X-Men: 2005 - 2011 In House of M, the Scarlet Witch created an alternate reality where Magneto won his war against humanity a long time ago and the world was relatively safe and stable under his rule. The transition isn't perfect, and a few X-Men realize that its all a lie. They spread the knowledge and eventually force the Scarlet Witch to change the world back. Afterwards, seemingly out of spite, she alters reality again and removes the powers/mutations from most mutants in the world. They go from a population of millions to hundreds.
For a few years all the remaining mutants bad together for mutual protection while extremist anti-Mutants step up their attacks, seeing this as the best opportunity to completely wipe them out. All attempts to reverse the Scarlet Witche's spell - she appears to be depowered herself now.
In Messiah Complex, for the first time in years the X-Men detect the first new mutant activation in Alaska. The source is an orphaned newborn baby and the X-Men race to protect it against Anti-Mutant extremists, Sinister's goons, and folks from the future who claim the baby will be some kind of mutant messiah. Eventually, Cyclops determines that the best chance for the kid is be sent into the future with Cable to be raised away from all the factions wanting to co-opt or kill her. Afterwards the X-Men are temporarily disbanded. After a brief holiday, the X-Men come back together and relocate to San Francisco where the local government welcomes them with open arms.
In a crossover event with Dark Reign, in which Norman Osborn (The Green Goblin) is appointed the director of SHIELD, anti-mutant riots sweep San Francisco. Osborn uses the riots as a justification to attack the X-Men with his own "Dark X-Men" team. Cyclops has the X-Men retreat to a boat in the bay, which then rises up out of the water and is revealed to be an island built onto the remains of Asteroid M. Cyclops declares that the island is now a sovereign nation, where Mutants can live free of persecution. He unironically names his new Genosha "Utopia". Former mutant villains Magneto and Namor join Utopia.
In Second Coming, Cable returns from the future with the messiah baby, now a teenage girl named Hope. The X-Men fight more anti-mutant extremists who attack Hope and Cable and then Utopia itself. In the end Cable dies, Hope is reviled to be a power mimic, and a few new mutant activations are detected by Cerebra. These new mutants are undergoing unstable, often violent mutations that can only be stabilized by touching Hope. Afterwards she seems to have a subtle psychological control over them.
In Schsim, which just wrapped up, the new Hellfire Club releases a pro-mutant radical from Utopia's prison. He creates an international incident at the UN before the X-Men can stop him. As a result a new wave of anti-mutant paranoia sweeps the globe and the various governments of the world begin reactivating old Sentinel robots. Many of these robots malfunction and start causing disasters, and Cyclops dispatches most the X-Men to deal with them. The Hellfire Club incapacitates the remaining X-Men at the opening of San Francisco's new Mutant Rights Museum and unleashed a new prototype sentinel on Utopia. The only mutants left to defend the island are Cyclops, Wolverine, and a bunch of students. Cyclops enlists the kids to help him defend the island and Wolverine wants to leave rather than forcing children to be soldiers. Their argument escalates violently, and although the sentinel is defeated, Wolverine decides that he no longer shares Cyclops's vision. He and the half of the X-Men who have grown uncomfortable with Utopia's increasingly militaristic and isolationist direction leave to rebuild the school in New York.
Some of the details might be incorrect, but thats the jist of where the X-Men are now.
Wow, thanks for the recap! Was any of all that worth reading and good?
I like the stuff following the creation of Utopia. Scott Summer's decision to abandon Xavier's dream and make his own legacy for mutant kind is one of the most interesting developments in the story line since Morrison's run. Having the X-Men build something rather than just react was a great change.
Schism was better than expected. Hopefully the continuation in Regenesis will continue to be handled well.
Hmmm sounds interesting. If they came out with a huge Omnibus of all this, I might be tempted to pick it up. Looking at all the trades in my local comic store though, I'm completely and thoroughly lost.
Yeah, the organization is just terrible. The overall story may be worthwhile, but when its scattered across seven or eight ongoing books and yearly cross-overs, no one but people who force themselves to puzzle it out are going to be able to follow it.
I really believe many more people would pick up superhero books if they were presented in the form of complete stories that told you exactly how and where they fit into the larger ongoing arc right there in the title.
It wouldn't even matter if the X-Men were split over a whole bunch of crazy titles mixing up everywhere if they sold them all as one book instead of a fist full of pamphlets. Imagine if every month there was a book that came out for $10 called X-Men. All it was was a magazine that contained all the X-Men comics from that month in order. I'd subscribe to that shit no matter how crazy the X-Bullshit was.
ppppppsssstttt.. There are these great things on the web called Torrents that place all the comics in order to read.. SOOOO great.
It's strange, I have absolutely no problem torrenting music, TV, movies, etc but when it comes to comics or written things in general, I just don't do it. It's probably because I hate reading on my monitor and I don't have a snazzy digital reader yet, but I don't like to torrent comics.
Similarly to what Scott said, but taking it a step further, IF I had a digital reader like the Amazon Fire or the iPad 2, I would LOVE for a Netflix-like service where, for a monthly fee, I can access and stream EVERY new monthly comic put out by that company, and for an additional charge, I can get access to their ENTIRE backlog.
It's strange, I have absolutely no problem torrenting music, TV, movies, etc but when it comes to comics or written things in general, I just don't do it. It's probably because I hate reading on my monitor and I don't have a snazzy digital reader yet, but I don't like to torrent comics.
Similarly to what Scott said, but taking it a step further, IF I had a digital reader like the Amazon Fire or the iPad 2, I would LOVE for a Netflix-like service where, for a monthly fee, I can access and stream EVERY new monthly comic put out by that company, and for an additional charge, I can get access to their ENTIRE backlog.
I would easily pay $20 a month for that.
Oh don't get me wrong, I buy a lot of trades, I just encountered a problem where it was difficult to figure out how to follow some of those stories... So I went that route to read them in the order they should be in.
Finally after about month of waiting I got the Batman Adventures and read it. It's pretty much B:TAS in comic book form and it's great. It's not a big book, but it includes five stories, six issues, where one story took two issues. (Technically the first three issues are connected, but only barely.) So, Batman Adventures is good, buy it.
Finally after about month of waiting I got the Batman Adventures and read it. It's pretty much B:TAS in comic book form and it's great. It's not a big book, but it includes five stories, six issues, where one story took two issues. (Technically the first three issues are connected, but only barely.) So, Batman Adventures is good, buy it.
I've been so out of touch with the X-Men. I have no idea what's been happening with them. Ever since I converted to a trade-only reader, and that I basically follow authors, not titles, the only X-Men comics I've read were Grant Morrison's New X-Men run, and Joss Wheedon's Astonishing X-Men run.
Has anyone read X-Statix? I saw that a new omnibus has come out collecting the entirety of Milligan's run on the book. (By the way, I think I'm getting addicted to the whole Marvel Omnibus format... such beautiful books... so many comics... drool)
So I've never been very familiar with the DC universe or even really read much of it except for Batman where I read the things which get usual recommendation (Dark Knight Returns, Year One, The Long Halloween, etc.). So can somebody tell me 5-10 DC comics that aren't Batman that I should read?
I haven't read these myself, but I understand some classic recommended reads are:
- Kingdom Come - All-Star Superman - Superman: Red Son - Swamp Thing (Alan Moore or otherwise)
I've mostly been reading newer DC books myself, though. Here are some recent titles I've enjoyed:
- Animal Man (New 52) - Batwoman: Elegy, and New 52 Batwoman (technically a Bat-book, but actually fairly separate from Batman as a character) - Birds of Prey (Gail Simone's or the New 52 series) - Dial H (currently my favourite ongoing DC series) - Earth 2 (not really that amazing, but it is better than the actual current Justice League books, and it's definitely more new reader friendly) - Jeff Lemire's run on Justice League Dark (starts at issue #9)
Ah, it's probably worth pointing out, then, that of my recs, Dial H, Earth 2, and Jeff Lemire's Justice League Dark aren't collected yet. The rest have at least one or two volumes out each, or are self-contained graphic novels.
EDIT: Earth 2 volume 1 is coming out in about a month.
Yeah, the organization is just terrible. The overall story may be worthwhile, but when its scattered across seven or eight ongoing books and yearly cross-overs, no one but people who force themselves to puzzle it out are going to be able to follow it.
Or people who just download the torrent of the entire event, cross referenced and numbered in the optimal reading sequence right out of the zip file in .cbs format...
Comments
I like the stuff following the creation of Utopia. Scott Summer's decision to abandon Xavier's dream and make his own legacy for mutant kind is one of the most interesting developments in the story line since Morrison's run. Having the X-Men build something rather than just react was a great change.
Schism was better than expected. Hopefully the continuation in Regenesis will continue to be handled well.
I really believe many more people would pick up superhero books if they were presented in the form of complete stories that told you exactly how and where they fit into the larger ongoing arc right there in the title.
Similarly to what Scott said, but taking it a step further, IF I had a digital reader like the Amazon Fire or the iPad 2, I would LOVE for a Netflix-like service where, for a monthly fee, I can access and stream EVERY new monthly comic put out by that company, and for an additional charge, I can get access to their ENTIRE backlog.
I would easily pay $20 a month for that.
I preferred his earlier work.
On The Andy Griffith Show.
- Kingdom Come
- All-Star Superman
- Superman: Red Son
- Swamp Thing (Alan Moore or otherwise)
I've mostly been reading newer DC books myself, though. Here are some recent titles I've enjoyed:
- Animal Man (New 52)
- Batwoman: Elegy, and New 52 Batwoman (technically a Bat-book, but actually fairly separate from Batman as a character)
- Birds of Prey (Gail Simone's or the New 52 series)
- Dial H (currently my favourite ongoing DC series)
- Earth 2 (not really that amazing, but it is better than the actual current Justice League books, and it's definitely more new reader friendly)
- Jeff Lemire's run on Justice League Dark (starts at issue #9)
EDIT: Earth 2 volume 1 is coming out in about a month.
...you know, I've heard.