fumanstan

Kind of an old bump, but I recently decided to try and catch up on the last few years of X-Men via TPB's. I recently read House of M, since it popped up in my Gold Box on Amazon and i'm trying to continue from there. I'm mostly focused on X-Men, but any important companion pieces are welcome.

What do I need to read to follow the House of M storyline? X-Men Messiah Complex popped up in my GoldBox today, and it seems like it somewhat follows the events of House of M. Is there anything I need to read before that?

And following that, do I just read Divided We Stand and Manifest Destiny?

Thanks!

fumanstan

Oh, and should I be reading any of the Decimation or The 198 stuff prior to Messiah Complex? The Decimation trades seem fairly scattered around, not sure which ones are important.

stingermck

Messiah is what got me back into reading X-Men. But truthfully you could skip all the stuff you mentioned and go straight to Messiah War, and now Second Coming. Divided We Stand was just another time the team has split.

You may want to read some of the Dark Reign stuff with Utopia and Nation X. (This takes place between war and second) Osborne vs X-Men and Namor was pretty good.

I would recommend X-Force also, which is the only X book I get every month. Cyclops lifting the kill code, and doing whatever is necessary really shows how desperate the team is.

fumanstan

Cool, thanks! Ideally i'd like to read as much as I can in the current story line, at least any main arc. I will pick up Messiah War after Manifest Destiny probably, and then Utopia. Trying to do my best to read these chronologically.

slop101

Read this:



then this:



They're both pretty much stand-alone, self-contained stories - you already know the essential character backgrounds.
They're probably the best X-men runs since the Claremont/Byrne days.

fumanstan

I actually already read Astonishing X-Men Vol 1 - 4. I liked the first story with Ord, but the continuation with "Danger" was pretty dreadful to me. I now understand Sessa's dislike for Whedon in the Avengers thread.

mrhan

How about some classic X-Men? The Neal Adams run is probably the best there was and influenced all that came after. The art alone is still better than anyone that followed.

fumanstan

I might have to go back and try and read even older stuff one of these days. I'm pretty focused on the newer stuff right now. I'm going through Messiah Complex and actually enjoying it quite a bit.

Patman

Saw a HC of X-Men Endangered Species for $5 at the local comic show this afternoon, so I picked it up on a whim.

Josh-da-man

Agreed.

I think that, in the last decade or two, Marvel has really let the X-corner of their universe spiral out of control. They've been putting out about two dozen X-Men and related comics out per month, crossover after crossover, it seems like Wolverine is on every single x-team, and it's just become a big mess. I used to read the x-books religiously back in the 1980s when I was younger (and they had something like five titles a month); now I'll pick up something like Messiah Complex, and my eyes will just glaze over.

fumanstan

Weird, I'm surprised at all the love for something like Astonishing X-Men. I thought the dialog was just dreadful, especially some of the stuff between Cyclops/Wolverine or Cylcops/Emma, and the plot with the Danger Room and Breakworld ultimately boring.

Of course, I haven't paid attention to the number of X-titles out there, so reading a compilation of the main story in something like the Messiah Complex trade is far easier and more entertaining and less bothersome. Then again, I just finished Divided We Stand and thought that was silly and a waste of money. I have Messiah War now, so i'm hoping I enjoy that next. The whole House of M and Messiah Complex story has been a lot of fun for me but my favorite stories have been stuff like Xtinction Agenda and Xcutioner's Song so I suppose I enjoy the crossovers.

JustinCleveland

If you like a bit of a trip, Grant Morrison's New X-Men omnibus was a lot of fun, and Joss Whedon's follow-up with Astonishing X-Men is worth a look.

fumanstan

JustinCleveland

You know what? That's hilarious. I posted after reading the first page and end up following your complaints by less than an hour. Teach me to jump the gun

Also: For not liking Astonishing you are going to be audited by the IRS and be branded a traitor to the US. You may also be forced to root for the Portland Trailblazers for a year, but that's up in the air.

fumanstan

No worries, was just funny to see mulitple recommendations for Astonishing X-Men after I already posted that I didn't care for it.

Utopia ended up in my Gold Box today, so now after Messiah War I can move right into that.

I'm spending more comics lately then I was hoping. BTW, what's with the "childish" looking art at the beginning of Messiah War with Hope/Cable that only lasts for a handful of pages? That was an eye sore to read through.

Timber

I know this is a old quote but that's Chris Claremont for you. I think it has to be all but impossible to digest his run in TPB's. Everything was set up years in advance with things just being dropped in in random issues and then being dropped for years at a time. Personally I loved it but I was reading issue to issue.

Timber

I think Fall of the Mutants/Inferno was my favorite X-Over. Both ended long running stories, and Fall set up the Outback era which was my favorite period for the X-Men.

fumanstan

Oddly enough, I had been writing a post about my thoughts on those a couple days ago but didn't get a chance to finish it and post it. I ended up buying those a couple months ago off Half.com because I really wanted to read those arcs and read the whole Madelyne Pryor stuff (I also read Phoenix Rising).

Fall of the Mutants disappointed me a bit. I didn't realize it was essentially 3 disjointed stories, and in the end only the X-Men storyline intrigued me. But since I started where the Trade starts, I was unclear what was going on with Forge/Storm and who their enemy was, which left the conclusion and the X-Men's "death" a bit confusing. I really didn't care much for the New Mutants story at all either. I did enjoy X-Factor, and reading Phoenix Rising helped.

Going in to Inferno left me even more confused, since I had little knowledge about Magik and the demons in Limbo that she was fighting, and their influence on Pryor being the Goblin Queen with Sinister. I thought I was fairly familiar enough with a lot of the X-Men history, but I think these proved me wrong!

I think in general the art work of the period made it hard for me too, since I really just didn't care for that style.

Timber

I think to enjoy them both you have to leave the New Mutants parts out. Their issues completely destroyed Inferno, I don't think I really remember their role in Fall.

Typing this I forgot about the Mutant Massacre which to me is part one of what I think of as a trilogy in these 3 cross overs.

X-Men for Fall was Silvestri correct? I think it was him during Inferno as well. I loved his art. X-Factor, I wasn't really a fan of that art during that era and again I wasn't a New Mutants fan so I throw them out of the discussion.

slop101

Excalibur, an off-shoot of X-men that started up right after Fall of the Mutants, was probably my favorite X-book of all time, that is, the Alan Davis issues (rest of it was crap), which start from the initial prestige book, then to issue 1 of the monthly series, up to about issue 20, then again from issue 42 up to 67 (this is where it gets great, but you need the set-up/background that comes before - most of it's collected in trades, and it all ends with a pretty great sequel to Days of Futures Past.

fujishig

As a precursor to Excalibur, I highly recommend Alan Moore and Alan Davis's run on Captain Britain (which was also collected into an omnibus) for some of the backstory on that. I've been meaning to track down the early issues of Excalibur again, I remember looking at the recently released trades and thinking they were too expensive for what they contained.

Did someone just say that the Outback X-men were their favorite? As a kid, I hated that era, mainly because I hated the Reavers and didn't really care for the lineup (even though I was a fan of Longshot).

slop101

Yeah, I have that (even read the original collections long before the Omni came out), but Moore is only on a handful of the stories in that, most of it is written by Jamie Delano. But that Cap Brit Omnibus is very well worth getting. And it's in Excalibur 42-67 where Alan Davis pays it all off beautifully - he's as good a writer here as he is an artist.

Timber

It was me. I really liked the way the team just disintegrated right before our eyes.

Storm, Wolverine, Havok, Colossus, Dazzler, Longshot, Psylocke and Rogue

I loved the Reavers. Longshot was the only member that I didn't care for but Rogue, Psylocke, Dazzler, and Havok are all among my all time favorite characters, and it gave us Jubilee, as well as Jim Lee.

Almost forgot the Wolverine crucified on the X by the Reavers cover. Issue 251

Timber

fumanstan

The New Mutants seemed to just be fighting these animal creatures with their friend Bird Brain in Fall.

And yeah, I went to look at the penciler was Silvestri. I really didn't care for that style of artwork, but when I started reading X-Men as a kid it was the 90's and Jim Lee, so looking back it feels a bit too simplistic for me.