Diving into X-Men comics

[Mike Murdock]

A few months back, I signed up for Marvel Unlimited, which is a good (but not flawless) way to read old back issues. After going with a few others, I decided to read all of Chris Claremont's X-Men. I stuck to just X-Men with only two deviations (the Claremont/Miller Wolverine story where he fights the Hand and Kitty Pryde & Wolverine). I specifically stuck with the original title, though, and avoided New Mutants when they appeared. Still, I started with 94 and made it to 192 before I gave up.

Now that I heard a New Mutants movie is being created, I decided I should give it a shot again, but to go for the spinoffs too. That means go from X-Men 192-280, New Mutants 1-100, and X-Factor 1-70 (plus at least two mini-series).

So my question is, does this sound insane? Has anyone else ever read 10 years worth of back issues like this who didn't read them from the start? How did people get through all this in the first place? It seems like, as a kid, three X-Men titles at once was a lot to budget.

 

[Havok83]

No its not insane. Unless someone grew up in the 60-80s, everyone who has read the old runs has done that. I didnt start collecting till mid 90s and eventually made way way from UXM including New Mutants and X-factor

 

[Mike Murdock]

How long did it take you?

 

[Havok83]

I dont recall. Years

 

[slicer4444]

I got into comic books a bit more recently, and while I haven't read everything you listed, I think I've read a respectable chunk. The Claremont Masterworks went a long way in making that happen (for both Uncanny and New Mutants). So, insane? No. A time commitment? Yes. But so far, well worth it. I intend to keep hunting down back issues to keep reading. There is some good stuff in those runs.

 

[Mike Murdock]

Thanks for the pep talk. I read the Graphic Novel introduction to the New Mutants and am two issues in. I'm remembering where this intersects with the Uncanny X-Men story and probably would have done well to have started this back then too. Still, it's a surprisingly good start overall. I'm liking all the characters.

Still, two issues ain't 200, so we'll see

 

[JewishHobbit]

I'm not sure where it falls chronologically but I'd recommend resding the X-Men God Loves, Man Kills original graphic novel as well. It takes place somewhere in Claremont'Claremont's run and is really good.

 

[Mike Murdock]

Yeah, I didn't realize that came out in 1982. That puts its debut right around the same time as New Mutants: Renewal (i.e., at the top of my list). After the Brood stuff calms down (damn, the Brood creep me out), I'll jump to that next.

 

[Mike Murdock]

Followup question. I see that, towards the end, Rob Liefeld essentially took over the title. Should I try to find a way to duck out before the end or is it worth reading the whole way? I know Liefeld more for his reputation than his actual stories, but the story so far has a wonderful mix of character and subtlety, which Liefeld is not known for.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

As I remember it, Liefeld's only real writing of the book NM in full was the last three issues, I think. I could even be wrong on that as I think Louise Simonson or Fabian were really doing the lion's share of "writing" .

 

[Spider-Aziz]

So my question is, does this sound insane? Has anyone else ever read 10 years worth of back issues like this who didn't read them from the start? How did people get through all this in the first place? It seems like, as a kid, three X-Men titles at once was a lot to budget.

10 issues a day helped me sit through all of Flash comics from Barry's first volume to the end of Flashpoint.
That's more than 50 years of history in 2 months.

I sat through a big chunk of these characters series starting in 2008:
Spider-Man, Daredevil, Batman, Hulk, Iron Man, The Flash, Moon Knight, Power Man, Iron Fist.
And what I read of Claremont's X-Men.

 

[Havok83]

Followup question. I see that, towards the end, Rob Liefeld essentially took over the title. Should I try to find a way to duck out before the end or is it worth reading the whole way? I know Liefeld more for his reputation than his actual stories, but the story so far has a wonderful mix of character and subtlety, which Liefeld is not known for.

Its a precursor to X-force so even if it is Liefield written, its worth reading to see the transition of the team and essentially the intro of Cable

 

[Mike Murdock]

But... I don't know if I want to read X-Force

I will say, the stories intersect so often that reading all of them actually does make it better than just reading X-Men. It does get confusing at times figuring out the order (there's a lovely editors note from Ann Nocenti where she complains that she'll kill Chris Claremont if he pulls off such a scheduling stunt again). There's a New Mutants, Uncanny X-Men special (I think it's New Mutants special issue and X-Men Annual 7) that Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes borrowed for their cartoon. I have to say I did not expect a New Mutants story to ever be borrowed from, since it's too easy to think of them as secondary characters with no lasting influence.

 

[Spider-Aziz]

When a title I care about crosses over with another title it is often not important to the first title.
Sometimes you see a story continue in a different title, but the character of the first title makes no appearance in the second title.
Read the online synopsis, it will save you some trouble.

 

[Mike Murdock]

So, the problem was resolved my Marvel Unlimited not having half the early issues

 

[Mike Murdock]

If anyone cares, I have officially finished the Claremont era (with the exception of the start of Adjectiveless X-Men, which is part of the new era, so I'm holding off). That means Uncanny X-Men 94-280, X-Factor 1-70, New Mutants 1-100, most of Excalibur 1-41 (availability is a bit tricky), and a sampling of Wolverine (as well as quite a few mini-series along the way).

The original post was when I reached 192, so I had been reading for a little while by then. Best guess is it took me slightly less than a year and a half (not consistently, I've read a whole bunch of other things in the meantime). The plan is to keep going through the 90s, but I may be less consistent with what I read.

 

[Havok83]

If anyone cares, I have officially finished the Claremont era (with the exception of the start of Adjectiveless X-Men, which is part of the new era, so I'm holding off). That means Uncanny X-Men 94-280, X-Factor 1-70, New Mutants 1-100, most of Excalibur 1-41 (availability is a bit tricky), and a sampling of Wolverine (as well as quite a few mini-series along the way).

The original post was when I reached 192, so I had been reading for a little while by then. Best guess is it took me slightly less than a year and a half (not consistently, I've read a whole bunch of other things in the meantime). The plan is to keep going through the 90s, but I may be less consistent with what I read.

good luck with that. It becomes harder to keep track as the # of X-books explodes. If you stick to just the two main X-men books, you should be fine but theres a bit of overlap with the rest. Still its much more manageable than the clusterf--k that became the last decade

 

[psylockolussus]

I am never gonna try to binge read the original New Mutants run and the other splinter-team. Its just too many!

Like with me, its just...
Uncanny X-Men vol.1/2/3/4
Adjectiveless X-Men that turned into New X-Men then X-Men again then X-Men Legacy
Astonishing X-Men vol.1/2/3
Amazing X-Men vol. 1/2
X-Men Legacy - Legion as lead
X-Treme X-Men vol. 1/2
X-Men vol. 3 - starting from the Curse of the Mutants
X-Men vol. 4 - all female team
Wolverine and the X-Men vol. 1/2
All New X-Men vol. 1/2
Extraordinary X-Men

Then unlimited X-Men then those X-Men one-shots and mini-series that only had 2 to 8 issues.

But I've also read

New Mutants vol. 2
New Mutants: Academy X which later became New X-Men
Young X-Men

I might try to binge watch New Mutants vol. 3 one day because Magik's team was technically X-Men.

 

[KevanG]

If anyone doesn't have the time/cash/interest in reading the early X-Men stuff from the start to the end of the 80's but still wants to know what the hell is going on then I'd recommend listening to the Jay and Miles explain the X-Men podcast.

They've done about 120 by this point and spend a long time detailing what the hell is going on from X-Men 1 to wherever they are at the point you listen to them. They also bounce around to review stuff like the movies, cartoons and other things.

 

[Lord]

X-Men 280 is still Chris Claremont's? Didn't he quit writing for the title by then?

 

[Mike Murdock]

Yes. However, it's the end of the Muir Island Saga he started. More importantly, it's the end of an era with a pretty big status quo shift/reset right after.

But he stopped writing New Mutants in #55, Excalibur by that point, Wolverine early on, and never wrote X-Factor (except the previous arc) and I'm including those because all the stories overlapped with his and he was essentially the creative driving force.

 

[JewishHobbit]

I was working on a Chronological reading order for 90s X-Men just recently. Here's what I came up with after tons of research for the very beginning of it through the aftermath of the X-Cutioner's Saga.

Wolverine 31-33
Marvel Comics Presents 85-92 (Wolverine vs. Cyber)
Wolverine 34-43, 45-46
Excalibur 35-41
Excalibur: Air Apparent
Excalibur 42-53
Spider-Man 25
Excalibur 54
X-Factor 71-75
Incredible Hulk 390-391 (War & Pieces 1-2)
X-Factor 76
Incredible Hulk 392 (War & Pieces 3)
Wolverine 54
X-Men 1-3
Marvel Comics Presents 72-84 (Weapon X)
Wolverine 48-50
X-Men 4-7
Uncanny 281-288
Marvel Comics Presents 101-108 (Nightcrawler & Wolverine)
Wolverine 51-53
Uncanny 289-290
Wolverine 55-57
X-Force 1-3
Spider-Man 16
X-Force 4
Wolverine 60-65
X-Force 5-11
Uncanny 291-293
X-Factor 77-78
X-Force 12-15
X-Men Annual 1
Uncanny X-Men Annual 16
X-Factor Annual 7
X-Men 8
Ghost Rider 26
X-Men 9
Ghost Rider 27
X-Men 10-11
X-Force Annual 1
Ghost Rider 29
Sabretooth 1-4
X-Men 12-13
Excalibur 55-56
X-Factor 79-83
Cable: Blood & Metal 1-2
X-Cutioner’s Song
Uncanny 297
Stryfe’s Strike Files
Wolverine 66-68
X-Men 17-19
New Warriors 31
X-Force 19


And to add to this, I was debating on doing it with everything include or just the core X-Men titles and then important tie-ins and crossovers. That one looks like this through Fatal Attractions:

X-Factor 71-75
X-Men 1-3
Marvel Comics Presents 72-84 (Weapon X)
Wolverine 48-50
X-Men 4-7
Uncanny 281-286
MCP 101-108
Uncanny 287-288
Wolverine 51-53
Uncanny 289-290
Wolverine 55-57
Wolverine 60-65
Uncanny 291-293
X-Men Annual 1
Uncanny Annual 16
X-Factor Annual 7
X-Men 8
Ghost Rider 26
X-Men 9
Ghost Rider 27
X-Men 10-11
X-Force Annual 1
Ghost Rider 29
Sabretooth 1-4
X-Men 12-13
Excalibur 55-56
X-Cutioner’s Song (12 part crossover)
Uncanny 297
Wolverine 66-68
X-Men 17-19
New Warriors 31
X-Force 19
Uncanny X-Men 298-300
Gambit 1-4
X-Men Unlimited 1
X-Men 20-23 (Wolverine/Magneto scene in 23 takes place later)
Wolverine 69-71
X-Men 23 (Wolverine/Magneto scene)
Uncanny @17
Uncanny 301-303
X-Men 24
X-Factor 92
X-Force 24-26
X-Factor 93
Uncanny 304
X-Men Unlimited 2
Uncanny X-Men 305-306
X-Men 25
Wolverine 75
Excalibur 71
Avengers 368
X-Men 26
Avenger West Coast 101
Uncanny X-Men 307
Avengers 369


I love 90s X-Men, so if you need help figuring out reading order, let me know. I can probably help.

 

[Jordacar]

I did something like this a few years ago, starting from the beginning and reading X-Men basically up to when I started reading comics originally. And yeah, Marvel Unlimited was a big help with that. It's easy in the beginning when there's only one title, but then those spin-offs start piling up...

Browse all the online bios and wikipedia articles you want, there's really no substitute for going back and reading the old stuff yourself, seeing exactly how it was written, how characters and ideas were first presented, etc. The earliest stuff, while incredibly cheesy and dated, comes off not that different from old Star Trek or classic Hanna Barbera toons.

There were a few times I had to backtrack and read stuff I initially couldn't track down (like the Longshot mini series or most of Excalibur), but overall it was a really fun time. My designated finale was actually X-Men #30 when Scott and Jean tie the knot. There's some other stuff (like post-Liefeld X-Force) that I'd still like to take a look at.

 

[JewishHobbit]

I felt that X-Force excelled post-Liefeld. Basically from X-Cutioner's Song through the Age of Apocalypse was good, and then I REALLY liked post-Age of Apocalypse through about Onslaught.

 

[Havok83]

IMO, X-Force was best post-OZT. I loved the roadtrip team and it felt very much like New Mutants; like what these characters would have naturally become had Liefield not come in and militarized the group