Welcome Home?

It's been slightly over two decades since I've been a regular reader of any kind of X-Men comics.   I stopped reading around 1991 and 1992 because the art took a huge leap backwards when Jim Lee, Whilce Portacio and Rob Liefeld left the books.

During that time I'd flirt with the titles here and there.  I read some of the Fatal Attractions issues where Magneto ripped the Adamantium from Wolverine's bones and I tries to read Grant Morrison's run on New X-Men as it was being published but lost track and eventually opted to wait foe the trades.  After Morrison left I had no interest in the X-Men world at all.

Then Marvel did their Civil War event which I'm a big fan of and things started to pique my interests.  The main book that piqued those interests was a book called Schism, which could be billed as a Civil War for the X-Men.  I bought kt and read it and though I was less than impressed with it at the time, the ideas of the book kept me interested for a while.  I bought the first issue of Wolverine and the X-Men and that was about it.  My interests went elsewhere.  Comic wise it went to Invincible -- my favorite superhero comic ever -- Savage Dragon and Batman, because Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo are champions. I also spent a great deal of the past two years replenishing my lirbrary of books I had gotten rid of, damaged or lost over the years, and re-reading them.  And then there's video games.  Comics can't compete with them for my attentiom most of the time because vidro games give me much more bang for my buck.  And I play a lot of video games.  I did manage to read the Rise and Fall of the Shi'ar Empire, which was okay and Second Coming, which I adored. I also tried to keep up with some of the books after Schism that followed Cable and Hope and X-Force, but couldnt keep getting to my local comic shop.

My interest in X-Men actually died last year or so when Marvel announced the Avengers vs. X-Men event.  It sounded weird, made little sense to me and I thought that if this was a fighting game being done by Capcom in the similar vein as Marvel vs. Capcom, I'd be all over it.  Time went on, the series was being published, and nothing was winning me over. At least nothing that I was hearing.

Then a truck driver that delivers gas to where I work began talking up the AvX story and I was mildly interested.  I decided to wait for the trade and was more than happy to see that an omnibus was coming.

When the omnibus arrived I sat down and devoured it.  It was essentially basic superhero comics stuff but the way it was presented was very interesting. And the aftermath that started coming in after the omnibus was published with the Marvel Now initiative, it just kept coming. The interest I mean.

So I bit the bullet and started trying some of the books beginning with Deadpool, then with the Uncanny Avengers 'causr it's hard to go wrong on a boom illustrated by John Cassaday.  Then more started coming.  Uncanny X-Force grabbed my attentiom because of the cast of characters that included Storm, Psylocke and Spiral. And then there's All-New X-Men which is reminiscent of Days of Future Past in that Beast goes back in time and brings the original five X-Men to the present to show them what's become of everything.  I've also added Wolverine and the X-Men and Cable and X-Force to the list, both of which are awesome in their own rights.  I'll also be reading Uncanny X-Men and X-Men omce they start as well.

The world of the X-Men has changed drastically in twenty years but in a very good, almost fresh and new sort of way and I'm once again happy to be an X-Men fan.