has to start over while being pursued by powerful demons" story pretty boring. BUT. Near the end of that amnesiac storyline, a demon offers to return everything to him in exchange for his services for a day. And during that day, he lives three lifetimes and has three separate, terrible children with three of his exes. This volume has his three aged up children from his demon-induced lifespans getting their revenge by ... checks notes ... ruining his life in a bigger and more spectacular way than ever before while society recovers from the apocalypse in the background. But this story has more character building than the previous arcs, and a better payoff.

5. Lucifer Book Four
(Mike Carey, Peter Gross, Ryan Kelly, Dean Ormston, David Hahn)

Yes, every Lucifer book is in this chronology. Rereading it was a joy and a relief that it held up my memories. Every character seems to make an appearance as this is essentially just setting up the final volume. It never feels like filler, though, it's all building to a spectacular climax.

6. Sandman Mystery Theater  The Blackhawk And The Return Of The Scarlet Ghost
(Matt Wagner, Steven T. Seagle, Guy Davis, Matthew Smith, Richard Case, Daniel Torres)

This series has never been fully collected, which is a shame. Currently there's a compendium that contains the first half of the run but there's bee no release date for a second volume. Until then, this is the last set of issues that's been collected in trade form. Honestly, it's a perfectly fine ending. All of the Sandman Mystery Theater stories are wonderful 1930s noir with what one reviewer referred to as "Sergio Aragonés scribbles...without the silliness". It's art I usually wouldn't enjoy but is somehow perfect for this nostalgis based series. This volume, like the rest, has two excellent mysteries but it also features a brief journey through all of the different forms of Sandman, including Morpheus. It's a great callback, and it help leads to the final page of this volume which is a reveal. And if you're sad that there's no more Sandman Mystery Theater in this chronology given the reveal, don't worry. Wesley and Dian will be back next season in a completely different series.

7. Books Of Magic: Life During Wartime Book One
(Si Spencer, Dean Ormstrom)

This is the weakest episode of the season but it moves The Books Of Magic is a completely different direction that might come up later. Years have passed since we last saw Tim Hunter. In that time, he built a pocket dimension where he can be "a regular human". Apparently, this means swear, do drugs and fuck a lot. While he's off trying to be normal, John Constantine is overseeing a war between humans, demons, and faeries. I didn't love the series but I appreciated its evolution.

8. Lucifer Book Five
(Mike Carey, Peter Gross, Ryan Kelly, Colleen Doran, Michael Wm Kaluta, John J Muth, Zander Cannon, Dean Ormstrom, Aaron Alexovich)

The Lucifer finale pulls no punches. There's no Game Of Thrones sped-up narrative racing to the conclusion, the pace is steady with logical twists spiraling throughout the journey. Every character gets their curtain call, and we even see some conversations with the previously absent Yahweh. It's impressive that this never feels overly preachy or too philosophical given its characters and subject matter.  It's a lovely way to end the season.

We're a couple of weeks away from Sandman finally coming to television. The previews for it look fantastic. Fingers crossed that this ends up more Good Omens than Neverwhere.

After about a year long break, I dove back into the Vertigo universe, revisiting old favorite stories and reading some for the first time.

The central theme of this season is Death. The member of The Endless. Yes, we have three Morpheus stories, two Lucifer stories, one Lucifer, one Madame Xanadu, and one focused exclusively on Death, but Death of The Endless appears in all but one of these "episodes", even if she just pops up briefly.

Also, if you're only really invested in Morpheus's story, this can be your final season. I have at least one or two more before I'm finished, but this brings an end to the Sandman proper stories.

1. Sandman World's End
(Neil Gaiman, Mike Allred, Gary Amaro, Mark Buckingham, David Giardano, Toy Harris, Steve Leialoha, Vince Locke)
Readily available from your local shop or you can order it from Bookshop.org

If you're here for the narrative tale of Morpheus, and the march towards the end of the series, you might not love this volume as much as I do. This is technically a House Of Mystery story (what's that, you ask? well, we'll be seeing more of that next season) that occasionally, but not always features Morpheus. A group of travelers find themselves stranded in an inn where you purchase your food and drinks with stories, so this serves as sort of an anthology of dreams. Each story has a different artist. It's a wonderful read.


2. Lucifer Book One
(Mike Carey, Peter Gross, Ryna Kelly, Dean Ormston, Scott Hampton, Chris Weston, James Hodgkins)
Readily available from your local shop or you can buy it at Bookshop.org

So, last season, Lucifer gave Morpheus the keys to Hell and told him to find someone else to run it. Well, now we catch up with Lucifer and Mazikeen as they have their own fully developed stories to tell. Lucifer is not by Neil Gaiman, but by Mike Carey. And while Sandman is a brilliant tapestry that tells the story of Morpheus from different angles and at different times, Lucifer is one of the best told narrative fantasy stories in comics. Every page leads directly to its conclusion. Every word feels important. It's one of my all-time favorites, and the Mike Carey run is not at all related to the TV shows that are supposedly based on the character. And while I don't remember Morpheus appearing here, Death drops in for a bit, and the events that occured in Sandman that led up to this series are referenced a few times.


3. Madame Xanadu Disenchanted
(Matt Wagner, Amy Reeder, Richard Friend)
currently available on Thriftbooks.org

I'm embarrassed to say I slept on this series when it came out. Madame Xanadu is, like Sandman, a golden age DC character that gets reimagined with her own Vertigo series. It also features Death for a bit, but as cool as that scene is, the series would have been great without it. This volume follows Madame Xanadu from Camelot era Europe to Kublai Khan's dynasty in the Mongolian empire to Revolutionary era France to (sigh) Jack The Ripper era London to the US. There's a lot of interesting class structure in the guise of fantasy here, and just a really well told story by Matt Wagner with Eisner nominated art from Amy Reeder.


4. Swamp Thing Bad Seed
​(Andy Diggle, Enrique Breccia, Martin Breccia)
It's only really affordable on EBay right now if you can't find it at your local store.

This is a mediocre Swamp Thing story that also happens to be a wonderful Hellblazer story. Following the events of the almost unreadably bad Brian K Vaughan run on Swamp Thing (even a brilliant writer like Vaughan has off-times), Diggle tries to piece the story back together by making a buddy/road trip story where John Constantine and the skeletal remains of Alec Holland join up to seek out Abby and then have to do battle with the Alec Holland-free Swamp Thing. Come for the Swamp Thing continuity, stay for the art and the humor.


5. Lucifer Book Two 
(Mike Carey, Peter Gross, Jon J Muth, Dean Ormston, Ryan Kelly)
Hopefully, this will be back in print again soon, but for now, if you can't find it at your local shop, check out Ebay for an affordable copy.

All of the characters and storylines from Book One of Lucifer come together in this volume, which would undoubtedly be a Season Finale for Lucifer. It's epic, emotional, and really well put together. Lucifer and John Constantine would make a hell of a great mythological procedural story. And, yea, Death pops in again.


6. Sandman The Kindly Ones
(Neil Gaiman, Marc Hempel, Richard Case, D'Israeli, Teddy Kristiansen, Glyn Dillon, Charles Vess, Dean Ormstron) 
Readily available at your local shop or you can buy it from Bookshop.org

Like the previous book, a ton of seemingly unrelated Sandman storylines convene here for a steady march towards Morpheus's undoing. Everything changes for everyone involved at the end of this volume. The whole dreaming is altered. It's as intense as the previous Lucifer volume. What follows in the Sandman series is a coda, this is pretty much the climax/final boss fight/resolution of Morpheus's story.


7. Sandman The Wake
(Neil Gaiman, Jon J Muth, Charles Vess, Michael Zulli)
Readily available at your local shop or you can buy it from Bookshop.org

It's probably sacrileige, but this is, in my opinion, by a wide margin, my least favorite of the Sandman stories. It's kind of like how at the end of The Return Of The King movie when there are eight thousand "final" scenes, as every character gets a curtain call, and you realize that the story actually ended an hour ago, and it's just weeping hobbits and disaffected elves waving at the camera for a bit. I debated not including it but it is The End of Gaiman's Sandman run, and it's not terrible, it's just relatively dull compared to the previous volumes.


8. Death Complete Collection
(Neil Gaiman, Chris Bachalo, Marc Buckingham, Michael Dringenberg, P Craig Russell, Malcolm Jones III, Colleen Doran, Dave McKean)
Readily available at your local shop or readily available in hardcover form on Bookshop.org. Hopefully, the paperback edition will be back in circulation soon.

I didn't want to end this season with its weakest episode, so we close with Neil Gaiman's sagas of Death: "The High Cost Of Living" and "The Time Of Your Life", currently collected in one volume. This series is sort of a coda to Sandman: A Game Of You, and even as a standalone is an excellent story.

The X-Men franchise has had a few animated series, and is on their way to a sixth live action movie. But how would you put together a ten season live action show with continuity and including the best stories from the various X-books over the years?

​Now that the X-Men are tucked safe and sound in a place called Utopia, one would imagine they’re all happy together and throwing the best psychic slumber parties ever, right? Not so much.

Serial 1: X-Men Legacy Aftermath, X-Men Age Of X, Lost Legions
(written by Mike Carey, art by Paul Davidson, Harvey Tolibao, Jorge Molina, Rafa Sandoval, and many others)

Legion, Professor X’s mentally ill son, is one of the most powerful mutants in existence. He has a long and complicated backstory intertwined with The Age Of Apocalypse (which he accidentally created) but let’s pretend we are seeing him for the first time here. He’s brought to Utopia by The New Mutants and in the first half of The Aftermath trade, he accidentally creates Age Of X. So put Aftermath down, check out The Age Of X trade, you can skip the Avengers and Spider-Man stories at the end of Age Of X, and then resume reading Aftermath, as Utopia struggles to understand how many of the mutants spent seven days in an imaginary world.

Age Of X. 3 episodes



Episode 4: X-Men Legacy Lost Legions
(written by Mike Carey, art by Khoi Pham)
Professor X forms a team of  X-Men to track down six of Legion’s missing personalities.
Lost Legions. 1 episode



Serial 3: Uncanny X-Force Apocalypse Solution, Uncanny X-Force Deathlok Nation
(written by Rick Remender, art by Jerome Opena, Esad Ribic, and Rafael Albuquerque)

There is a run of X-Force that goes back a few years before this, and it’s a good run, but Remender’s run is excellent. X-Force is a team assembled by Cyclops to handle situations that the now public X-Men can’t be publicly involved with. Wolverine is the team leader and they do all sorts of morally dubious things. Their first mission lead them to a reborn Apocalypse who is still a child when they discover him. Their second mission gives them an opportunity to get their revenge on The Reavers from waaaay back in Season One. The only problem? Deathloks programmed to kill Fantomex. Ok, that’s not their ONLY problem.

X-Force. 2 episodes



Serial 4: Uncanny X-Force The Dark Angel Saga Volumes 1 & 2
(written by Rick Remender, art by Jerome Opena, Dean White, Esad Ribac, Billy Tan, and Mark Brooks)

Fiiiiine, here’s your Age Of Apocalypse story. Angel has been able to transform back and forth into Archangel for a while now, but Archangel is becoming a bit of a monster. In fact, he may be the next Apocalypse. Can his teammates stop him before he destroys this world?

Dark Angel. 3 episodes



Serial 5: X-Men Schism
(written by Jason Aaron and Kieron Gillen, art by Carlos Pacheco, Frank Cho, Daniel Acuna, Alan Davis, Adam Kubert, and Billy Tan)
The whole point of X-Force is to be the soldiers of the X-Men’s Utopia, so when Cyclops responds to a new Hellfire and Sentinel threat by using members of Generation Hope, Wolverine decides that the X-Men have gone astray and  decides to come up with a solution. Breaking up the X-Men.

Schism. 2 episodes



Serial 6: Uncanny X-Force Otherworld, Uncanny X-Force The Final Execution Volumes 1 & 2
(written by Rick Remender and Sam Humphries, art by Jerome Opena and Ron Garney)
Wolverine has some unfinished business to attend to before he can take on his new role as headmaster of the Jean Grey school. This arc is probably not going to win him the prestigious Father Of The Year Award.

The Final Execution. 4 episodes



Serial 7: Uncanny X-Men by Kieron Gillen Volumes 1 & 2
(written by Kieron Gillen, art by Carlo Pacheco and Brandon Peterson)
Back on Utopia, Cyclops uses the adult X-Men to handle events that would previously be X-Force’s problem and dubs them The Extinction Team. Mr Sinister returns to help them live up to their name.

Everything Is Sinister. 2 episodes



Serial 8: Wolverine & The X-Men Volumes 1 & 2
(written by Jason Aaron, art by Chris Bachalo and Nick Bradshaw)

Wolverine opens the Jean Grey school for mutants on the grounds of the former Charles Xavier school in Westchester. For a guy who’s all about making younger mutants students and not soldiers, he sure puts them in a lot of life or death situations, though.  Blame the Hellfire club.

New School. 3 episodes


Season 9 is 20 episodes


Interseason Special: Avengers The Childrens’ Crusade
(written by Allan Heinberg, art by Jim Cheung)
The Young Avengers go off in search of Wiccan’s mom, The Scarlet Witch, who has only been seen once since House Of M. How will the possibility of her return affect the population whose genocide she’s responsible for?

The X-Men franchise has had a few animated series, and is on their way to a sixth live action movie. But how would you put together a ten season live action show with continuity and including the best stories from the various X-books over the years?

​After years of destroying and rebuilding Westchester New York, The X-Men decide they need to freshen up their routine, so they head west to go about destroying the Pacific coast for a change. They even form their own little island called Utopia.

Episode 1: X-Men Manifest Destiny
(various writers and artists)

The mutants head west to San Francisco. Follow the journeys of Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and many more as all 198ish surviving mutants are invited to take up residence in the new mutant haven.

Manifest Destiny. 1 episode



Episode 2: Deadpool Secret Invasion
(written by Daniel Way, art by Paco Medina and Carlo Barberi)

While the mutants have been moving west, all the NY based superheroes have been battling Skrulls during The Secret Invasion. That’s not really the X-Men’s problem, though. Everyone’s favorite merc with a mouth, on the other hand, sees a profit in taking down the impending Skrull empire. And make a profit he does but at the cost of the entire Marvel Universe as he single handedly ushers in Marvel’s Dark Reign era.

One Of Us. 1 episode

Serial 1: Uncanny X-Men Lovelorn, Uncanny X-Men Sisterhood
(written by Matt Fraction, art by Greg Land and Yanick Paquette)

Back in San Fran, Emma Frost does a little therapy in Cyclops’s head while Colossus battles his past. Also, some old school mutants come back into the picture. Then, everyone’s favorite redhead is back and she and some female villains are kicking X-ass. Also meet the X-Men’s Science Team.

Sisterhood. 4 episodes

Serial 2: X-Men Curse Of The Mutants
(written by Victor Gischler, art by Paco Medina)

Vampire Terrorists? Vampire Bombs? One of the X-Men’s long-shelved c-list characters becomes a Vampire Mutant?  San Francisco is not great for this team (please note, I did not use the phrases “San Francisco bites” or “San Francisco sucks” or “bloody hell in San Francisco”).

Cursed. 2 episodes



Serial 3: Avengers & X-Men Utopia
(various writers and artists)

Dark Reign has a team of Dark Avengers and Dark X-Men. Basically, if there’s a team, HAMMER (the organization that replaced SHIELD) has their own version filled with villains.It’s like every team is The Thunderbolts. Well, Cyclops has had enough. He decides to take on Norman Osborne once and for all. Emma will undoubtedly be the key to ending the standoff. Of course she’ll be on the winning side.

Dark Reign In Utopia. 4 episodes



Episode 13: X-Men Psylocke
(written by Christopher Yost, art by Harvey Tolibao)

After the events of Sisterhood, Psyclocke decides to go back to Japan to clear up some loose ends from the early seasons of the X-Men.

Revanche. 1 episode



Episode 14: X-Men Legacy Emplate
(written by Mike Carey, art by Daniel Acuna)
Now that the X-Men are safely on Utopia they shouldn’t have to worry about any…wait. Emplate?

Devil At The Crossroads. 1 episode
.
Serial 4: X-Men Second Coming
(various writers and artists)

Having been absent all season, Cable and Hope return from the future. Hope is now sixteen years old and her mutant gene is active. But what are her powers? Who, aside form Bishop, is chasing her now? Will she be the savior or the end for all mutantkind? Find out as one pivotal X-Men completely and totally dies. For a little bit.

Second Coming. 3 episodes



Serial 5: Uncanny X-Men The Birth Of Generation Hope, Generation Hope The End Of A Generation
(written by Matt Fraction, James Asmus, and Allan Heinberg, art by Whilce Portacio, Leonard Kirk, Jamie Mckelvie, Steven Sanders, Oliver Coipel, Ibraim Roberson, Tim Green II, and Takeshi Miyazawa)

Now that Hope is back, new mutants have started showing up all over the globe, and it’s up to her to track them down and try and recruit them to the X-Men. But sometimes, the new recruits are a bad idea.

Generation Hope. 2 episodes



Episode 20: Uncanny X-Men Quarantine
(written by Matt Fraction and Kieron Gillen, art by Greg Land)
Sublime is back and he has a new drug that can turn anyone into an X-Man. Downside? There’s a plague on Utopia sapping the powers of all the mutants. Maybe these two things are connected? Also, Emma deals with one of the mutants Hope brought back from her mission.

Quarantine. 1 episode


Season 8 has 20 episodes


Interseason Special: Deadpool X Marks The Spot
(written by Daniel Way, art by Paco Medina and Shawn Crystal)
The merc with a mouth has spent years as foe or unlikely ally to the X-Men, just ask Cable. But he really, really wants to be an X-Man. And now that all the mutants are on Utopia, he’s determined to join their ranks. They’d be crazy not to accept him.

The X-Men franchise has had a few animated series, and is on their way to a sixth live action movie. But how would you put together a ten season live action show with continuity and including the best stories from the various X-books over the years?

​The events of the last season brought the mutant population from millions to 198. Despair ran through the Xavier school, the ashes of Genosha, Mutant Town and beyond. This season Beast tries to come up with a way to bring the species back from the brink of extinction.

Backup of the first six episodes: Endangered Species
(written by Mike Carey, Christopher Yost, and Christos Gage, art by Scot Eaton, Mark Bagley, Mike Perkins, Tom Grummet, and Andrea Divito)

Beast goes across the globe in search of a solution to the decimation crisis, running into a slew of villains, old friends, and surprises along the way.


Episode 1: New Avengers The Collective
(written by Brian Michael Bendis, art by Steve McNiven and Mike Deodato)

The Avengers know all about what happened during House Of M so they’re super worried when a new cosmic entity shows up in Alaska that appears to be a mutant. What it is is much, much worse.

The Collective. 1 episode



Serial 1: X-Factor Life & Death Matters, X-Factor Many Lives Of Madrox, Heart Of Ice
(written by Peter David, art by Pablo Raimondi, Ariel Olivetti, Dennis Calero, Renato Arlem, and Roy Allen Martinez)

The heart of the post House Of M world is X-Factor. Peter David’s decision to draw from the event and then only skirt around the other crossovers works really well, making this book much more engaging than any of the other X-books. In these two volumes they deal with mutant terrorist cells, the truth behind Decimation, the enigmatic Layla Miller, and the X-Men who really want them to pick aside in Civil War.

The Many Lives Of Madrox. 5 episodes



Serial 2: Messiah Complex
(written by Ed Brubaker, Mike Carey, Peter David, Craig Kyle, and Christopher Yost, art by Marc Silvestri, Billy Tan, Chris Bachalo, Humberto Ramos, and Scot Eaton)

A mutant child is born in Alaska and every mutant and villain are fighting for control of it. Marauders. Purifiers. Reavers. Mr Sinister. Forge. Lady Deathstrike. Mystique. Pretty much everybody but Apocalypse is involved. And in the end, the X-Men are betrayed by several of their own. But at least there’s hope. Also, Madrox and Layla Miller go to the future to learn what they can. It doesn’t go well.

Messiah Complex.  6 episodes



Serial 3: X-Factor The Only Game In Town
(written by Peter David, art by Pablo Raimondi and Valentine De Landro)

X-Factor had a rough time during Messiah Complex and Madrox and Layla’s return to Mutant Town isn’t precisely restful. Plus, Quicksilver has had a rough time of it since House Of M but maybe things will finally turn around for him. Also, Val Cooper from the early X-Factor days gets some comeuppance.

The Only Game In Town. 2 episodes



Episode 14: Wolverine Get Mystique
(written by Jason Aaron, art by Ron Garney)
Mystique wreaked havoc during Messiah Complex, and Logan decides he needs to make her pay.

Get Mystique. 1 episode



Serial 5: Cable Messiah War, Cable Waiting For The End Of The World
(written by Duane Swierczynski, art by Ariel Olivetti, and Ken Lashley)

Tasked with keeping the future of mutantkind safe, Cable travels through the future with Hope but they are constantly being trailed by a certain turncoat X-Men who thinks Hope is the key to mutantkind’s extinction, not their salvation.

Waiting For The End Of The World. 2 episodes



Serial 6: X-Factor Time And A Half, X-Factor Overtime
(written by Peter David, art by Valentine De Landro and Marco Santucci)
Just when you think X-Factor couldn’t get any darker, it does. Longshot, Darwin, and Shatterstar join the team. Madrox goes back to the future and we finally learn why Layla Miller “knows stuff”.

Overtime. 3 episodes



Serial 7: Cable X-Force Messiah War
(written by Duane Swierczynski, Craig Kyle, and Christopher Yost, art by Ariel Olivetti, Jamie Mckelvie, Mike Choi, Sonia Oback, Clayton Crain, and Larry Stroman)
Returning from their adventures through time, Cable and the child are greeted by X-Force and a litany of villains still trying to claim the messiah child as their own. Remember how I said it was everybody but Apocalypse? Yea, well, Apocalypse shows up. Plus, Deadpool and Cable have some long unfinished business.
Messiah War. 2 episodes


Season seven. 22 episodes

Interseason Special: X-Men Legacy Divided He Stands, Uncanny X-Men Divided We Stand
(written by Mike Carey and Ed Brubaker, art by Scot Eaton, John Romita Jr, Billy Tan, Greg Land, Brandon Peterson, Mike Deodata, and Mike Choi)

​Having been shot by a traitorous X-Man earlier in the series, Professor X is being put back together by an unknown benefactor memory by memory. Meanwhile Cyclops and Emma Frost go to the west coast to examine the future of mutantkind.