No, not Charlie Brown Peanuts.  Although that could be fun, too.  Charlie Brown attempts to recruit Jack Bauer into the baseball team…  Hmmm…

I have to pass on some very important knowledge that I’ve just recently learned.  And it has absolutely nothing to do with Superman.  Or Wonder Woman.  Or DC Comics. 

One of my presents from my wife this past Christmas was the 40 Years of X-Men DVD which collects all of Uncanny X-Men from 1963 until 2005.  Oh yeah, it’s awesome.  BUT, now that I’ve recently become a fan of comics again, I’ve been picking up both X-Men and Uncanny X-Men since last spring.  And this amazing brain of mine suddenly came up with the question - at what point did Uncanny X-Men and X-Men become two concurrent branches of X-Men comics?  And how can I also collect the run simply titled “X-Men” up until it’s modern point?  So, like any problem I face, I hit the web to find the answer.  And it’s just confusing enough that I thought I’d share my discovery.

So it’s like this.  X-Men began at #1 in 1963.  It ran as “X-Men” until issue #141.  This same line of comics then became known as “Uncanny X-Men” at issue #142.  Supposedly even though the comic covers actually carried the adjective “Uncanny” above the title for quite a while before issue 142, it wasn’t officially “Uncanny X-Men” until this issue.  Sounds weird, but here’s my source.  So Uncanny X-Men has remained as such since this point and is now nearing issue #500.  Next week issue #485 will be out.  So that explains X-Men of old up until Uncanny X-Men of the now, which I guess is informally referred to by fans as “X-Men Vol. 1″. 

So what about the series which is now running as “X-Men” and is currently at issue #197?  When did it branch off?  Well, this begins the discussion of what is un-officially called “X-Men Vol. 2″ which was launched in 1991 as it’s own separate run.  BTW, issue #1 of this series apparently still holds the record as the best selling comic book of all time.  But this isn’t quite the end of the discussion.  “X-Men” also went through a name change at issue #114 when it became “New X-Men” and ran under this title until issue #156.  This run from issue 114 up until 154 is collected in one giant hardbound book called the New X-Men Omnibus.  This book collects the entire storyline authored by Grant Morrison over all of these issues and is, it seems, a period beloved by fans.  The stragglers, issues 155 and 156 are collected, strangely enough, in an Uncanny X-Men TPB called “Uncanny X-Men Vol. 6: Bright New Mourning”.  At least that’s what one of those Amazon lists says.  I don’t own the book myself to be able to vouch for this.   So then at what would have been New X-Men #157, the name was instead changed back to simply “X-Men” at 157 and is now going strong at 197 as I mentioned earlier.

But guess what?  I also currently read a title called “New X-Men” regularly these days.  So where the heck did that come from if it ended at issue 157??  Well…X-Men apparently went through sort of a re-envisioning in 2004 and a bunch of titles got totally re-worked.  This was a couple years prior to my own personal comic renaissance, so it was news to me last week when I looked all this up.  And actually 2004 is the point at which “New X-Men #156″ transitioned to ”X-Men #157″.  So this change was part of the X-Men renaissance.  The other changes were a brand new launch of a “New X-Men” title with a different batch of heroes, the launch of a new series called “Astonishing X-Men” authored by the hero of all modern sci-fi fans (Mr. Joss Whedon) and a third new series called “X-Treme X-Men”. 

Whew.  That’s a lot of X-Men. 

Today, “New X-Men” is still going strong and I personally really enjoy it.  I think it has some really good writing and the character Rockslide has had me laughing out loud quite a bit in multiple issues.  “Astonishing X-Men” is also still going strong and might even be the most popular series right now, just based on fan comments that I’ve heard and read.  I have no real data to back that up, it’s just my impression.  I haven’t gotten around to reading this series yet, but it wouldn’t be hard as the issues are only in the twenties right now and the TPBs are very easy to pick up.  “X-Treme X-Men”, in contrast to the other 2 titles started by the 2004 reboot, has since been canceled.  I know nothing of why or how good it was.  Never read it, but I have seen one or two TPBs at Borders collecting some of its issues.

So there you have it.  That’s all I know as to where the world of X-Men stands right now.  If you’re a fan and I’ve gotten something wrong, feel free to post a comment and correct me, or just offer any additional info.  Cuz I likes me the X-Men comics.  White and Nerdy, thats me. 

Have a good Wednesday.  Or as Karen Eiffel says it, Wedensday.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 4th, 2007 at 12:51 am and is filed under Comics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.