Hey guys, i've not read comics since the early 90's or late 80's. I thought i would give it another shot and picked up a couple of Uncanny X-men a few days ago. In these two issues Alpha Flight came to the school to take some of the kids and Juggernaut (as an X-man?) helped fight them off. This was a pretty good comic, but there seemed to be alot of X-titles. Which ones are the good ones and which X-men are in each comic? Thanks in advance.

Well, we seem to be in the same boat. I stopped mid to early 90s and am getting back in. Just picked up some issues for the first time today.

Something that has helped me get a little more back up to speed has been www .uncannyxmen. net.

I'll let you know what I think once I am done reading the issues I picked up today.

To start off i'd like to say if you want a full background i'll gladly pm you one but it's just to much for a forum... to answer the juggernaut question... he declares (after fighting the newest what not) that he liked the idea of kickings some ### and than being able to come "home" without being chased by cops, being able to kick back a few with some friends, and just be "happy". So he asks if he can stay... I love the idea personally.

Ok I'll try to break everything down for you. There are serveral X-Men books, each with its own cast and premise.

New X-Men - In my opinion this book is the best writen, but the art is sometimes lacking in this book. The team is Xaiver (who now walks), Cyclops, jean Grey, Wolverine, White Queen, Beast and Xorn (a new character who can heal). This book is mostly centered around the school (and it is a school) with many of the students playing support roles with the team memebers as teachers. The storys tend to be more personal (such as the on going Cyclops/White Queen affair storyline). There aren't different supervillians showing up every other week coming up with new reasons to kill the X-Men and the storys are much longer and deeper. For example - Morrison (the writer) created the Cassandra Nova villian, who wanted too kill the X-Men and destory Xaivers dream, but rather then it being just a 2 or 3 comic story the story went on for over a year and was increadbly rich, detailed and personal, with serveral smaller storys going on at the same time.

Uncanny X-Men - This is the "classic" X-Men type team, they go out on missions, save people etc.... The team is Angel, Nightcrawler, Husk, Havok, Wolverine, Juggernaut, Polaris, Northstar and Chamer seems to have joined now too (though I don't know how long Polaris will be around). Not much to say about this book - the storys are generally 3 or 4 books long, rotating villians etc... Like I said, just your standard X-men or Superhero book. Nothing to make it really stand out, but nothing to really hurt it either.

X-Treme X-Men - This is generally the best looking book, but I think its one one of the weakest in terms of writing. The team is Storm, Bishop, Sage, Thunderbird, Cannonball, Rogue and Gambit (though Rogue and Gambit havn't been around for about 5 or 6 books). The premise of this book is that Destiny died and Xaiver got some of her diaries (12 books, each told a different, but possible, future for human and mutant kind). The team members felt that Xaiver shouldn't have such a powerful book so they left the X-Men (cutting off all contact and connections with Xaiver and the school) and are trying to find and protect all of Destinies 12 diaries (though latetly they've been acting more like mutant police).

Ultimate X-Men - This is the Ultimate version of the X-Men. The team is Xaiver, Wolverine, Cyclops, Jean, Colossus, Beast, Storm, Iceman, Shadowcat, and Nightcrawler. This book is very good. If you don't know the Ultimate Universe its basically "what if these characters were created today instead of in the 60's" and is a new take on them. Highly recomend the Ultimate books (Ultimate X-Men, Spider-man and Ultimates (Avengers))

I hope this helped.

Sluggo- Thanks alot. That was very helpful and i'll have to give some of these other ones a shot.

capfan - I suggest checking out the TPB for any book you start reading. The past storys are very good and can help whats going in the books now make sense. I very highly recomend Ultimate X-Men - The Tomorrow People and Return to Weapon X. As well as New X-Men - E is for Extenction and Imperium

If you started reading X-men about the same time I did (early 80s) and loved Chris Claremont's tremendous run with Byrne, Smith, Silvestri, and Lee, and left after Scott Lobdell promptly butchered everything (IMHO), then I think you'll like X-Treme X-Men the best. As sluggo said, the most beautiful, but I also love the characterization so much. Reminds me of the moments when the X-Men would play baseball or go hang out in the local bar and get in trouble. Those were always my favorite and gave the team such a great family feel, and Claremont really brings that to life again in X-Treme. Also, X-Treme is just now starting a new storyline which is the sequel to the classic, "God Loves, Man Kills." A great place to start off.

Sluggo's breakdown of the teams and the art and nature of the books is right on. If you are a fan of the X-men of the past then I would recommend Uncanny and Xtreme over New. New Xmen is pretty different from the other stuff and people seem to either love it or hate it. Personally I like Xtreme the best altho losing Salvador Larocca's art is gonna suck. Uncanny can be good but sometimes misses the mark... I still love the potential tho. New Xmen is basically Grant Morrison doing whatever he wants. As an old school comics fan this bothers me but some people are coming to the Xmen just because of Grant so its a double edged sword.

Everything nowadays is being released in trade paperback formats so you also have the option of catching up on past stories that way if you like.

Railbaronjake - X-Treme is ok (the art is great) but I think Claremont has lost a step. His character managment has been TERRIBLE. Lifeguard just disappeared. Hes given no explination to where Gambit and Rogue have been latley, and Red Lotus was in and out of the book sfor 3 or 4 months until he finally decided to again drop the character with no explination. I also think hes really lose the original purpose of the new X-Men team, they havn't even mentioned Destines Dairies since the first story arc. Its a good book, but I think its the most poorly writen right now. I would like to see someone like Apocalypse introduced as a steady villian (who would logically want destinys's dairies) instead of these police storys with an always changing roster.

I personally like Grants way of storytelling. Getting much more personal with the character (hes done more character development in 2 years then I've seen in X-Men books in 10 or 15) and instead of having lots of different villians coming out no-where one at a time to try and take over the world or kill the X-Men he crafts more of a story and intertwins different story's in 12 or 18 part storys which are great and much deeper then most comics today (Bendis tends to do this too). There was a real meaning to Cassandra Novas actions, she affected all the characters differently, the solution wasn't as simple as "stop her before its too late" and it wasn't just "she wants to kill us, we have to stop her". It really was a deep, involving, epic type story that had to take a whole year to tell.

As above but I would throw in these comments-

New X-men Tends to be more....thought provoking or contrivorsial. Strange backdrop of kids that are bizarre to the Bizarre folks.
SUMMER STORY- Weapon-X program

Uncanny X-men has been going Manga style (not the cutsey type) for art. There have been so many new artists/writers that the title as a whole dosen't flow well.
SUMMER STORY- Angel new powers, Havo0k's return

Extreme X-men Has been the best art easily of the titles. Though the idea of the team involved the diaries, they really have become more of a mutant police force.
SUMMER STORY- Sequel to Claremont's Man Kills story

Ultimate X-men is fresh and beginning to break away from the standard "history" a bit more. Wolverine is truely the nasty moraless character he ought to be. If you're looking for the X-men movie feel, I would go with this title.
SUMMER STORY- Cyke vs Wolvie since Wolvie DID TRY TO KILL him and nearly did so. Then something about wolvie on the run.

megamania - Just a little thing, but New X-men is introducing something called the Weapon Plus program, not going back to weapon X

I also want to make it clear that I'm not saying only read New X-Men and/or that Xtreme sucks. I enjoy both and like both, I was just pointing out how I see the writing on both books.

Yeah, the recent mutant police stories are a little dry, but serve a purpose in showing where this splinter team fits in with the rest of the X-Men. Oddly enough, the same mutant police are in the current storyline of New X-Men as well, so I think it is something that was planned by all parties. I do definitely enjoy New X-Men. But, the feeling of X-Treme is of a family that loves each other, where the New X-Men is a school atmosphere in which the characters seem to almost hate each other. Just my two cents.

Oh, and on a related topic, Exiles, while not a classic X-Men book, is definitely one of the best books out now.

Put My vote down for X-Treme X-Men, some people think that Claremont has lost His touch, but I don't feel the same way. I think people say that because They're probably more used to the action book it became when Claremont left, I could be wrong though.

Also Gambit and Rogue haven't been in the last few issues because they're powerless right now, They barely survived an alien invasion and were stuck powerless because of it. The Two lovers finally get a chance to be together, I think it's great.

Weapon Plus is the "90's" version of that program. The Government takes mutants and improves them to better assassins/spies. It was suggested Wolverine is is not Weapon X but Weapon 10. They are up to 13 such augumented mutants.

I'm curious how much of that relates to the Weapopn-X comic series. Should be some x-over but remains to be seen. As for preferences on comic titles and why- it's just like the ongoing dispute of Marvel vs Dc. It's what one likes and grabs their attention. For many it's Marvel, otrhers it's DC. I still wish Valiant comics was still around myself. I would love to see a PROPER revival of them.

Been meaning to create Clixs of Shadow Man, Master Darque and HARD Corps but don't ever seem to get around to it.