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X-Men Vol. 2 in the 90s – Definitive Collecting Guide to X-Men (1991) #1-113

The definitive issue-by-issue comic book collecting guide and trade reading order for the 1990s run of X-Men Vol. 2 (1991) comic books in omnibus, hardcover, and trade paperback collections – including X-Cutioner’s Song, Fatal Attractions, Phalanx Covenant, Age of Apocalypse, Onslaught, and more! Part of Crushing Krisis’s Crushing Comics. Last updated November 2024 with titles scheduled for release through June 2025.

Adjectiveless X-Men: X-Men Vol. 2 (1991) #1 – 113 (1991 – 2001)

After almost thirty years with Uncanny X-Men as the core book in the X-Universe, Marvel launched a second, adjectiveless flagship X-Men book in 1991.

X-Men Vol. 2 was the biggest possible of comic blockbusters at its launch – it’s first issue remains the highest-selling comic of all time over 25 years after its release!

It featured the hottest team in comics battling their most-iconic villain in a gut-wrenchingly awesome story penned by their most-celebrated scribe (Chris Claremont) and with all-new looks from the hottest artist in the industry (Jim Lee). The regular roster was even stacked with fan favorites – Cyclops, Wolverine, Cyclops, Gambit, Rogue, and Psylocke!

Yet, things were unraveling behind the scenes almost before the book was underway. Claremont departed after issue #3, unhappy with Marvel’s increasing tendency to give their superstar artists like Lee the leeway while rushing writers (a subsequent brief stint by John Byrne ended similarly).

Lee lasted for less than a dozen issues before leaving to become a founder of Image Comics.

Despite the break-up of that initial creative team team, this volume remained a who’s who of X-creators – Fabian Nicieza scripted nearly half of this volume, followed by brief writing runs by Terry Kavanagh, Joe Casey, and Mark Waid.

The book also sustained a strong stable of artists, with Andy Kubert helping to define the look of the early-90s era of X for a third of this run. Claremont would later return for a run, and Alan Davis both wrote and penciled an arc.

This period is exemplified by more then 20 different events, direct crossovers, or runs with informal crossovers with Uncanny X-Men (1963) it endured in its first 100 issues. The team’s A-list roster held up for almost two years before the crossovers muddied the lines between this and the flagship Uncanny X-Men, robbing the book of definition and the Rogue and Gambit drama that drove its earliest issues. [Read more…] about X-Men Vol. 2 in the 90s – Definitive Collecting Guide to X-Men (1991) #1-113

X-Force – Definitive Reading Order and Collecting Guide

X-Force comic books in a definitive issue-by-issue collecting guide and reading order for omnibus, hardcover, and trade paperback collections. Find every issue and appearance! Part of Crushing Krisis’s Crushing Comics. Last updated December 2024 with titles scheduled for release through June 2025.

X-Force was born in an act of pure marketing. Over time, it became synonymous with the idea of a team of X-Men that aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty.

Artist Rob Liefeld grew to be one of the hottest artists in the industry as he drew the final year of New Mutants. Comics were reaching the early height of the speculator craze, and Liefeld wanted to take the team in a new, more X-TREME direction. Thus, New Mutants ended and X-Force was born – a team of proactive young mutants lead by Cable, for whom the ends always justified the means.

Liefeld didn’t last very long on the title before defecting to Image, but X-Force as the proactive X-team has remained part of the X-Men brand ever since. Fabian Nicieza continued writing through Liefeld’s departure until issue #43, setting the tone and voice for many of the recurring characters.

Generally, the X-Force cast consisted of some combination of Cannonball, Boom Boom, Warpath, Sunspot, Rictor, Shatterstar, & Siryn, as mentored by Cable and Domino. The cast also sometimes included Feral, Dani Moonstar, & Karma. (Though Wolfsbane is associated with these characters via New Mutants, at the time she was appearing in X-Factor and Excalibur.)

In 2001, X-Force took a detour to reality TV-inspired, mature-readers X-Statix, followed by brief return by Liefeld and his familiar cast in 2004.

The title returned to popularity and acclaim in 2008 as a team of covert team killers lead by Logan and authorized by Cyclops. This team included connections to earlier incarnations with Warpath, Domino, Wolfsbane, & (eventually) Boom Boom, to which it added Wolverine (X-23) and Archangel. Elixir and Vanisher supported the team.

After that series ended with the “Second Coming” crossover, X-Force returned under the coveted “Uncanny” adjective. There may have never been a series more deserving! Rick Remender penned a fierce, all-time classic story that began as a hunt for Apocalypse but turned into much more. Remender brought Psylocke to the X-Force brand and turned her into its marquee star, along with Grant Morrison’s Fantomex and a team that included Wolverine and Deadpool.

In Marvel Now, Marvel launched not one but two X-Force titles at the end of 2012. Cable & X-Force was a familiar, 90s-tinged version of the team. A new volume of Uncanny X-Force lead by Psylocke and included Storm, Bishop, Spiral, Puck, & Fantomex. Both books were later consolidated into the darkly comedic X-Force (2014) with both Cable and Psylocke, as penned by Si Spurrier.

The title went on a brief hiatus from 2015-2018. The 2017 ResurrXion line replaced it with a familiar-feeling Weapon X title starring Warpath and Sabretooth. Marvel briefly revived the classic Cannonball & Boom Boom cast in 2018 for a 10-issue run by Ed Brisson that followed his Extermination mini-series.

In 2019, the entire X-line launched into the Age of Krakoa from the clean start of Jonathan Hickman’s House of X and Powers of X. This recast X-Force as a combination Krakoan FBI & CIA in a title anchored by Wolverine, Quentin Quire, Domino, and Forge, among others.

X-Factor – Definitive Collecting Guide & Reading Order

Updated Dec 22, 2024! X-Factor comic books in a definitive issue-by-issue collecting guide and reading order for omnibus, hardcover, and trade paperback collections. Find every issue and appearance! Part of Crushing Krisis’s Crushing Comics. Last updated December 2024 with titles scheduled for release through July 2025.

Marvel launched X-Factor in 1986 as an outlet for the original X-Men team of Cyclops, Iceman, Beast, Angel – and, in a late-breaking decision, the return of Jean Grey.

At the time, the X-Men were at their initial peak of being hated and feared. Public sentiment had turned against mutants. Professor Xavier had just been gravely injured in a hate crime. And, the government had formed its own mutant squad – Freedom Force – to keep the X-Men in line.

As a result, X-Factor launched not as an out-and-proud mutant team, but a team disguised as mutant hunters! In a slight nod to 1984’s hit Ghostbusters, the team suited up in matching jumpsuits and promised to dispose of any mutant problem (though, really they were letting most of their “captives” bunk with them in their own headquarters).

Meanwhile, Louise Simonson slowly built the tension of the comic of Apocalypse while re-establishing (or, really, establishing for the first time) Jean Grey’s character. Rather than a token female and romantic foil, she often became the lead of the book as a multi-dimensional person coming to terms with a cosmic force hijacking her life.

Within a few years the team’s true identities were exposed, but that sent the title into an identity crisis. If it followed the original five X-Men doing mutant things… shouldn’t it just be called X-Men?

Eventually, the line’s editors came to that conclusion, and merged the original five back into the main X-Men flagships with the 1991 launch of adjectiveless X-men.

In their wake, they left the team that would redefine the core X-Factor’s cast for the next 30 years. Peter A. David assembled a gathering of cast-offs including the 6th and 7th X-Men – Havok and Polaris, a little-known Claremontian mutant named Jamie Madrox – The Multiple Man, New Mutants refugee Wolfsbane, an overgrown bouncer generically named Strong Man, and one of the few non-X-Men mutants – Quicksilver.

The book was a surprise hit with fans, less a book about its team being a government-sanctioned squad of heroes and more about them being damaged people who lost the confidence to act heroically of their own accord. David left as the book became increasingly mired in X-line crossovers, but the focus stayed centered on Havok’s team as a rapid succession of replacements gave way to a lengthy run by Howard Mackie. The run later added Forge, Mystique, and Sabretooth as recurring cast members.

After an unrelated, X-adjacent mini-series in 2002, the franchise went dormant until it was revived in the wake of House of M by Peter A. David, back to center the book on a Private Investigation agency headed up by his longtime favorite Jamie Madrox and another unlikely cast of cast-offs. PAD’s 100+ issue run included PAD’s original 90s cast members Wolfsbane and Strong Guy, plus Rictor, Siryn, Monet, and Shatterstar – and, later, Longshot, Darwin, Pip the Troll, and the returning pair of Havok & Polaris.

The run was notable for its comedic take on detective noir, for character-focused stories, and for winning a GLAAD award for Rictor’s coming out and subsequent relationship with Shatterstar. After a brief break at the top of Marvel Now, PAD relaunched the team as a corporate security force lead by Polaris in an oft-ignored run that lasted an impressive 20 issues while other books struggled to pass a dozen.

X-Factor’s next return was under the pen of Leah Williams, who retained the “investigations” angle and Polaris as a cast member, but reimagined the book as Krakoa’s SVU – investigating mutant disappearances and wrongful deaths. It was a fun book filled with big ideas, but editorial tinkering killed it (and scuttled the final arc), shunting Williams and the team off into X-Men: The Trial of Magneto.

Uncanny X-Men in the 00s – Definitive Collecting Guide to Uncanny X-Men #394-545

The definitive issue-by-issue comic book collecting guide and trade reading order for the 2000s trade paperback era of Uncanny X-Men comic books from 2001 to 2011 in omnibus, hardcover, and trade paperback collections – including runs by Chuck Austen, Chris Claremont, Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, & Kieron Gillen and events like House of M, Messiah Complex, Second Coming, & Fear Itself! Part of Crushing Krisis’s Crushing Comics. Last updated November 2024 with titles scheduled for release through March 2025.

Uncanny X-Men (1963) #394 – 545: The Trade Paperback Era (1991 – 2001)

The X-Men franchise reached a crossroads in 2001 that would forever alter its direction, but also usher in a decade of substantial runs penned by just five authors – all of which was collected upon initial release starting with issue #410!

That’s why I think of this final decade of Uncanny X-Men as “The Trade Paperback Era.” It was the beginning of the idea of X-Men being “written for trade,” with tidy 4-6 issue story arcs rather than bursts of shorter stories and one-shot issues.

The slick, black leather costumes of the first Fox X-Men film existed in the public consciousness in 2001, but X-Men comics of the period were a hard-to-parse mess of neon spandex. Not only that, but Marvel’s newly-launched Ultimate Spider-Man reimagining of Spider-Man for the modern day was proving to be massively popular. An Ultimate X-Men followed at the beginning of 2001 that felt closer in style and tone to the films.

Together, these two changes allowed Marvel to experiment with the core of the X-Men franchise. Writer and actual psychedelic warlock Grant Morrison reimagined X-Men (1991) as the sci-fi, leather-clad, and frequently absurd New X-Men. Meanwhile, X-Force metamorphosed into X-Statix under the guidance of Peter Milligan and Mike Allred.

What’s often forgotten is that Uncanny X-Men also relaunched at the same time. Twice, actually! First, Joe Casey took the reins for a similarly leather-bound and slightly-absurdist take on X-Men. Then, midway through Morrison’s run, Uncanny swapped to author Chuck Austen.

Austen’s run is often reviled for its soap opera elements, as well as for deeply unpopular moments for Nightcrawler and Angel. Despite that, it remains very much in the Claremontian tradition of constantly-churning conflict and romance. It often introducing wild concepts from far outside the X-Men’s typical range of influences.

Chris Claremont himself would return as Austen’s replacement with The New Age in 2004. While opinions remain split on this run, it’s certainly more popular than his prior return on “Revolution.” The New Age finds Claremont intermingling new toys and old favorites, writing a team that includes Storm and Rachel Summers, but also playing with Bishop and X-23. His run crossed the House of M event that would decimate Marvel’s mutant population, though he did not deal with the fallout – instead, choosing to focus more on Rachel and the return of Psylocke.

Ed Brubaker took over from Claremont with an audacious change in direction. Brubaker followed up on his Deadly Genesis mini-series by taking a core of X-Men to space for Rise and Fall of the Shi’ar Empire. The cosmic plot lasted for an entire year of comics and lead into the massive War of Kings event. It eschewed many popular mainstays of the team for a cast of Xavier, Havok, Polaris, Nightcrawler, Rachel Summers, and Warpath – along with the Starjammers. Afterward, Brubaker refocused on Earth, steering the flagship towards a rebirth from the ashes of Messiah Complex.

Though Brubaker wrote for an arc following Messiah Complex, the following era of the X-Men in San Francisco mostly belongs to Matt Fraction. Fraction reimagines Uncanny X-Men less as a team and more as a society of mutants, with nearly every heroic mutant passing through the background panels of the book at some point in his run. He writes through Dark Reign to the considerable crescendo of Second Coming, a resolution of the remaining threads of House of M.

Finally, Kieron Gillen gradually transitions onto the title over the course of the following year, graduating from Matt Fraction’s secret co-plotter to Fraction’s credited co-writer before finally taking over the reigns with issue #534.1. Gillen slims down Fraction’s massive cast to one foreboding “Extinction Team” lead by the increasingly revolutionary Cyclops and featuring Emma Frost, Wolverine, Magneto, Namor, Storm, Kitty Pryde, Colossus, and Hope. His run continues past the punctuation of Schism through to the following run of Uncanny X-Men, Volume 2.

For a complete X-Men reading order for this period, start with The Definitive X-Men Reading Order: New X-Men.

Uncanny X-Men in the 90s – Definitive Collecting Guide to Uncanny X-Men #281-393

The definitive issue-by-issue comic book collecting guide and trade reading order for the 1990s crossover era of Uncanny X-Men comic books from 1991 to 2001 in omnibus, hardcover, and trade paperback collections – including X-Cutioner’s Song, Fatal Attractions, Phalanx Covenant, Age of Apocalypse, Onslaught, and more! Part of Crushing Krisis’s Crushing Comics. Last updated November 2024 with titles scheduled for release through June 2025.

Uncanny X-Men (1963) #281 – 393: The Crossover Era (1991 – 2001)

Chris Claremont departed Uncanny X-Men with issue #280 in 1991, leaving massive shoes to fill both in talent and in his unprecedented longevity on the franchise.

In his wake, the X-Men franchise spent a decade and over a hundred issues filled with many writers, even more crossovers, and ultimately a unclear direction for what had become comics’ biggest franchise.

After some creative shuffling in the six months after Claremont’s departure that saw John Byrne writing dialogue for fully plotted and drawn issues from Whilce Portacio, writer and former stand-up comedian Scott Lobdell took over Uncanny X-Men. Lobdell wrote almost every issue from #286-350! This 65-issue run makes him the second-longest-running author of Uncanny.

Though Uncanny X-Men featured a handful of crossovers in the #199-280 range, it was during Lobdell’s run that the X-Men expanded to a truly multi-faceted, multi-title enterprise covering six ongoing titles (including a second flagship).

This ten-year run included more then 20 different events, direct crossovers, or runs with informal crossovers with X-Men (1991). At one point there are five major crossovers in under two years – X-Cutioner’s Song, Fatal Attractions, BloodTies, Phalanx Covenant, and LegionQuest leading into Age of Apocalypse!

After the resolution of Onslaught in 1996 with issue #337, the massive, multi-part crossovers eased. However, the idea of an almost constantly-running crossover between each month’s Uncanny X-Men and X-Men continued until Grant Morrison took over the latter title with New X-Men in 2001.

The reigns of the title changed hands several times in that post-Onslaught period, including a well-loved 16-issue run by Steven T. Seagle, Alan Davis taking over scripting duties, and a return by Lobdell to close out the era. Even Claremont himself makes a brief, disastrous return to the title!

This era began with the “Gold Team” of Storm, Jean Grey, Iceman, Archangel, and Colossus, soon joined by Bishop. However, the team lines begin to evaporate around issue #300. The following forty issues prominently featured that group, plus Wolverine, Banshee, Gambit, Rogue, Psylocke, Cannonball, and even Sabretooth. After the end of Onslaught in issue #337, the cast became even more variable – at one point featuring the original X-Men.