Getting more serious about comics- few Q's about X-men

[crimson80]

[Note: I was much more confused when I started writing this post, lol. I answered a lot of my own questions by doing some research, but I could still use some help]

Hi. I recently stumbled onto the Ifanboy show which is awesome. I like how the guys go so in depth about comics while keeping things accessible to newbies like me. I'm in my late 20's, and I've always been more of a fan of superheroes and comic book characters than the medium of comic books. Until a few years ago I had never read a comic, but a friend of mine got a job a Books-a-Million. He introduced me to some of the great and seminal works in comics. Over the past couple of years I've read The Watchmen, Kingdom Come, The Dark Knight Returns, Batman: The Long Halloween, Batman Hush, Ultimates 1 & 2, Civil War and a couple of others I won't bother mentioning.

So anyway, I decided I wanted to start following a couple of comic series. I wanted to pick an interesting period or event to start with that wasn't ancient but would still give me a good amount of back material to read and catch up on before getting current. X-Men was an easy choice thanks to my love for the classic 90's cartoon. On the other hand, I kind of stumbled onto Green Lantern. GL was always sort of an intriguing character to me, but I didn't know that much about him or the Corp aside from what I saw in the excellent Justice League and JLU TV series. Then I saw the new GL animated movie. I LOVED it, and the preview of the upcoming Blackest Night event sold me on the idea of reading GL. Rebirth was perfect for the type of starting point that I was looking for, but I also read GL: In Brightest Day (a collection of essential GL stories selected by the guy doing Rebirth/Blackest Night) which was a great primer for getting into GL. Right now I'm waiting for GL: Revenge of the Lanterns to come in. I can't wait to start getting into the stuff with the different lantern corps. That's such a brilliant idea.

I asked my friend if there was something I could pick up based on X-men. He suggested checking out the House of M event. I picked up the paperback and enjoyed it, but I've been confused about where to go from there. I know there's several side stories under the House of M title, and I was able to read the Civil War House of M. That was pretty cool. I loved seeing Magneto kicking ass and teaming up with Apocalypse. Anyway, it seems that the Decimation storyline is the one that picks up where House of M left off. I found X-Men: the 198 at Books-a-Million. I guess it's what I was looking for because it picks up where House of M left off. And I just found out that the story in 198 is continued in Civil War: X-Men. I guess I'll have to read that next and then continue reading based on this list of major storylines from the wikipedia article:

"House of M" • "Decimation" • "Deadly Genesis" • "Endangered Species" • "Messiah Complex" • "Divided We Stand" • "Manifest Destiny" • "X-Infernus" • "Kingbreaker" • "Messiah War" • "Utopia" • "Nation X" • "X-Necrosha" • "Second Coming"

So I guess my question is if there's anything else from the House of M or Decimation storylines that I should read before moving on. Doesn't that Secret Invasion thing happen around this time as well? Tips would be appreciated

[johnferrigno]

My X-Men knowledge is limited to comics from the 70s and 80s, when I found the book to be readable. With the exception of Joss Whedon's run on Astonishing X-Men, I haven't liked the X-Men since I was a little kid.

Ron? Got any advice?

[crimson80]

The Astonishing X-Men was really good. johnferrigno, you might actually like that Civil War: House of M that I mentioned. The title is misleading because it doesn't really seem to have anything to do with the Civil War event. Instead, it's the story of Magneto in the alternate reality created by the House of M event-- his birth during WWII, his leading of a mutant uprising, befriending Xavier, and finally coming to rule over Geonosha.

[chunkahash]

I would completely skip the Civil War tie-in for the X-Men. Nothing happens in it, and it would save you some $$$. And as I'm sure many other people will mention it, but Josh Whedon's Astonishing X-Men is pretty sweet too.

[crimson80]

Should I just get a Marvel digital subscription?

[pacbol]

Accept that the X-Men will never make sense. You will learn a lot of character names and see a lot of costumes but none of that matters. As someone asking these questions you have a basic knowledge.. Your good, I havent read any X-Book regularly in over 20 years and have no problem picking upo the occasional series. Accept that they are all mutants, read an issue and then google any time something makes you ask who/what the hell is that? Just do not try to make sense of it for the sanities sake do not try to make sense of it!!!!

[johnferrigno]

The thing is, it wasn't always like this. I've been reading the Essential X-Men series of tpbs, and so far, it's still a pretty good title. Once the new team was introduced, this book became a very good read, and I'm about halfway through vol 3 and it's still very entertaining. There have been a ton of great stories. I'm wondering at what point things went off the rails?

[stewsa]

I think you're going to find out pretty soon. For me x-men went down the tubes around the new mutants time period.

[crimson80]

probably in the 90's from what I hear. The new stuff I've read has been really good so far. Astonishing X-Men was amazing. House of M was good. Civil War: House of M was almost as good as Astonishing IMO. It seems like it gets overlooked, but I highly recommend it. Decimation: The 198 was decent.

So overall I'm having a good time with the modern x-men comics.

[Neb]

You really should just start buying Uncanny X-Men. They always give a primer for what you need to know in the front of every issue, so it's pretty easy to pick up. I think the X-Men are so complex and nuanced and stretched, that it'd be impossible to cover everything that was good or important. A great majority of important things have been retconned or redone in a different way.

As for things after House of M, I'm at a loss because my understanding was that, besides Astonishing, the X-Men universe sort of floundered through storyline after storyline. I guess you could check out Messiah Complex because that sort of lead into where the book is now, and it's a pretty good read.

You could also keep your eyes out for the Dark X-Men: Utopia storyline when it gets collected. I know Ron thought it was good, then bad, then good, then really bad, then really, really good. It also might be an interesting thing to check out.