[M&M-ish (maybe)] X-Men?

[shadowlight]

So I'm fairly new to this whole comic thing (I finally started to pick up a few because I liked M&M so much), and I don't understand the difference between all the different X-Men series:

Agent X
Exiles
New X-Men
Soldier X
Ultimate X-Men
Uncanny X-Men
Wolverine
X-Statix
X-Treme X-Men

From what I gather the Uncanny X-Men is the orignial series (ongoing) and Ultimate X-Men is recapping the history for us newbies.

Can anyone tell me what the other series are about (how they relate to each other)?

Also, any recommendations for where to start? (I've got Essential X-Men Vol. 1 and I've read some Ultimate and a few new Uncanny's)

Thanks!

 

[LrdApoc]

So I'm fairly new to this whole comic thing (I finally started to pick up a few because I liked M&M so much), and I don't understand the difference between all the different X-Men series:

Agent X
Exiles
New X-Men
Soldier X
Ultimate X-Men
Uncanny X-Men
Wolverine
X-Statix
X-Treme X-Men

From what I gather the Uncanny X-Men is the orignial series (ongoing) and Ultimate X-Men is recapping the history for us newbies.

Can anyone tell me what the other series are about (how they relate to each other)?

Also, any recommendations for where to start? (I've got Essential X-Men Vol. 1 and I've read some Ultimate and a few new Uncanny's)

Thanks!

Okay, Uncanny is the first series.. hard to say original because few of the originals are in there anymore.

The way the current titles break down is this:
Uncanny and New X-Men are with Xavier at the school. (These groups include Angel, Wolverine, Husk, Cyclops, Jean Grey, etc.)

Xtreme are former X-Men (Rogue, Storm, Bishop, etc.) who are out doing their own thing, and until recently were investigating a pbook of prophecy written by the deceased precog Destiny.

Agent X and is a new comic I don't know much about so I'll leave that one for someone else.

Exiles is sorta like the old TV show Sliders, characters from alternate X timelines are jumping through alternate realities 'fixing' them. Similar to the old What if? series.

X-Statix is just plain odd.. it'slike the freaky new age X-Man.. never cared for it so not much more I can tell you.

Soldier X is a retitling of the Cable series, with a different approach to telling his stories.

Important: Ultimate X-Men does not happen in the 'normal' continuity. All of the Ultimate comics are retellings of the classic stories with a modern update. I love these even as a fan of the old characters, and this was done to allow newer readers a jumping on point for the continuity. Be warned though it is not the same as the original, though you can draw cpnclusions based on it's retelling to X-Men stories from 20 years ago.

For a new reader, go with Ultimate X-Men just because there is less to learn and the storys have not been building pointless side threads for the past 15 years like the main X-Men continuity.

Hope that helps.

 

[Neowolf]

I want to subscribe to either New X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, or X-Treme X-Men. Are any of them better written than the others?

 

[LrdApoc]

I want to subscribe to either New X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, or X-Treme X-Men. Are any of them better written than the others?

Unfortunately it would depend on who is doing the writing for the arc and what your tastes are. I recommend looking ont he marvel.com website at some of the web comics for the X-books and get a feel for the writing. I'm a big fan of what Chris Claremont is doing with Xtreme, but New and Uncanny seem to be fairly well written as well lately.

 

[WayneLigon]

So I'm fairly new to this whole comic thing (I finally started to pick up a few because I liked M&M so much), and I don't understand the difference between all the different X-Men series:
Can anyone tell me what the other series are about (how they relate to each other)?

Also, any recommendations for where to start? (I've got Essential X-Men Vol. 1 and I've read some Ultimate and a few new Uncanny's)

Thanks!

Oh... man. The general history and all the twists and turns that the various X-titles make are... well, it's no wonder that people get turned off of comics and never go back. There probably are better superhero series to start off with BUT... since you are new and untarnished I'll try to make some painless recommendations

Marvel's website lets you read a number of their titles for free. Look at individual issues there, to see if you like a series before picking up a comic and getting all confused with the multiple unresolved plot threads.

Look at the Ultimate X-Men and Ultimate Spider-Man. Good books for people that haven't read much in the way of comics, esp. superhero comics. Ultimate Spider-Man is being collected in trade paperbacks; there is one larger hardback book that collects the first two TPB's. A second one collected TPB's 3 and 4 is due out soon. If you can, go to a Books-a-Million and leaf through their large graphic novel section; they should have quite a lot of them, with a mix of DC and Marvel superhero stuff as well as collected manga (japanese comics) and other non-superhero series (such as Sandman, or Girl Genius).

For other recommendations...all of these are trade paperbacks. All in all, a TPB is a better deal for the money on a series that you're pretty sure you're going to like.

Astro City: Life in the Big City
There are three more Astro City books; I especially recommend 'Confession'. (Good heroes and villain ideas, plus a look at how a normal person might view life in a superhero universe - 'Confession' is 'how to become a kid sidekick' ).

Avengers: Emperor Doom (Stand alone graphic novel -- easily mineable for major supervillain plot action, and a good look at how a tremendously powerful villain might take over the world.)

Batman in the Sixties/ BIT Seventies (Good stories, good quick look at how the look and feel of modern superhero comics evolved in quick order from 1962-1977 or so -- And they'll have stand-alone stories you can rip of for adventures )

Batman: The Long Halloween. This horse-choker of a book is one of the best series done lately.

The various JLA collections out now. These collect the complete run of the current series. JLA: Year One is also very good. You might also like the JSA collections 'Justice Be Done' and 'Darkness Falls'

Nightwing: A Knight in Bludhaven

X-Men: Days of Future Past

X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills

 

[shadowlight]

Re: Re: [M&M-ish (maybe)] X-Men?

Soldier X is a retitling of the Cable series, with a different approach to telling his stories.

The Cable series?

Hope that helps.

Definitely. Thanks!

Anyone know much about Agent X?

 

[shadowlight]

I want to subscribe to either New X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, or X-Treme X-Men. Are any of them better written than the others?

I've really been enjoying the new Uncanny issues (I'll probably subscribe soon)...

 

[shadowlight]

Thanks for the recommendations WayneLigon! I'll definitely check some of these out.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Agent X is the title they replaced Deadpool with-- there's some controversy about whether or not Alex, the main character, is actually Deadpool with amnesia.

Alex/Deadpool is an insane, violent mercenary with generally heroic urges interfering with his job description. He constantly patters a stream-of-consciousness monologue, both when dealing with his support characters and while fighting.

 

[Desdichado]

When I was into comics 7-8 years ago it was just as complicated, but completely different. We had Uncanny X-Men, X-Men (pencilled by Jim Lee right before he left to go help found Image Comics) X-Force (which used to be New Mutants), X-Factor (the original X-men characters, now seperate from Xavier's school), X-Man (an alternate reality version of Cable, who's Scott and Jean's son from an alternate reality already anyway (IIRC), solo Wolverine stuff, and all kinds of other mumbo jumbo. What's worse, is that every year they used to do a big fall-time major story. Unfortunately (or not, depending on your point of view) you had to at the very least collect three major titles in order to follow it, and often had to pick up mini-series as well. As my kids started coming, I was still in college and I didn't have the time or money to follow such a cluttered web of books each month, I got out. Sounds like it's not much better, although hopefully they've at least gotten rid of the rather annoying habit of making you have to buy all kinds of mini-series and other magazines as well just to follow the story in your main-stream line.

Essential X-men is pretty fun -- those were from the classic John Byrne days when X-men had been restarted, essentially with a mostly new cast of characters. Those were the issues that put X-men back on the map. X-men actually started in the sixties with Beast, Cyclops, Marvel Girl and Angel (can't recall if there was anyone else at the time) but was a bit of a failure and trickled to an end.