X-Men

Lord Zarak · Post by **Lord Zarak** » Wed May 28, 2003 2:10 pm

What way is the easiest way to get into X-Men?

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Wed May 28, 2003 2:14 pm

Hmmm, I'd say get a trade and take it from there... scans online are pretty thin on the ground. If I were you, I'd get the "Mutant Rising" TPB as a nice starter, and then wait until Essential finish with the crappy Claremont stuff and reprint EoD - if you want,, I can let ya know when this happens

angloconvoy · Post by **angloconvoy** » Wed May 28, 2003 2:20 pm

I'd say don't bother

READ EXILES!!!

Sorry, its just been a while since I had a good X-bashing complete with random plug for exiles.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Wed May 28, 2003 2:21 pm

Exiles does actually rock... BTW, anyone remember that awful Malibu Exiles book with the Juggernaut?

angloconvoy · Post by **angloconvoy** » Wed May 28, 2003 2:25 pm

Yep. Bally awful.

Post by **Hound** » Wed May 28, 2003 2:27 pm

Well, the '90s stuff you might want to avoid as it's pretty damn convoluted. Anywhere before that shouldn't take more than an 3 or 4 issues to figure out what's going on. Claremont was pretty big on exposition so at some point a character is going to explain what you'd otherwise be confused about. I like all of that old stuff but I suppose The Dark Phoenix and Days of Future Past are some of the highlights and are available in TPB. Morrison has pretty much left all the previous 30-some years of story behind for his own interpretation so if you fancy it you could start there and save some cash but you'd be missing out on the best stuff...

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Wed May 28, 2003 2:31 pm

You mean like when those Leprechauns help the X-Men out?

LZ, if you can find agood second-hand comic shop, I recommend getting Classic X-Men/X-Men Classic from #1 on and reading through

it's quite cheap, and rather good

Post by **Hound** » Wed May 28, 2003 2:43 pm

Originally posted by Cliffjumper
You mean like when those Leprechauns help the X-Men out?

No, I mean the M'Kran(sp?) crystal story and all of Byrne's stuff and Life-Death, drawn by Windsor-Smith (awesome story), and Inferno, and Colossus 1-on-1 against Juggernaut, the Brood...

Edit: Classic X-Men has a nice Jim Lee drawn story about Storm that's worth the effort to find BTW...

angloconvoy · Post by **angloconvoy** » Wed May 28, 2003 2:48 pm

On the down side of avoiding the 90s stuff is you'd miss age of apocalypse, one of the few good X-men stories (and the predecessor to exiles. YAY! READ EXILES!)

Lord Zarak · Post by **Lord Zarak** » Wed May 28, 2003 2:58 pm

Originally posted by Cliffjumper
Hmmm, I'd say get a trade and take it from there... scans online are pretty thin on the ground. If I were you, I'd get the "Mutant Rising" TPB as a nice starter, and then wait until Essential finish with the crappy Claremont stuff and reprint EoD - if you want,, I can let ya know when this happens

If you dont mind Cliffy

Post by **Hound** » Wed May 28, 2003 3:01 pm

Originally posted by angloconvoy
On the down side of avoiding the 90s stuff is you'd miss age of apocalypse, one of the few good X-men stories (and the predecessor to exiles. YAY! READ EXILES!)

The great thing about Age of Apocalypse is that there isn't any back story. It may be the only story in the 90s that wasn't convoluted.

angloconvoy · Post by **angloconvoy** » Wed May 28, 2003 3:03 pm

Yep, though it did lead to the x-men's universe becoming even more convoluted once they went back to "normal".

Read exiles!

Lord Zarak · Post by **Lord Zarak** » Wed May 28, 2003 3:06 pm

How much stuff is available in TPB's, and is it worth getting?

Post by **Hound** » Wed May 28, 2003 3:07 pm

Yeah it pretty much went to hell after that. '97 is a year to avoid, I'd say the same for following years but I didn't read any of that junk.

angloconvoy · Post by **angloconvoy** » Wed May 28, 2003 3:09 pm

There're loads of x-men TPBs knocking about all over the show. Not sure how much of the overall but certainly enough to put a serious dent in your wallet.

Post by **Hound** » Wed May 28, 2003 3:09 pm

Originally posted by Lord Zarak
How much stuff is available in TPB's, and is it worth getting?

Essential X-Men reprints a whole bunch. I think most of the major crossovers in the '90s are in TPB. Morrison's run is being collected in TPB. Plus Classic X-men are cheap and reprint old stuff with added backup stories that are often good.

Lord Zarak · Post by **Lord Zarak** » Wed May 28, 2003 3:11 pm

Originally posted by Hound
Essential X-Men reprints a whole bunch. I think most of the major crossovers in the '90s are in TPB. Morrison's run is being collected in TPB. Plus Classic X-men are cheap and reprint old stuff with added backup stories that are often good.

Coolies. May check FP when I get home, and a place on Newton Street too.

angloconvoy · Post by **angloconvoy** » Wed May 28, 2003 3:27 pm

The first Exiles story arc is available in TPB form.

What? Its sort of an X title. I'm being helpful

.

Ooh, and if you've never read it, pick up the blink miniseries. It shows what happened to her between AoA and Exiles.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Wed May 28, 2003 4:32 pm

LZ, avoid the Essential X-Men TPBs - they're in B&W for a start, and getting the issues from Classic will be fairly cheap [it's generally around £1 for an issue of Classic, reprinting one Claremont era story and with a nice backup, whereas Essential is about £13 for around 20 issues... it's worth that extra bit for the colour], and you can skip the one with the Leprechauns...

Essential X-Men the comic is a good way, but they're doing some pretty bad stuff from Claremont's recent run at the mo... in abut 3 months they should be onto the well-cool Lobdell mini-run. I have no idea what they're doing then, though I've a horrible feeling it'll be centred on X-Treme X-Men.

Halfshell · Post by **Halfshell** » Sat May 31, 2003 11:20 am

Probably a good shot for getting into the universe as a whole is the Dorling Kindersley "Ultimate X-Men" book. Huge chunky thinger, they released it about the time of the first movie, but I spotted a revised version of it in Borders today.

It's not phenomenally in-depth on a lot of areas, and leaves a fair bit out, but overall it's a great reference to give you the background on the characters and storylines.

Not sure how much it'll cost, but the cover price on my old one is £14.99.