X-Men

Baby I Can Drive Your Car

April 18, 2011 by krisis

This morning I was on the slowest possible trolley.

It made me think about travel powers, how we take our limitations for granted, and how no one can change that but ourselves.

In defense of my parking, that was the first time I had ever driven an SUV and I didn’t really understand the concept of its turn radius.

I drove a lot this past week.

I drove us into the city to hang out with friends. I drove Nan’s massive shuttle bus of a vehicle to pick up our fine dinner of Chinese food. I drove a tipsy E home at midnight in blinding rain.

(Which is an absolutely perfect situation to learn how to drive on a highway, and don’t let anyone tell you any different. The rumble strip is there for a reason, you know.)

My recent time behind the wheel has given me a chance to contemplate how I’ve limited my life around not being able to drive. I buy my essentials in bulk, since I can’t drive myself to the grocery store. I’m perennially absent from parties – especially ones at any distance – unless I can crash with someone else.

Even music – music – my number one commitment outside of staying married and holding down a job I enjoy – is limited by non-driving. I don’t go for gigs outside of Center City. I don’t look at concert listings outside of Philly. I assume I have to buy all of my friends’ new LPs online because I’m not going to make it out to their shows.

Of course, that all seems pretty normal. It’s been my life for my whole life. My non-driving was a serious commitment, right up there with my not watching TV, not eating meat, and not acknowledging the existence of Miley Cyrus. It was a big part of my identity.

It was also practical. And I didn’t have the money for a car, or for car insurance. I didn’t have the time to constantly circle for parking spots when we lived in South Philly. And for a long time I didn’t even have a car to learn on, so the entire point was moot.

Really, me not driving was for the best.

Back when I lived most of my life inside of City of Heroes I had a similar limitation: I wouldn’t take a “travel power.”

Most superheroes have them. Superman can fly. Spider-Man swings from rooftops. Batman has a mobile. Nightcrawler teleports – the whole point of him is travel! In City of Heroes every hero could choose a travel power at level 14 – flying, super-leaping, teleporting, or having super-speed.

Nightcrawler’s mutant power is teleportation. At the point that your entire super-power is all about travelling, would you even bother to get your driver’s license?

All seriously cool powers, right? But, my main superhero gal was meant to be a normal human being. Plus, why waste a power on moving around when I could be… you know, more SUPER. SUPERER!

I was super. I was a serious superhero that could kick the ass of anything near my level. But you know what? I was slow. It took me forever to get to the place where I needed to be super. Teammates were constantly standing around waiting for me.

It didn’t bother me at all … until I finally broke down and learned to fly, at level 35. It was awesome. Everything was faster. I got to PLAY the game more, instead of just jogging around the game. Within a day I was saying, “Why the hell did you all wait for me all of that time? You should have given up on me and made me learn to fly!”

They all cross their arms (really, there was an emote for that) and said, “You SAID you weren’t interested in flying. You SAID you were happy.”

I don’t have my license yet, but my increasing confidence in the car means I just need to wrangle up a licensed driver if I want to go for a ride. I drove to a party I would have never made it to in time on SEPTA. I got new prescriptions on a weekend, without wasting a lunch break on them!

I drove the Nan-Tank to get Chinese food like it was nothing, electing not to dwell on the fact that it was my first time driving a car other than my own, and it was in flood conditions.

(“Just think,” Nan pointed out with glee, “if we weren’t in [the Nan-Tank] that wall of water we just kicked up would have swallowed your entire car!”)

(I can neither confirm nor deny if that was followed by a subtle “yee-haw!”)

As it turns out, real life isn’t entirely different than City of Heroes, except I wasn’t stubborn enough to wait until I turned 35 to learn to drive. In both places I insisted I spent my time, effort, and money on the most high quality parts of my life and not letting anyone convince my otherwise.

That’s great when it comes to not wasting money on cable TV or never having heard a note from Miley’s lips, but not when it hamstrings me from doing even more of the high quality things I like to do.

Soon I will be a sure enough parallel parker to obtain my lisence, and then that housebound, SEPTA-reliant portion of my life that I’ve always taken for granted will be over. I can go to parties. I can go on a vacation alone! I can go on a road trip!

Odds are you probably have your own travel power, but maybe you have some other limitation you’re taking for granted. Do you have the power to eliminate it? How would your life be better without it?

Or, is it there for a reason – like paying for cable television would just give me a pointless way to waste my money and time?

Collecting X-Men Vol. 3 and Vol. 4 as Graphic Novels

The contents of this page have been integrated with X-Men Flagship Titles (2010-2019).

X-Men Titles (2010 – 2019) – The Definitive Collecting Guide & Reading Order

The definitive, chronological, and up-to-date guide on collecting X-Men flagship title comic books from 2010 to 2019, including Uncanny X-Men, X-Men, Extraordinary X-Men, X-Men Gold, and X-Men Red via omnibuses, hardcovers, and trade paperback graphic novels. A part of Crushing Comics – Guide to Marvel Comics. Last updated March 2025 with titles scheduled for release through October 2025.

This guide follows the main, “flagship” titles in the X-Men line from after “Second Coming” in the Heroic Age in 2010 through Marvel Fresh Start in 2019, just prior to Jonathan Hickman’s takeover of the entire line.

X-Men titles had been distinctly separate from the rest of the Marvel Universe for years even before they headed into two years of tightly coordinated stories and crossovers from 2008 to 2010.

It had been since Onslaught in 1996 that the X-Men interacted significantly with other Marvel heroes – or even wider Marvel Universe storylines! – in their own books. They also didn’t get out much. Aside from House of M’s ramifications in Decimation, you’d be hard-pressed to find a non-mutant Marvel hero in any X-Title other than Wolverine!

While that made for thrilling in-continuity stories for big X-Fans, it didn’t help bring new readers into the fold – or to share the wealth of X-Readers with other Marvel titles.

Marvel’s solution began with X-Men (2010). As with Astonishing X-Men before it, this title occurred relatively free of the convoluted continuity of other X-Titles, even though it made reference to outside events. And, unlike the self-contained Astonishing, X-Men, this title frequently featured guests-stars from throughout the Marvel Universe.

In 2011, Marvel ended their longest-running and highest-numbered title when they cancelled Uncanny X-Men, Vol. 1 with #544 to make way for a split in the X-Men between Cyclops and Wolverine explored in Schism. The subsequent Uncanny X-Men (2011) was still written by author Kieron Gillen with a similar tone and cast – just less Wolverine and Kitty Pryde. It was by many accounts (including mine) one of the best runs of X-Men ever written.

This, too, was in the service of steering the X-Men toward more interaction with the wider Marvel Universe – this time in the form of the major event, Avengers vs. X-Men.

In the wake of Avengers vs. X-Men, Marvel relaunched their entire line with nearly every creator shuffled onto a new book. In the shake-up, Brian Bendis hopped from the Avengers franchise to the X-Men franchise, taking over Uncanny X-Men (2013) (as well as a team of time-displaced teen X-Men in All-New X-Men).

Meanwhile, the adjectiveless X-Men volume relaunched a few months later with a primary cast entirely composed of X-Woman! It didn’t feel like a gimmick at all thanks to the X-Men’s legendary roster of women – including Storm, Psylocke, Jubilee, Kitty Pryde, Rogue, and Omega Sentinel, and more. Unfortunately, the title was quickly sent askew by the “Battle of the Atom” crossover and launch writer Brian Wood never quite recovered. Two later arcs by Marc Guggenheim (of TV’s Arrow) and G. Willow Wilson (creator of Ms. Marvel) were well-steeped in X-history, but not terribly exciting.

Bendis promised a lengthy run on X-Men, but another creator shuffle after Secret Wars in 2015 saw him depart the franchise for Iron Man in the All-New, All-Different Marvel.

In his place, Cullen Bunn took over Uncanny X-Men (2016). After a long streak of wrapping up soon-to-be-cancelled series for other writers, Bunn improbably struck gold on a menacing take on Magneto (2014) in his first ongoing series. He brought that villainous tone to his ongoing.

Alongside that, a more-heroic new title – Extraordinary X-Men – launched under the pen of Jeff Lemire and tied in closely to the wider Marvel Universe plot of the Inhumans and their Terrigen Bomb being poisonous to mutants.

After the resolution of the Inhumans thread in Inhumans vs. X-Men, Marvel relaunched the entire X-Men line in “ResurrXion.” This marked the first time since 2013 that there was no ongoing “Uncanny” title serving as one of the flagship books of the line. However, X-Men Gold was effectively “Uncanny,” with a Claremont-esque classic team of Kitty, Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, and Rachel Grey, among others. Meanwhile, Cullen Bunn continued his Magneto thread into the All-New X-Men cast with X-Men Blue. Nearly a year later, Phoenix Resurrection returned Jean Grey to the cast of X-Men, and she launched a third flagship with X-Men Red. And, finally, the period wrapped up with five X-Men Black one-shots focusing on major X-Men villains.

Then, in November 2018, Uncanny X-Men returned with a bang – as a 10-part weekly story arc called “X-Men Disassembled.” That story branched out into “Age of X-Man” – an alternate reality event – while writer Matthew Rosenberg continued the storylines of his past year of X-Men mini-series into a disturbing final run on the title that killed off many beloved characters… only for them to return in Jonathan Hickman’s relaunched Age of Krakoa!

But I Regress, pt. 7

November 5, 2010 by krisis

60s X-Men

Last time I decided to catch up on X-Men comic books only to discover that nowhere on the entire internet existed a definitive guide to collecting X-Men as trade paperbacks.

I decided to write it myself.

I am not exaggerating when I say the undertaking was harder than my Senior Project in college. No reference books, just sparse ISBN numbers and internet hearsay.

Finding a starting point was like grabbing a toe-hold in quicksand – there have been dozens of X-Men titles accounting for thousands of issues, and my intimate knowledge of them ended almost fifteen years ago.

80s X-Men

I started chipping away every night. First I plotted out Uncanny X-Men from issue #1 to present, puzzling together the different means of buying it in book form. Black and white Essentials, premium color Masterworks, dozens of crossover collections, and more regular volumes of the post-2000 books (but, mostly out of print!)

Then I moved to adjectiveless X-Men. Excalibur. X-Factor. X-Force. Oh god, was I really going to try to summarize Wolverine?

As I made progress on my guide I started to get excited about stories I had missed out on. How did Wolverine get his adamantium back? How did Emma Frost wind up as Cyclop’s lover? Where had Rogue been all this time, and how come she can touch people now? Who were X-23 and Daken?

90s X-Men

I had resolved to E that I would get something delivered to the new house every day for the first few weeks we lived there – even if it was something small. I just wanted to relish living somewhere where I could get packages delivered for the first time in my life.

So I hatched a plan. A schedule. Through assembling my guide I had my own library of links to all of the TPBs ever printed with the word X-Men on them. Not only that, but now I knew where on the internet they were the cheapest. I could get through entire runs in book form for under $1.65 an issue … sometimes way under.

Two hundred dollar would buy me into years of missed comics continuity. A few months hiatus from going out to lunch and buying new CDs could catch me up on over a decade of X-Men.

00s X-Men

Well, as we learned from my dalliance with City of Heroes, restraint has never been my strong suit. Three months after my first trio of books were delivered to my new doorstep I have every X-TPB – both in and out of print, from 1996 forward, with barely an exception.

Four months into our new house and I’ve gone from responsible adult all the way back to my teenage levels of geeky obsession. MikeyIl even convinced me to buy Starcraft II, but it was boring – I hate spending time in someone else’s sandbox.

The comics are different than both City of Heroes and Starcraft. I’m not writing fan-fic or putting time into someone else’s universe. I got something I love – the world of comic book continuity – and I found an outlet for it I can own – my best-on-the-net guide to collecting X-Men comic books as trade paperbacks.

How do I know it’s the best on the net? Because I used it to buy every damn book there is, will be, or was before, and no one else’s guide helped me do that.

That’s the difference between high school geek me and present day regression to geekdom: with my own house and CK, now I have my own set of sandboxes to play in.

I like it this way.

But I Regress, pt. 6

November 3, 2010 by krisis

We’ve reached the penultimate chapter of regression to full-on thirteen-year-old, only with my own house and a much higher credit limit. Last time I tracked my geekdom from a manageable low tide to being reignited thanks to a visit to Brave New Worlds comic shop.

Get ready – we are about to dive deep into comic book nerdness.

Scarlet Witch losing her tenuous grip on reality - and on her face.

I thirstily devoured my newly Civil War trade paperback – loving the more-grounded, less-spandexed take on the comic book world. But where were my X-Men? Unlike the video game Civil War I had just played – complete with Cyclops and Jean Grey – here the X-Men were nowhere to be found.

A little internet sleuthing revealed the X-Men were largely holed-up at the mansion during the civil war, recovering from the worldwide reduction of mutants from thousands to a mere 198 thanks to M-Day.

M-what?

M-day was the result of House of M, when an unhinged Scarlet Witch commanded “No More Mutants” after she was forcibly evicted from her pleasant alternate reality where Magneto ruled a mutant-centric Earth.

Um, okay? Sure. Meanwhile, Jean Grey was in my video game, so was she back to life?

Emma & Jean ... not exactly fast friends.

Apparently not – Grant Morrison killed her both Jean and Magneto in 2003 during his run of New X-Men, the same one that cemented Emma Frost as an actual X-Man. Except, now Magneto was an X-Man too and Marvel was hinting at a Phoenix return with their new character Hope Summers – a pint-sized mutant Messiah who was the only new mutant born post-M-day. Hope was an infant then, but was promptly whisked away to the future by Cable to protect her from a murderous Bishop, who was sure she was a sign of coming apocalypse (little “a,” not big “A”), and now she was about to return as a not-so-tiny teen that looks a lot like Ms. Grey.

What? WHAT?

I spent the weekend surfing comic sites, trying to make some sense of the convoluted comic history that occurred since I gave up in 1996.

I was about to move into a new house where I could actually have packages delivered, so maybe I’d catch up on a few comic books. Maybe just Uncanny X-Men? From issue #1 to where my collection started, and then to present day. Surely Marvel’s flagship title was entirely collected in trade paperbacks, easy to obtain from my friend Amazon.

Right?

Emma Frost and Hope Summers. Like a car crash, this is so disturbing that I can't seem to look away.

And, hey, even if there were some holes to fill with single issues, surely there was some straightforward guide to X-Men trade paperbacks that I could refer to somewhere on the internet.

Nope.

Nowehere. On. The. Entire. Internet. Try to wrap your head around that. The vast expanse of internet replete with its hard-core complement of geeks was devoid of a definitive guide to X-Men trade paperbacks.

Oh, I searched. I had forty-seven tabs open in my browser, trying to make sense of a tangle of Essential X-Men and Marvel Masterworks and Omnibuses and Premiere Editions. I found an out-of-date continuity site, the patchwork archive of Uncanny X-Men dot net, litanies of lists on Wikipedia, and a slew of lists on eBay and Amazon.

Lots of pieces, but no whole: a single, comprehensive website that tracked every X-Men comic from issue #1 to issue whatever. A guide to collecting X-Men comics as an adult. A logical, sequential explanation of how to catch up in TPBs instead of unwieldy, expensive single issues.

It simply didn’t exist. So, of course, I had to build it.

And I did – in less than two months! You can check out my guide to collecting X-Men now, but to hear how it came together, and how I came to own ten years worth of X-Men TPBs in a fortieth of the time, you have to tune in to one more installment!