I'd start with Astonishing X-Men, don't really need the back story to follow it, which is why it's selling so well.
Ultimate X-Men isn't connected to Astonishing X-Men or any of the books. It's a separate universe entirely. The history behind it - is X-men the movie. When X-Men the Movie came out, they decided they needed to create updated and cooler/Gen Y friendly books - so they dressed them in leather and changed the look and started the story over. It's a good story - but a completely different from the series and no link to what was started in 1960s. It does work for new readers, because it started in 2000 or thereabouts and has graphic novel compilations for each run of 10-13 mags. But again no link to Astonishing.
New X-Men was Grant Morrison's re-do of X-men. It started in 2001. And the team was Prof X, Jean Grey, Emma Frost, Beast, Cyclops, and Wolverine. It's a controversial book as you can from the boards. And is the run that Whedon loved so much and got him reinterested. I stopped collecting during that run. While it was good, it got convoluted in places, the art work messy, and I felt the characters got lost in the retooling. Very sci-fi. So if you like sci-fi, that was Morrison. Whedon's character conflicts are an off-shoot of what Morrison was doing. And Astonishing I think has taken place of New X-men or it's the team that was in New X-men (not sure what the book is now).
Uncanny X-men dates back to Claremount and Byrne in the 1980s/70s. For a while it was the solo X-men book. X-men branched off of it in the 90s. The reason X-men branched off - was we suddenly had 16 regular characters too many to tell stories in one book. We had the core or original X-men (who'd retired at one point or left to form X-Factor) come back to rejoin, and the new X-men. The old group was Iceman, Beast, Jean Grey, Angel, and Cyclops. The new group was Storm, Colossus (dead now), Kitty Pryde, Nightcrawler, Rogue (lost her powers), Wolverine, Gambit (wounded), and I've probably forgotten a few. Now Uncanny X-men deals with well the characters not in Astonishing - probably Iceman, Nightcrawler, and whomever else they've added.
X-Treme took Rogue, Storm, Gambit, and a couple of others out of X-men and Uncanny. It has a great artist or did in Carlos Salvatorre. But the stories are basic action adventure. Not a lot of depth.
Essential X-Men - is basically summaries of the series as far as I can tell.
Marvel Masterworks X-men used to be and may still be compilations of the old issues in a volume.
The best compilations in my opinion are The Dark Phoenix Saga and The Age of Apocalypse. I can't remember others off-hand. What I'd do is just go to a comic book store and thumb through a few. Or at Barnes & Noble, sit and read a couple of the graphic novels, see what you like.
There's no way on earth you can read the entire backstory. Too many. But there are compilations of it now, so no need to go by back issues like I had to when I started.
Hope that helped a little. Been a long while since I've looked at my collection and this is pretty much off the top of my head.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2004-07-20 08:56 pm (UTC)I'd start with Astonishing X-Men, don't really need the back story to follow it, which is why it's selling so well.
Ultimate X-Men isn't connected to Astonishing X-Men or any of the books. It's a separate universe entirely. The history behind it - is X-men the movie. When X-Men the Movie came out, they decided they needed to create updated and cooler/Gen Y friendly books - so they dressed them in leather and
changed the look and started the story over. It's a good story - but a completely different from the series and no link to what was started in 1960s.
It does work for new readers, because it started in 2000 or thereabouts and has graphic novel compilations for each run of 10-13 mags. But again no link to Astonishing.
New X-Men was Grant Morrison's re-do of X-men.
It started in 2001. And the team was Prof X, Jean Grey, Emma Frost, Beast, Cyclops, and Wolverine.
It's a controversial book as you can from the boards.
And is the run that Whedon loved so much and got him reinterested. I stopped collecting during that run.
While it was good, it got convoluted in places, the art work messy, and I felt the characters got lost in the retooling. Very sci-fi. So if you like sci-fi, that was Morrison. Whedon's character conflicts are an off-shoot of what Morrison was doing. And Astonishing I think has taken place of New X-men or it's the team that was in New X-men (not sure what the book is now).
Uncanny X-men dates back to Claremount and Byrne in the 1980s/70s. For a while it was the solo X-men book. X-men branched off of it in the 90s. The reason X-men branched off - was we suddenly had 16 regular characters too many to tell stories in one book. We had the core or original X-men (who'd retired at one point or left to form X-Factor) come back to rejoin, and the new X-men. The old group was Iceman, Beast, Jean Grey, Angel, and Cyclops. The new group was Storm, Colossus (dead now), Kitty Pryde, Nightcrawler, Rogue (lost her powers), Wolverine, Gambit (wounded), and I've probably forgotten a few. Now Uncanny X-men deals with well
the characters not in Astonishing - probably Iceman,
Nightcrawler, and whomever else they've added.
X-Treme took Rogue, Storm, Gambit, and a couple of others out of X-men and Uncanny. It has a great artist or did in Carlos Salvatorre. But the stories are basic action adventure. Not a lot of depth.
Essential X-Men - is basically summaries of the series as far as I can tell.
Marvel Masterworks X-men used to be and may still be compilations of the old issues in a volume.
The best compilations in my opinion are The Dark Phoenix Saga and The Age of Apocalypse. I can't remember others off-hand. What I'd do is just go to a comic book store and thumb through a few. Or at Barnes & Noble, sit and read a couple of the graphic novels, see what you like.
There's no way on earth you can read the entire backstory. Too many. But there are compilations of it now, so no need to go by back issues like I had to when I started.
Hope that helped a little. Been a long while since
I've looked at my collection and this is pretty much off the top of my head.