@Fryhole3001 said:

Hey everyone...

I've just finished reading Grant Morrison's run on New X-Men and Joss Whedon's run on Astonishing X-Men (1-24 i think)... my question is, is it worth continuing reading Astonishing? I'm looking to catch up to the current X-Men titles so if not where is the next logical point? Is House of M - Messiah CompleX- Messiah War - Schism the natural run to catch up?

Cheers

Astonishing X-Men performed a downward spiral swan dive into the deep end after Whedon's run was over... it was horrible! Currently it revolves around Wolverine Northstar, Gambit, Warbird, Iceman, Karma, and Cecilia Reyes in New York... It's ok but hopefully will improve after awhile!

The whole Messiah trio: Messiah Complex, Messiah War, and Second Coming, are definite reads. They are an X-Men fans' need to know! Plus ,overall, all three were really good (I thought Messiah War was ok though).

I am a huge fan of the New X-Men series that featured students: Dust, Hellion, Surge, Mercury, Rockslide, Prodigy, Elixir, Anole, Pixie, and X-23. It was an awesome run... especially the end stories collected as "Childhood's End" volumes. Plus it leads up to Messiah Complex and such.

So first read:

House of M... then,

New X-Men Childhood's End vol. 1-5

Messiah Complex

Messiah War

Second Coming

And from there you can pretty much pick and choose what you'd like to read, like for example, Manifest Destiny, which involves most of the X-Men moving to California in their new base acting as the local heroes. Utopia, which involves them moving from their new base to an island off the coast called Utopia (it ties-in to Dark Reign involving Norman Osborn and his Avengers). Necrosha, which involves dead characters resurrected to overthrow the X-Men (more of a story for older fans). X-Infernus, which is a follow up from the New X-Men series I mentioned above. Five Lights, which are the first five mutants activated after House of M (not a personal favorite of mine). Age of X, which involves an "alternate reality" which is put into question (involves Legion whose character history goes way back, not good for new readers). Schism, which is basically the break-up of the X-Men. Regenesis, which is the fallout of Schism. Avengers vs X-Men, which is the latest story involving the Avengers and the X-Men's battle for the Phoenix.

Hopefully this helps you... pretty long list though. My advice... don't buy all of them at the same time. :P

@McKlayn said:

@papad1992: you are so right about Astonishing, i am hoping that the stories get alot better in the book. Hopefully Cyclop's team takes the title over :-p

I just read the current issue that just came out... I'm just not impressed by this book! I'll probably finish up this story and drop it after that because it is just a drag around bore! The team is a mix of colorful characters but the way they are being written isn't doing them justice!

@McKlayn said:

@papad1992: and its so freaking confusing, i have to go back and reread the last few issues each time a new one comes out, and they like stopped in the middle of the story to have a wedding, idk its annoyed me lol

Agreed on all parts!! And what happened with Iceman?... he falls into a pit of lava and they all are just like "oh no" and they move on!! It's crap like that that annoys me!! He's probably gonna be the one to somehow mysteriously appear and save the day because his tracker-whatever was disintegrated and is no longer being watched.

@AgeofHurricane said:

@McKlayn: Bun that. They should have given Astonishing to the kids.

Agreed.

@McKlayn said:

@Frell: @papad1992: @AgeofHurricane: Yea it was trying to sell issues to a comic that is more then likely close to cancellation, thing is i think they need a whole knew direction, being "cyclops" team would get sells because of how much hype he is getting (but only if they plan to give it a good writer lol) I think Wolverine & the X men are the closest thing we will get to a "kids" book, it annoys me how that title has so many good adult X men and so many good kid characters all sharing the spot light, i think an all kid or an all staff book would be good they deserve that much. And i also expected it to be canceled in Marvel now, I am curious what they are doing with "X-men" as well because despite both Astonishing & X men's ability to totally avoid AvX they will have to address the fall out since it's all over because the cast characters were all involved and everything is changed, No Utopia, more mutants, ect.

Thank goodness that X-Factor is totally bubbled from the X-universe, because they are so contained in their book they could exist by themselves.

It's sad, because New X-Men, back in 2004, gave us a balanced book that dealt with an appropriate amount of Staff problems and concerns and mostly dealt with the students' issues! Which I loved. Now all we get in Wolverine and the X-Men is a book that deals with the titled character too much, and problems dealing with Kitty, Iceman, Beast, etc... whereas the kids get literally a line or two per book! And it's not even the interesting students that get spotlighted... it's the same 5. I WANT MY NEW X-MEN STUDENTS BACK IN THE SPOTLIGHT!!!!

@McKlayn said:

@AgeofHurricane: That will be interesting, i did enjoy Wood's work however so we will just see how it ends up i guess.

@papad1992: Yea they got too much "star power" on the staff, the thing with Academy X is all the big name staff were also in other books, thus making it easy to focus on the students because they teachers could be addressed in different titles. And I agree with you about the students they choose to highlight, it's an odd assortment that I am not all that fond of. I would love to see Hellion, Rockslide & Anole some.

True... very true!!