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.

Batman as a TV show with defined modern seasons is a cool conceit that somehow hasn't translated well to TV. Batman The Animated Series, a series that freely bounced around the timeline was way more fun than Gotham, or really any of the live action DC shows so far.

What I've tried to do here is present whole season arcs that can either be watched from season one to ten, or you can just read a single season and get a satisfying story without needing to move on to the next one. Also, I'm not doing these chronologically by when they were published. I find more modern comics tend to be either much better or much worse reads. Sometimes an old story doesn't age well, so it's nice to see it in updated language and themes. Sometimes, the updates don't work, as they tack on weird continuity retcons that just seem forced. Hopefully, you'll enjoy the way I've set this season out.

Episode 1: New Frontier
(collected in DC: The New Frontier)
by Darwyn Cooke

We're not going to spend too much time with The Justice League, but we will see them a few times in continuity, and this is one of the best versions of a Justice League Origin Story. You'll have to exercise a little suspension of disbelief as this takes place in the 1960s when the rest of the chronology is set in a muddled late 20th/early 21st century. It's still a blast to see how Batman fits into the superpowered community as they tean up to take on an otherworldly enemy.

If it's ever available again for around cover price, I would put Nightwing: Year One here, as it's a fun look at Grayson's transition from Robin to Nightwing, and it gives a much briefer introduction to Jason Todd, who we should meet this season, even if he's not sticking around for long. Alas, it is currently out of print.

In it's place I offer:

Episode 2: Nightwing
(collected in Nightwing: A Knight In Blüdhaven)
by Chuck Dixon and Scott McDaniel

Having been fired by Batman, Dick Grayson takes off for Blüdhaven to restart his life as a new hero in a new city with a mostly new pantheon of villains.

Episode 3: A Death In The Family
(collected in Batman: A Death In The Family)
by Jim Starlin, Marv Wolfman, Jim Aporo, and George Perez

I'm trying to avoid putting historically important comic storylines that, in hindsight, kinda suck, on this list. But here we are. The actual buildup to and death of a semi-important character is a decent 1980s comic title. The aftermath, involving the Joker in the UN is absolutely bonkers in a truly terrible way. Were I able to edit this chronology to just the parts of the story I wanted, this volume would be ripped in half, and you wouldn't have to encounter the very stupid aftermath.

Episode 4: The Killing Joke
(collected in Batman: The Killing Joke)
by Alan Moore & Brian Bolland

​The Joker is on an absolute tear through Batman's life during this season, as he sets off to kill Jim Gordon, only to gravely wound Batgirl instead. This is a very short but intense book that rocked the Batman universe much harder than the death that preceded it.

There's also a really good J Michael Straczynski take on this episode in Team Ups Of The Brave & The Bold that's worth a readthrough, if not a purchase. 

Episode 5: Arkham Asylum
(collected in Arkham Asylum: A Serious House On Serious Earth)
by Grant Morrison & Dave McKean

I like to imagine this book takes place just after The Joker's wave of destruction, as Batman goes to visit him in Arkham to try and prevent a mass escape. We see a ton of members of Batman's rogues' gallery, and we learn the history of Arkham Asylum. It's a cool mid- season episode that first pushes the boundaries of what the Batfamily is, and then ends up with The Joker tearing it apart.

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

It was not for me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Nearly a decade ago, a friend's significant other asked me how I would read Batman. I've done a bunch of "Netflixizations" of comics, where I recommend an order for binging the best of a comic run, but Batman was the first. It even predates this website. But I never transferred it here because I knew it needed to be thinned out and reread. I just finished reading the New 52 era of Batman, which will be its own thing, I decided to revisit the pre-New 52 modern era, based on my previous idea of the canon. My ideas have changed a bit since then.

Season One is probably the most similar to my original concept of the seasons. It starts the same, but due to some titles going out of print, and some more modern books looking back at this era are more fun than their predecessors, it also ends with a very recent addition to the canon.

Episode 1: A Bat, A Cat, And An Unlucky Lieutenant
(collected in Batman Year One...and if you want more throw in Catwoman: Her Sister's Keeper)
by Frank Miler and David Mazzucchelli...and Mindy Newell and JJ Birch

Bruce Waye returns to Gotham after a long absence following his family's murder (this premise may seem familiar) at the same time a cop named Jim Gordon shows up in town. Cue corrupt cops, crime family shenanigans, a prostitute in a cat suit, and a District Attorney trying to do his best. This is the basis for the TV version of Gotham, the movie Batman Begins, and much more. It's one of the comics from the mid-80s that revolutionized comics, but it has managed to age much better than its peers.  If you want to see the Catwoman story from Year One fleshed out, check out Catwoman: Her Sister's Keeper, it's not as good, but it's a more in-depth examination of Selina and Bruce's first few meetings from Year One.

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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


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

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


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

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


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

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


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

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


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

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


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

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

The Masterful Cat Is Depressed Again
Rating: Spray It With A Water Bottle And Make It Sleep Outside
​
The conceit: a nervous office worker has a large cat butler working at her house who attends to all her needs (not like that) is cute. Unfortunately, the protagonist screeches every line. And she just wants to get married, guys, why can't she be like all her normal friends? If all you've ever wanted in life was a Cathy Lives With Garfield gag comic strip, except the characters are Much More Annoying, then run right out and buy this before....actually, take your time, any store that thought to stock this certainly has enough to last them a long while.

Creepy Cat
Rating: Not Allowed On The Couch But Can Get Pets
​
I'm not big on gag comics. And this was a webcomic where the joke is "Aren't cats weird." except the cat in question is a ghost cat who interacts with a Goth girl. Ehhh. It's ok. It's definitely targeting young adults. And while it wasn't for me, it didn't cause me physical pain to read it. The art is not nearly as good as any other book on this list, and despite being a humor book, I never laughed a single time reading it. Still, in comparison to the previous two books, this is The Watchmen of cat manga (note: I think The Watchmen is an imporant, overrated boook that appeals mostly to young readers and nostalgic fifty-somethings).

I Am A Cat (The Manga Edition)
Rating: A Good Cat That Mostly Hides Under The Bed
​
This is also a cool conceit. This is an early twentieth century Japanese story about classism viewed through the eyes of cats. The original short stories are taught in Japanese schools now, so it's a fascinating piece of culture to be translated into manga, and then English. It didn't really grip me, but it's so different from everything else on the list that I appreciated its narrative. It's not exactly Showa (an amazing manga series about Japanese history), but if you like historical manga about Japanese culture, this is probably amazing.

​




















​


​I Am A Cat Barista
Rating: Extra Treats And Snuggles
​
This is my favorite gag manga that I've ever read. In each chapter, a person leaves a stressful situation and discovers a bar. The bar is staffed by a single, talking cat who makes drinks (not necessarily alcoholic) that give the person a new clarity about their life situation. Every character's situation is different, and they all react differently to the cat. There are characters who recur, and you get to see their development. It's a really comforting book that I will definitely order future volumes of.

Cat Massage Therapy
Rating: I'm Buying It A Cat Tower, A Fluffy Pillow, And The Most Expensive Food it Likes

I expected this to be another gag comic. Instead, it's a narrative story about a physical therapy business run by talking cats who get integrated into the Japanese business world. This is another comforting story that I want more of. And I only ordered it because one of our customers who mainly orders books with guns and boobs ordered it, and I thought "This is going to be terrible." I was so happy to be wrong.

1. Sandman: Dream Country
(Neil Gaiman, William Shakespeare, Kelley Jones, Charles Vess, Colleen Doran, Dave Mckean)
Available at your local shop or via Bookshop.org

We begin with four unrelated stories. No common theme, no recurring characters (aside from Morpheus, who is in the first three stories), not much of a connection to any of the previous volumes. But, of course these are building blocks for later on in the story. The Shakespeare story won a World Fantasy Award. There's also a story about cats, which is super popular, because it's a story about cats.


2. Sandman: Seasons Of Mist
(Neil Gaiman, Kelley Jones, Mike Dringenberg, Matt Wagner)
Available at your local shop or via Bookshop.org


This is my favorite Sandman volume from a story perspective. I think it's visually disappointing compared to the other volumes, but the story, which sets the stage for the Lucifer series, and really sets Morpheus's long-game story in motion, is excellent. You could read this volume independently of any of the rest of Sandman, and Absolutely Love It.


3. Hellblazer: Fear And Loathing
(Garth Ennis, Steve Dillon)
If you can't get it locally, check Ebay for the most affordable versions.

From my favorite Sandman story, to my favorite Hellblazer. This is a more conversation-focused Hellblazer than much of Delano's run. But it's probably the best Garth Ennis has ever written, with the possible exception of his Battlefields series. He nails every character and their motivation, and makes you care more about John Constantine's exploits in this volume than in any of the previous ones.


4. Hellblazer: Damnation's Flame
(Garth Ennis, Steve Dillon, William Simpson, Pete Snejbjerg)
Check out your local shop or Ebay.

Ennis's temporary farewell to all things Hellblazer, he gives every character from his run a curtain call, and gives us a weird pop culture history lesson via Papa Midnite during another of Constantine's treks through The United States.


5. Sandman: A Game Of You
(Neil Gaiman, Shawn McManus, Colleen Doran, Bryan Talbot)
Readily available at your local shop or buy it from Bookshop.org

Barbie from "A Doll's House" takes center stage, as we are placed solidly in the middle of one person's connection to The Dreaming. The story also contains one of the best and most compassionate use of a trans character, with an understanding of that person's relationship to the non-binary that I've seen in comics. This came out, originally, in 1991.


6. Sandman: Fables & Reflections  
(Neil Gaiman, Bryan Talbot, Shawn Mcmanus, P Craig Russell, Jill Thompson, John Watkiss, Duncan Eagleson, Stan Woch, Kent Williams)
Readily available at your local shop or buy it from Bookshop.org

Another volume of short stories. These, even less connected than in "Dream Country". Apart from a spread of stories about emperors, each of the stories is more concerned with specific character traits that will come back to haunt Morpheus, rather than specific storybeats that progress the plot. We do get to see a focused telling of Orpheus's journey, and also check in with Johanna Constantine, who is somehow related to John.


7. Books Of Magic: Summonings
(John Ray  Rieber, Peter Gross, Pete Snjejberg, Gary Amaro, Dick Giardano)
can currently be found on Thriftbooks, after that EBay might be the way to go

Neil Gaiman created the Books Of Magic series about a young boy wizard who happens to look a lot like Harry Potter, and who has a message bearing owl, but who doesn't get to go to fancy wizard school. Instead, when he hits puberty, John Constantine and a bunch of DC Magic characters show up and are awful to him. It's not my favorite Neil Gaiman story. John Ray Rieber continued the universe, and his books aren't my favorite Vertigo titles, either. This is the second of Rieber's volumes and it involves young Tim Hunter (aka pre-Harry Potter Harry Potter) trying to figure out his parentage. That whole plot didn't interest me. What I liked about this, is that Hunter is almost a villain in his own story here, as several female characters, including a very well-conceived and thoughtfully written succubus do their best to help Tim, and any time he deviates from their help, his life gets worse. It's the most feminist succubus story I've ever read, as she comes off much more empathetic than the story's technical protagonist.

​
8. Sandman: Brief Lives
(Neil Gaiman, Jill Thompson)
Readily available at your local shop or buy it from Bookshop.org

One of Morpheus's siblings, Destruction, has been mostly absent from the Sandman series. In this volume, the youngest Endless, Delirium, gets Morpheus to agree to help her track their missing brother down.  The story has a great Season Finale, and sets us up for the final stretch of Gaiman's Sandman.

With a cover date of January 1989 (meaning it probably hit comic book stores in November of 1988), Neil Gaiman's Sandman #1 began slowly changing a chunk of the DC Universe into its own corner that would eventually be called DC Vertigo. The Vertigo line would be more literature focused than its mainstream superhero counterpart, but would still share ... not continuity ... influence. There are some Justice League members who fall into the Vertigo chasm, but their ambitions seem different when they're in Vertigo titles. And, sure, Death from Sandman, and Swamp Thing and Animal Man cross back and forth between DC Vertigo and DC proper every decade or so, but the two universes were mostly separate. Until. Until Flashpoint and The New 52 in 2011, at which point the Vertigo imprint ceased having its historic value. In January of 2020 Vertigo was completely removed and replaced by DC's "Black Label", which I'm sure they will relaunch again as something else within the next five years.

But the books that inspired the creation of the label: Gaiman's Sandman, Alan Moore's Swamp Thing, and Jamie Delano's Hellblazer are still vital to DC mythology. While books like Y The Last Man, Fables, and Transmetropolitan are  important books that came out with the Vertigo label, they would also fit right in with current Image Comics titles or IDW. The early '90s Vertigo books had fun with characters and references crossing between titles, even as the books themselves didn't have Crossover Events. Dream would just show up in Hellblazer to chastise John Constantine. And Constantine, himself, first showed up in the pages of Swamp Thing. Variations on these characters and these stories went on for almost forty years before they were completely swept into DC proper.

I'm currently reading through as much as I can of the Sandman/Swamp Thing/Hellblazer/Books Of Magic/Dreaming universe in preparation for the upcoming Sandman/Locke & Key crossover.

You shouldn't have to do that. There's a lot of it. Like pretty much every ongoing comic series that lasts more than a couple of years, the quality varies wildly. So I've put together a reading list/order if you want to read Just The Best of these titles. I don't care for which stories are the most Historically Important, like the first appearances of so and so, or The Absolute Beginning of this universe. I care about what's fun to read, and what art is just bonkerstown great.

Most to all of these books should be in print and available from a local comic book store. And if they do dip temporarily out of print, I'm fairly confident they'll return quickly with new cover art and probably a heftier price point. Hope you enjoy!

1. Sandman: Overture
(Neil Gaiman, JH Williams III, Dave McKean)
Buy Sandman Overture on Bookshop.org

The universe is cyclical, and this is, as of when I'm writing this, the most recent collection in this continuity. It could absolutely serve as a coda, having several callbacks to the original Sandman universe that Gaiman laid down in the 80s and 90s. BUT. Why not start your journey with one of the most beautiful books in the series. JH Williams's art is phenomenal, and Gaiman has crafted a story that, yes, is enhanced a bit if you've read the full run of Sandman and are feeling nostalgic, but it also stands on its own and gives you an idea of how weird this universe is going to be. Also, it's a prequel story so it does actually set up the next time Dream comes into continuity. It's a much more fun and engaging beginning to the continuity than the true start of this universe: Alan Moore's Swamp Thing.


2. Swamp Thing: The Curse
(Alan Moore, Stephen Bissette, John Totleben)
currently collected as Saga Of The Swamp Thing Book Three

Alan Moore purists and classist comic completists will call this sacrilege that I'm not starting with the beginning of Moore's Swamp Thing run. That's ok. They can still read and enjoy it. I found it overwritten. Alan Moore told the same basic Swamp Thing story over and over and over again until it felt right to him. For me, this was the fist excellent portion of the story. It's all about love and identity and environmental politics. Which is exactly what a Swamp Thing story should be. We're also introduced to John Constantine, who will be the linchpin of this entire storytelling universe.

3. Swamp Thing: Reunion
(Alan Moore, Rick Veitch, Stephen Bissette, Alfredo Alcala, John Totleben, Tom Yeates)
currently collected as Saga Of The Swamp Thing Book Six

The end of Moore's run on Swamp Thing is hugely satisfying if you've slogged through his entire run (or enjoyed his entire run). He ties up all the various threads and given his characters their Happily Ever After. That's fine. But it also has a really trippy art issue, which counterbalances its inclusion of the DC proper space universe with its Green Lanterns, Thanagarians, and such.  The prose is very purpley (as much of Moore's work is) but it's worth it for the artwork.

4. Hellblazer: The Fear Machine
(Jamie Delano, Mark Buckingham, RIchard Piers Rayner, Mike Hoffman, Alfredo Alcala)
Until the next printing, rooting around comic book stores or EBay is your best bet to find this.
You could also get it affordably via Kindle, if you prefer.

The first few volumes of Hellblazer try, unsuccessfully to balance, magic, demonology, mythology, interpersonal relationships, politics, and Vertigo's burgeoning continuity. Mostly, it fails at its humanity by pushing its very valid political stances too far into the story. Eyes will roll. Here, we get a healthy dose of governmental paranoia, as well as some cool side characters to latch on to. The ending is out of nowhere, but the journey there makes this volume worth reading.

5. Sandman: Preludes & Nocturnes
(Neil Gaiman, Sam Kieth, Mike Dringenberg)
Easily orderable from any bookstore or comic store, or grab it from Bookshop.org.

Picking up from the end of "Sandman Overture", a rich, shitty, American has designed a scheme to trap Death and change the world to fit his beliefs. Unfortunately, he accidentally traps Dream, who refuses to speak to him. While Dream is trapped, The Dreaming falls apart, sleep pandemics occur, and the world goes all wibbly-wobbly-shakey-wakey. When he escapes, he quests to find his most important magical belongings, and set the world and The Dreaming back to its status quo. We also get a team-up with John Constantine, and some cameos from some DC Proper heroes.

​6. Hellblazer: The Family Man
(Jamie Delano, Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison, Ton Tiner, Sean Phillips, Steve Pugh, Dean Motter, Dave Mckean)
Again, rummaging through stores and EBay is the most affordable way to go. 
​Or go the Kindle route.

A serial killer seriously messes with Constantine's  mojo. Also, his family deals with their own spiritual trauma. This volume is Delano's best interpersonal relationship story. While Morrison's contributions are true to Constantine's paranoia, they're fairly boring. Gaiman's one-shot paying tribute to a side character, on the other hand, is a moving and necessary part of Constantine's personal growth.

7. Sandman: The Doll's House
(Neil Gaiman, Chris Bachalo, Steve Parkhouse, Michael Zulli, Mike  Dringenberg,  Malcolm Jones III)
Should be on the shelves at any bookstore, or order via Bookshop.org

This was the volume that elevated Sandman (which was already great) to legendary status. The layouts are astounding, the art is crisp, the characters are interesting, the mythological backstory is well told and placed in the overall narrative, and we start to get a real sense for The Endless's powers and a hint at family dynamics. If you're only going to read one book on this list, I'd suggest Sandman Overture, but this is a close second.

8. Hellblazer: Dangerous Habits
(Jamie  Delano, Garth Ennis, William SImpson, Sean Phillips, Steve Pugh, Dave McKean)
You can get a previous printing which contains only the beginning of the Ennis run via Ebay at an affordable rate.

The end of Delano's run is, honestly wet fucken garbage. It's awful. It features an incredibly stupid retcon that I think, and hope, future writers ignore. It attempts at making things seem cyclical but falls way flat. Before that is a pretty decent family story featuring some characters and themes from "The Fear Machine", and that part works. Then ... ugh. The true highlight of this volume is the beginning of Ennis's run. In addition to Constantine's usual demon enemies (this triumvirate is straight out of Sandman "Preludes & Nocturnes"), he also must battle lung cancer. This is handled with surprising grace, given some of Ennis's other work.

"When I saw the solicit for this book: "When down-and-out Eddie stumbles upon the body of a murdered teenage runaway, he vows to bring her killers to justice. His investigation brings him into the darkest truths of his beachside town, where he finds he may be the only one who cares enough to solve this murder.", I thought "This is either going to be amazing or absolutely terrible."

I am happy to say, it's the former. This is a very human story about the non-battle between Corporate America and the homeless and disenfranchised. As well as a murder...not mystery...more of a...murder reveal. While both these elements are cool, and make for a fun read, the highlights are Ponticello's art, and the perspective point of the unreliable narrator.

This is both an incredible story that you will want to fly through, and a beautiful art book where you'll want to spend several minutes looking at every panel.

Chew by John Layman and Rob Guillory, is one of my all-time favorite comics to recommend to people. It's an unusual story that's told well, and is spectacular to look at. And while I've enjoyed some of Layman's work since, I've always felt there was something lacking. 

It turns out while I do like Layman's work, Guillory is why I loved Chew. He uses the same framing devices that Chew uses: a really cool plot point in the beginning, and then backing up and explaining how the story arrived there. He also packs each page with humorous background images. 

This story about family and medical technology  has been a blast so far. The only thing it's missing is Poyo, but since chogs have sort of shown up , it is clearly only a matter of time before the world's coolest rooster is, at least, mentioned.

​Once I use the phrase "humorous slice of life comics about a family of Death Metal musicians written by a Finnish creator", what else do you need to know before you buy it?

I'll wait here for your answer.

Do I need to mention this book is not going to be The Feel Good Book Of The Year? This is a recounting of what happened to the youngest prisoner at the United States's highly illegal, highly traumatizing, completely in violation of The Geneva Convention and simple human decency, prisons at Guantanamo Bay.

This is a fast read, given the heavy nature of the story, and might be the only way to absorb this experience without plunging into despair. Tubiana and Franc present El-Harani's story with such nuance, that you feel the excessive time El-Gharani spent wrongfully imprisoned, even though they are forced to speed through a lot of time to tell the story in just 150ish pages.

You may not yet realize that you need to read an all-ages book about microaggressions and fitting into a culture that Others you, but you do.

This is a perfect Show Don't Tell story of being Other in a community that isn't trying to be prejudiced against you, but doesn't have the language or experience to treat you the way it treats other people.

While there are some Not Great actions in the book, there really aren't any villains, just people fucking up, including the protagonist, because everybody has someone they see as Other.

This book isn't just Important, though. It's also funny, well-crafted, and an absolute joy to read.

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​.

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 few weeks, I've been reading every 90s X-Men and X-Men adjacent book (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 is going to take us from a condensed retelling of the first 60 issues of the series all the way up to the prelude to The Age Of Apocalypse, which won't be where season two begins.

Episode 1: X-Men Grand Design
(written by Ed Piskor based on Stan Lee, art by Ed Piskor based on Jack Kirby)

I'm so glad this exists and is widely available. I can't ever bring myself to slog through the Silver Age of the X-Men. There is so much exposition. So much tiresome dialog written in a "hip parlance" that only existed in the minds of the out-of-touch. It's fairly inscrutible for modern readers. But there were some good stories. Ed Piskor, using the same oversized and stylized format that he employed for Hip Hop Family Tree, retells the entirety of the X-Men Silver age in one book. Each issue being slimmed down to two pages. That it exists is kind of cool, that it works is nothing short of amazing.

If you like this volume, I recommend checking out Piskor's Grand Design: Second Genesis, which takes the same format to tackle the Claremont run. 


Episode 2: X-Men Epic Collection Second Genesis
(written by Chris Claremont, Len Wein, and Bill Mantlo; art by John Byrne, Dave Cockrum, Sal Buscema, Bob Brown, and Tony Dezuniga)

This collection starts out with some of the style that I find difficult to slog through, but it's a good introduction to the major X-Men characters of the 80s and 90s, as the X-Men becomes more of an international team. And though it's rife with stereotypical cliches at the beginning, they do get somewhat smoothed out as the collection goes along. I said in my Ten Seasons list that "Claremont isn't the father of the X-Men, but he's the mentor who guided them into adulthood." and I still believe that. This collection presents us with some familiar villains from Grand Design but also shows us what a new generation of X-Men would look like.

If you enjoy this, consider checking out X-Men Proteus to see what a terrible parent one of the X-Men is. This is a theme that will be revisited late in the season, and every other season.

Episode 3: X-Men Dark Phoenix Saga
(written by Chris Claremont and Jo Duffy; art by John Byrne, John Buscema, Mike Collins, and Jerry Bingham)

THE classic X-Men story. Space. Aliens. Possession. Cyclops being a bit of a dweeb. A female character being so powerful that her power overwhelms her. This is very tropey. But while we did see a death in the Second Genesis episode, this death is the first Major Death in X-Men history. Or, it would have been, had any X-men team member actually ever been permanently killed.

If you enjoy this, Days Of Future Past is another story from this era that is viewed as a classic. And while it does introduce some new characters, and is sort of fun, it didn't quite make the cut for this list.


Episode 4: X-Men From The Ashes
(written by Chris Claremont; art by John Romita JR and Paul Smith)

Professor Xavier is a jerk! Jean Grey is dead! Cyclops's rebound relationship is Hella Creepy! Storm gets an epic haircut! Morlocks! Japan! A wedding doesn't turn out as planned! For all the techniques that didn't age well, Claremont is a master at weaving short form stories into a long-form narrative. He wrote big crossover events but he didn't rely on them the way later writers would. This is one of his best examples of small chunks of stories and character development fitting together really well into one, focused story.

If you like it, check out Claremont & Brent Anderson's God Love, Man Kills another classic, this one with a religious bent, that didn't quite make the cut.


Episode 5:  X-Men: Mutant Massacre
(written by Chris Claremont, Louise Simonson, Walter Simonson, and Ann Nocenti; art by John Romita, Alan Davis, Bret Blevins, and Rick Leonardi)

The first major crossover on our list. We met the Morlocks, an underground dwelling group of mutants who "aren't pretty enough" to live above the surface, in the last episode. In this one, we focus on them, as Daredevil, Thor, the New Mutants (the young X-Men team), X-Factor (the original flavor X-Men team), and the current X-Men team contend with a group of mutant assassins called The Marauders who end up doing Major Damage to pretty much everyone in this story.

If the New Mutants team interests you, definitely check out New Mutant: Demon Bear, which has some next level Bill Sienkiewicz art)


Episode 6: Fantastic Four Vs. The X-Men
(written by Chris Claremont; art by John Bogdanove)

I've written about/talked about this every time I've ever discussed essential X-Men books. This is the first comic book I ever read, and I can't believe how well it's held up. It's the aftermath of the Mutant Massacre, and the X-Men have contacted the Fantastic Four to help save Kitty Pride, whose power to phase is out of control (see, once again the powerful female character's powers threaten to be her undoing).  

If you like this, I'd backtrack a bit to X-Men Epic Collection: Ghosts to see The Trial Of Magneto, which gets referenced here.


Episode 7: X-Men X-Tinction Agenda
(written by Chris Claremont and Louise Simonson; art by Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, John Bogdanove, and Guang Yap)

The third teamup story in a row. This time it's just three X-Teams converging on a nation where mutants are bred and enslaved. The island of Genosha becomes a hugely important locale in X-Men mythology, and this appearance is a big part of why. For an 80s superhero comic, it does a surprisingly good job of handling issues of race and oppression. 

Around this time in comics, there are some weird developements for various X-Men, particularly Storm. I would check out Epic Collection: Dissolution & Rebirth to follow her adventures, meet everyone's favorite Cajun mutant, and spend a great deal of time with Forge as he attempts to put The X-Men back together after a major catastrophe.


Episode 8: X-Men Epic Collection: Mutant Genesis
(written by Chris Claremont, Jim Lee, Whilce Portacio, and Tom Raney)

The end of the Claremont era! Also, yet another multi-team adventure. This collects the best selling X-Men comics of all time, as the various X-Teams must first overcome The Shadow King and then defeat their oldest foe...in space! This is the series that launched the X-Men Animated Series (though it did some backtracking to include events like X-Tinction Agenda). If you were born between 1975 and 1990 and only ever read one X-Men book, it was probably this one. I was excited that they finally collected the Muir Island Saga that led up to X-Men #1 in the same collection as the first few issues of X-Men (the main series having been referred to as Uncanny X-Men). While Fantastic Four Vs. X-Men was my first comic, this was the series that got me back into comics as a kid. I was completely confused by virtually everything I picked up between these two series.

I can't in good conscious recommend any of the X-Men comics written by Scott Lobdell, who wrote the X-Men for an absurd amount of time after Claremont left the title. But there is a collection called X-Men The Skinning Of Souls that, of all the ridiculous 90s continuity comics,  is the one I find most enjoyable.


Episode 9: Magneto Testament
(written by Greg Pak; art by  Carmine Di Giandomenico)

No character ever truly dies in X-Men comics, but the last volume was meant to be the final Magneto story for a while. It wasn't. He came back nearly instantly. But this book would have been a good coda to a Last Ever Magneto Story. It's one of the many origin stories for the purple bucket helmeted magnet villain. But it's the best from both a storytelling and an art perspective.

For more Magneto storytelling that's relevant to this season, check out X-Men/Avengers: Blood Ties.


Episode 10: X-Men Prelude To The Age Of Apocalypse
(written by Mark Waid, Jeph Loeb, Scott Lobdell, and John Francis; art by Andy Kubert, Steve Epting, Terry Dodson, and Roger Cruz)

There is no bigger mess of an event in Marvel comics history than The Age Of Apocalypse. They took An Entire Year to reimagine every X-title. Villains became heroes, heroes became dead, the dead became villains, etc. I don't recommend it. BUT. The story of how The Age Of Apocalypse came to exist was done really well. So we close the first season with an expose on how Charles Xavier's terrible parenting led to the complete destruction of the timeline, and the death of everyone and everything he ever loved. Nice job, Chuck.

If you're a masochist, you can check out The Age Of Apocalypse. Some of it is really good but there is A Lot Of It, and much of it is trash.

Episode 1: Panther Protocols
(collected in Black Panther: Deadliest Of The Species)
written by Reginald Hudlin, art by Ken Lashley

A cabal of nefarious world leaders offers T'Challa and Wakanda a place in their upper echelons. They don't take it to well when he refuses. And by "don't take it too well", I mean they kill him and his royal guard, but not before the guard sets him on a plane and sends his corpse to Wakanda. While Storm and the Wakandan elders search for a way to being TChalla back from the dead, a new Panther is chosen. T'Challa's older sister, Shuri. And while her previous life didn't seem to Panther like, she proves to be an absolute badass, completely worthy of the her new title.

Serial 1: Doomwar
(collected in Black Panther: Doomwar)
written by Reginald Hudlin and Jonathan Maberry, art by Ken Lashley, Scott Eaton, Gianluca Gugliotta,‎ Pepe Larraz , and‎ Shawn Moll

Doctor Doom's lust for power, Storm's unwavering faith, Wakanda shutting its borders to foreigners, The Fantastic Four, the X-Men, mind controlling nannites, Doombots, Deadpool. There are a ton of elements at play in this event, plus both Shuri and T'Challa are Black Panthers.  There are a ton of really cool beats to this story, and unlike last season's X-Men crossover, the whole event is fun and well-written.

Doomwar. 4 episodes

Serial 2: Urban Jungle
(collected in Black Panther: The Man Without Fear)
written by David Liss, art by Francesco Francavilla and Jefte Palo

Now that Wakanda is bereft of vibranium, and T'Challa has overcome the elventy billionth coup in the series, he's decided to let Shuri remain the official Black Panther title, while he goes to New York to rediscover himself. Daredevil has recently taken over The Hand during the worst Daredevil comic run in the last thirty years. Disgraced Matt Murdock needs to take some time to find himself, so his associate, Foggy Nelson, falsifies some documents so that T'Challa can play superhero in Hell's Kitchen with an entirely new identity. His first foe: the new Kingpin of Hell's Kitchen, Vlad The Impaler, who ends up being a worthy opponent, but probably won't win Father Of The Year any time soon. Luke Cage and Spider-Man put in some memorable appearances in this episode.

Urban Jungle . 2 episodes

Episode 8: The Great Hunt
(collected in Black Panther: The Man Without Fear)
written by David Liss and Jonathan Maberry, art by Jefte Palo and  Gianluca Gugliotta

Kraven The Hunter has his sites set on Storm, who has come to New York to be with her husband. But she's not the only one in New York, Shuri (still the Black Panther of Wakanda) has tracked down classic villain, Klaw, through The Savage Land and Madripoor before ending up in The Big Apple where she, Spider-Man, and The Black Widow battle a villain who has ascended into being made purely of sound.

Episode 9: Fear & Loathing In Hell's Kitchen
(collected in Black Panther:The Man Without Fear)
written by David Liss, art by Francesco Francavilla and Jefte Palo

Three stories from The Black Panther's time in New York: the unfortunately still timely story of The Hatemonger's brief rise to power in Hell's Kitchen, White Wolf pays T'Challa a visit, and then T'Challa gets caught up in the loopy Spider-Island event. 

Episode 10: The Most Dangerous Man Alive
(collected in Black Panther: The Man Without Fear)
written by David Liss, art by Shawn Martinbrough and Michael Avon Oeming

The real Kingpin, Wilson Fisk, is in charge of The Hand now, and it's up to both Black Panthers, Luke Cage, and Falcon to take him down.

Serial 3: Phoenix Landing
(collected in AvX: Avengers Vs. X-Men)
written by, and with art by a bunch of talented creators who should have known better

I hate this crossover. It's horrifically paced, badly plotted, and stupid. But. We see the reasons behind why T'Challa has his marriage to Storm annulled. 

Phoenix Landing . 3 episodes

Season Four is thirteen episodes with a disappointing season finale.

Episode 1: Rogue Nation
(collected in Black Panther By Reginald Hudlin Vol 1)
written by Reginald Hudlin, art by John Romita JR and Klaus Janson

Sorry, sugah, no appearances by everyone's favorite Bonnie Raitt impersonating mutant. This story focuses on the origin of The Black Panther, as well as how a US Government might act if they learned a technologically advanced African nation existed, and wasn't interested in any real diplomatic relationship. 

Episode 2: Wild Kingdom
(collected in Black Panther by Reginald Hudlin Vol 1)
written by Peter Milligan and Reginald Hudlin, art by Salvador Larocca and David Yardin)

After a brief foray into House Of M (a mutant creates an alternate reality where mutants are in charge, and non-mutated humans  are the hunted minority, etc.), we return to the real world where a reporter is eaten live on TV. The X-Men (wait, NOW Rogue is involved? That last title feels wasted) journey to Africa to investigate, as does T'Challa. Things...escalate.

Serial 1: The Oncoming Storm
(collected in Black Panther by Reginald Hudlin Vol 1)
written by Reginald Hudlin, art by Gary Frank and Scott Eaton

After a team up with Luke Cage, T'Challa realizes he needs to get married, and debates a series of the Marvel Universe's most powerful women. Try not to let the title of this episode spoil the ending for you. 

2 episodes.

Serial 2: World Tour
(collected in Black Panther by Reginald Hudlin Vol 2)
written by Reginald Hudlin, art by Scot Eaton and Manuel Garcia

The honeymoon is over quickly for T'Challa and Storm. An international mission of diplomacy brings the involvement of Dr. Doom, The Inhumans, and Namor building up to their involvement in Civil War. Hudlin does a really good job at having multi-dimensional characters, particularly  Doom being kind an inviting to the new couple but also institutionally racist. While there is quite a bit of time spent explaining the minutiae of the events leading up to Civil War, they're told really well.

2 episodes

Serial 3: Civil War
(collected in Civil War and Black Panther by Reginald Hudlin Vol 2)
written by Mark Millar and Reginald Hudlin, art by Steve Mcniven, Koi Turnbull, and Marcus To

The huge Marvel war over registration between Iron Man and Captain America pulls Black Panther and Storm into a brief membership with The Secret Avengers as they are decidedly anti-registration. This is followed by how Storm, Black Panther, and Sue Storm deal with the deaths and fallouts from Civil War. There's a balance of politics, grief, and relationship issues that holds this ugly portion of the book (Turnball's art is atrocious) together.


Serial 4: Fantastic
(collected in Black Panther by Reginald Hudlin Vol 2)
wrtieen by Reginald Hudlin, art by Francis Portela, Andrea diVito, Cafu, Larry Stroman, and Ken Lashley

Storm and T'Challa team up with The Human Torch and The Thing to form an all new Fantastic Four team! There's Negative Zone bugs, Skrulls, Marvel Friggen Zombies, and even the possibility that all four of them die and are in the afterlife. This is a fun little sorbet after the Civil War stories.

Episode 11: Back To Africa
(collected in Black Panther by Reginald Hudlin Vol 3)
written by Reginald Hudland, art by Francis Portela

Storm and T'Challa return to Wakanda where T'Challa must fight to regain his place int he kingdom. We've seen this happen in both of the previous seasons, but I enjoy Hudlin's version more than the previous two.

Serial 5: Secret Invasion
(collected in Secret Invasion, and in Black Panther by Reginald Hudlin Vol 3)
written by Jason Aaron and Brian Michael Bendis, art by Jefte Palo and Leinil Francis Yu

Skrulls!  Skrulls! So many Skrulls have been pretending to be marvel heroes. See heores die! See heroes you thought were dead turn out to have been impostors, which means the real heroes were alive the whole time! Watch T'Challa and the Wakandan military really take it to the green bastards.

2 episodes

Season 3 is thirteen episodes of universe expanding fun told in a completely simple-to-follow and engaging way.

If Black Panther isn't the Marvel movie you're most amped up to see, you're probably either a bigot or you have terrible taste in movies. The trailers are amazeballs. And, finally, after years of there not being very many Black Panther collections available, now most of his solo adventures are in circulation. So I'm cobbling together a five season Netflixization of a Black Panther chronology.

Season one introduced us to T'Challa through the lens of The Fantastic Four, had us spend some time with him as an Avenger, had him dispensing royal justice in Wakanda, and even had him battle the KKK. I really enjoyed Season One. I can't, in good conscience, condone this Season Two. I recommend you maybe flip through Episode 1 of this season in a store, and see if its humor and narrative devices intrigue you. Personally, I hated it. And it's so tonally different from what precedes it, and what follows it that it feels like an entirely different book. And, uh, The Black Panther isn't actually the main character. So, again, I would skip it. But some of my friends whose opinions I usually agree with really like this run, so you should at least see if it sparks your interest. But if you do skip direct to Season Three, you won't miss any pertinent plot points.

Episode 1: Advocate For The Devil
(collected in Black Panther The Complete Collection By Christopher Priest Vol 1)
written by Christopher Priest, art by Mark Texeira

Last season we got to meet T'Challa through the eyes of some of Marvel's most famous superheroes. This season, we meet him through the eyes of a wise-cracking, dated pop-culture spewing lawyer. Wooooo. Fun, amirite? Oh, and Mephisto is around, and he helps the protagonist (not T'Challa) procure a pair of pants. That sure does sound like a Black Panther story, right?


Episode 2: The Hunter And The Hunted
(collected in Black Panther Complete Collection By Christopher Priest Vol 2)
written by Christopher Priest, art by Joe Jusko

Continuing the story of Annoying Attorney and, oh also The Black Panther, Kraven The Hunter crashes a White House party that Black Panther and Not-Friend are attending and creates such havoc that it catches the attention of The Avengers (of which The Black Panther is a member).


Episode 3: Enemy Of The State
(collected in Black Panther By Christopher Priest Vol 1)
written by Christopher Priest, art by Joe Jusko, Mike Manley, Amanda Conner, Mark Bright

The Annoying Attorney, The Avengers, and Black Panther discover that the money behind Kraven The Hunter is Wakandan, so they head to Wakanda to help King T'Challa stop yet another coup (that's three attempts and we're barely into season two). Jokes abound. And abound. And abound.


Episode 4: Turbulence
(collected in Black Panther By Christopher Priest Vol 1)
written by Christopher Priest, art by Sal Velluto

I actually don't mind this "episode". Hydro-Man joins in the Wakandan political strife, and we spend some time examining The Black Panther's love life from season one, and some missteps he's made so far this season. 


Episode 5: Back In Brooklyn
(collected in Black Panther By Christopher Priest Vol 1)
written by Christopher Priest, art by Sal Velluto

Hulk. Luke Cage. Iron Fist. Falcon. Goliath. They're all...well..they're...they're all IN this comic, and they're fighting...somebody. At a club? Maybe? They're definitely at a club at some point. Ooof, this is painful.


Episode 6: Economic Downturn
(collected in Black Panther By Christopher Priest Vol 2)
written by Christopher Priest, art by Sal Velluto, Kyle Hotz, Bob Almond, and Tom Coker

It's that story about how The Black Panther's actions affect the economy that you've been waiting for. Also featuring several fights with Killmonger who, at the end of the episode is...the...new...Black...Panther? Maybe?


Serial 1: Home Is Where The Hate Is
(2 episodes, collected in Black Panther By Christopher Priest Vol 2)
written by Christopher Priest and J Calafiore, art by Sal Velluto, J Calafiore, and Bob Almond

Moon Knight and Brother Voodoo show up to help Black Panther something something astral plane something something spirituality...and then Black Panther and and Annoying Attorney are Batman & Robin, and the villain has a hand puppet, and Deadpool is...OF COURSE FUCKEN DEADPOOL IS IN THIS MADNESS. Plus The Avengers.


Episode 9: Malice
(collected in Black Panther By Christopher Priest Vol 2)
written by Christopher Priest and M.D. Bright, art by Sal Velluto, Bob Almond, and Walden Wong

Killmonger is still The Black Panther...sort of...but he and T'Challa go back to New York...together for some reason. And the one of The Black Panther's exes kills Killmonger. Again. Maybe?


Episode 10: Storm Und Klaw
(collected in Black Panther By Christopher Priest Vol 2)
written by Christopher Priest, art by Sal Velluto and Bob Almond

Yea, sure, let's get Storm in this story. And maybe Magneto. And Doctor Doom. And Namor. More characters means cooler story, right? Draw in a bigger audience. The plot? Oh, who knows? There is some threatening pointing and Storm is definitely in Wakanda, and we haven't seen Klaw since season one, so it's totally cool that he's...ugh, I can't wait to get through this.


Episode 11: Devil's Due
(collected in Black Panther By Christopher Priest Vol 2)
written by Christopher Priest, art by Sal Velluto and Bob Almond

This has got to be it, right? Annoying Attorney is giving testimony about all the adventures of the season, and Mephisto is back, and they reference pants for the first time in a while. And Malice is involved. Oh, and a white gorilla. We haven't seen one of those in a while. This is over, right? The big conclusion? Wait, who's The Original Black Panther? God damn it.


Episode 12: The Once & Future Kings
(collected in Black Panther By Christopher Priest Vol 3)
written by Christopher Priest, art by Sal Velluto and Bob Almond, and Jon Bogdanove

So we're in the future. And hand puppet guy is back. And the children that you didn't know The Black Panther had, because this is the future, are killed. And Luke Cage is old. And something is wrong with T'Challa besides his dead kids. You should really really care about all of this because dead kids that you never knew about is sad. You can tell because The Black Panther is kneeling with arms outstretched and crying. It's. So. Emotional. Also a Wakandan is in love with The Hulk? Why not?


Episode 13: Return Of The Dragon
(collected in Black Panther By Christopher Priest Vol 3)
written by Christopher Priest, art by Sal Velluto and Bob Almond

Girls in skimpy uniforms fight. The Defenders are involved for some reason. It looks like Annoying Attorney is now Mephisto, or at least he looks like Mephisto. There's some sort of body switch and more pop culture references, and a dragon who is maybe Mephisto or Immortal Iron Fist. Who cares? This season can not be stopped. It's like being on a shitty rollercoaster that keeps ramping up, but all the drops are four or five feet, and then it's flat forever. How did this not get canceled?


Episode 14: The Kitchen Fucken Sink
(collected in Black Panther By Christopher Priest Vol 4)
written by Christopher Priest, art by people who deserved a better story

Look, Iron Man shows up. Wolverine, too. Thor. The whole fucken Avengers team. This goes on for about a dozen unreadably convoluted issues. If you keep reading, it will eventually stop, and you can get on with your life, reading Black Panther stories that actually focus on The Black Panther and have plots that make narrative sense. I think I find this so annoying because there are some good beats in this run, and the story wouldn't be awful if it wasn't told in constantly shifting fashion. It's referenced in the very first issue, but it really does seem like Christopher Priest was a middle schooler who saw Pulp Fiction, and thought "I wanna do that with super heroes!" but didn't have any outline or concept of how to make shifting time and points of view a necessary part of the story, instead of a distraction. I hope you either loved this "season" or didn't bother to read Priest's run. I promise, it's going to get better in Season Three.

Season Two is fourteen episodes that feel like fourteen thousand.