Hard to keep up?

[Jill Monroe]

Does anyone beside me find it hard (and really not worth it) to keep up with the simultaneous incarnations of the supposedly "same team?"

You have:Uncanny X-men, Astonishing X-men, X-men and New X-men

Avengers, Secret Avengers, New Avengers, Young Avengers etc. (remember Avengers West Coast? lol)


I remember when Astonishing X-men as a title debuted, it was to accomodate the "apocolypse and the 12" storyline and originally intended to have a limited run. I also remember when X-men debuted...to accomodate the "Blue/Gold" team set up of the early 90's but i grew up with Uncanny X-men and i would be content to follow that if the writing and characters didnt alternately suck and now you almost HAVE to get all the titles to sometimes keep up with one storyline!! thank the goddess the recent Magik storyline was contained in "New X-men", which i REFUSED to read while Grant Morrison was handling it. that guy was an idiot.

as for the Avengers? Well after Bendis ruined EVERYTHING (in the most ridiculous way IMO) I tried to get into New Avengers but after Wolverine was introduced, i grew cold on it.

I dont know anything about Secret Avengers and very little about Young Avengers but the Avengers titles seem to be more distinct between them and if you want to follow just ONE book, you can.

Do any of you like the way these two titles have spawned so many spinoffs? do you collect one or all of them?

[goldenboy]

I'm kinda coming at this as an outsider. I read comics as a prepubescent kid, barely even remember any plotlines. I'm oblivious to most Marvel history, it's mostly new to me. But I remember Avengers being my favorite book.

I (re)started with Avengers: Disassembled. I do get why Marvel/Bendis did what they did from a stunt/marketing standpoint. Destroying the Scarlet Witch annoyed me cos I really liked her as a kid.

I do follow New Avengers, and Mighty Avengers now. I like Bendis' style for the most part. (I really liked his Alias series, prefer that kinda thing to traditional superhero comics really.) I think I actually prefer Mighty Avengers (so far) cos I love Frank Cho's artwork. Bringing back thought balloons is kinda cool, but I think Bendis overuses them.

I sorta like Young Avengers too. I've read the first two volumes. Heinberg has the angsty drama down fairly well. It's kinda interesting the way the kids are being mentored (on and off) by the adult heroes.

It is pretty much a jumble though. All the various teams, the Initiative project. The 50 States thing. It's all so big and unwieldy, to me.

[Jill Monroe]

ive been reading for over 20 years and i feel like Marvel doesnt really consider readers age 25 and older anymore. I can hardly care about or identify with the characters and the X-men was my bread and butter through the 80's and 90's.

I've waned on them since "apocolypse and the 12" though my interest did peak when Chris Claremont returned for a time over the last few years.

I just feel like its too hard to keep up with and its almost a marketing ploy to force you to spend more money to follow one storyline by spreading it out through seemingly redundant titles.

It takes away from the appeal of a group title IMO.

[The Doctor]

The only X-Men related title I read is Exiles but if Claremont decides that he is gonna replace Spider-Man 2099 then I am dropping that title faster than an atomic bomb. But all of these spin-offs are getting a little hard to shift through. I think Marvel needs to cut back on all of these spin-offs and put out new titles like a post Annihilation Conquest series called "Team Star-Lord" and can continue the adventures of Star-Lord, Bug, Captain Universe, Deathcry, Groot, Mantis and Rocket Raccoon as they save the Universe from Dire Wraiths, Phalnax, Brood, Badoon and all the other evil baddies that exists deep within the far reaches of the Marvel Universe!

[Jill Monroe]

The only X-Men related title I read is Exiles but if Claremont decides that he is gonna replace Spider-Man 2099 then I am dropping that title faster than an atomic bomb. But all of these spin-offs are getting a little hard to shift through. I think Marvel needs to cut back on all of these spin-offs and put out new titles like a post Annihilation Conquest series called "Team Star-Lord" and can continue the adventures of Star-Lord, Bug, Captain Universe, Deathcry, Groot, Mantis and Rocket Raccoon as they save the Universe from Dire Wraiths, Phalnax, Brood, Badoon and all the other evil baddies that exists deep within the far reaches of the Marvel Universe!


the dire wraiths?? oh wow now THAT is a blast from the past! I kept looking at your banner and thinking "isnt that mantis"? well your post just clarified that. wow...the dire wraiths are coming back? not since Rom and later in the X-men have i seen a more sinister, blood thirsty group of bad ass witches (ugly as hell, but powerfull magick users LOL)

I read the Exiles when Magik was apart of the team but after that...especially given how she died, i stopped collecting but Exiles is a title you can stop and restart again and not be TERRIBLY lost and if you are...there's always UncannyXmen.net lol

[The Doctor]

Well it has been suggested that they might be one of the major villains in Annihilation Conquest but I was just hoping for a Star-Lord series after AC is over like how they did the new Nova series. As for my Banner yeah that is Mantis as well as Captain Universe and Deathcry in their brand new costumes. Keith Giffen (the writer of AC: Star-Lord) has made it so that no one believes that Mantis was the Celestial Madonna and it seems that Captain Universe and her will have major "interplay" throughtout the mini-series. But it would be cool if the Dire Wraiths came back.

But if you miss them that terribly they do make cameos in Universe X along with ROM and Magik.