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This Week in X: Excalibur Returns (sort of) in X-Men Gold, X-Men Blue climaxes, and more!

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It’s the second week of new comics in 2018, and that means a whole new batch of X-Men comics books to help you catch up with!

This week brings five books with it – mid-arc issues of the two Ed Brisson old guy books in Cable #153 and Old Man Logan #33, the middle installment of Matthew Rosenberg’s Phoenix Resurrection, a climatic turn of events in Cullen Bunn’s X-Men: Blue #19, and an adorable pair of standalone stories in X-Men: Gold Annual #1.

None of these books are a must-read, but it’s nice to read a week of X-Men that’s solid across the board… well, except for one book, as you’ll hear in just a minute.

Don’t feel like reading right? You can watch the video version of This Week in X! This is not the same material as the full post below, although some of my opinions in the video overlap with the post.

Love the video? Love this post? Please let me know, because “This Week In X” is a pilot right now – there is no guarantee I’ll continue it past the end of this month unless folks are clamoring for more! [Read more…] about This Week in X: Excalibur Returns (sort of) in X-Men Gold, X-Men Blue climaxes, and more!

The Definitive Exiles Collecting Guide and Reading Order

The Exiles comic books definitive issue-by-issue collecting guide and trade reading order for omnibus, hardcover, and trade paperback collections. Find every issue and appearance! Part of Crushing Krisis’s Crushing Comics. Last updated June 2020 with titles scheduled for release through March 2021.

Exiles (2001) - 0001The launch of Exiles in 2001 by writer Judd Winick with author Mike McKone was Marvel’s first long-running ongoing with a continuously-told story combining reality-hopping and alternate versions of heroes.

Prior to the launch of Ultimate Comics in 200o, Marvel Comics had a slim list of ongoing titles that lived permanently in alternate continuities – and Exiles was nothing like Ultimate Comics. Ultimate had the goal of the alternate universe as verisimilitude – the environment started the same as the main Marvel Universe only more modern, and the fascination was watching it splinter.

McKone’s pitch for Exiles followed the debut of Ultimate Comics and swiped the title of a 1990s Malibu series, but it had much more to do with Marvel’s classic series What If. What If never told a consistent story – in fact, there were hardly ever two issues which focused on the same tale! Each one-shot take hopped to a new reality to imagine the most twisted possibilities.

Exiles combined that reality-hopping approach with a consistent team, much like Chris Claremont’s classic Excalibur story The Cross-Time Caper. Instead of starting with a team of known 616-reality heroes, McKone drew inspiration from Age of Apocalypse. That event presented four months of an alternate reality full of X-Men reimagined to take advantage of their best and worst qualities. Exiles would do the same, only with a palette of infinite realities from which to choose.

Lead by the short-lived but hugely-popular X-Men character Blink, this collection of alternate-reality X-Men had little impact on the main X-continuity. Despite that, the book is regarded highly by fans – at least, it was when it was helmed by creator Judd Winnick. By contrast, any issues penned by Uncanny scribes Chris Claremont and Chuck Austen aren’t as popular with fans. [Read more…] about The Definitive Exiles Collecting Guide and Reading Order