So, where does one start reading X-Men comics...?

A few months ago my nephew, who was then 13 going on 14, sent me a text asking if I could get him some Batman comics from the library where I worked, and he provided a list: Year One, Arkham Asylum, The Long Halloween, Hush, Dark Nights: Metal and Dark Nights: Death Metal. 

Older and/or more cynical readers might criticize Jeph Loeb's writing and elements of the Dark Nights books, but it's a solid list, and I wondered if he found it as a list of best or most popular Batman books somewhere online (I thought The Dark Knight Returns was notable absent from it, and I was a little surprised to see Scott Snyder's multiverse "crisis" series on there instead of Court of Owls). 

But as the guy being charged with finding those books? Easy peasy. They are all popular, fairly evergreen, in print and readily available through many different libraries in our system. Additionally, I had read all of them and was thus quite conversant in them; if my nephew liked any of them and wanted to know what to read next, or wanted more Batman (or other comics) from any of the creators, I could recommend other books until he was sick of hearing me talk.

A few weeks ago, I got a much scarier text from my sister/his mother: "The boy is interested in x men comics...Can you borrow some x men?"

Now, if you've been reading the site for a long time, you probably know that I have read some X-Men comics in the past...the huge cloud of "labels" on the right of the blog shows that I've used that label on 43 posts before (UPDATE: And, as I just noticed, 16 for "the x-men"...my labeling system is far from useful, I imagine). Still, I am far from what you might call a fan of the franchise...or even much of a knower-about-er. Like, I'm certain I know more than my sister—I know there's a hyphen between "X" and "Men" for example—but that is probably the comics franchise I know the least about, and most dread being asked to recommend books from (I used to think the Legion of Super-Heroes was even scarier, what with all the continuity reboots, but this recent-ish post from Mike Sterling convinced me that it was actually much simpler than I thought). 

In addition to reading so relatively few X-Men comics though, the franchise is just so...big. Launching in 1963, it is decades younger than Batman, but, there are just so many characters and, by the '90s, so many different titles and what seems, from afar, a rather convoluted number of alternate futures, from which characters occasionally come to join the cast. Additionally, the franchise seems to be one that (perhaps apropos) has many permutations. 

That is, as much as Batman comics may change over the years, from era to era and creator to creator, it's still essentially the same basic story of a superhero and or his sidekick/s defending a single city from criminals, the tone being more mutable over the decades than anything else.

Not so with the X-Men...and their many related X-teams and solo series spin-offs. 

Maybe a year or so ago, a co-worker had asked me to suggest some X-Men comics to him. Asking him some preliminary questions about his interest, he said it started with some Marvel video game (Rivals, I think...?) which led to him watching the first season of X-Men '97 (He was 25 or so, and thus never saw the original cartoon series that '97 was a continuation of).

I spent a chunk of the rest of our shift thinking about it and occasionally searching the library catalog, and I ended up telling him that my personal favorite was Grant Morrison and company's New X-Men run (which, in addition to its quality and new reader friendly take, has the advantage of being relatively limited in size, and thus a more manageable run than some of the more famous runs), but that Joss Whedon and John Cassaday's Astonishing X-Men is probably the best place for him to start (Again, new reader friendly and short and distinct enough to be manageable).

 I further suggested he just put "X-Men" and "Epic Collection" into the catalog and look for covers with characters he liked or titles that sounded familiar...between the physical books and Hoopla, I think the library has all of the X-Men Epic Collections, and these seem to feature the characters from the cartoons prominently.

(Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've always thought the original X-Men series was a sort of amalgam—a word I learned from comics!—of storylines from Chis Claremont's long run with the then-current Jim Lee costumes and designs and the cast of the '90s comics, and thus there weren't comics that perfectly reflected the cartoon...)

I spent more time considering what to recommend my nephew, though. 

Now, I am old enough that I did watch the original 1992-1997 X-Men: The Animated Series...or, at least, the first few years' worth of it (I was 15 in 1992, and by the time I got to college I didn't spend much time at all in front of televisions). In addition to my appreciation of the theme song, I mostly found it hilarious, particularly the over-the-top, melodramatic voice work and the handful of extreme accents. (I laughed pretty much any time Rogue or Gambit said anything, and I was a big fan of what a friend of mine referred to as the "exertion" noises that Professor X would make when pushing his psychic abilities or in some kind of psychic distress). 

This wasn't my first exposure to Marvel's merry mutants, though, as I still distinctly remember their appearance on the 1981-1983 Saturday morning cartoon Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends (For whatever reason, the part I remember best was that Iceman and Firestar were imprisoned in rooms right next to one another, and their efforts to use their powers to try to escape meant they were inadvertently hurting one another). 

While I'm pretty sure I borrowed a copy of God Loves, Man Kills from the Ashtabula library as a teenager, back when there were, like, maybe 20 books of comics in the library, most of which were comic strip collections, I didn't really read any X-Men comics until around 2000, which is 1) When I finally started reading Marvel comics regularly, as they started hiring some of my favorite DC writers and publishing their Ultimate line, 2) When the first X-Men film was released and, related, 3) When Marvel seemed to make a concerted effort to sell X-Men comics to people who weren't already X-Men fans.

And that, I suppose, is why I am poorly suited to recommend X-Men comics; all the comics I read tended to be ones tailored for people who did not like the X-Men of The Animated Series or the Capcom fighting game or whatever (And I always thought Jim Lee's costumes kind of sucked; sorry, millions of X-Men fans who disagree with me...!)

Anyway, these are the X-Men comics that I've read regularly, why I read them and why I thought they might not be quite right to recommend: 

•New X-Men (2001-2004) By the point this book launched, Grant Morrison was my favorite comics writer, and responsible for JLA, which was and still is one of my favorite superhero comics. So, the idea of he and his JLA: Earth-2 collaborator (and Batman: The Scottish Connection artist) Frank Quitely reinventing the X-Men for people who don't read X-Men comics...? That was more than enough to get me to try an X-Men comic...but I also liked that, at the time, Morrison was giving interviews slagging off aspects of the comics, like Wolverine wearing a hat shaped like his hair and the fact that he and Beast have the same hairstyle. 

I think it holds up well, especially given to how tied to the turning of the millennium it was and Morrison and company's efforts to synthesize the original film's more realistic aesthetics into a superhero comic, but given that it's kind of the intentional opposite of '90s X-Men, I'm reluctant to recommend it to fans of X-Men '97 and the like.

•Ultimate X-Men (2001-2003) Like New X-Men, Mark Millar and Andy Kubert's book was presented as an X-Men book for new readers...but perhaps even more so, as it was set in a brand-new fictional "universe" being built from the ground up, completely divorced from the previous decades of Marvel Universe continuity, which Marvel (rightly, I think) thought provided a stumbling block for potential readers. I was a fan of Millar's previous DC writing—I haven't read anything of his since Secret Service, but it seems to me that he started out great and got worse as he his career went on—and only knew Kubert from the first Batman versus Predator miniseries.

I quite liked the Ultimate imprint and read everything for a while. I continued reading for a while after Millar left, reading the Brian Michael Bendis run and ultimately bailing on this book sometime during Brian K. Vaughan's run, I think. Twenty-five years later, I assume there's no real difference in reading a Marvel Universe book and an Ultimate Universe book, though, in terms of accrued continuity. Like, the book was very much of it's time...and that time has passed. 

(Also, that logo sure didn't age well did it...? Like the cover art on that first issue, it looks extremely unappealing to my eye now...)

•X-Force (2001-2002) Even more emblematic of Marvel's then-leadership's willingness to risk breaking things and pissing off fans was this radical book from Peter-Milligan and Mike Allred, the former of whom I knew from DC's Vertigo Comics, and the latter of whom was an artist who I was at that time willing to buy anything he drew. I mean, they didn't just give these two their own X-title, but they had them take over X-Force with its 116th issue. I can't imagine the whiplash. 

The creators would eventually get their own title (X-Statix) and do lots of bold, fun things with it...although I wish they wouldn't have chickened out about using Princess Diana as a character. I followed them on to X-Statix and some of the various miniseries and revisits that followed.

I haven't revisited their work since; I wonder if the superhero reality show premise at the start is dated or not...I thought it felt a bit tired 25 years ago, honestly. Given the fact that, like New X-Men, this was a premeditated curveball thrown at the heads of '90s X-fans, this also doesn't seem like the place to start for the X-curious.

(By the way, I never did figure out how to read Doop speak, but I understand it is figure-out-able, isn't it...?)

•X-Men: Evolution (2002) I wasn't overly enamored with the 2002-2003 animated series that this book was a companion to (It was better than The Animated Series, though! The theme song wasn't as good, of course, but it wasn't a bad theme song, either). The comic was written by Devin Grayson for eight issues though, so that was enough for me to read it. I don't recall particularly liking it, and I assume it's not too terribly appealing to anyone who wasn't a fan of the cartoon.

•Astonishing X-Men (2004-2009) This was another X-Men book sold as one that wasn't necessarily for fans of the X-Men, thought it was more traditional in tone and a more straightforward superhero comic, and thus the realtively rare book that both newcomers and the traditional fanbase could enjoy (At least, I think so; members of the traditional fanbase can correct me if I'm wrong).

TV and movie guy Joss Whedon coming on as writer was the bigger selling point, though, and he was teamed with critically acclaimed artist John Cassaday. After their relatively short run ended, Warren Ellis and Simone Bianchi took over. I remember switching from singles to trades part of the way through Whedon's run (Which, if I recally correctly, was rather write-for-the-trade-y). I don't remember anything about Ellis' stories, but I recall Bianchi's art. I think I dropped it while Ellis was still writing it. 

And yes, the book seems like a cursed one looking back from 2006, what with Whedon passing the baton to Ellis. 

•X-Men: First Class (2006-2009) Jeff Parker, the writer of Agents of Atlas, and artist Roger Cruz and others collaborated on a series of mini-series and specials featuring new, fun, often funny adventures set during the first year of the original X-Men line-up of Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Beast, Angel and Iceman. Lots of guest-stars and very loose continuity (In fact, I'm not sure if these were meant to be canonical or not; perhaps a real X-Men fan would be able to answer that). I also liked the 2008-2010 Wolverine: First Class series from Fred Van Lente and others.

•Wolverine & The X-Men (2012-2014) Unlike the rest of the books on this list, I didn't buy these individual issues but instead read them in trades from the library. By the point that the title launched, I hadn't read all that much of writer Jason Aaron's Marvel work, but he had a reputation for "awesome" comics featuring their darker, more adult heroes, and I liked all of the artists involved on the book, inside and out. The premise—Wolverine succeeds Charles Xavier as the headmaster of a school for "gifted youngsters"—was irresistible, and I liked Aaron's highly comedic execution. Like Morrsion's New X-Men, it added a lot of new characters via the student body.

I'm sure there were other X books I've read over the years. I know I gave a Peter David X-Factor revival a try based on critical acclaim for the original, for example. I read a Rick Rememder-written X-Force featuring Wolverine, Deadpool, Fantomex and some others in matching costumes. I know I read the Bendis X-Men run for a while, wherein the original teenage X-Men came from the past into the present. I read a book featuring an Avengers/X-Men hybrid team following Avengers Vs. X-Men. But the above are the ones I made a point of following...and still remember fairly well. 

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By the way, I should probably take a moment to acknowledge the best answer to the question of where to start with a particular superhero comic: Anywhere.

Like, just pick one up and start reading. If it's well made enough that it interests you and makes you want to know what happens next (and/or what came before), it will inspire you to keep reading.

I mean, I started reading comics in general with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons #2 (Not #1, but #2). I started reading Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with some short stories published in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness role-playing game source book. I got into regularly reading Batman and the mainstream DC Universe with a trio of annuals from a crossover event series presenting alternate futures of the characters (Detective Comics Annual #4, Batman Annual #15 and Superman Annual #3...still love those gloves...!)

The great thing about comics is that one inevitably leads to another, as you follow a character or "universe" or publisher or writer or artist from one book to the next.

My sister did take my nephew to the closest comic shop—with some trepidation, as she has helped me move more than once, and has thus seen and carried boxes and boxes of graphic novels and longboxes full of bagged and boarded comics books, and knows what starting reading comics as a teenager can lead to—and he showed me the half dozen or so comic book-comics he bought, including from the dollar bin. 

The X-Men comic he's starting with? Fabian Nicieza and Andy Kubert's The Amazing X-Men #4 from 1994, which seems to be part of "The Age of Apocalypse" event storyline. (I wonder if it was Kubert's drawing of Storm's naked shoulder on the cover that drew him to that particular comic...?)

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Anyway, below is what I ended up ordering from the library for my nephew. You'll notice a few points of overlap with what I've read before. In the near future, I plan to read (or re-read) all of the books below, and I'll write about that experience in the future).

•X-Men: First Class—Mutants 101 (2022) Collecting 2006's X-Men: First Class #1-8 and 2007's X-Men: First Class Special, all written by Jeff Parker and mostly penciled by Roger Cruz (Paul Smith penciled #6, and the special featured pencils from Smith, Kevin Nowlan, Colleen Coover and Nick Dragotta). 

I assume most X-Men fans wouldn't consider this X-Men: First Class an essential book in terms of the overall X-Men mega-story and lore, but I have to assume that if a teenager in the '20s wants to read about the founding X-Men line-up, they will have an easier time with this than trying to slog through the original 1960s comics by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

Plus, I know from experience that these are fun and funny, and rather continuity light...that is, one doesn't really need to know or have read anything in particular to follow them, nor do they weave a bigger, more complex story from issue-to-issue. 

In these comics, the founding five face such villains as Juggernaut, The Sentinels, Spidey's foe The Lizard and The Skrulls and they team-up with the likes of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, Doctor Strange, Thor and Gorilla-Man (from Paker's own Agents of Atlas).

The book ends with pretty expansive profiles of Professor X and his X-Men, giving their stats and histories and ranking their powers and abilities. I assume this is useful to someone just getting into the X-Men, right? This is certainly the sort of thing I loved when I first started comics.

•Astonishing X-Men Vol. 1: Gifted (2014) Collecting the first six issues of TV and movie guy (and apparent terrible person) Joss Whedon and the late John Cassaday's 2004 series. Despite my reluctance to promote the work of Whedon, this is one of those relatively rare X-Men books that seemed created from the ground up to be new reader friendly, and, if I recall correctly, was at the time something of a compromise between the New X-Men era's more realistic (and high-quality) direction and the action-packed, superhero stuff of the '90s; a book for fans of the '90s X-Men cartoon and the first movies, then.

"Time to make nice with the public, eh, Summers?" Wolverine asks during a suiting-up sequence.

"We have to do more than that, Logan," Scott says, concluding his sentence on a two-page splash page revealing the team in their costumes for the first time in the book, "We have to astonish them."

Flipping through this again now—I haven't read it since I did so in singles over 20 years ago now—I'm struck by how many of the images I remember clearly. Cassaday's work on this title is quite incredible, and there's an awful lot of specific panels, poses and spreads that are just plain burned into my memory.

Anyway, Cyclops, Wolverine, The Beast, Emma Frost and Kitty Pryde star in a story involving the promise of a "mutant cure" and a new alien menace. Plus, Colossus comes back to life after what seems to me like a rather long time for an X-Man to be dead (but maybe not?), and there's a dramatic, silent two-page spread where we throws Wolverine at something. I always like when they do that. 

•Wolverine and The X-Men By Jason Aaron Vol. 1 (2012) Collecting 2011's Wolverine & The X-Men #1-4  by Jason Aaron, Chris Bachalo, Nick Bradshaw and others. With the X-Men bickering and split into factions—I think this was one of those times Professor X was dead, and during the time that Cyclops was a terrorist or whatever?—Logan is the new headmaster of the newly re-named mutant school, The Jean Grey School for Higher Learning. Plenty of familiar faces make up the teaching staff, including Kitty Pryde, Beast, Iceman and even Doop. 

From what I recall, this was basically a comedic, occasionally even sticom-like take on the New X-Men concept, with the X-Men splitting their duties between superheroing and teaching a student body full of young mutants. Also, lots of new characters among those younger students, not all of whom were necessarily mutants. 

As such, it seems to be a pretty good jumping-on point—and it ran long enough that there's a big, satisfying chunk of it—although I wonder if it spinning out of a particular point in X-Men history might mean that it doesn't age particularly well? At least in terms of it being so different from the current status quo...? 

•Uncanny X-Men by Gail Simone Vol. 1: Red Wave (2025) Collecting 2004's Uncanny X-Men #1-6 by Gail Simone and pencil artist David Marquez (Javier Garron draws the sixth issue). I haven't read much of Gail Simone's Marvel work, but I was a fan of her team books for DC Comics over the years (Her first runs on Birds of Prey and Secret Six, anyway), and I think she's a really great, craftsperson style writer. Her work is often fun and funny, and she's good at relationships and team dynamics and if every story isn't always a great one, it's never a bad one, either; like, I've never regretted buying or reading a Simone book for the writing.

Also, she just seems like a really nice lady.

So Simone on the X-Men seemed like a good move on Marvel's part...even though I didn't pick it up,  my disinterest in the X-Men cancelling out my interest in Simone.

This seemed like a good choice for my nephew though, as not only do I trust Simone to create good comics, but it's one of the current ongoing titles and it has a small cast of some of the better-known characters, even if you only know the team from the cartoons and movies: Wolverine, Rogue, Nightcrawler, Gambit and Jubilee (Heck, they're all well-known enough that you can just look at the trade's cover and recognize each of them by their hands...or tail, in Kurt's case). 

•X-Men by Jed MacKay Vol. 1: Homecoming (2025) Collecting 2024's X-Men #1-7, by writer Jed MacKay and pencil artists Ryan Stegman and Netho Diaz.

This wasn't on my radar at all, and I'm not super-familiar with MacKay (I have liked all the Stegman art I've seen, though), but Kiel Phegley suggested it on Bluesky when I was crowd-sourcing suggestions, and it has the advantage of being one of the current iterations of the team (Unless it's changed since this book shipped, I guess). Also, Cyclops is in it, and my nephew did say he likes Cyclops. 

I haven't read it yet, but the team seems to be more...idiosyncratic than that of the Simone book. Aside from Cyclops, I recognize The Beast, Juggernaut and Magik from the cover; the back cover says the lady with the pink sword is Psylocke and the kid with pink hair is Kid Omega (Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's Quentin Quire). Some investigation reveals that the person on the ice bridge is Temper. As for the bald guy with black eyes...no clue. Maybe just a random mutant they are protecting...? Also, while he's not on the cvoer, Magneto is also in the book.

Flipping through, it looks rather nineties-ish...which I imagine is probably appealing to many modern X-Men readers, picking up the comics because they like X-Men '97 and Rivals or whatever...

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Before I started thinking too hard about what to recommend, I asked my nephew for some more information that could potentially guide me.

"Are there any particular characters you are interested in?" I texted him. "Or line-ups? Or eras or artists or storylines...?"

When he responded, he answered with characters beyond just the X-Men:

i like cyclops, wolverine a lot. also magneto. i'm also interested in any spider man ones.

...

also am big fan of night wing.

In quoting his text here, I obviously didn't add a hyphen to "spider man" nor smooth "night wing"  together into one word, in order to better express where my nephew is as a superhero fan (Or maybe a texter?). 

As he had a birthday coming up a few weeks after that exchange, I went to the Barnes and Noble down the street from my library to look for some Spider-Man and Nightwing books, which seemed easier for me to pick out than X-Men ones.

I had posted about this on Bluesky at the time, but I was kind of shocked at how poor the American superhero comic book selection in general was, as it had shrunk by at least half since the last time I looked at it. Meanwhile, the manga section seemed to have doubled in size (Honestly, just eyeballing it I think the store had more shelf space devoted to volumes of Jujutsu Kaisen than to all Marvel comics).

There were only a handful of Spider-Man books, and the only ones there—Spider-Man: The Other and Spider-Man: Blue (although the spine just said "Spider-Man") and the Marvel Premier version of Spider-Men: Worlds Collide (although the spine just said "Spider-Man")—didn't seem like good starting points. 

I ended up only buying one book there and then ordering two others from online. If you're curious, here's what I got him for his birthday: 

•Nightwing: Leaping Into the Light: DC Compact Comics Edition (2026) I love these things, as they are extremely cheap (Just $9.99! The cost of two and half brand-new comic books!) and they are mostly focused on evergreen "classic" DC comics, the very sorts of comics you would gift someone curious about a particular character. (The only thing I don't like about the line? All of the books they've published so far have been ones I've already read in singles or trades). I had previously bought my nephew the Compact Comics Editions of Batman: Hush and Batman: The Long Halloween when he had requested various Batman books a few months back (At that price point, they make for a good impulse buy, too).  

This collects the first 11 issues of Tom Taylor, Bruno Redondo and company's acclaimed recent Nightwing run (Or the first two trade collections). I think it's unusual among the Compact Comics line in that its contents are of more recent vintage than most of the other comics collected. 

Anyway, I read at least the first half of this in a trade previously and liked it just fine. I do wonder if it's the best place to start with Nightwing but, well, I feel like he's a character whose history is, at least in the broad strokes, relatively simple—the original Robin and long-time Teen Titan as a grown-up, now serving as the vigilante protector of his own city—and my nephew knows him from various Batman cartoons (In fact, when he was still young enough to have themed birthday parties, he asked for a Nightwing party one year. Not Batman, to my sister's frustration, as there are plenty of decorations and party favors related to Batman, but Nightwing. My niece/his sister diligently created a string of flags with Nightwing symbols on them). 

Oh, this is the one I found at Barnes and Noble, by the way.

•Nightwing Vol. 1: Bludhaven (2025) I was reluctant to buy a Chuck Dixon comic, but then I convinced myself that the only problem with Dixon is that he has terrible politics, and compared to the likes of other comics creators, well, he didn't commit any crimes or abuse anyone, so...it could be worse? (In fact, I've already mentioned several other terrible human beings in this very post!) Also, it seems hard to avoid Dixon if one wants to read about Nightwing. 

Looking online, it seems like most of—maybe all?—of his long run on the title has been collected into huge compendium editions, but a 1000-page book seems like a bad thing to hand someone who is still comics-curious. 

This particular collects the first eight issues of the Dixon and Scott McDaniel run, which launched the ongoing Nightwing series way back in 1996. It also, to my surprise, contains a 1995 four-issue Nightwing miniseries by Denny O'Neil and Greg Land (from back when Land's art still looked like it was drawn by hand). 

I've never read this mini, but, flipping through it, I noticed it opens with Nightwing in one of his older costumes, and he has comically long hair, which he wears down when he's Dick Grayson  and in a three-foot long ponytail when he's Nightwing. Hopefully the hair—and Dick's fashion!—won't scare my nephew away...

•Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026) This is a brand-new $9.99 collection of 11 issues of Amazing-Spider-Man from the rebooted "Brand New Day" era. If you haven't run across this in the wild, it's the same size as the DC Compact Comics and Marvel Premier Editions, just lacking the trade dress of the latter. 

I was not a fan of the reboot, which I think "broke" Spider-Man in the same way that the New 52 broke several characters and franchises...or, at the very least, caused my interest in them to evaporate. While there were a lot of talented folks involved during that period of Spider-Man and I picked up issues here and there based on the artists, flipping through this now, I don't think I actually read any of this.

Still, it is a starting point, and it is being marketed as such, and, well, there aren't a lot of such entry points to the character. Unlike, say, Batman, Spider-Man doesn't seem to have a Dark Knight Returns or a Batman: Year One (Or an Arkham Asylum or a Gothic or a Long Halloween or a Hush or a Court of Owls or...), so I went with this. 

I see that it features Wolverine (on page 3!) and The Punisher, so I'm sure it should prove exciting enough to a newer, teenage reader (Also The Shocker and J. Jonah Jameson, but I can't imagine the boy likes those two as much as his uncle does).

Oh, and there's art from Chris Bachalo and Marcos Martin, which are two artists I am more than happy to stick in the face of a new reader...

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🤔 In retrospect, I wonder if I should have just given him some Doom Patrol comics and feigned ignorance of the difference. "What do you mean? You wanted the comics about an old guy in a wheelchair leading a group of super-powered freaks that launched in the 1960s, right...?"