Marvel editorial has never been interested in streamlining their stories in graphic novel form so that you don't have repurchase stories that are contained elsewhere. This isn't the worst of their crime but it can make reading a chronology of sections of their universe difficult.

While we are about to get into one of the very easiest eras to follow, we first have a few odds and ends to clear up before The Age Of Apocalypse. None of these books made the official Headcanon.

​Cable & X-Force Omnibus by Fabien Nicieza, Tony S Daniel, and Terry Dodson

X-Force: Cable, Cannonball, Boom-Boom, Rictor, Warpath, Shatterstar, Domino, Siryn

Also Featuring: Prosh, Thornn, Feral, Professor X, Beast, Emma Frost, Banshee, Jubilee, Husk, Dani Moonstar, Reignfire, Locus

This review is purely for X-Force #39-43, which aren't collected elsewhere, for the other issues, check out my reviews of The Origin of Generation X: Tales of the Phalanx Covenant, Cable Classic Vol 2, Cable Classic Vol. 3, and Cable & X-Force Classic Volume 1.

This is an odd weird reset after the Phalanx Covenant where Nicieza decides to move the team to a new homebase by making "The Professor" (Cable's AI interface) sentient, similar to what they did with Danger a decade or so later, and then having The Professor have to leave, meaning X-Force loses their computer system and Cable's ability to bodyslide. It's the most interesting thing Nicieza has done with the team so far. It does seem a bit clunky to give the Professor sentience and immediately remove him from the title, especially so close after the Phalanx storyline, but it's at least an interesting clunky.

We then see a focus on Thorrn, a Morlock whose sister was the former X-Force member, Feral. Because no 90s X-Team could lack a canine- or feline-like hero with an aggressive streak. (See Wolverine, see Wolfsbane, see Kylun, etc.)

Eventually, the team gets some downtime with the new New Mutants, Generation X, and then has an uninspiring adventure in NY.

None of it is terrible. It moves the team in a new direction, as the entire X-corner of the Marvel Universe is about to be thrown into The Age Of Apocalypse. It's just kind of eh.

If you like 90s X-Force, this is a perfectly acceptable story but it's neither crucial to continuity nor intriguing enough for someone who isn't a die-hard reader.

Cable Classic by Jeph Loeb, Larry Hama, David Brewer, Adam Kubert, Steve Skroce, and Ian Churchill

1st Appearances: Marrow
Also Featuring Mikhail Rasputin, Colossus, Storm, Bishop, Thornn, Domino, Cannonball, Siryn, Wolverine, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Phalanx, Stephen Lang, Psylocke, Caliban, Foxbat, Beast, Dark Riders, Genesis, Gambit, Rogue, Angel, Professor X, Lilandra

This review is focused on issues Cable #15, and #17-20. My review concerning Cable #16 and Wolverine #85 are in The Origin of Generation X: Tales of the Phalanx Covenant, and can best be summed up by the fact that I mentioned the best of The Phalanx Covenant issues in Origin Of Generation X were also collected in Generation X Classic, Vol. 1, with the worst issues missing. They're in this collection.

The non-Phalanx portion of this collection focuses on Cable forging a stronger bond with his father, Cyclops, and on trying to figure out what happened to The Morlocks when Mikhail Rasputin seemed to kill himself, and take The Morlocks with him. Issue #15 is listed as the first appearance of Marrow but she's sort of a non-entity only referred to as Sarah in this collection. Thornn is the remaining Morlock, who we get a better look at in X-Force. Later, Caliban joins in the Morlock research, which leads to The Dark Riders and their new leader creating a new problem for Cable and the X-Men.

This is a decent book. Especially if you skip over the Phalanx storyline. It's clearly laid out to bridge the gap between the Phalanx and Age Of Apocalypse, and it does so, even if it does so a little unevenly and without an interesting throughline. Cable fans may enjoy it for the lore, casual X-Men fans probably won't be too excited by it.​

X-Factor Epic Afterlives by Kurt Busiek, JM DeMatteis, Todd Dezago, Scott Lobdell, Fabien Nicieza, John Francis Moore,Mtthew Friedman, Amy Meyer, Pat Broderick, Jan Duursema, Mat Broome, Bryan Hitch, Tony S Daniel, Ken Lashley, Paul Broges, Kerry Gamill, Roger Cruz,and Steve Epting

X-Factor: Forge, Havoc, Polaris, Wolfsbane, Strong Guy, Random
Also Featuring: Spider-Man, Flash Thompson, J Jonah Jameson, Robbie Robertson, Prof X, Storm, Moira MacTaggert, Val Cooper, Quicksilver, Haven, Prof Power, Malice, Mr Sinister, Ruckus, Hairbag, Slab, Gorgeous George, Blob

Another book where we're going to skip some repeated issues because of the Phalanx Covenant. So this review is for Spider-Man & X-Factor Shadowgames, and X-Factor #101-105 & 107.

There's a typical Marvel editorial snafu where this book is supposed to focus on what happens after Jamie Madrox died in the previous volume but this story begins with a Spider-Man crossover where Jamie Madrox is very much alive, even though he contributes very little to the story.

The Spider-Man crossover is not super pertinent to X-Factor fans. It mainly reminds you that they work for the government, and it involves some inconsequential villains who I don't think we ever see again.

Once we get to the main X-Factor title, it's mainly about how they are all very sad that Madrox is dead, which is appropriate and makes sense for the title. It then sees a long-term member decide to leave, has Storm and Forge resolve their love storyline from X-Men, tosses in a good old government conspiracy that ends up involving Malice and Mr. Sinister, and even gives us Professor X trying to determine Haven's intentions in the last collection. It's decent continuity but not an exciting set of stories. Skipping, the Phalanx stuff, there is a battle with the former Brotherhood Of Evil Mutants/Freedom Force that will feed into LegionQuest, which kicks of The Age Of Apocalypse. That's a lot of plot description for some fairly boring stories.

I enjoyed David's run on X-Factor but, several creative teams later, it is definitely falling victim to the law of diminishing returns. The villains are forgettable, the grief and self-examination gets tiresome as it continues to dominate the story long after its expiration date, and the jokes get flatter and flatter as the title is passed to other writers.
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​The whole collection is sloppy, as it collects several different storylines that don't so much intertwine as interrupt each other. None of them are bad but it's neither fully coherent nor incredibly entertaining. If you're not a completist, this is a real easy collection to skip, since the best parts are collected in The Phalanx Covenant or Age Of Apocalypse Prelude​.

Rogue by Howard Mackie and Mike Wieringo
Also Featuring: Gambit Belladonna, Storm

A completely forgettable Rogue & Gambit adventure that I've often wondered where to place in the continuity. In the Age Of Apocalypse Prelude, it's mentioned several times that this adventure takes place between issues. While it should be an important milestone in Rogue's history, the writing is just so flat, and the plot is so drawn out (there's about eight pages of story in this ninety-six page collection) that I can't recommend anyone track it down to read it, even if you're super invested in Rogue & Gambit's relationship. There's nothing here worth reading.

This is a very focused, if not very good, section of the X-Men readthrough. The first three collections focus on trying to untangle the Summer Family Tree by first sending Rachel Summers into a new future, then having her pull Jean Grey and Cyclops in, so that they can raise Cable, then showing us Jean Grey and Cyclops traveling back in time to interfere in the origin of Mr. Sinister, and wrapping the whole time travel angle up by showing us a bit more of Cable growing up after his parents and sister are removed from his life.

The second half of this era shows unusual X-Men teams battling The Phalanx, leading to the introduction of the fourth Generation of X-Men: Generation X. This is a bit more straightforward and entertaining than the first half, except when, in the midst of a Phalanx battle, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Cable, and Wolverine end up having to take the entire time traveling saga and having all the characters figure out how that impacts their lives in this timeline. It's clumsy as all hell, and distracting from an otherwise fun story.

The title in Boldface is something I consider Headcanon, meaning that if you're only going to read, say forty(?) of the over 500 X-books, this one should be on your list.

X-Men Phoenix by John Francis Moore, Pascal Alix, and Alan Evans
1st Appearances: Ch'Vayre
Also Featuring: Apocalypse

If Marvel editorial really wanted people to get the full story of the Summers family's time traveling adventures in a sensible order, they would release a collection that began with Phoenix, then had The Adventures Of Cyclops & Phoenix, followed by the Further Adventures Of Cyclops & Phoenix, and ending with Askani'Son. Four underwhelming time travel stories that attempt to make sense of Rachel Summers, Cable, Apocalypse, Mr. Sinister, and how they fit into Cyclops & Jean Grey's family history.

The Phoenix story picks up after Rachel disappears from Excalibur, introduces us to Ch'Vayre, who's going to pop up in two of the other three chapters of this story, and tosses in Apocalypse for a humdrum future timeline story. We also meet other characters who we know not to get attached to because this is just a setup story designed to let us know how Phoenix becomes Mother Askani. It does a real disservice to Apocalypse who's supposed to be being setup as this time conquering super-villain but who comes off as one of those weak 1960s punching bag villains. It's really difficult to imagine this version of Apocalypse becoming the focal point of X-Men: The Complete Age of Apocalypse Epic, Book 1.

X-Men Cyclops And Phoenix Past & Future by Scott Lobdell, Tom DeFalco, Peter Milligan, Gene Ha, Kyle Hotz, and John Paul Leon
Askani Tribe: Cyclops (aka Slym), Jean Grey (aka Redd), Cable (aka Nathan Dayspring), and Rachel Summers (aka Mother Askani)
Also Featuring: Ch'Vayre, Apocalypse, Stryfe, Jubilee, Mr. Sinister

I remember reading comics when this book was coming out, and seeing "see Cyclops & Phoenix limited series #1" and wondering if the Cyclops and Phoenix go into the future to raise Cable story would be interesting. There is a ton of story potential, and I knew nothing about it.

Twenty years later, when Cable went into the future to raise The First Mutant Born After Decimation, I remember thinking "I wonder if this is anything like that old Cyclops and Phoenix story. Maybe the whole thing is a cool homage."

No, Cable time traveling in the future to raise Hope was am interesting storyline, where they gave us new glimpses of characters' personalities, and seemed to be having fun writing an adventure story.

Cyclops & Phoenix in the future is a dull slog. While it's interesting to see what happened to Rachel Summers after she disappeared in Excalibur, the main plot of Cyclops & Phoenix in the future doesn't add anything to their lore, Apocalypse's lore, or the Ch'Vayre who we initially meet in X-Men: Phoenix #1. Really, the only interesting thing is finding out that Rachel is Mother Askani, which...ehh.

The second half of the book, where Cyclops & Jean end up in the past where Nathan Essex is slowly evolving into Mr. Sinister is also a slow-moving, uninteresting story which manages to add things to Sinister's lore that just don't make the character any more exciting. He had a sick wife? Ok. His kid died? Sure. He knew Charles Darwin? What is their relationship? Oh, they argue a couple of times when it's convenient for the plot but otherwise don't have a relationship? I guess that's fine.

The best part of the Mr. Sinister story is John Paul Leon's art, which evokes Mike Mignola in the best possible ways.

Overall, though, unless you're a completist, this is a completely skippable pair of side stories.​​

X-Men/Excalibur Road To Phalanx Covenant by Scott Lobdell, Chris Cooper, Richard Ashford, Eric Fein, Kim Yale, John Royle, Ken Lashley, Amanda Conner, Klebs Jr, Paul Abrams, Daerrick Gross, Hannibal King, Yancy Labat, John Romita Jr, Lee Weeks, and Joe Madureira
Excalibur: Moira MacTaggert, Nightcrawler, Kitty Pryde, Captain Britain, Meggan, Ahab, Douglock
X-Men: Prof X, Beast, Iceman, Angel, Storm, Banshee, Psylocke, Jubilee, Gambit, Forge, Bishop
Also Featuring: Zero, Jamie Braddock, Amanda Sefton, Selene, Yukio, Emma Frost

​This is a review of a Trade Paperback Collection That Doesn't Exist But Should. X-Men/Excalibur: Road To The Phalanx Covenant featuring Excalibur #78-81 and Annual #2 & Uncanny X-Men #311-315.

At the end of Excalibur #77, we get two pages of story that show Zero, a weapon left behind by Stryfe after X-Cutioner's song is on a mission of repair when we see a fusion of two dead New Mutants, Warlock and Doug Ramsey, seemingly fused into a new creature called Douglock.

Issues #78-81 mainly focus on a pedestrian, poorly paced story about Zero and Douglock trying to Pinocchio into real boys while being doubted by Kitty Pryde and the newish form of Captain Britain. I can see why the story hasn't been collected, as it's not on-par with Lobdell's other work from the era. It does however feed into the Phalanx story which is big enough that it introduces a whole new X-team soon.

Uncanny X-Men #311-315 mainly focuses Storm, Yukio, and Gambit crossing paths with Phalanx in New York and struggling to find its weaknesses. We learn that a few previous villains have merged with The Phalanx and that they are concerned that Douglock doesn't seem to be falling in line with their plans. This is also not Lobdell's best work but is a bit better. We also see Sabretooth briefly loose, get some more character time with Bishop, and we see how The White Queen adapts when she inhabits Iceman's body and learns to use his powers in ways he hadn't before. This is also not necessarily Essential X-reading but I am surprised it hasn't been collected in some form.

The Origin Or Generation X by Scott Lobdell, Fabien Nicieza, Larry Hama, Todd Dezago, Joe Madureira. Andy Kubert, Jan Duursema, Roger Cruz, Ken Lahley, Steven Epting, Tony S Daniel, Adam Kubert, and Steve Skroce
X-Men: Banshee, Jubilee, Emma Frost, Sabretooth
Excalibur: Prof X, Nightcrawler, Kitty Pryde, Meggan, Captain Britain, Moira MacTaggert, Douglock, Amanda Sefton (as Daytripper)
X-Factor: Forge, Havoc, Polaris, Wolfsbane, Strong Guy
​X-Force: Cannonball, Boom-Boom, Rictor, Warpath, Shatterstar, Siryn
Generation X: Monet, Husk, Blink, Skin, Synch
Also Featuring: Jean Grey, Cyclops, Wolverine, Cable, Beast, Storm, Bishop, The Phalanx, Cameron Hodge, Steven Lang

The beginning of this origin story for Generation X is really intriguing. All of Lobdell's issues in this collection are above-average X-Men stories about specific characters in the X-Men franchise trying to deal with a crisis where technology is evolving to kill them. They're well-paced, introduce the characters who will become Generation X, and are really fun to read.

Fabien Nicieza's issues aren't quite as good but they're ok. He crams in too many characters and they get a bit disjointed but they're still recognizably part of the overall story and have some fun moments.

Larry Hama's issues are unreadable garbage by a writer who wasn't up to the assignment of working on this crossover. In addition to dealing with the Phalanx storyline, he also tries to work in all of the time-hopping Summers family adventures which he does clumsily and unnecessarily.

The first few issues had me thinking I was going to put this into the X-Men headcanon but it really goes too far off the rails during the Hama issues for me to recommend this to anyone.

I'm not including the final issue in this collection (Generation X #1) because it also appears in the next book.

​13. Generation X Classic Vol 1 by Scott Lobdell, Fabien Nicieza, Joe Madureira, Roger Cruz, Andy Kubert, and Chris Bachalo
X-Men: Banshee, Jubilee, Emma Frost, Sabretooth
Generation X: Banshee, Emma Frost, Jubilee, Husk, Sync, Monet, Skin, Blink, Chamber
1st Appearances: Penance, Emplate, DOA
Also Featuring: Prof X, Jean Grey, Cameron Hodge, Steven Lang, Beast, Cyclops, Bishop, Angel, Iceman, Gateway, Nanny, Orphan Maker

I mentioned that there were some really good issues in The Origin Of Generation X that were bogged down by some terrible ones. While this collection doesn't have all of the good issues from that volume, it has most of them, and none of the bad ones. So you get an intriguing X-Men storyline about the Phalanx that becomes the origin story for X-Men Gen 4 (Gen 1 is the original team, Gen 2 is the Uncanny Team from the 80s, and Gen 3 is New Mutants/X-Force).

The adventure for How The Team Comes Together is fun, and once the actual Generation X story gets started, we get to see a nice evolution in how mutant teams exist. This isn't gorgeous Jean Grey the psychic and telekinetic with her nerdy suck-up boyfriend, the athletic Cyclops. There's no bouncing gymnast with snappy patter who is ostracized because he has big feet. Nobody looks like an angel, and nobody looks like a regular teen until he turns on his ice powers. When Paige is injured, she has to peel off her skin to reveal a new, uninjured body. Angelo's body has too much skin. And while Monet, Jubilee, and Everett look like normal teens, Jonathan appears to have a nuclear furnace where most people has a face, and the girl known only as Penance has a razor sharp body, not cool claws that they can push in and out of their skin like Wolverine, her whole body is razor sharp. It's basically a team of Nightcrawlers, in that they can't really hide that they're mutants.

In their first set of storylines, they battle the parasitic Emplate, they have to figure out how to interact with one of Emplate's non-verbal victims, Penance, and then they're sent to rescue a mutant teen who's taken a class hostage because the school kicked him out. His powers? He doesn't have any. He's just physically deformed and has trouble breathing. But he's treated like he's a violent criminal who the police assume is bulletproof because he's a mutant.

Despite a lackluster ending (The Holiday Spectacular is slightly holidayish but not at all spectacular), this is a worthy volume for my headcanon as we get to see a new team get together and we see new sides of Banshee and Emma Frost, who serve as the heads of the new Massachusetts Academy (you know, the school where Emma Frost was training The Hellions until she fell into a coma and most of her team died). The only negative caveat I have for this book is that if you really like the series, you should know that most of it hasn't yet been collected into trades. 

Despite an epic moment in X-history: the wedding of Jean Grey and Cyclops, this is a solidly forgettable era of X-books. While The Legacy Virus looms in the background, we spend these volumes following Cable and the X-Force through a series of Fabien Nicieza anti-climaxes, and experiencing an actually entertaining storyline where we learn about Nightcrawler's family history while also seeing what happens when Sabretooth ends up at the X-Mansion.

I would absolutely read a collection that only included the Excalibur and X-Men Unlimited Nightcrawler stories and the Sabretooth parts of Uncanny X-Men (along with his first mini-series) but the way they're collected in these volumes includes a lot of dull stories that either don't lead anywhere or else don't have a humongous effect on any other titles.

None of these books made Headcanon, though The Wedding Of Cyclops & Jean Grey came fairly close.

​Bishop Mountjoy Crisis by Josh Ostrander and Carlos Pacheco
1st Appearances: Mountjoy
Also Featuring: Storm, Prof X, Gambit, Shard, Forge, Bantam, Psylocke, Angel

What should have been a story running in the background of X-Men: The Wedding of Cyclops & Phoenix, Mountjoy Crisis sees yet another time traveler from Bishop's future flung into the current X-timeline to wreak havoc.

Theoretically, this expands on Bishop's origins and gives his character more depth but there isn't really anything interesting to add from this collection. It's told well, there just isn't really a full story's worth of plot here. Certainly not four issues worth.

Ostrander is a decent storyteller and Carlos Pacheco's art is better than most of the ongoing titled, so it's a shame there isn't enough story to make this worth the read.

​Excalibur Epic Days Of Future Yet To Come by Scott Lobdell, Dan Slott, Evan Skolnik, Richard Ashford, Steve Buccellato, Ken Lashley, Terry Shoemaker
Excalibur: Nightcrawler, Kitty Pryde, Rachel Summers, Meggan, Cerise, Kylun, Micromax, Feron
Also Featuring: Corsair, Hepzibah, Raza, Ch'od, Lilandra, Fang, Gamesmaster, Moira MacTaggert, Siena Blaze, Ahab, Spoor, Mr Sinister, Amanda Sefton, Captain Britain, Mystique, Graydon Creed, Rogue, Forge, D'spayre, Margali Szardos, Zero

(I reviewed issues #59-67 as Excalibur Visionaries: Alan Davis, Vol. 3, I read #68-77 in issues)

I struggle to think of many positives to this run on Excalibur. As someone who was already not a fan of the series, the constant shifting of a team I didn't really care about gave me a bit of motion sickness. Characters I didn't like or care about were given dramatic sendoffs, and then, remarkably, not replaced until the team dwindled down to a bare bones ancillary X-Men team.

Once that happened, I actually started enjoying the book. I don't imagine that's the case with the people who loved Excalibur up until this point but, for me, a team of Nightcrawler, Kitty Pryde, and Rachel Summers trying to figure out their places in the X-Men universe was way more interesting than shifting through magic and fairy-themed alternate universes.

The highlight for me was the issue where Nightcrawler joins up with Rogue to learn more about his parents. This is connected to a storyline in Sabretooth, and feeds into another storyline in the X-Men. This is the type of story I connect to more than A Bedpost With A Face Gains Sentience And Chews Through Barriers Between Worlds, Some Featuring Nazi Versions Of Heroes. If the latter sounds awesome to you, then you're a better match for Excalibur than I am.

By the end of the story, (view spoiler) it seems like we're going to get a new status quo with a team more similar to the original Excalibur lineup than the trio we focus on at the end of this volume.

We also get a peek at a villain who's going to be an important part of the next X-Force story.

X-Force Child's Play by Fabien Nicieza, Jim Kreuger, Tony S Daniel, Darick Robertson, Paul Pelletier, Mike Weiringo, Brandon McKinney, and Arnie Jorgensen
X-Force: Cable, Cannonball, Boom-Boom, Rictor, Shatterstar, Warpath, Domino, Siryn
New Warriors: Thrash, Justice, Nova, Firestar, Kymaera, Speedball, Rage, Silhouette
​Also Featuring: Gamesmaster, Siena Blaze, Magma, Empath, Dani Moonstar, Husk, Icarus, Trevor Fitzroy, Shinobi Shaw, Graydon Creed, Fenris, Mantek, Forge, Banshee, Nimrod, Apocalypse, Saul, Gideon, Feral, Forearm, Wildside, Jade Dragon, Collective Man, Reignfire

Fabien Nicieza's plots are usually inconsistent and tenuous. The first half of this collection is a focused storyline. Unfortunately for me, as a reader, it also heavily features another of Nicieza's teams, The New Warriors, who I'm not very familiar with, and who aren't very interesting in this volume.

The overall plot of the first half, that The Gamesmaster and The Upstarts have set a contest to kill all the original members of The New Mutants and The Hellions is interesting. Unfortunately, like most Nicieza stories, it doesn't really end so much as fizzle out. There's no satisfying comeuppance but also no cliffhangers for any future storylines, it just sort of ends, mostly off-panel.

The rest of the book is short stories about Nimrod, the Mutant Liberation Front, and the Externals. None of them are terrible but none of them are conclusive, either. Once again, Nicieza introduces some intriguing ideas and then gets distracted and the stories just end so we can move on to the next idea.

I think you have to be a die-hard fan to enjoy the main Child's Play Story and/or the annual issue, which focuses on the Mutant Liberation Front. The rest of the stories in this volume are forgettable no matter how much you love X-Force continuity. There just isn't enough in this volume to care about ever reading it again.​

11. X-Factor Epic X-Aminations by Peter David, Scott Lobdell, Skip Dietz, JD DeMatteis, Shana David, Joe Quesada, Jae Lee, Chris Batista, Buzz, Jan Duursema, Terry Shoemaker, Paul Ryan, Greg Luzniak, & Cliff Van Meter
X-Factor: Havoc, Polaris, Rahne, Quicksilver, Madrox, Strong Guy, Val Cooper, Forge
​1st Appearances: Haven, Monsoon
Also Featuring: Doc Samson, Random, Trish Tilby, Moira MacTaggert, Crystal, Prodigal, Amelia Voght, Unuscione, Katu, Colossus, Milan, Frenzy, Scanner, Kleinstock Bros, Rusty, Skids, Spoor, Sentinels, Robert Kelly, Cortez, Archangel, Icaman, Colossus, Cyclops, Prof X,  Lila Cheny

I'm skipping the X-Cutioner's Song issues in this volume because I already talked about them when reviewing X-Men: X-Cutioner's Song.

The next issue is the story the collection takes its name from. It's part of David's farewell storyarc, and it's fantastic. It's each of the members of the team meeting with psychiatrist and Hulk antagonist, Doc Samson and trying to work out their benefits/problems with being part of X-Factor. It's a very twenty-first century issue but it came out in the early 90s.

The team's trip to Genosha ends up adding a fascinating angle to the Havoc/Rahne issue as well as introducing the team to The Legacy Virus, which is going to ravage the X-portion of the Marvel Universe for years. We even see the introduction of a questionable guru character whose motivations and behaviors don't precisely align, as well as some inner-team turmoil when there's a possible betrayal.

This is just a really solid collection of stories, especially if you skip the X-Cutioner's stuff. Nothing against the overall X-cutioner's story, it's a decent crossover but you only get three non-consecutive portions of it here which makes for a choppy and unsatisfying read. Otherwise, this is a must-have for Peter David fans while also being a decent primer for Scott Lobdell who does his best to keep David's charm while also adding his own ideas into the story.

Cable Classic Vol 2 by Fabien Nicieza, Scott Lobdell, Glenn Herdling, Darick Rbertson, Dwayne Turner, Aron Wisenfeld, MC Wyman, Mike Miller, & Steve Skroce
Also Featuring: Cannonball, Siryn, Sinsear, Zero, Domino, Mr Sinister, Askani, Tolliver, Jean Grey, Cyclops, Prof X, Kitty Pryfe, Rachel Summers, Moira MacTaggert, Omega Red, Amelia Voght, Unuscione, Katu, Colossus, Milan, Frenzy, Scanner, Kleinstock Bros, Rusty, Skids, Lee Forrester, Senyaka, D'spayre, Belasco, S'ym

It's impressive that this book ends up falling victim to The Law Of Diminishing Returns given how terrible it begins.

This is just a hodge-podge of half baked continuity ideas in a desperate attempt to make Cable seem interesting. It's a shame because Cable was interesting the moment that Louise Simonson introduced him. The idea of a time traveling military-styled leader of a generation of mutants is cool. The idea of him being the son that Cyclops had to send into the future to save him from a technovirus is also cool. But Nicieza's story about Cable being a clone of a villain or maybe the villain is a clone of him or maybe the moon is a potato clone of a dinosaur in chili sauce blah blah blah.

Nicieza strikes me as someone who has never, in their life, completed a sentence. His ideas constantly shift, and they seem interesting on the surface but there's rarely any depth to them.

He was sort of Vince Russo before Vince Russo was Vince Russo.

This story is a mess. There's no reason to read it. Every time an interesting idea shows up (Lee Forrester is somehow back in the X-narrative?) it's squandered by bad 80's action dialogue (in a 90s book) and an aimless plot that doesn't take you to any of the potentially interesting destinations promised by the premise.

If you love Cable, I guess you might like this. Otherwise, there's no real reason to bother with this.

Deadpool Classic Vol 1 by Fabien Nicieza, Rob Liefeld, Mark Waid, Joe Kelly, Joe Madureira, Ian Churchill, Lee Weeks, Ken Lashley, and Ed McGuinness
1st Appearances: Slayback, Blind Al, T-Ray
​Also Featuring: Kane, Weasel, Copycat, Juggernaut, Black Tom, Banshee, Siryn, Sluggo, Sasquatch, Expediter

Deadpool is as divisive a character in the comics as he is a beloved character in the Marvel movie franchise. It takes a really gifted writer with a particular turn of phrase to make Deadpool funny. Fabien Nicieza was never going to be that writer. And Mark Waid, one of my favorite superhero comic writers wasn't up to the task, either.

While the comics in this issue aren't precisely terrible, they're just not very engaging. Whether it's Nicieza drowning anything interesting with the stupid Tolliver/Cable-adjacent storylines, or Waid's barely passable Juggernaut and the Cassiday family drama, I found myself waiting for this collection to be over, rather than hoping to see where it went.

The jokes are mostly flat ginger ale. The pop culture references pick up a little at the end with Joe Kelly's issue but it still felt like an underwhelming beginning to Mr. Wade Ryan Bea Arthur Chimichanga Reynolds Wilson.

I know the books get better because I've read them all before but I'm not sure I would have kept reading them if I'd started at the beginning. If you really love Deadpool and want to see his early appearances, I don't think this book is going to make you hate him, it's just not on-par with later volumes.

Wolverine Epic Inner Fury by Larry Hama, Bill Sienkiewicz, Kent Williams, Mark Texeira, and Dwayne Turner
1st Appearances: Tribune
​Also Featuring: Jubilee, Rogue, Sauron, Sabretooth, Psi-Borg, Birdy, Mystique

Apart from a very eventful issue that's also contained in Fatal Attractions, this is a collection of dull Wolverine stories that add nothing of interest to the character nor are they particularly fun or intriguing.
I don't know why it's impossible to tell an interesting story in The Savage Land but it is. I feel like the writers who enjoy writing about The Savage Land eat a lot of Corn Flakes and think black pepper is a bold spice choice.

Sauron should be an interesting character but his ties to the Savage Land make him a half-note dud.

There's also some Jubilee background that I didn't need. I enjoy that we saw her in a mall scene, and then she followed a band of mutants to Australia, and was like "I'm going to hang out with Wolverine until they make me an X-Man." It makes her teenage aloofness/rebellion tenable when we only know the bare bones of her tragic backstory. I didn't need it explained upon. It isn't as disappointing as when they finally revealed Wolverine's origin but I do think it devalues her story rather than improving it.

Sabretooth James Bond is a silly concept that doesn't work very well but it does include a ton of continuity points that are going to show up in various X-books including a pivotal Nightcrawler story in Excalibur.

There are also some trite one-shots, including an environmental story that I believe was written and drawn by children.
​
This is a hard pass for me. The only moderately interesting story is a collected in another trade. If you're not a completist, there's no reason for this to take up real estate on your bookshelf.

12. X-Men Fatal Attractions by Scott Lobdell, JM DeMatteis, Fabien Nicieza, Larry Hama, Joe Quesada, Brandon Peterson, John Romita Jr, Richard Bennett, Greg Capullo, Jan Duuresma, Andy Kubert, Adam Kubert, Ken Lashley, Roger Cruz, Cliff Van Meter, Jae Lee, Chris Sprouse, Paul Smith, Darick Robertson, & Matt Ryan
X-Men: Prof X, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, Angel, Iceman, Storm, Wolverine, Rogue, Pylocke, Revanche, Jubilee, Gambit, Bishop
X-Factor: Val Cooper, Havoc, Quicksilver, Polaris, Madrox, Wolfsbane, Strong Guy, Random
X-Force: Cable, Cannonball, Sunspot, Boom-Boom, Rictor, Shatterstar, Feral, Warpath, Siryn
​Excalibur:Nightcrawler, Kitty Pryde, Rachel Summers
1st Appearances: Exodus, Kleinstock, Neophyte, Spoor, Milan, Seamus Melloncamp, Empyrean
Also Featuring: Magneto, Colossus, Forge, Moira Mactaggert, Banshee, Magick, Reed Richards, Thing, Captain Britain, Sunfire, Fabien Cortez, Frenzy, Unuscione, Amelia Voght, Sanyaka, Trevor Fitzroy, Shinobi Shaw, Gamesmaster, Tribune, Toad, Blob, Pyro, Phantazia, Gabrielle Haller, Charlotte Jones, Trish Tilby, Robert Kelly, Sharon Friedlander, Tom Corsi, Lilandra

As you might guess by the volume of names above, this is a messy mega-crossover. While it has one excellent issue, and a couple of very important plot points for many future storylines, I have a difficult time recommending this. Mostly because it pivots around Magneto being a villain again. Yes, Magneto started as a villain, but he evolved into an anti-hero, an actual hero, and then into the murky era of being an opponent to the X-Men for a very valid reason that didn't cast him precisely as a villain. And then he died, fairly heroically. So to bring him back as a villain again felt really tacky, lazy, and not very believable.

I've grown to like Scott Lobdell's books more than I thought I did, and I do think he tells some compelling stories in this volume, but the conceit of Magneto being a villain just doesn't work for me.

There is a death, from The Legacy Virus, in this volume that was devastating when the issue was written, and it's devastating now. The story of grief from the perspective of Jubilee, Jean Grey, and Kitty Pryde is possibly Lobdell's best comic. It's certainly the best Jubilee story I can think of.

But then we have a character I most remember from The Age Of Apocalypse (which hasn't happened yet), Magneto and his Acolytes, a couple of minor but recurring character deaths, and a huge Wolverine moment.

So, I think I'm going to begrudgingly put this volume as a recommendation with the caveat that there's a lot of material, and not all of it is great, but all of it does feed into the major storylines, and it does make sense. We're about to enter an era of X-Men where most logic goes out the window, so I guess you should check out this, as one of the last bastions of decent, if complex and sometimes annoying, X-books before that era begins.

Avengers/X-Men Bloodties by Bob Harras, Scot Lobdell, Fabien Nicieza, Roy Thomas, Jan Duursema, Steve Epting, Andy Kubert, John Romita Jr, and Dave Ross
Avengers/West Coast Avengers: Captain America, Black Widow, Black Knight, Crystal, Darkhawk, Hawkeye, Mockingbird, US Agent, War Machine, Scarlet Witch, Vision, Hercules, Sersi
X-Men: Prof X, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, Iceman, Storm, Rogue, Revanche, Gambit, Bishop
1st Appearances: Renee Majcomb
Also Featuring: Magneto, Quicksilver, Colossus, Nick Fury, Peter Gyrich, Exodus, Fabien Cortez, Luna, Jenny Ransome, Trish Tilby

Another messy crossover. This one is mercilessly shorter but has a ton of plotholes and doesn't really enrich the X-Men's storyline. I can't say for sure about the Avengers storyline, as I'm not super familiar with the 90s Avengers & West Coast titles.

The weirdest plothole is that there is a very tight team of specific X-Men throughout this story. They go to Genosha to stop Magneto's Acolytes, as well as some rogue mutates, and then in the middle of a battle Angel and Revanche are just there, even though they did not accompany the X-Men to Genosha, nor were they already there. I think there was just a miscommunication between writers.

I also couldn't keep track of all the Avengers characters.

This is mainly the story of Acolytes wreaking havoc in Genosha and kidnapping Quicksilver and Crystal's daughter, Luna. This continues some of the fracturing of The Acolytes that we saw in the previous volume. It doesn't really have much of a bearing on future X-stories other than further connecting Genosha with Magneto, who is still suffering the effects of Fatal Attractions for the entirety of this volume.

I do not recommend it unless you're an Avengers/X-Men/Acolytes/or Genosha completist.

The end of X-Cutioner's Song is the beginning of a several year long era where the X-Men learn of, are effected by and must figure out how to overcome The Legacy Virus, a fatal disease with the impact of AIDS but nobody quite knows how it's spread.

Stories involving the Legacy virus have varying degrees of impact. At this early stage in their understanding of the disease, it's more of a concern than a tragedy.

Apart from the quirky but intriguing Skinner Of Souls storyline, this is a pretty tepid, wheel-spinning section of the X-Men Universe. It is almost entirely skippable, although the X-Force Assault On Graymalkin is fun if you're invested in the Cable/Cannonball/Sunspot storyline.

As usual, anything boldfaced represents a highly recommended book that I include in my actual headcanon.

Excalibur Epic Days Of Futures Yet To Come by Scott Lobdell, Alan Davis, Skott Collins, Mark Farmer
Excalibur: Captain Britain, Meggan, Kitty Pryde,  Nightcrawler, Cerise, Kylun, Micromax, Feron
Also Featuring: Black Panther, Captain America, War Machine,  Widget, Knight Errant, Galactus, Alysdar Stuart, Death, Roma, Saturnyne, Ahab, Sentinels

This book is split pretty evenly between an Alan Davis storyline, and some Scott Lobdell stories. Weirdly, it begins with Lobdell for two issues that take place in Wakanda and attempt to make the title feel more like an X-Men book, then we return to Alan Davis playing Chris Claremont's whackity-schmackity-doo, ain't-I-zany stories, and finally Lobdell returns and we're back to trying to tie stories into X-continuity.

While I'm not usually a Lobdell fan, I do enjoy his work on this title more than Davis's. So far, no writer has been talented enough to make me care about Widget and the magic/dimension-hopping shenanigans of Captain Britain and friends. I think Tini Howard is very talented but I still found her run on Excalibur a snooze. The Wakanda storyline was, for an early 90s superhero book, a progressive story that toyed with tropes in a way that felt like it was from the early 2000s.

If you're a fan of Alan Davis's work, you might love this. While I do enjoy his art, I'm not a fan of his writing so this wasn't for me. Lobdell fans will be disappointed that after the second issue the story goes in a wildly different direction, even though it seemed like Lobdell was setting up some interesting threads before Davis's return, and then introducing even newer ideas when he returned to the title.

10. X-Men Skinning Of Souls by Scott Lobdell, Fabien Nicieza, Dan Slott, Andy Kubert, Brandon Petersin, Richard Bennett, Eliot R Brown, Kris Renkewitz, Henry Flint, Steve Alexandrov, and Darick Robertson
X-Men Blue: Professor X, Cyclops, Wolverine, Colossus, Rogue, Psylocke, Gambit, Jubilee
1st Appearances: Revanche
Also Featuring: Jean Grey, Iceman, Storm, Darkstar, Magik, Omega Red, Shinobi Shaw, Matsuo, Silver Samurai, Psynapse, Foxbat, Gauntlet, Tusk, Barrage, Mesmero, Banshee, Moira MacTaggert

After the team goes to Russia to deliver bad news to Colossus's family, bad news is delivered to them in the form of a mutant who has time-locked a town and enslaved Omega Red. This is followed by some nifty continuity tweaks explaining some characters' backgrounds and setting the stage for the complicated future that awaits everyone courtesy of The Legacy Virus.

Cable Classic Vol 1 by Fabien Nicieza, Art Thibert, Ron Lim, Paul Smith, Klaus Janson, Brandon Peterson, Kerry Gammil, Ian Churchill, Paul Ryan, Bill Wylie, Jim Reddington, Rob Liefeld, and Scott Koblish

Debut: Sinsear, Weasel

Featuring: Kane, Hammer, Bridge, Grizzly, Vanessa, Domino

The first four issues of Cable, are really the story of his sometimes sidekick/sometimes antagonist Kane who Cable rescued to the future. We follow his adventures in the future with Cable's dull team of cliche warriors, who somehow manage to be less interesting than his team of cliche warriors from Cable: Blood and Metal, until Cable shows up and we get returned to the "present" portion of the timeline.

It's all fine. The plot is predictable, none of the characters besides Cable, Domino, and Vanessa, are particularly interesting. I also find the "mystery" of Tolliver's identity that runs through Cable, X-Force, and Deadpool fairly tedious.

If you love Cable or Kane, and really want to see one of the many futures they exist in, this is worth picking up. It's never terrible. It's just never very interesting either.

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.

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.

This era of X-books is so full of Huge Events that there's barely time to breathe between The Mutant Massacre, The Fall of The Mutants, and The Inferno. And while there are some huge shakeups during these events, it's tough to recommend them. There are so many characters involved with intricate backstories who just keep repeating the same expository dialogue in every issue while chaos occurs around them. If you keep counting how many times Jean Grey or Scott Summers explains their history and Cyclops's abandoned family, you'll get lightheaded and pass out two issues in.

​This is also the beginning of The X-Men are "dead" and living in the Australian Outback era, which has not yet been collected in trade paperback form, which says a lot about its importance to canon.

No books in this section end up making my Headcanon, even though a couple of them have plot points that have major impacts on the X-Universe. 

X-Men Fall Of The Mutants Vol 2 by Louise Simonson, Walt Simonson, Ann Nocenti, Peter David, and Marc Gruenwald
X-Factor: Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, Iceman, Rusty, Skids, Artie, Leech, Caliban, Rictor, Boom-Boom
1st Appearances: 
Also Featuring: Angel, Apocalypse, Cameron Hodge, Trish Tilby, War, Pestilence, Famine, Starstreak, Molecula, Counterweight, Destroyer, Hulk, Rick Jones, Clay Quartermain, Hulkbusters, Betty, Doc Samson, Daredevil, Black Widow, Karen Page, Captain America, Falcon, Redwing, Nomad, Vagabond, Battlestar, Black Panther, Thing, Human Torch, Crystal, Carol Danvers, Dr Doom


This will probably not come as a shock to people who've spent years reading Marvel and DC graphic novels: This should actually be volume one of Fall Of The Mutants as all the stories take place before the events in X-Men: Fall of the Mutants, Vol. 1. I often wonder if the collection editors at The Big Two comic companies even read comics.

This volume mainly focuses on X-Factor's first major battle with Apocalypse (they faced him once before in X-Factor Epic Collection, Vol. 1: Genesis & Apocalypse but he's a much bigger threat in this collection). We also see Warren as Archangel/Death for the first time.

This is a battle scene comic where much of New York is destroyed in a battle between mutants. We even get to see the events from the perspectives of Captain America, Daredevil, and the Power Pack. It's...fine. Like most of the early X-Factor run, Scott and Jean Grey spend a great deal of time talking about the various Jean Grey clones that Cyclops dated and/or married while she was "dead". And there's a b-story where X-Factor is hired to hunt down a mutant who turns out to be the new grey Incredible Hulk. Those stories are also okay.

Despite the big stakes, and the Worthington storyarc, not much of this volume grabbed me. I mentioned this in my review of the other Fall Of The Mutants story: I just don't know if I can get excited about any of these X-books until we're past X-Men: Inferno, which I remember hating when I've tried to read it before.

If you like X-Factor or Apocalypse, this is a nice little romp, even if it's not quite as good as its much more concise Animated Series counterpart.​

X-Factor Epic Angel Of Death by Louise Simonson, Walt Simonson, Marc Gruenwald, Tom DeFalco, Sal Buscema, Jon Bogdanove, Terry Shoemaker, Steve Lightle, Tom Artis, and Paris Cullins
X-Factor: Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, Iceman, Rusty, Skids, Artie, Leech, Rictor, Boom-Boom
1st Appearances: Ship, Infectia, N'Astirh
Also Featuring: Caliban, Angel, Cameron Hodge, Trish Tilby, Apocalypse, Pestilence, War, Famine, Energizer, Lightspeed, Zero-G, Mass Master, High Evolutionary, Blob, Mystique, Destiny, Spiral, Avalanche, Pyro, Crimson Commander, Super Sabre, Stonewall, Thor, She-Hulk, Black Knight, Dr Druid, Lord Zano, Tower, Time-Shadow, Frenzy, Orphan Maker, Nanny, Candy Southern

This volume leans heavily on the X-Factor trainees: Rusty, Skids, Victor, and Boom-Boom, as they try and navigate their relationships with their mentors while also being curious teens. We see them help the rest of X-Factor bond with their new base of operations: Ship, a piece of Apocalypse's technology that almost literally fell into their hands.

The focus on this book is X-Factor deciding to try and win people over by publicly working to repair a city broken by a fight with a supervillain, as opposed to their previous plan: pretend to be humans hunting dangerous mutants, and then training them. The new technique works much better.

While the Archangel version of Angel is on the cover, and the book is named after him, he's really more of a background character in this book, trying to decide how reintegrate into society with his new appearance and wings.

While this didn't quite make it into my headcanon, it's a solid read that I recommend to fans of B-level mutants having some main character moments.

X-Men issues #228-234 (Not collected in trade yet) by Chris Claremont, Tom DeFalco, Rick Leonardi, and Marc Silvestri
X-Men: Storm, Wolverine, Colossus, Havok, Rogue, Psyclocke, Dazzler, Longshot, Madelyne Pryor
1st Appearances: Gateway, Bonebreaker, Pretty Boy, Skullbuster, Wipeout
Also Featuring: The Brood, Henry Peter Gyrich, Roma, Dani Moonstar, Cannonball, Wolfsbane, Sunspot, Magik, Warlock, Magneto, S'ym, Jean Grey, Cable (as Baby Nathan), Trish Tilby, N'astirh

​There's a lot of story packed into these ten issues as Claremont bridges X-Men: The Fall of the Mutants and the first part of the X-Tinction Agenda. The heroes end up in Australia, then Genosha. The world believes them dead, so a bit of magic makes them invisible to technology, enabling them to operate with more impunity.

It's an interesting concept that I don't really remember, even though I'm pretty sure I've read much of this era before. There is also the best pre-Broo Brood storyline I remember reading. It's not a classic but it's not as formulaic as most of the X-Men vs Brook encounters, as the Brood in this instance are all made from mutants so they have different powers and personalities. It was fun to read.

I have a newfound respect for Claremont's run because of this read-through. I've always been impressed by his decade plus run on the flagship book but I don't think I've read it as closely. Very little of it is bad. I understand why both X-Men The Animated Series and X-Men '97 draw so heavily from this era of stories.

If you can find these issues in a library or a comic book store, by all means grab them, or check them out online. But it's not The Best of Claremont's run.

Introducing the original X-Men as a team called X-Factor eventually ended up letting the proverbial "breath of fresh air" in, but it takes a while for the circulation to get going. Especially since the background for much of the first few years of the series is: Cyclops abandoned his wife and child for his high school sweetheart who happens to look precisely like the wife he abandons. It's weird. And it plays out much better in the X-Men '97 cartoon.

The Mutant Massacre, itself, is the first epic tragedy in X-history where a huge swath of mutants are killed off. And it's by a set of villains who weren't used before this crossover, and most of them don't get used too long after this event.

​The highlight for me, though is how the X-Men interact with other teams in the post-Massacre status quo.

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.​

X-Factor Epic Genesis & Apocalypse by Roger Stern, John Byrne, Bob Layton, Bob Harras, Louise Simonson, Tom Defalco, Chris Claremont, John Buscema, Butch Guice, Keith Pollard, Paul Neary, Rick Leonardi, Marc Silvestri, Terry Shoemaker, John Bolton, and Mike Collins
X-Factor: Cyclops, Jean Grey, Angel, Beast, Iceman, Cameron Hodge, Rusty, Arthur
1st Appearances: Cameron Hodge, Rusty, Arthur, Skids, Tower, Frenzy, Apocalypse, Crimson Dynamo, Trish Tilby, Apocalypse
Also Featuring: Captain America, Photon, Hercules, Namor, Black Knight, Wasp, Mr Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch, She-Hulk, Madelyne Pryor, Cable (as a baby), Vera Cantor, Carl Mddicks, Nick Fury, Iron Man, Spider-Man, J Jonah Jameson, Jon Robertson, Mary Jane Watson, Betty Brant, Mystique, Blob, Avalanche, Pyro, Spider-Woman

I struggled with whether or not to include this in Headcanon. I don't believe in needing to include Important Moments in my chronology, so I didn't really care that an early version of Apocalypse is seen here for the first time. He's not interesting in these issues.

The real story is that they bring Jean Grey back from the dead, and Scott has a crisis of "My first ever girlfriend died, and then I dated an alien entity that I thought was here but was actually an evil cosmic monster using her appearance, and while I was mourning the dead monster I stumbled into someone who I don't yet realize was just a clone of my first girlfriend who I married and had a kid with, then my original girlfriend was discovered alive somehow and I abandoned my wife and son to be a superhero with her and now I'm too much of a coward to tell her about the family I made while she was dead and too much of a coward to tell my family that my dead girlfriend is back and booooohooohooo life is hard. Cyclops has been The Worst X-Men since X-Men Epic Collection, Vol. 1: Children of the Atom but he's particularly loathsome here.

The other major storyline is that the original X-Men team are posing as mutant hunters in order to hunt mutants. It could be an interesting story but they keep bringing up how conflicted they are but they don't ever do anything about it in this volume. Their time is split between pretending to be the mutant hunting group, X-Factor, and being a mutant terrorist group called X-Terminators. Eh.

In addition to Apocalypse, this volume introduces Rusty, Skids, Cameron Hodge, and Trish Tilby, who are all a bit important to the late 80s/early 90s X-cast. It also feeds directly into the events of the next big crossover, X-Men: Mutant Massacre​

X-Men Mutant Massacre by Chris Claremont, Louise Simonson, Walter Simonson, John Romita Jr, Sal Buscema, Alan Davis, John Bogdanove, Jackson Guice, Rick Leonardi, and Bret Blevins
X-Men: Magneto, Storm, Wolverine, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Kitty Pryde, Rogue, Rachel Grey, Psylocke
New Mutants: Dani Moonstar, Wolfsbane, Sunspot, Cannonball, Magik, Magma, Warlock, Cypher 
X-Factor: Cyclops, Jean Grey, Angel, Iceman, Beast, Cameron Hodge, Rusty, Arthur, Skids
1st Appearance: Malice, Scalphunter, Riptide, Scrambler, Arclite, Harpoon, Sabretooth, Boom Boom
Also Featuring: Dazzler,  Sebastian Shaw, Selene, Callisto, Vertigo, Analee, Sunder, Moira MacTaggart, Magus, Beautiful Dreamer, Caliban, Leech, Blob, Mystique, Trish Tilby, Candy Southern, Apocalypse, Plague, Prism, Blockbuster, Thor, Hela, The Power Pack, Franklin Richards, Masque, Vanisher, Sharon Friedlander, Tom Corsi

​The first megacrossover of the X-books delivers a ton of death, radical shifts in storylines, and action. If you haven't been reading the X-Men, New Mutants, X-Factor, and Power Pack, this is Not the place to start. If you're only reading one or two of the titles, then at least a third of this book is going to be very confusing as ever issue is pretty much in media res from a previous storyline. The action is dizzying and feels, sometimes, like it's being told slightly out of order across issues. There are also way too many characters to keep track of if you weren't already keeping track of them in their various titles, plus the Thor book.

It is rewarding if you have been keeping track of everything, though. There are character debuts, and newish characters finally getting fleshed out. The tone switches weirdly from time to time, as one of the titles in this collection is Power Pack, a group of elementary school aged powered kids who've dealt with The Morlocks before. Having them show up and battling a group of villains who've brutally murdered thousands of Morlocks before they arrive, and who've also taken down some of the X-Men, seems a bit odd. There's no way The Power Pack is strong enough to take on this level of villains, and yet...it happens right before an X-Men issue where the characters who get outbattled by first graders then nearly kill Wolverine. It's very odd.

I recommend this highly to X-fans who've read much of the material that leads into this, but I do Not recommend this to those who aren't already invested in 80s X-Men. This is an absolutely terrible jumping on point.

6. X-Men Vs Fantastic Four by Chris Claremont,  John Bogdanove, Barry Windsor-Smith, Jackson Guice, Marc Silvestri, and Dan Green
X-Men: Magneto, Storm, Havok, Wolverine, Kitty Pryde, Rogue, Psylocke, Longshot, Dazzler
Fantastic Four: Mr Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch, Thing, She-Hulk, Franklin Richards
Also Featuring: Dr Doom, Malice, Juggernaut, Madelyne Pryor, Polaris, Lila Cheney, Moira MacTaggert, Banshee, Alicia Masters, Sharon Friedlander, Tom Corsi

I'm including X-Men issues #314-#319, which have not yet been collected into trade paperback but serve to bridge the gap between Mutant Massacre and X-Men Vs Fantastic Four.

This uncollected storyline is not an epic but it's a fun series of two-issue stories where the X-Men battle Malice, then Wolverine goes berserk while Storm lives out The Most Dangerous Game against some WWII era heroes who've aged into unethical vigilantes, and then Dazzler and a bunch of the X-Men on Muir Island battle Juggernaut. They're all fun, if not Important To Continuity, and help setup the interpersonal relationships we see in Fantastic Four Vs X-Men.

​​This was the first comic series I ever read. So there's definitely some nostalgia inspiring my review.

The story involves the X-Men needing a device from Reed Richards of The Fantastic Four in order to save their youngest member, Shadowcat during the aftermath of The Mutant Massacre. Through a series of dream sequences and a jubilantly nitpicky Doctor Doom interventions, Reed doesn't trust that his machine will help. Thus the Vs. part of the title, as the teams do squabble a couple of times. But, mostly, this is a team up book that doesn't have Universe Changing Consequences. It's superhero friends calling superhero friends to help solve a very specific team-focused problem. I enjoy that level of stakes.

The dialogue is Chris Claremont hokey. But I think it's some of his better hokey work. The art is standard 80s Marvel.

I recommend this more for X-Men fans than FF fans, as that's Claremont's wheelhouse, and if you do love continuity, there's a ton of fun events in this self-contained mini-series. If you're the type that gets really frustrated that Jennifer Walters behaves in a different manner than you would imagine based on She-Hulk Issue 31, maybe steer clear of this one.

Not Yet Collected
X-Factor: Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, Iceman, Angel, Rusty, Arthur, Cameron Hodge
1st Appearances: War, Famine, Ariel, Rictor
Also Featuring: Skids, Boom Boom, The Vanisher, Callisto, Caliban, Leech, Masque, Ape, Master Mold, Apocalypse, Plague, Trish Tilby

​***As of this writing, X-Factor (Vol 1) #12-17 haven't been collected in trade paperback form. So this is a review for those six issues.***

These six issues follow X-Men: Mutant Massacre all the way until X-Men: Fall of the Mutants, Vol. 2. It involves the pivotal story of Apocalypse recruiting the first Four Horseman we encounter as readers, it sees the amputation of Angel's wings, and the rise of X-Factor's second wave of characters: Rusty, Arthur, Skids, and Boom-Boom, in more pivotal roles. We also see how The Morlocks recover from The Mutant Massacre.

So why hasn't it been collected?

It's two issues' worth of story spread across six very repetitive stories. I don't, in any way, blame Louise Simonson for this. This was the Jim Shooter (commonly regarded as the worst editor in the history of Marvel Comics) Era of crossovers and there were clearly plans for the main characters of this book to be heavily involved in the crossovers. 

The most interesting part of this story takes place in the final two issues where the B-team of X-Factor make a deal with Masque, the most ethically bankrupt Morlock since Analee the childsnatcher was killed, to heal a woman that Rusty accidentally burned when he received his powers. Instead of the usual Victim Of Mutant Crime Hates Mutants And Refuses Help, the burn victim blames her aggressive sexuality for why she was burned, and is devoting her life to the healing power of Christianity, which she then decides to spread to The Morlocks. It's creepily sweet? Sweetly creepy? I disagree with what the character's intentions but she clearly thinks she'll be doing good.

Even if this were a tight, two issue story, this wouldn't be a terribly exciting storyarc. It progresses the story in an interesting direction there is neither a ton of action, nor much character growth (apart from, perhaps, the burn victim). Apocalypse is in the background of several of these issues recruiting his Horsemen but since we don't know why, and since he hasn't yet been A Major Villain, it's hardly riveting. I understand now why they've released all of the issues around this storyline but haven't bothered to collect these particular issues yet.

X-Men Vs Avengers by Roger Stern, Tom DeFalco, Jim Shooter, Marc Silvestri, and Keith Pollard.
X-Men: Magneto, Storm, Wolverine, Rogue, Havok, Dazzler, Longshot, Psylocke
Avengers: Captain America, Thor, Photon (as Captain Marvel), Black Knight, She-Hulk, Dr Druid
1st Appearances: Ursa Major, Titanium Man 2, Vanguard, Darkstar
Also Featuring: Crimson Dynamo

​A solid follow-up to the Trial Of Magneto. Like most Heroes vs Heroes book, there are minor kerfuffles between the teams but they mainly end up working together because they're heroes.

There's also a fun additional dynamic to this series in that it's X-Men vs Avengers vs a Russian mutant superhero team. Their involvement is hugely important to the action and the plot.

The centerpiece of the battles is that Magneto has been led to a remnant of Asteroid M and has decided to destroy most of it, lest it fall into "the wrong hands", while keeping some mind control circuitry for himself.

Apparently, the author of the first 3/4 of this story intended to turn Magneto back into a villain at the end of the series and refused to rewrite his ending so notoriously evil editor Jim Shooter put a new creative team on the final issue.

While I do hate editorial interference, the use of Magneto as an anti-hero, as opposed to a villain, was a great transition in Marvel history, and Claremont definitely needed him not to be evil for at least a few more years of his run. I don't dislike the ending of this series, even if it conflicts with Stern's original vision.​

​7. New Mutants Epic Fallen Angels by Chris Claremont, Jo Duffy, Jackson Guice, Bret Blevins,  Kevin Nowlan, Alan Davis, Rick Leonardi, Sal Buscema, Kerry Gammill, Marie Severin, and Joe Staton
New Mutants: Prof X, Magneto, Wolfsbane, Dani Moonstar, Sunspot, Cannonball, Karma, Magik, Magma, Warlock, Cypher
1st Appearances: Siryn, Renegade, Gomi
Also Featuring: Stevie Hunter, Magus, Kate Power, Sym, Carol Danvers, Corsair, Lilandra, Ch'od, Hepzibah, Waldo, Sikorsky, Storm, Sebastian Shaw, Selene, Tessa, Impossible Man, Sabretooth, Scalphunter, Vertigo, Harpoon, Empath, Roulette, Catseye, Shaman, Jetstream, Boom Boom, Ariel, The Vanisher, Beast, Iceman, Moon Boy, Devil Dinosaur

After the Mutant Massacre, the New Mutants were separated and shunted through time with Magneto and the remaining X-Men thinking they're dead. Each team has ended up in an alternate future while Magik, who was separated from both teams ends up encountering Professor X and the Starjammers.

The alternate future timelines where each team sees the aged-up versions of their missing teammates living in a different type of dystopia is a ton of fun, as is Professor X becoming part of the story again.  We also see the showdown between Magus and Warlock before we return to the X-mansion in the proper timeline for a mediocre retread of the New Mutants vs The Hellions, and a very odd adventure with the Fantastic Four villain, Impossible Man.

This is the volume where the series veers away from the horror, and into the usual Claremont wheelhouse of superhero time travel/ space epic, and I think it's an improvement. We do have the typical team infighting, resulting in a brief spin-off series featuring Sunspot, Warlock, Siryn, Madrox, Boom Boom, Ariel, Renegade, and Gomi isn't a great story but it does let some lesser used Marvel mutants and lobsters shine.​  

This is a pleasantly weird but mostly unnecessary chunk of the Claremont era. Lots of subplots, and the beginnings of stories that will become more important later, this was the first section of my read-through that I started to struggle through.

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.

6. New Mutants Epic The Demon Bear Saga by Chris Claremont, Bill Sienkiewicz, Bob McLeod, and John Buscema

New Mutants: Professor X: Dani Moonstar, Wolfsbane, Cannonball, Sunspot, Magik, Magma, Cypher, Warlock
1st Appearances: Magus, Lilah Cheney, Legion, Guido, Reverend Craig, Sharon Friedlander, Tom Corsi
Also Featuring: Karma, Shadow King, Lockheed, Binary, Lilandra, Corsair, Ch'od, Waldo, Stevie Hunter, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Selene, Sebastian Shaw, Magneto, Lee Forrester, Moira MacTaggert, Cloak, Dagger, Rogue, Banshee, Madrox, Gabrielle Haller, Emma Frost, Dazzler, Rachel Grey

​I'm putting this in headcanon purely for the first part of this collection. The Demon Bear Saga, is one of the best New Mutants stories. Much of this is the arrival of Bill Sienkiewicz as artist. Through a 2024 lens, his artwork is odd, anatomically jarring, a little sharp angled, and with a bit of a DC Vertigo or mid-90s MTV cartoon edge. But when it debuted in the 80s it was revelatory. I imagine traditionalists hated it but as a kid, I wanted more.

It does help that his first story is when the series pivoted from The Next Young Group Of Mutants Tries To Find Their Way In The World to a collection of stories that explore the effect of trauma on minority youth.

There is a noticeable dip in quality of story (but not art) as we transition to the arrival of Warlock, and then the fallout of a Cloak and Dagger story. The stories are fine, and do an admirable job of pushing the characters in new directions but they feel scattered after the focused and brilliant Demon Bear Saga.

Next up is the introduction of Legion, a character who can be used super creatively, and was the focus of one of the best Marvel related TV shows they've come up with. Certainly the best pre-streaming TV show. Unfortunately, much of the first Legion arc uses a dated, problematic trope that makes it cringey to read. While this trope is only introduced so that Claremont can invert it is admirable. The end of the story does make it so that the characters using the problematic language and ideals turn out to be wrong and learn a lesson. That doesn't make the journey there any easier to read. It's not quite as bad as Claremont dropping the N-bomb in X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills to prove a point about racism but it's pretty close and it's drawn out for Much Longer. 

X-Men Epic The Gift by Chris Clarement John Romita Jr, Dave Cockum, Paul Smith, Steve Leialoha, and Barry Windsor-Smith

X-Men: Professor X, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Rogue, Wolverine, Kitty Pryde, Rachel Gray
1st Appearances: Nimrod, Talisman, Kulan Gath, BAMFs
Also Featuring: Storm, Colossus, Madelyne Pryor, Alpha Flight (Northstar, Sasquatch, Aurora, Puck, Vindicator, Shaman, Snowbird), Selene, The Hellions (Empath, Roulette, Warpath), Emma Frost, Sebastian Shaw, Loki, The New Mutants (Magik, Cannonball, Magma, Dani Moonstar, Sunspot, Magneto, Arcade, Miss Locke

An absolute mess of tonal whiplash in this collection as we see the X-Men books, under Claremont's pen twist in odd directions, and we get an annual, a crossover, and a couple of miniseries that each have very different feels despite Claremont writing most of them.

We begin with a magic storyline where an old Conan The Barbarian villain arrives and turns New York into a fantasy hellscape (this is not the only time Claremont uses this plot device). We see The Morlocks return to rescue Professor X after he's beaten up by anti-mutant college students, while one of their subsects kidnaps The Power Pack, and an assortment of X-Men try and rescue them.

There is some turnstile turnover in these volumes as Storm, who was depowered just before this collection returns to Africa to reconnect with her roots, Rachel Grey becomes a more permanent member of the team, and Wolverine and Kitty Pryde return from Japan part way through this collection. Plus, Cyclops and Madelyne Pryor pop up twice.

The first time we see Cyclops in this collection, he and Madelyne Pryor end up being sort of captured and reprogrammed by Loki, who tries to balance the power between mutants and humans. This pulls in both The X-Men and Alpha Flight as his plan involves using magic to to transform New Y...sorry...Canada into a fantasy utopia. The second time is a rehash of every Arcade and Miss Locke storyline.

In Africa, Storm is shot and had a hallucinogenic journey before she rescues a pregnant woman and learns things from a dying shaman in an inoffensive but fairly appropriative story by a couple of white guys who probably hadn't spent time on the continent of Africa but had seen some Disney movies that took place there.

The volume closes with a goofy Nightcrawler story where a Danger Room accident results in him traveling through dimensions, playing pirate, and running into a dimension filled with tiny teleporting creatures that look and smell like tiny versions of him. It's very silly but not quite fun.

Longshot by Ann Nocenti and Arthur Adams
X-Men: none
​1st Appearances: Longshot, Spiral, Gog, Magog, Mojo, Arize, Major Domo, Quark
Also Featuring: J Jonah Jameson, Robbi Robertson, She-Hulk, Spider-Man, Doctor Strange

Usually, an X-Men miniseries gives you the origin story of a beloved or fairly new member of the team or someone associated with them. For, I think the only time, Longshot presents the origin of a character we haven't met yet but who is destined to meet the X-Men.

Longshot, like Wolverine, is a character whose mind has been wiped and who doesn't know who he is or where he's from, so we learn with him as the series progresses. It's a pretty fun ride by Ann Nocenti, with ruminations on fantasy vs reality, gun control, violence in the media, and the Spineless Ones who run the media in the world Longshot is from.

It's not really good enough for Headcanon status but it is one of the strongest X-Men origin stories Marvel has ever put out. 

X-Men Ghosts by Chris Claremont, Barry Windsor-Smith, John Romita Jr, Rick Leonardi, June Brigman, and Arthur Adams
X-Men: Professor X, Magneto, Cyclops, Storm, Wolverine, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Kitty Pryde, Rogue, Rachel Grey
1st Appearances: Fenris
Also Featuring: Madelyne Pryor, Gabrielle Haller, Corsair, Lilandra, Carol Danvers, Ch'od, Hepziba, Mystique, Destiny, Blob, Pyro, Avalanche, Spiral, Val Cooper, Jessica Drew, Amanda Sefton, Cable (as a baby), Cannonball, Cypher, Warlock, Wolfsbane, Dani Moonstar, Magik, The Watcher, The Beyonder, Arcade, Miss Locke, Sentinels, Lady Deathstrike, Energizer, Jessica Drew, Lyndsey McCabe, Selene, Sebastian Shaw, Black Bishop, Tessa, Nimrod, Mojo, Major Domo


This collection would have benefitted from including some New Mutants issues as there are quite a few wholes in the narrative. There are also a ton of twists and turns as we go from Beyonder to Lady Deathstrike to the Hellfire Club to Mojo at a breakneck pace with the X-Men being moved to San Francisco, then the Morlock tunnels, and then we're suddenly back at the X-Mansion like none of the other events ever happened. It's a bit dizzying.

I would have loved to have included this as Headcanon, as having Magneto in charge of The New Mutants, and on equal footing with the X-Men is a major change to the StatuX Quo but it's just not on par Claremont's best work.

If you're desperate for the first appearance of the X-Babies, have the urge to see how easily The Beyonder, supposedly the most cosmically dangerous villain ever, is easily defeated by nonsense, maybe you want to see every Arcade appearance for some reason, or you need to read why there's a member of Power Pack present for Lady Deathstrike's first battle with Wolverine, this is the book for you. Otherwise, you can skip this one.

Another healthy chunk of  the sixteen year Claremont-era, this section is less beloved than the previous one. Magneto gets some evolution as a character, Kitty Pryde continues to change costumes every issue or so, The New Mutants debut, and we spend a lot of time in either space or Japan.

I think the previous Claremont books were more fun while this one is more focused on telling an epic scope story with a revolving cast of supporting characters. It works really well, I just don't enjoy it as much. Also, you don't see as many of these stories translated into The Animated Series, and the villains aren't as beloved to a wide swath of X-fans.

Oh, and I firmly believe Kitty's exclamation below should be on a t-shirt that says "Kitty Was Right."

​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.

X-Men Epic The Brood Saga by Chris Claremont, Terry Kavanagh, Dave Cockrum, John Byrne, and Paul Smith.
X-Men: Professor X, Cyclops, Storm, Wolverine, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Kitty Pryde
​1st Appearances: Araki, Deathbird, The Sidri, The New Mutants (Cannonball, Dani Moonstar, Sunspot, Karma, Wolfsbane), The Brood, Sikorsky, Warstar, Belasko, Hydra, Belasco, Lee Forrester
Featuring: Carol Danvers, Corsair, Gladiator, Tigra, Jarvis, Chod, Hepzibah, Lilandra, Raza, Oracle, Moira Mactaggert, Robert Kelly, Polaris, Havok, Rogue, Mystique, Magik, Gabrielle Haller, Magneto

​Most of this collection is the cosmic war against The Brood, who are essentially xenomorphs from Alien but more bug-like in appearance.  Much like the xenomorphs, they lay eggs inside of hosts but instead of bursting out their chests and killing their human hosts, they possess them so that the host morphs into a new xenomorph queen.

Carol Danvers is still with the X-Men from the last story, and she ends up joining the Starjammers and becoming a new superhero, Binary. Like Kitty Pryde, she ends up with a bunch of hero names over the course of her career. I'm going to always list her as Carol Danvers because her main hero names (Captain Marvel or Ms. Marvel) are each shared with other characters who are going to end up in this continuity.

​This volume also brings about one of the complications of reading the whole X-verse as a reading project: overlaps. There's a crossover with The New Mutants in this story, who we haven't met yet. This same issue is in our next collection which will introduce us to The New Mutants. I chose to put this volume first because most of that collection is dependent on knowing who The Brood are, and that the X-Men are gone, which all happen here.

This is a thoroughly skippable book for X-Men chronology. I would probably put it in a Carol Danvers Headcanon, but the only major thing covered in this book that is Important To Chronology and not covered somewhere else is that Colossus's sister Magik is aged-up, living many years in Limbo while only days pass in the real world. Unfortunately, the story is just cluttered with misogyny, sexual assault, and other things that Chris Claremont didn't have the skill to make non-traumatizing.  

​​New Mutants Epic Renewal by Chris Claremont, Frank Miller, Bob McLeod, Sal Buscema, Paul Smith, John Buscema, Bill Mantlo

New Mutants: Prof X, Wolfsbane, Karma, Dani Moonstar, Sunspot, Cannonball
1st Appearances: Sage, Demon Bear, Silver Surfer, Viper, Dark Rider, Team America, Magma, Selene
Featuring: The Brood, Donald Pierce, Stevie Hunter, Moira MacTaggert, Magik, Gabrielle Haller, Peter Gyrich, Sentinels, Cyclops. Wolverine, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Kitty Pryde, Carol Danvers, Storm, Corsair, Sikorsky, Lilandra, Gladiator, Axe, Sebastian Shaw

The third generation X-Men team (I'm counting Gen 1 as the 1963 lineup, and Gen 2 as The Uncanny lineup introduced in the mid 1970s) has a bizarre but interesting first set of adventures. 

While the X-Men are presumed dead during the previous story, the Brood-influenced Charles Xavier recruits a new team of mutants, not to act as superheroes but to learn to defend themselves and help rescue other mutants. While they are about the same age as both original teams (except for Wolverine, of course) were when they were recruited, Claremont does a better job of writing them as teens, so they feel younger than any of the X-Men we've experienced besides Shadowcat (who was going by Ariel during this period).

​Apart from the crossover with the X-Men from the previous collection, and the first story, which was originally one of Marvel's first set of graphic novels, none of these stories are going to blow you away. The circumstances are often as silly as some of the silver age X-Men stories, especially the existence of Nova Roma, a Roman Empire offshoot that exists in the 1980s Amazon Rain Forest. It's sort of a Less Savage Land.

The character work in this book is really solid, though. While we saw how willing Claremont was to immediately remove when he killed off Thunderbird in the X-Men, he removes a New Mutant member from the team after a few issues here but while their disappearance is suggested as a death, anyone who's ever read a story before, particularly a comic, can tell that they're keeping the character alive for future use. We not only didnt see a body, we didn't see the incident where they might have died.

I think this is a fun book, even for the casual X-Men fan, and if you're going to read one or two hundred X-books in your life, you should definitely make this one of them but it's not quite Headcanon.​

5. X-Men Epic God Loves Man Kills by Chris Claremont, Frank Miller, Paul Smith, Bob Wiacek, Walt Simonson, John Romita Jr

X-Men: Cyclops, Storm, Wolverine, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Shadowcat, Rogue
1st Appearances: Madelyne Pryor, The Morlocks, Callisto, Yukio
Also Featuring: Magneto, Lilandra, Stevie Hunter, Binary, Magik, Silver Samurai, Viper, Carol Danvers, The Starjammers, Mystique, Destiny, Candy Southern, Amanda Sefton, Angel, Lee Forester, Mariko, Mastermind, Sebastian Shaw, Tessa
​
This book mainly makes the Headcanon for the title story. Despite it having its own issues with institutional racism, the story presents Claremont's anti-bigotry themes in clearer and more nuanced ways than his usual hammer-to-the-head delivery. It has many strengths, one of them being the evolution of Magneto from villain to anti-hero. 

We also see Wolverine's first solo outing which will lay the template for decades of dull rehashes of the formula: Wolverine goes to Japan to check in on the love of his life only to find himself embroiled in yakuza clan warfare. 

What follows is one of the weaker parts of Claremont's run on X-Men. It has some important plot points but to get to them, it asks the reader to immediately care about new characters as quickly as it introduces them.

The biggest ask is that the reader cares about Madelyne Pryor, a woman who Cyclops meets and immediately falls in love with because she looks like Jean Grey. But is she Jean Grey? Is she The Phoenix? Not enough time or story is included to make her a fully fleshed out character. Also, Scott just slowly fell in love with another character we didn't know much about, and she is quickly discarded for this new Jean Grey fill-in.

We're also introduced to Callisto and The Morlocks in a decent story that will continue to bubble under the surface of X-Men comics for decades.

The Rogue story is interesting but not given enough time, and the Wolverine material would probably have been better without editorial interference. Reportedly, Jim Shooter, the worst person to ever stain the Marvel masthead with his name, wouldn't allow Claremont or any other writer to portray any queer relationships. Claremont had intended on having Storm fall in love with Yukio, a Wolverine side-character. Instead, Claremont writes Storm so that she meets Yukio is enamored of her, then cuts her hair into a mohawk and starts wearing leather, which is about as obviously coded as you can get. Cheers to Claremont on that. May Jim Shooter trip today, chipping a tooth and having one of his eyes fall out. The entire comic industry would rejoice in the news.

The Claremont Era of X-Men comics is filled with the most famous, influential, and referenced stories in the history of the franchise. There have been several amazing shorter tenures on the X-books, But Claremont started writing the X-books in the mid-1970s and didn't wrap up his original run until 1992. He had other runs since then but none of them were as successful or as relevant as his original tenure.

If you watched The Animated Series that's currently been rebooted as X-Men '97, most of the stories you've seen were from Clarmont's Era. The Dark Phoenix, The Hellfire Club, Proteus, Wolverine becoming The Most Important X-Man Ever, The Shadow King, Magneto's transformation from villain to anti-hero, these are all Chris Claremont adventures.

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.

Wolverine Weapon X by Barry Windsor-Smith
1st Appearances: Dr Cornelius, Professor Thornton

I do not argue that this is a classic Wolverine story. It's his adult origin (his childhood will be revealed much later), and it contains some foundational parts of Wolverine's character. The only reason it doesn't make Headcanon is that, on its own, it's not terribly exciting. It's almost torture porn as two sadists, a team of doctors, and one of the sadist's assistants turn Logan the mutant with claws and a healing factor into Wolverine the killing machine with adamantium claws. It's appropriately graphic, and Windsor-Smith is a fantastic artist and solid writer.  The story just feels like it goes on too long. Maybe because some of the scenes are used in flashbacks dozens of times after this. Honestly, seeing the story in brief flashbacks as opposed to the entire narrative is more satisfying, as you need a break from the constant torture, as the violence seems less horrifying as the story goes on. You get used to it, which shouldn't be the story's effect. 

If you're a huge Wolverine fan, this is almost definitely a 5 star book for you. If you love     X-Men lore, this is probably a five star book for you. On its own merit without the context of readers wanting to know Wolverine's origin, this is pretty boring.

Wolverine is unconscious for most of it, so this is mainly the story of two terrible people who don't communicate well but who are forced to work together to torture a man into becoming a monster. That could also be an interesting premise even devoid of the Wolverine context but it just doesn't ever really go anywhere, and I don't care about either character.

X-Men Epic: It's Always Darkest Before Dawn by Steve Englehart, Len Wein, Sal Buscema, Tom Sutton, Gerry Conway, Gil Kane, Herb Trimpe, and Don Heck
X-Men: Prof X, Cyclops, Jean Grey
1st Appearances: J Jonah Jameson, Robbie Robertson, Betty Ross, Harry Osborn, Morbius, Lockjaw, Falcon, Moonstone, Dum Dum Duggan, Nighthawk, Valkyrie, Griffin
Also Featuring: Angel, Beast, Iceman, Spider-Man, Gwen Stacy, Hulk, Polaris, Havok, Iron Man, Mastermind, Blob, Unus, Juggernaut, Capt America, Thor, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, Medusa, Black Panther, Vision, Daredevil, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Magneto, Banshee, Nick Fury, Human Torch, Dr Strange, Lorelei, Wolverine, Mr Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Thing, Madrox

During the era when the X-Men book was just reprints of the original run, the X-Men were "in hiding" (or trapped on Krakoa in space, depending on who was editing what). Professor X, Cyclops, Marvel Girl, and Angel were used very sparingly as guests in other titles. Beast, meanwhile, was tearing it up in "Amazing Adventures", and Iceman was teaming up with Spider-Man and the Human Torch.

This collection has Spider-Man and Iceman's teamup, which is a fun latter-day Stan Lee issue with hints of the Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends cartoon.

The Beast story explains how Hank McCoy went from a bouncing, gymnastic human cannonball to a blue furry scientist, with brief stops as a silver fuzzy scientist, and then a black-furred scientist. His powers and his personality are all over the place, as he is initially given a Wolverine healing factor pre-Wolverine! This then disappears without explanation.

In some ways, this is maddening to read as Englehart never seems to have a handle on what he's trying to do. But the appearances of Iron Man, various other Avengers, Spider-Man, and then Hulk add enough silliness and Marvel continuity porn to keep X-Men fans interested.

The X-Men are definitely in the background of this collection, as opposed to being the stars but it is fun to see what they're up to during the "in hiding" years. It's also great to see Juggernaut be considered an important enough X-character to check in with during this era. Even if his frenemy team-up with Hulk isn't that inspiring.

Once again, if you're an X-Men fan, this is a fun look at a weird part of their history but it's not A Great collection, and it's certainly not required to understand X-history.

X-Men Epic Second Genesis by Chris Claremont, Len Wein, Dave Cockrum, Bill Mantlo, John Byrne, Sal Buscema, Bob Brown, and Tony DeZuniga

X-Men: Prof X, Cyclops, Wolverine, Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Banshee, Sunfire, Thunderbird
1st Appearances: Krakoa, Peter Corbeau, Misty Knight, Firelord, Gladiator, Oracle, Vindicator, Warhawk, Angus MacWhirter, Araki
Also Featuring: Iceman, Jean Grey, Polaris, Havok, Count Nefaria, Ani-men, Moira, Eric The Red, Sentinels, Stephen Lang, Black Tom, Juggernaut, Magneto, Lilandra, Corsair, Mr Fantastic, Captain America, Beast, Ant Man, Wasp
​
A classic but not a classic that's necessary to read.

While Claremont slowly figures out different voices for each of the newly introduced or reintroduced characters, the first chunk of this story, by Len Wein is the same Every Character Is A Hothead Who Doesn't Know How To Play Well With Others garbage that Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, and the other 60s X-writers penned.

Seriously, every time someone suggests an idea, another character angrily shoots it down. While the inclusion of non-American White Dudes was stunningly progressive in 1975, it doesn't help if they're all prejudiced against one another. Apart from Nightcrawler who notes that mutants don't seem to be any nicer to mutants than humans are, every character is kind of a jerk here. It's so bad that when one of the characters tragically dies, I was happy that I wouldn't have to ready any more of his bullying bullshit.

The book also suffers from illogical tropes. Particularly in the first story when the characters are paired off and dropped on different parts of an island so that they can immediately meet in the middle. Why not just land the plane in the middle? I get that they were surprised to find a particular landmark, and made their way there, but there didn't seem to be any reason why they split up other than for us to see how none of the pairings got along.

Much like all of Stan Lee's characters talk the way Beast was presented in The Animated Series, this collection suffers from every character behaving and talking like Wolverine in The Animated Series. It does get better as Claremont fleshes it out, but it's a rough journey for quite a while.

Many of the plots in this volume would get four stars but Claremont has an odd pacing issue whish may have something to do with art. He'll send the X-Men through a Star Gate to rescue an alien princess, and then the next issue supposedly takes place after that one but has the X-Men at the mansion fighting what appears to be the original X-Men team. It's a tedious story which adds nothing to any narrative Claremont is telling. Then, in the next issue, they've gone through the Star Gate.

If this story was supposed to take place at some period before the previous issue, why does the issue open with the Professor dealing with the effects of Starlord from the previous issue? It's very confusing. I imagine it has to do with art deadlines.

Also, Erik The Red is one of the worst, most confusing villains in the X-Canon. His origin has since been explained through writing about comics but during the story there is one or two (out of a billion) narration boxes saying that he's a Sh'iar agent. How this has tied into any of his previous appearances in the comics doesn't make any sense. Worse, the X-Men overcome a magic crystal threatening the universe ... somehow ... and then we just don't ever hear about Erik The Red again for decades when more modern writers try and explain his origin and purpose. Claremont just abruptly seemed to forget he was supposed to be a major part of the story.

There are several other threads Claremont plants and forgets about in this volume, which drag down an otherwise fun story.

Yes, Claremont's Exposition/Narration boxes are a bit much if you're used to reading modern comics. I'm more forgiving of them in his 1970s/early 80s run than I am when he used the same style to write in the 21st century.

I thought I was going to include this volume in my Headcanon since it does have important milestones for the series. But there's too much scattershot in this collection. Also, the versions of these stories in The Animated Series are tighter and more intriguing, so I'm leaving them out of the comics headcanon and choosing to remember them as fun cartoons instead.​

Champions Classic The Complete Collection by Tony Isabella, Bill Mantlo, Chris Claremont, Don Heck, George Tusha, Bob Hall, John Byrne, and Jim Shooter

X-Men: none
1st Appearances: Ghost Rider, Harpies, Venus, Pluto, Ares, Huntsman, Zeus, Rampage, Titanium Man, Darkstar, Black Goliath, Stiltman, Swarm, MODOK, Dr Doom, Yellowjacket
Also Featuring: Angel, Iceman, Black Widow, Hercules, Griffin, Crimson Dynamo, The Stranger, Iron Man, Beast, Magneto, Thor, Capt America, Scarlet Witch, Wonder Man, Wasp, Vision, Hulk, Sentinels, Blob, Unus, Lorelei, Vanisher, Spider-Man

A very, and I mean very, silly and forgettable comic from the X-Men In Hiding era of comics. Angel and Iceman end up in a team with Hercules, Black Widow, and Ghost Rider to do some, sigh, shenanigans from Mount Olympus. None of the villains in this volume are interesting, the heroes really don't mesh together well, and it's filled with "Holy Hannah!"s and other 60s-era relics, even though this book came out comfortably in the 70s.

I had never read this series until now, and I didn't miss much.

From an X-Men historical perspective, the second half of the Champions Classic is much more interesting than volume one, as we see Iceman and Angel of the Champions team up with their former X-buddy, Beast of The Avengers. They also do battle with Magneto, The Brotherhood Of Evil Mutants, The Sentinels, The Vanisher, and...The Stranger (is anyone ever excited to see The Stranger appear in a comic), all the prime X-villains of the 1960s.

But we have the excess baggage of Black Widow, Hercules, and Ghost Rider, plus Doctor Doom, plus The Avengers, and more.

While the stories aren't particularly interesting, they do explain how Magneto has become an adult again, after being reduced to infancy in an issue of The Defenders. And, it's nice to see three of the original five X-Men in action together. But it's not so nice that this is a Must Read comic, if you're into X-Men.

3. X-Men Epic Collection Proteus by Chris Claremont, John Byrne, and George Perez
X-Men:Prof X, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Storm, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Banshee
1st Appearances: Nanny, Petrified Man, Mariko, Moses Magnum, Proteus, Snowbird, Northstar, Shaman, Sasquatch, Aurora, Luke Cage, Arcade, Colleen Wing, Arkon
Also Featuring: Beast, Mesmero, Magneto, Sauron, Ka-Zar, Zabu, Lilandra, Moira, Shadow King, Misty Knight, Sunfire, Angus MacWhirter, Vindicator, Mastermind, Polaris, Spider-Man, Madrox

For me, this is where Claremont's run on X-Men really clicks. We go from the Stan Lee Every X-Men Is A Hothead Who Argues Over Everything to the characters working together as a team, and Wolverine being the one character who continues to question authority.

We see the Claremont team of Cyclops, Storm, Colossus, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and Banshee really gel and become The X-Men while Jean Grey and Charles Xavier are written out to have their own adventures that we check in on periodically but which are not the crux of the story.

Claremont really begins to weave his storylines well here. Introducing elements that won't resolve for several issues, and introducing characters and tropes that X-Men writers will continue to chip away at for decades.

This is an absolute must for any X-fan. It's the beginning of Claremont at his best, and includes several stories that were revisited in The Animated Series.

While still building to The Dark Phoenix Saga in the background, the separated X-Men are slowly reunited just in time for a showdown with Moira Mactaggert's insanely powerful mutant son. The Animated Series fleshed out this story really well but the source material here is also pretty great for late 70s/early 80s superhero comics.

There's even an adventure featuring Spider-Man where there is a ridiculously spelled out sound effect on the page, and Spider-Man says "(ridiculous sound effect)! I remember what that is!" It's precisely the right level of cheesy comic writing for me.

4. X-Men Epic The Fate Of The Phoenix by Chris Claremont, John Byrne, 
X-Men​: Prof X, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Wolverine, Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Shadowcat
​1st Appearances: Emma Frost, Sebastian Shaw, Dazzler, Smasher, Stevie Hunter, Rachel Grey, Franklin Richards, Mystique, Destiny, Pyro, Avalanche
Also featuring: Banshee, Moira, Madrox, Mastermind, Angel, Donald Pierce, Candy Southern, Dr Strange, Lilandra, Araki, Jarvis, The Watcher, Gladiator, Skrulls, Vindicator, Shaman, Snowbird, Wendigo, Blob, Magneto, Sentinels, Robert Kelly

xWolverine and Alpha Flight clash again a few times. And Mystique and Destiny debut during "Days Of Future Past" where we get to see the post-apocalyptic future of (checks notes) 2013!

These stories go on to influence events for the next forty years of X-Men comics, and the writing holds up surprisingly well. This is also where Wolverine started to become The Most Important X-Men Ever (to marketing people and editors, mostly).

If you're only ever going to read one twentieth century X-Men story, this is probably the one. But really, you should read at least two, and hit up X-Men Epic Proteus before this one. The pacing and unfolding storylines are prime twentieth century comics.

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.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is about to dive into one of the more interesting long-form stories they've told in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries: The Secret Invasion.

The comic book series took place throughout most of 2008, and was a sloppy, divisive mess with a lot of very cool moments and ideas buried under a pile of mediocre plot points and side stories. The main series was a bit of a turd, especially given how promising the build up to it had been. But the build up and then the fallout were some of the best bits of storytelling Marvel has done.

I'm going to present this story three ways. First, All Of The Trade Paperbacks That Have Secret Invasion Somewhere In The Name. There are twenty-seven of them, and I'm going to give you a brief run down of all of them in as close to a satisfying chronological order as is possible, given Marvel's complicated relationship with how time functions.

Next, I'm going to cut everything down to The Best Ten Books Of The Series. You might notice that the order is slightly different and that's because it doesn't have to track with a bunch of dull side-stories. I hope the upcoming series is similar to this core set of books.

Finally, are the books surrounding Secret Invasion that tell a Marvel-encompassing story. It's my own continuity. All but one of the books on the list I consider to be four or five stars and they do build up to The Secret Invasion, and then give you a cool epilogue.

2. Secret Invasion Infiltration

​This is a prelude anthology featuring several of the issues that lead up to the actual Secret Invasion. Shows like Buffy The Vampire Slayer used to do pre-credit teasers to remind you of the important storybeats that led you to the current episode. And some series (I think "Lost" might have done this) do an entire full episode where they recap the series highlights just before the final episode. This is collection is like that. Here are four of the most important stories that set up Secret Invasion, stretching all the way back to the first appearance of The Skruls in the 1960s. It's a decent collection, and certainly does its job at setting up the event.

13. X-Factor Vol 6: Secret Invasion
This is the first part of a crossover with She-Hulk that I'm calling Secret Invasion: Detroit, it has a promising sense of story. There's a focus on recent X-Men character, Darwin, the return of Longshot, and an intriguing connection to the Skrull Invasion. Unfortunately, it's saddled with what may be the worst art in the history of Marvel Comics. Larry Stroman was talented. His work on David's 90s X-Factor run was very much of the era but with an interesting sense of style. His work here looks like he metaphorically and literally took a dump on a page and then ran his fingers idly through it. It's unreadable.

14. She-Hulk Vol 8: Secret Invasion
Part Two of Secret Invasion: Detroit, there's some overlap here, as we see She-Hulk's friend, a reformed Skrull warn her of the impending Secret Invasion before they end up caught up in X-Factor's madness. This is followed by The Good Skrull battling her father and her past. It has some real cheesy moments but the idea behind the story is interesting.​

27. Secret Invasion
In professional wrestling, there are all sorts of different type of matches. There are technical masterpieces, strong style sluggers, hardcore violent matches, and spotfests, to name a few. In comics, I'm usually a fan of technical masterpieces. Stories that build up to a complex confrontation with twists, and turns. Even when you can easily guess the outcome, it's fascinating to watch the journey.  Secret Invasion is Brian Michael Bendis's spotfest. It's less a story, and more of a bunch of cool reveals that bounce you to the next surprise plot point. It never really settles enough for you to get invested in the characters because it's always And This Person Is A Skrull And That Person Dies And This Person Is A Skrull And Look At All These Skrulls Who Is A Skrull Now Oh My God What Will Happen Now That We Know That Person Is A Skrull.

Here's a look at a few of the most important storylines of 21st century Marvel, with some preamble, a focus on The Secret Invasion, and an epilogue that ties up some loose ends that don't, necessarily, involve Skrulls.

1. Marvels
The ultimate classic retelling of the early days of the Marvel Universe from the Golden Age of the 1930s to the early Silver Age of the 1970s, Kurt Busiek gives an in-depth study of the world's initial reactions to superheroes, mutants, and the mid-twentieth century science boom through the eyes of photographer Phil Sheldon. This is densely packed primer on Marvel history by one of its best writers. It's also the series that introduced the world to Alex Ross. Long gone are the days when I was interested in his endlessly static and uninspiring covers, but in this book, you really get a sense for why he was such a big deal when the world was first exposed to his art.

2. West Coast Avengers Epic Coll Vol 3: Vision Quest
A spin-off of the Avengers series, the West Coast Avengers were a chance for writers to explore some of the less popular but equally interesting characters. So, no Iron Man, Captain America, or Thor but Moon Knight, She-Hulk, Hawkeye, Vision, and Scarlet Witch. There are several stories of varying quality in this collection, but for us, there's the problem of The Scarlet Witch's children. Where they came from, who they are. This book is the inspiration for WandaVision, as well as some later books on this list. It's a fascinating conceit.

3. The Death Of Captain Marvel
Marvel's first ever graphic novel, this is the story of how an early hero succumbs to cancer as a result of his superheroing career. It features a bunch of Avengers, and other hero cameos.

4. Skull Kill Krew
Two of the biggest writers of early 21st century comics, Grant Morrison and Mark Millar, cut their Marvel teeth on this violent mini-series where the Skrulls who were turned into cows way back in Fantastic Four #2 are slaughtered and served as beef, infecting the human population who became heroes who hunted down Skrulls who were already, in the mid-90s, infiltrating the Marvel Universe.

5. Marvel Boy By Grant Morrison
A Kree warrior is on a quest to kill Skrulls when he gets caught on Earth, and loses all of his friends and loved ones and has to start his life over after being a prisoner of one corporation, only to be re-imprisoned by SHIELD. It's there that he declares war on Earth.

6. Avengers Disassembled
Brian Michael Bendis is the main architect of Secret Invasion, and this was the first huge Marvel event by him that caught my attention. The Avengers are in a flux period, their roster isn't exactly The Best Team Ever. At a pool party, someone inadvertantly mentions an event from the past that ends up completely destroying the team.

7 & 8. New Avengers Vol 1 & 2
Six months after Diassembled, a breakout at a supervillain prison called The Raft means that a new, all-star team of Avengers comes together, featuring Captain America, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Spider-Woman, and The Sentry. And once the supervillains have been rounded up, the new team must figure out who exactly The Sentry is, and whether they can help him stay sane.

​9. & 10. House Of M Prelude: Exclaibur, House Of M
While discussing staying sane, Wanda is stil recovering from Disassembled, and her father, Magneto, wants to protect her from the rest of the world. Professor X and a small team of mutants joins him to try and keep Wanda from harming herself and the world.

Only they do a terrible job, and Wands creates an entire new universe where mutants rule, and humans are the oppressed minority. Every mutant essentially gets what they wanted. But a new character who "knows things" starts showing up and giving mutants and humans their memories of the previous universe. This temporary group of heroes must band together and restore the proper universe.

11. Young Avengers Ultimate Collection
This original run of Young Avengers by Jim Cheung features a new generation of Avengers assembled by Vision who believes the real Avengers team will never get back together (apparently, he isn't reading my chronology). These young versions of the classic heroes have their own problems, and a couple of them seem like they might be connected to the Disassembled event.

12. & 13. The Road To Civil War, Civil War
See the birth of the Marvel Universe's Illuminati. Check out how Iron Man is giving Spider-Man a new lease on crime fighting life. And, hey, The Fantastic Four battle (who else?) Dr. Doom when some Asgardian nonsense comes into play.

Then the actual Civil War. A group of young heroes makes a mistake, and a villain kills 600 people while they're filming a reality TV show. Ooof. So the United States decides to pass The Superhero Registration Act, which doesn't go over well with, let's say half the heroes. This is one of the best Event Comics in Marvel history, despite a ton of delays, and some inconsistent side stories.

14. The Death Of Captain America Complete Collection 
This came out during the Batman Is Dead (actually, he's just traveling through time somehow) era of comics. I remember my coworker reading the issue where Cap dies, and flinging the book across the room, calmly walking over, picking it up, and tearing it in half before hanging it up on our Variant Wall as "Captain America Torn Variant".

I think, as a piece of the larger Ed Brubaker run, it's fine. There's a lot of Winter Soldier in this volume, and once you get past the death of Cap and realize it's a comic book, and death is never permanent, you get a solid look at SHIELD and the Marvel Universe in a post-Civil War America. Brubaker is one of the best writers in comics, and he is at the top of his game here. The color scheme is a little dark for me, but this was during Marvel's muddy phase so there's not a lot to do about it.

17. X-Men Endangered Species
At the end of House Of M, The Scarlet Witch declared "No More Mutants", and the population of mutants in the Marvel Universe went from billions down to 198. While many of the other X-Men still act as superheroes, battling Apocalypse, and their usual cast of villains, Beast goes on a trek to restore the X-gene and see how to increase the number of mutants in the world.

18. Planet Hulk
The Illuminati that we met during The Road To Civil War have had to make difficult decisions throughout Marvel history. One of them is what to do about the constant stream of destruction that surrounds Bruce Banner/The Hulk. So they ask him to go to space to fix a satellite, only for him to discover that they're actually shipping him off to a planet without other life so he can live out his days peacefully, not harming anyone. He reacts by wrecking the ship, taking him to a planet with plenty of hostile life, where he becomes a gladiator during his attempt to find a ship and return home.

19. World War Hulk
Probably the weakest of any series in this chronology, we follow The Hulk and his surviving friends and family from the Planet Hulk saga as Banner returns to Earth for revenge on those who jettisoned him into space.

20. New Avengers The Trust
Our ultimate team of super Avengers are on an away mission to Japan to battle The Hand when they discover that one of their best frenemies has, at some point, been replaced by a Skrull, and they worry about the possibility that an invasion is underway. Perhaps, a Secret Invasion.

21-30. The Best Of Marvel's Secret Invasion ​(see above)
This is the Best Of Marvel's Secret Invasion in its entirety, except that I've removed the epilogue, Secret Invasion Frontline, as, instead of needing a wrapup, we're going to explore a little further into the aftermath of the invasion.

​31. Punisher Dark Reign
Norman Osborn rose to power during the Skrull Invasion, and has groups of Avengers and X-Men under his power. He's being treated as a new Iron Man figure called The Iron Patriot. Frank Castle decides that this can not stand, and sets out to destroy Osborn, as well as any surviving Skrulls.

32. Secret Warriors Complete Collection Vol 1
During the Secret Invasion, Nick Fury put together a new team to ferret out not only Skrulls but also Hydra members who infiltrated SHIELD. This is the story of how they operate during Norman Osborne's Dark Reign

33. Avengers Prime
Captain America (oh yea, he's alive again, don't ask how), Thor, and Iron Man must put apart their Civil War differences to save Asgard, after it seems to be destroyed as a consequence to Seige (the final portion of Dark Reign, which isn't worth the read). This is a story about repairing relationships, and it's pretty well told.

1. X-Men Endangered Species
(Mike Carey, Christos Gage, Christopher Yost, Craig Kyle, Mark Bagley, Scott Eaton, Andrea DiVito, Mike Perkins)

Beast has been the X-Men's science guy for a while. He is racking his brains trying to figure out how to reverse the destruction The Scarlet Witch has wreaked on the mutant population. He teams up with his sketchy Age Of Apocalypse alternate, Dark Beast, and some other questionable allies to try and discover a way out of mutants going completely extinct. It's a nice, thinking X-book that completely sets up the next episodes non-stop action madness.

For more Beast-centric adventures, he and his green-haired special agent friend team up in X-Men SWORD: No Time To Breathe, which also features Special Agent Lockheed. Yea, Kitty Pryde's dragon.


2. X-Men Messiah Complex
(Ed Brubaker, Mike Carey,  Christopher Yost, Craig Kyle, Chris Bachalo, Humberto Ramos, Billy Tan, Marc Silvestri, Billy Tan, David Finch)

For the first time after The Decimation, Cerebra registers a new mutant. But this isn't a teenager getting their powers, it's a new baby. This story connects four different runs of X-books, most of them mediocre or awful, but apart from one story thread (Predator X is hella stupid), this is probably the best X-crossover of the 21st century.


3. Wolverine Origin Deadpool
(Daniel Way, Steve Dillon)

Since getting his memories back last season, all the Wolverine books became this super-serious and maudlin book about coming to terms with his past. His past in Japan. His past in Canada. His past in Weapon X. His past in the X-Men. His past in Des Moines. His past as the understudy to Jean Valjean in Les Mis. It's exhausting, and mostly awful. Meanwhile, he's also in the X-Force books exploiting other mutants and killing a bunch of dudes, so his future isn't looking much brighter. 

One of the main plot points in his ongoing series (which you should avoid) is that he has a son, and his son is a lot like him. And evil. And Wolverine wants to save him. It's also dire and maudlin. Except when Deadpool shows up. This whole volume is a Looney Tunes episode with Deadpool as Bugs Bunny and Wolverine as Elmer Fudd, and Dakken (Wolverine's son) ends up as a bit of  a Daffy Duck. It's fun and silly, while also progressing Wolverine and his son's story forward in a way that the more serious books were unable to do.

Deadpool titles are always a mixed bag, but the first volume of Daniel Way's Deadpool Secret Invasion is a fantastic read, and may inspire you to keep reading Way's run on Wade Wilson, which is inconsistent but way better than his run on the Wolverine family.


4. Astonishing X-Men Exogenetic
(Warren Ellis,  Phil Jiminez)

The Brood are back! The green haired director of SWORD, and Beast's sort of girlfriend is back! Are there...Krakoan Sentinels? The elite X-Men team is only slightly different from the Whedon run, but things have changed. Beast is wary of Cyclops, Storm is the aloof Queen of Wakanda, Armor refuses to take shit from Wolverine, and Emma Frost is...still pretty much Emma.

There's a later volume of Astonishing X-Men called Children Of The Brood that's also fun, filled with Brood and Brand, and even features a returned character!


5. Cable Waiting For The End Of The World
(Duane Swierczynski, Michael Lacombe)

At the end of Messiah Complex, Cable took the baby into the future, and Bishop followed. The concept is great. Unfortunatelty, the series became sort of one-note as it went on, but this is the peak of the series. 

There is a crossover series of Cable & X-Force Messiah War that's not the greatest story in the world, but it will give you a glimpse of X-Force, a check in with Deadpool, and the continued saga of time traveling Cable, Bishop, and  Hope.


6. Wolverine Dark Prince
(Daniel Way, Marjorie Liu, Giuseppe Camuncoli)

Wolverine's son Dakken is, in many ways, way more interesting than his dad. During this era of the Marvel Universe, SHIELD had been renamed HAMMER and was being run by Norman Osborne. He made evil versions of The Avengers, and The X-Men, and pretty much all the heroes. But Dakken, who is Osborne's Wolverine, isn't really evil, he's just self-interested, so watching him interact with actual villains makes for a fun story.

While not about any of the X-Men that I recall, one of the best titles to come out of  the ridiculous HAMMER-time Dark era of the Marvel Universe is Kelly Sue Deconnick's  Osborne: Evil Incarcerated.


7. X-Factor Time & A Half, and X-Factor Overtime
(Peter David, Valentine De Landro, Marco Santucci)
It's another mutant birth! As Madrox and Siryn's baby is born. Plus, Darwin, Longshot, and Shatterstar join the cast, and we get a glimpse into the non-Cable focused post-Messiah Complex future,  as the noir aspect of X-Factor becomes progressively more meta, and more progressive. 

I would keep reading the series, as X-Factor The Invisible Woman Has Vanished and X-Factor Second Coming continue to evolve the X-Factor stories in fascinating ways.


8. New Mutants Return Of Legion, and New Mutants Necrosha
(Zeb Wells, Diogenes Neves, Paul Davidson)

While the 1980s New Mutants run is a fan favorite for a lot of people, it wasn't a book that I loved. So I really enjoyed that Zeb Wells made these characters interesting to me. There are a ton of returning characters in these two volumes, as we re-establish the middle generation of mutants, as they are becoming one of the top tier X-teams. This volume skirts one of the worst crossovers of the new millenium, Necrosha, but Wells makes the New Mutants corner of the crossover impactful and fun.

I'm actually missing  a huge chunk of the New Mutants run, so I can't for sure speak to its quality. But these two volumes are good enough that I will hunt down the next couple of volumes and check them out myself.


9. X-Men Second Coming
(Mike Carey,  Zeb Wells, Matt Fraction, Craig Kyle, Christopher Yost, Greg Land, David Finch, Mike Choi, Ibraim Roberson, Terry Dodson)

Guess who's back? Back again? Hope is back. Tell a friend. So is Cable, by the by. The return of the prodigal mutants ends up, much like Mesiah Complex, doing a fantastic job of weaving a bunch of mediocre or worse storylines from the Uncanny, Legacy, X-Force, Astonishing, Wolverine, and Cable runs, as well as the excellent New Mutants and X-Factor runs into one giant game-changing story. 


10. Uncanny X-Force The Apocalypse Solution
(Rick Remender, Jerome Opena)

Ending the season on a dark note. While the original X-Force was a muddily colored, X-treeem Darque Edgee Goth action book, this reimagining of the team comes across as brutal and necessary. This first volume shows how Angel has assembled this updated team to track down and kill Apocalypse. It's a typical Nothing Is As It Seems Nor Goes The Way You Expect It, but it's paced perfectly, and I'd be impressed if anyone actually saw how this story plays out in the end.

The next volume of Uncanny X-Force is pretty terrible, so skip it, and go check out Remender and Opena's  Fear Agent​ series.

Episode 1: Wolverine Ultimate Rucka
(Greg Rucka, Darick Robertson, Leandro Fernandez)

Wolverine is the most overyhyped at what he does, and what he does is feature in every X-team and spin-off, whilst also having two or three of his own titles, along with the occasional mini-series. Also, most of his work as a solo character is dreadful to read. Rucka puts him in a less-spandex scenario, as he tracks down human traffickers, while he's being pursued by an obsessed detective.  The first two storyarcs are excellent, and have some well-conceived Nightcrawler cameos. The third arc is Not Very Good, as Sabretooth and Yet Another Version Of Wolverine/Sabretooth/Feral/Wolfsbane/X-23/Wildchild/Lady Deathstrike/etc shows up, prompting a paint-by-numbers Weapon X story. It's a testament to how much I liked the first two stories that I am allowing the last third of the book to corrupt my list a bit.

If you enjoyed the first 2/3rds of this volume, check out Batwoman Elegy by  Rucka and JH Williams III. It's a beautiful standalone story in the Batman universe that I can safely recommend more than any book about Wolverine.


Episode 2: NYX Complete Collection
(Joe Quesada, Joshua Middleton, Rob Teranishi, Marjorie M. Liu, and Kalman Andrasofszky)

Last season we met X-23, a Wolverine clone who actually has an interesting backstory. In NYX, she, along with several other teenage mutants in District X, end up thrown into a series of unfortunate conflicts that would normally see The X-Men, Professor X, or one of the spin-off teams show up to help them out. But in this book, that never happens. A bunch of teenagers are left to their own devices, and, really, nothing ends up going their way.

Brian K Vaughan's Runaways also deals with super-powered teenagers not given the guidance of older superheroes, and it's a Must Read for fans of young adult superhero books.


Episode 3: X-Factor Madrox Multiple Choice
(Peter David, Pablo Raimondi)

A near-perfect noir tale following The Multiple Man, as he and some of his former X-Factor teammates (Siryn, Wolfsbane, and Strong Guy) are ensnared in a mafia love triangle by one of Madrox's rogue duplicates. Peter David's tweaking of Madrox's powers makes the character much more interesting than he was in any previous X-books, and David manages to mostly balance his Dad Joke humor with this complex character study.

The first twelve volumes of Peter David's X-Factor are pretty good. But you can stop reading there. Really. Stop. Don't do that to yourself.


Episode 4: Astonishing X-Men By Joss Whedon and John Cassaday Ultimate Collection Volume 1
(Joss Whedon, John Cassaday)

Marvel should use this book as a textbook for incoming X-writers. While the series eventually got bogged down a bit by overly-complex storylines, long-delayed issues, and editorial continuity problems, this first volume is a perfect quippy superhero book. It uses each of its characters with deliberation, it includes some backstory but mainly trusts its readers to figure out chracters' relationships, it reintroduces a dead character in a reasonable way, and it also introduces new villains who are challenging, but aren't The Most Powerful Villains The World Has Ever Seen. Whedon elevates one of the Academy X kids up to the main roster, and it works, which is not always the case. Also, Cassaday's art is cinematic and hypnotizing in the best way.

By all means, check out Ultimate Collection Volume 2. It's still good, it's just not *as* good as this volume.


Episode 5: Wolverine Enemy Of The State
(Mark Millar, John Romita Jr, Kaare Andrews)

This book seemed tailor-made for me to hate it. This is around the tipping point where Millar's work started to irritate me. I'm not a fan of Romita Jr.'s art, and, as stated earlier, Wolverine solo books rarely interest me. This book, however, has every creator working to their strength in a story about what happens when Wolverine is corrupted. And while he is certainly the center of this volume, Enemy Of The State is more about how the Marvel Universe (not just the mutants, either, SHIELD and The Avengers play a big part in this) deals with an evil Wolverine. Romita Jr. gets to draw a bunch of full spread action shots, and technology-filled backgrounds, and does so with  a precision I haven't seen in most of his other work.

New X-Men Academy X : X-Posed includes Wolverine's rampage through the Xavier school through the lens of the students. On the whole, the collection isn't superb, but the crossover issue in the middle is perfect, and it's an otherwise fun look at the soap-opera that is the teenage mutant squads of Academy X.


Episode 6: Astonishing X-Men: Mystique Vol 3: Unnatural
(Sean McKeever, Manuel Garcia)

Time to check in with Charles Xavier's espionage agent, as Mystique and Shortpack try to dismantle a corporation that's using mutants as guinea pigs for drug testing.

There is another volume of McKeever's run on Mystique, and it ties up everything he and Brian K Vaughan set forth in the series, but it's my least favorite of the four volumes.


Episode 7: House Of M
(Brian Michael Bendis, Olivier Coipel)

Starting with Avengers Dissasembled, and feeding into the background of several other books, including the second volume of Excalibur, a story has unfolded about The Scarlet Witch losing her ability to control her powers. A series of traumas cause her to create an entirely different set of traumas for herself and her Avengers teammates. Eventually, Charles Xavier and Magneto (who never came back, destroyed New York City and died again, in this continuity) try and help her, but they're not strong enough. House Of M gives you the essentials for what you need to know before it gives every mutant their fondest desire in an alternate reality where mutants are the majority, and Magneto is one of the most powerful kings in the world. It's a much condensed anti-Age Of Apocalypse, and its ending changed the Marvel Universe in an immense way.

Avengers Disassembled is where Bendis starts this storyline, and it's worth the read, even if you're not completely familiar with the Avengers of the early 2000s.


Episode 8: House Of M World Of M Wolverine
(Daniel Way, Reginald Hudson, Brian Michael Bendis, and more)

Fleshing out the main story of House of M, this volume, like Enemy Of The State, focuses less on Wolverine, and more how heroes react when they believe Wolverine has gone rogue. The main character in the series is actually Mystique, Agent Of SHIELD, whose adventures line up quite a bit with the Mystique that works for Charles Xavier. It's got a few great twists, and shows you why Wolverine made a seemingly abrupt decision in the main House Of M book. The other stories in this volume are okay, but you can skip them for the purpose of this continuity.

Daniel Way is my favorite writer to ever work on Deadpool , and if you've ever been curious to read a book about the meta-assassin but didn't know where to begin, pick up Deadpool By Daniel Way Ultimate Collection Volume 1.


Episode 9: Decimation Generation M
(Paul Jenkins and Ramon Bachs)

Written from the perspective of a journalist who lost her mutant daughter to natural causes before the events of House Of M, this book seeks to discover why so many mutants were depowered, as the world at large has no memory of House Of M taking place. It's a much better way to check in with the depowered mutants than the main books which are Garbage Fire Bad. 

Decimation Mutopia X by  David Hine is also worth reading, as it first presents his District X story, in the context of House Of M, then has the cast dealing with the reprecussions when the world resets. 


Episode 10: New X-Men Childhood's End
(Craig Kyle, Christopher Yost, Mark Brooks, Paul Pelletier)

Won't anyone think of the children? The Academy X storyline tends to fall on the melodramatic side of the X-books. Pre-House Of M, and during House Of M, the stories didn't really earn their melodrama. But the Childhood's End storyline has no qualms about killing off characters in droves, and leaving the survivors to figure out the consequences. It's a shame the books about the adults weren't as bold as this series.

If you enjoy this, you can go back and check out the New X-Men Academy X books to get some backstory for the non X-Men characters.

A few years ago, while working on the now defunct VeXed-Men website, I did a series of The X-Men in ten seasons, where I did some exhaustive reading, some skimming, some Wikipedia-ing, and some trips to the used book store that carries comics, and put together an exhaustive timeline of how to read the X-Men using pretty much all of the trade paperbacks that were then available.

Don't do that to yourself.

In the last couple of months, I've been reading nearly 100 X-Men and X-Men adjacent books including spin-off titles like  Cable, X-Factor, X-Force, X-Man, Generation X, Rogue, Wolverine, Wolverine & Gambit...if it has been collected into trade in the last fifteen years or so, I've read it and reviewed it on Goodreads, and it made me question why I ever even liked the X-Men.

For this project, I'm just going to condense it down to the books I enjoyed reading. There are going to be ten "episodes" per season, and it's going to lean heavily and more modern stories/collections because they're easier to access, and some of the writing techniques of the 60s, 70s, and 80s haven't aged well.  Season one took us from the original stories all the way through the Claremont run and beyond. This season focuses on the late 90s/early 21st century X-Men with a focus on the better spin-offs

Episode 1: X-Men Gold Homecoming
(written by Joe Kelly, Joe Casey, Jorge Gonzales, and Bill Rosemann, art by Carlos Pacheco, Jeff Johnson, German Garcia, and Mat Broome)

90s X-Men books were terrible. The comic boom at the beginning of the decade meant that Marvel continually introduced new characters, higher stakes, sillier villains, and massive crossovers, almost all of which were terrible. But in the midst of the garbage fire was a run of issues that gave some actual depth to the weird assemblage of X-Men, most of whom have since fallen out of continuity: Cecelia Reyes, Marrow, Maggot, and Joseph. There's no single threat against the team, most issues are one-and-dones that build relationships between the new characters and the classic ones, while giving some spotlight time to various villains. There are no cosmic consequences, it's just some very enjoyable superhero comicing.

If you like this volume, check out  X-Men Vs Apocalypse: The Twelve by everyone who worked at Marvel in the 90s. It's a mixed bag of art and storylines, but it encapsulates the high drama of prophecy, which was so prevelant in 90s/early 21st century X-books.


Episode 2: X-Men Dream's End
(written by Chris Claremont,  Joe Pruett, Robert E. Weinberg, Scott Lobdell, art by  Salvador Larroca), Leinil Francis Yu, Tom Derenick, and Michael Ryan)

While not my favorite X-storyline, this ties up a ton of 90s storylines that I saved you from having to read. The Legacy Virus, a metaphor for the AIDS crisis that removed the sexual stigma from the disease, and focused only on the prejudice that having the disease brought, was a major plot point in all of the X-books for years, and here, it's done away with after a character is martyred. This volume isn't focused on a single X-Team, rather it travels across the vast array of X-characters to show them all this pivotal time in their continuity. This collection also features the best art Rob Liefeld has ever done.

Fans of this book should check out X-Men Legends 4: Feared & Hated, which takes an anthology approach to showing the world that the mutants inhabit around the changeover from the Lobdell/Nicieza era to the Morrison  relaunch.


Episode 3: Exiles Complete Collection Volume 1
(written by Judd Winnick, art by Mike McKone and Jim Calafiore)

I avoided including the Age Of Apocalypse because it's a long trudge through an alternate universe that mostly doesn't matter at all to continuity. And it's exhausting. The Exiles is a book that takes a bunch of mutants from alternate dimensions and teams them up to stop a "massive ripple" that threatens the the destruction of all universes. This is a silly concept, but what it does is give us a team of lesser-known mutants and sends them to pivotal points in various timelines and allows us to see stories like The Dark Phoenix Saga, Wolverine's escape from Weapon Plus, and The Phalanx Covenant from different perspectives. It's mainly fun, although the misogynist Morph character is excruciating.

Exiles Complete Collection Volume 2 is not  quite as good, but is worth reading if you really like these characters.


Episode 4: New X-Men By Grant Morrison Ultimate Collection Volume 1
(written by Grant Morrison, art by Frank Quitely, Ethan Van Sciver, Leinil Francis Yu, Igor Kordey, and Tom Derenick)

This is the X-Men run that changed the entire direction of  how Marvel presented its mutant books. Morrison focuses on making the school a larger priority, inventing secondary mutations for long-time characters to keep them fresh, re-examining interpersonal relationships, and evolving the team from tights to leather. There is a lot of story packed into this volume, and it's all great.

Joe Casey was writing the other major title during this era and the collection X-Men X-Corps seeds some interesting ideas into the universe that, sadly, ended up not going anywhere. But the setups are all interesting enough to check out.


Episode 5: Mystique By Brian K Vaughan Ultimate Collection
(written by Brian K. Vaughan, art by  Jorge Lucas, Manuel García, and Michael Ryan)

Morrison's run really has changed the face of the entire franchise. Now that Professor X has gone public and corporate, he can't be seen doing controversial things. So he rescues Mystique from the consequences of her life of crime and sends her on missions the X-Men can't be seen being involved in. It's a fun espionage book by one of the better comic book writers of the modern era. 

Brian K Vaughan also did a Wolverine story called Logan, if you find yourself jonesing for more Vaughan X-titles, but I'm not a huge fan. Instead, I'd recommend his run on Runaways.


Episode 6: New X-Men By Grant Morrison Ultimate Collection Volume 2
(written by Grant Morrison, art by John Paul Leon, Igor Kordey, Phil Jimenez, Ethan Van Sciver, Keron Grant, and Frank Quitely)

While not as strong as the beginning of his run, this volume deals with the massive fallout from the first volume, introduces some more fantastic characters, and majorly develops the biggest and most important romantic shift in the history of the X-books.

I can't stop you from reading New X-Men By Grant Morrison Ultimate Collection Volume 3. Many fans love it. It does wrap up Morrison's run, and has earth-shattering plot reveals and a death that they didn't undo for well over a decade. But, personally, I hate it, and think it undoes all of Morrison's work on the first two volumes, exposing Marvel's editorial overreaches, and Morrison's flaws when it comes to completing his vision.


Episode 7: X-Force Famous, Mutant, And Mortal
(written by Peter Milligan, art by Mike Allred and Darwyn Cooke)

This is probably the weirdest book I'm going to include in continuity.It's a collection of characters who you don't ever really see again, who serve as the capitalist media front for the obsession with mutant superheroes that Professor X's public relations stunts thrust into the public. They're a team of fame hungry pseudo-heroes, and they die on a fairly regular basis, only to be replaced with other temporary heroes. The story is just okay. But Allred's art, as well as Cooke's fill-in issue are gorgeous. It also does work as satire of turn of the century media.

If you want to find out how things pan out for the characters that survive this volume, the title changes to X-Statix and includes art by other indie luminaries not often seen on mainstream books, including Paul Pope! But I actually think that if you like the art, you should take a vacation from the X-Men and check out any of Allred's superhero title: Madman.


Episode 8: Nightcrawler Guardian Devil
(written by Robert Aguirre-Sacasa, art by Darick Roberston)

While Morrison changed the face of the X-Men for the better on his New X-Men run, Chris Claremont attempted a series of misguided side-stories called X-Treme X-Men, and Chuck Austen flung bags of wet diarrhea and flaming turds at readers under the guise of them being Uncanny X-Men issues (poor Austen gets a lot of flack for being The Worst Writer In X-Men History, but having read nearly 100 X-books in the past month, he has earned that title with his consistent inability to understand characters and the microphone feedback that he mistakes for dialogue composition). The Absolute Worst of Austen's run was called The Draco, and focused on Nightcrawler being fooled into believing he was a priest by a mutant hating church group that planned to make him The Pope and then...umm...well...then something was going to happen damn it. It's impressive how awful it is. This is a counterpoint to that storyline, as Nightcrawler and his faith are pitted against horror and mythology. It's sort of Nightcrawler as Hellboy.

If you're in the mood for more Nightcrawler, go back and check out the beginning of Claremont's  Excalibur run in  Excalibur Epic Collection: The Sword Is Drawn. I don't recommend the second volume of Aguirre-Sacasa's Nightcrawler run.


Episode 9: X-23 Innocence Lost
(written by Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost, ar by Billy Tan)

A series about a Wolverine clone sounds boring. And by all rights, this book should be awful. But Kyle & Yost had an understanding about the X-Men universe that few 21st century X-scribes could achieve. Rather than just another Feral or Wolfsbane or Sabertooth or Wildchild or Wendigo or Dakken or Raze or Native or Romulus or...you get the idea, they build a soap opera revolving around a Weapon Plus scientist who decides the most efficient way to create a new Wolverine is to use his DNA but make a female version. The villain is pretty flat and predictable but everything else about this story works really well and has some satisfying consequences for the coming seasons.

Need more Weapon Plus mutants who like to stab things? Sabretooth Open Season is a surprisingly well-put together collection worth your investment.


Episode 10: Exiles Vol 6: Fantastic Voyage
(written by Judd Winnick, art by Jim Calafiore, Tom Mandrake, Clayton Henry, and Mizuki Sakakibara)

There were some absolute stinker stories of Exiles that I've left off the list, but this may be the most satisfying story of the entire Exiles run. We close the season to find Mimic has been put in charge of the team, and they are at odds with a team of Vampire Avengers. The first arc is a little hokey, but it propels the story in new directions as everyone gets separated during transit, and has their solo adventures in different realities which all feed into massive consequences once they're finally united. I think this was the last thing Winnick ever wrote for Marvel, and it serves as a cool swan song for the series (though the series went on and on and on and on after this volume until it was struck dead by the barbed pen of Chris Claremont).

If the lack of Blink on the team is getting you down, go back and check out her adventures in X-Men The Complete Age Of Apocalypse Volume 1​.