An X-Men A Day

Reading X-Men - like, all of it, in order - one issue a day, with a short post each day about it. Longer explantion of this nonsense in my pinned post.

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What is this? Why? I can answer the first, but not the second.

This is a tumblr where, each day, I read and post about one X-Men comic, in order, from January 1st 2024, when I'll start with the first ever X-Men issue, until...whenever I stop, or run out of issues (which will never happen, I will definitely stop or die first). The idea is that the posts will be entirely freeform: some of them will be actual, like, reviews of an issue, some of them will just be "this panel is goofy", most of them will be something in-between.

My guide here is the excellent, exhaustive but actually useable Crushing Krisis reading order guide, found here (https://www.crushingkrisis.com/crushing-comics-guide-collecting-marvel-comic-books/x-men-reading-order-guide/): I'll read through according to this order, reading all the mainline issues. This guide also includes a bunch of optional side-issues - guest appearances etc. - which I will mostly be skipping, but I'll do optional stuff if it seems fun.

Why am I doing this? I dunno, I needed A Project. I have a crippling reliance on overly elaborate social media projects of this kind. I'm a comics-adjacent nerd and I know the broad outlines but I have no connection to the fandom don't know the X-Men in huge detail, although I've always wanted to, and there's enough stuff there to keep me going for decades. Also I want something that's a mixture of genuinely good stuff and stuff I can laugh at.

This is a secondary account: follow this or check out @acrossthedeadcontinent which is my primary: it's dormant (for now) but might have details of my various other tumblr activities. In the meantime asks and so on are open.

EDIT TO ADD: Editing to add that on the last day of 2024, I have made it through a full 365 days of this (366, actually!). The project goes onward, though, and I am obviously far from done. I feel like I should add some context about the reading order I'm using (link again) and note that it goes up to approx. 2018, or something like that, so although I am reading mostly much older comics than that, I may be missing recent comics set in the earlier periods, but frankly I've read more than enough of those already, jesus christ if I have to read another Wolverine comic set before his debut I'm going to--

Anyway. I'm also, just for clarity - when I started this whole thing I didn't know how these dudes were and how much I'd have to clarify - am not currently reading any of the tangentially X-Men characters and series like, say, Captain Britain and Namor. That may change or it may not, we'll see.

What have I learned from a year of this? I've learned that I can't do a post without a typo. I've learned that I can't stand Banshee. I've learned how the words 'first class' can send a shiver down my spine. I've learned that beatnik cafes are a hip place to hang out. I don't know, man, don't ask me that question. Or do, ask me whatever you like, the ask box remains open and the most fun thing about this project has been the comments and responses, so do please keep providing those!

[keepsmagnetoaway]

I've been following this account for awhile and its quite a shame to see it come to an end :(

If you ever return I hope you can make it through the end of the Inferno event (which always felt like the proper end to this era of X-men comics to me)

Awwww I'm sorry. Yeah I did consider pushing on to the end of the 80s as a more substantive marker of the end of an era. Maybe someday

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The End

So yeah. As I was finishing off the posts about the Longshot series I noticed that they also constituted the end of an "era", the breakdown my reading order uses for dividing the X-Men into manageable chunks, and on realising that I decided it was as good a time as any to end - or at least suspend - this project.

There are various other reasons that this seems like a convenient point. It's been running for nearly two years, and is at roughly 700 posts. The last issue of Uncanny we read was 200, which is a neat break point – a nice round number, a famous issue – but one which also brings home to me that I am going to have read nearly 30 issues of other stuff before I get to Uncanny 201. I always knew that at this project went on we we get more and more into the world of modern comics in which multiple concurrent series run simultaneously, but this is something I've always disliked, and going back and reading the early stuff was in part an attempt to get away from that kind of storytelling.

As we approach that kind of mega-franchising of the X-Men I can feel my enthusiasm dropping off: odd, refreshing sideshows like The New Defenders (shortly to be rebooted as X-Factor) are dropping away as the rush towards the nightmare 90s continues, and mega-crossovers like Secret Wars II are incredibly discouraging.

Also, I'll be real, almost nobody is reading this! I didn't do this for audience but it feels easier to stop doing it if there isn't one around to feel let down and... there basically isn't. To the half-dozen of you who are a regular audience for this, I see you and I appreciate you and it has been fun hanging out! I'll probably still check my inbox etc here.

Is it ultimately quite weird that I have finished off this whole project with a review of the Longshot miniseries, the debut of a character we'll now see nothing of? Well, yes, but there it is. I also regret that we didn't quite make it to the end of Dazzler (it has two more issues to run), because honestly the Dazzler posts have been my favourite ones to write (and its imminent end is another reason that I don't feel that much of a pull to continue this thing). But perhaps it is better to leave it here, in a world before Dazzler is cancelled.

It's possible that this might come back some day when I feel like it: I can easily pick back up where I left off. Equally I might come back for some best-of posts or something: but for now regular updates will cease.

Peace out, my X-Men.

[keepsmagnetoaway]

Longshot 6 (February 1986)

Ann Nocenti/Arthur Adams, Whilce Portacio & Scott Williams

This strange origin series comes to an overlong end in a double-length issue where its imagery finally does what its been threatening to do all along and completely outruns any sense or plot.

Honestly that's mostly fine by me, since that's what I'm reading it for, but the double-length here certainly reveals the weakness - or at least the offputting strangeness - of the plotting.

What's really odd here is that this then all turns out to just be set-up: at tne end Longshot goes back to his dimension to free it. This, apparently, was a story that was meant to be told in a later graphic novel, but it never happened, and he just starts showing up, re-amnesiacified (?), in X-Men books in a bit.

So...what was the point in any of this, then? Well, it helps me to feel justified in mostly not bothering you with the details of the plot, since I guess it mostly just resets again. But it proves my point that, as an origin series, this really made no sense at all. Gorgeous as hell, though.

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Longshot 5 (January 1986)

Ann Nocenti/Arthur Adams, Whilce Portacio & Scott Williams

In its penultimate issue, this series gets around to actually doing a bunch of characterisation and lore-dumping.

It's weird as hell and while I've been suggesting for a while that an origin series should actually engage with this stuff, it turns out to be true that this is better off as a source of strange imagery.

Like yes ok fine pyschotic psychic alien overlords from the Mojo dimension (??), sure, this is all useful knowledge, but it's also dumb as hell and I just want to look at the pretty pictures.

So, y'know, that's what I did.

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Longshot 4 (December 1985)

Ann Nocenti/Arthur Adams, Whilce Portacio & Scott Williams

Longshot this month takes the slightly more traditional launch-series approach of roping in some big names.

Not only Spidey, but also She-Hulk.

But Longshot being Longshot, this remains a rather odd issue, with these big-name appearances being effectively cameos within a story of sci-fi horror and neighbourhood solidarity.

Nothing about any of this should work, and I still have the feeling that this doesn't really work as a series establishing a new hero. But as a set of images and stories it fucking rocks.

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Longshot 3 (November 1985)

Ann Nocenti/Arthur Adams, Whilce Portacio & Scott Williams

This is an exceptionally beautiful issue.

It's also a very strange one, one that reads like the kind of offbeat story that ongoing series tell between arcs, focusing largely on a sadsack man's suicid e attempt and the way it unexpectedly intersects with Longshot's apparent death at the end of last issue.

As a consequence, it does very little to advance Longshot's story (aside from providing a plot contrivance that gets rid of the weirdo demons from his home dimension who have been hunting him), which makes it a very strange choice for the third issue of a six-issue series.

But god, it looks good. There is some backstory, in the form of flashbacks to the tortures Longshot underwent back home, and that bit looks especially good.

As you can see, much of the issue happens in a strange kind of pale, moon-washed darkness (can darkness be pale?): thematically this culminates in a blackout and a delightful J Jonah Jameson cameo.

I'm far from sure this is good as a series, basically, but as individual issues they rock.

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Longshot 2 (October 1985)

Ann Nocenti/Arthur Adams, Whilce Portacio & Scott Williams

So who is Longshot, anyway?

Well, that's a difficult question to answer, because he doesn't know the answer himself: but this issue, after the razzmatazz of the first, gives us some answers, establishing that he's not human...

...that at one time he was fighting in some kind of alien war (with a buddy based on Michael Jackson, awkward) which he barely remembers except in occasional involuntary flashbacks...

...and that his power, his strange bending of luck, only works when he is acting from pure motives.

It does all this through a very fun frame narrative in which Longshot, still new to the world and with no idea what he's doing, falls into a job as a stunt double and into a brief liaison with another stunt double, Ricochet Rita who, delightfully, was visually based on Ann Nocenti herself.

This is all absolutely great fun, with the movie framing allowing for all sorts of outlandishness.

And then at the end - bold move for issue 2 of your new series - he appears to die in an accident on set and the scuzzy director dumps his body.

I'm sort of inherently sceptical about introductory miniseries like these, because they always feel like they're trying so hard to make you care about someone for whom, by definition, you know and feel nothing: this was the problem with the Firestar series, for example. But so far this one, through general exuberance and great art, is at least carrying me along for the ride.

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Longshot 1 (September 1985)

Ann Nocenti/Arthur Adams, Bill Anderson & Whilce Portacio

Sometimes as this project goes on I feel quite smug about how much I now know about the X-Men, and other times something shows up that I have literally never heard of. Anyway, here's Longshot.

Longshot - the series - introduces Longshot - the guy - across six issues, written by Ann Nocenti and drawn by Arthur Adams. This is an exciting team: we've just been introduced to Adams' work and I am a longtime Ann Nocenti stan.

Nocenti was mostly an editor, not a writer - she was Claremont's handler, basically, one of the hardest jobs imaginable - and so it's interesting when she tries her hand at writing. Also I like this gag.

Ok, but what's any of this about? Well, as you can sort of see, it's a fish-out-of-water thing this issue, as the mysterious guy arrives on Earth from some other reality. His first stop is a fetish gear shop, where he does not understand that mannequins are not people.

This is all in aid of some crucial storytelling: it is important to understand that Longshot is hot. The ladies love him.

Seriously though, folks, this is all pretty funny. Fish-out-of-water stuff can wear thin but making it a little risque and a little over-the-top like this works when the writing is snappy and the art is this good, which is to say, great.

This is also, as you can see, comfortably the most 80s comic that has ever existed, mullets and all.

In short, this kicks ass. I notice however that I've now got to the end of the issue without in any way explaining what it's about, so I guess I'll do that... next time.

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New Defenders 150 (December 1985)

Peter Gillis/Don Perlin, Alan Kupperberg & Randy Ellison

Owing to what I can only describe as "some bullshit", the Defenders go to space with Cloud, who it turns out is not really a cloud but rather a Nebula. Love that for them.

My tolerance for space bullshit is extremely low, and unfortunately this issue is a) full of it and b) double-length for no clear reason (I guess it's kind of a milestone number?). There's a lot of this kind of stuff.

And so on and so on. It's kind of tongue-in-cheek but that doesn't really make it more enjoyable.

Anyway the upshot is that Cloud leaves. Bye! We are also leaving this book now, and not a moment too soon. It still has two issues to go before cancellation but it's time we caught up with some other continuity, as per the reading order: but I am still not reading any of the Captain Britain stuff as it isn't yet X-Men related, so we're on to Longshot's debut series next.

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New Defenders 149 (November 1985)

Peter Gillis/Don Perlin & Art Nichols

According to the title page, Candy Southern is an actual team member now, which is neat. Good for her.

And while we're talking about 1960s X-Men girlfriends and their continued relevance to the franchise - a subject that only I care about - hey, look, Vera's in this one again!

She's dressed insanely. I don't think she's meant to be incognito, she just woke up and decided to dress like this. Anyway, Beast is a jerk to her.

Anyway, that's all fun, but truthfully it's nothing to do with the main plot, which no longer makes any sense. This would be passable if the art was also good but instead it looks like this.

So yeah.

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New Defenders 148 (October 1985)

Peter Gillis/Sal Buscema & Art Nichols

This is a ludicrous issue, on purpose, one that throws aside all on-going plotlines for a comedy caper in San Francisco, featuring the return of Cutlass and Typhoon and the addition of a mad taxi driver based on Groucho Marx.

I don't really know what's behind any of this - it feels like some kind of elaborate inside joke by Gillis who, at this point, knew the title didn't have long to live.

You do you, Peter Gillis, I guess, and he certainly was capable of very funny issues at times, but this one is too zany and too off-genre: 131, one of my favourite issues, was a funny superhero comic, whereas this is a sort of film nor mad libs... thing. Booo.

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New Defenders 147 (September 1985)

Peter Gillis/Don Perlin & Art Nichols

This series is officially out of steam and I am officially out of patience with it. This is a confused, confusing issue with an overblown villain and some fun imagery - who doesn't love demon Nazi soldiers? - that ultimately all turns out to be an illusion, robbing it of any interest.

Sorry, folks! We're approaching the end of this long chunk of reading these issues, and then shortly thereafter the end of the series as a whole.

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New Defenders 146 (August 1985)

Peter Gillis/Luke McDonnell & Art Nichols

This is such a hit or miss book. Such is the nature, I guess, of a book that obviously just wants to mess around, and I absolutely think it's a good thing that Marvel was devoting resources at this point to such a book. Not everything needs to be a big deal. Some things can just be holographic Hulk lawyer.

But it does mean that sometimes this stuff is just a complete miss, which is the case for most of this issue, a baggy story in which the main combat takes place in a New Romantic club in Manhattan and features no New Defenders, and basically no characters about which the reader knows anything.

Sure, it all looks cool - although, not that cool, truthfully, and note that the art team has now fully changed, with Luke McDonnell doing pencils now - but when it doesn't grab you it fully doesn't grab you. The big reveal is more or less inevitably a character we've never actually heard of and it's like... ok?

As you can perhaps tell from the way this book is going, with meandering plots and a suddenly unstable art team, it's actually not long before this gets cancelled: Andromeda was a new character created for Gillis to revamp the team with a bit (she's an Atlantean, or something?) but there are only like five issues left of this and although when it works it really works, I can also see why, although I totally think there should be more comics like this, Marvel execs put this on the chopping block.

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New Defenders 145 (July 1985)

Peter Gillis/Don Perlin & Art Nichols

I haven't been especially appreciative of Kim DeMulder's penciling on this series but this issue made me realise it may in fact have been load-bearing: he's replaced on this issue and it looks bad.

Flat, dark, clunky, generally detracting from this issue: which, to be fair, is something of a nothingy issue. I think the aim here was "expressionist, woodblocky, Mignola-esque" but the outcome is simply not that.

Anyway the guy on the motorcycle is Ghost Rider. Ghost Rider shows up in this issue. Remember when he was Nicholas Cage? I'm not really sure what he wants, but the entire issue drags and the only action is a fake-out when they don't recognise him and think he's attacking. Yawn. At the end Beast does some insane flirting with someone who is here to kill Cloud.

What would Vera say?

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New Defenders 144 (June 1985)

Peter Gillis/Don Perlin & Kim DeMulder

Candy Southern gets an Uzi. Finally.

Then Valkyrie summons her sisterhood to fight the Dragon of the Moon.

In conclusion: women, getting shit done. Men, getting their shit kicked in.

As it should be.

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New Defenders 143 (May 1985)

Peter Gillis/Don Perlin & Kim DeMulder

This issue, the Moondragon storyline that I simply cannot persuade my brain to follow kicks up a gear as she becomes possessed (I think?) by the Dragon of the Moon (not the same as Moondragon, I guess) and leaves the team to go be evil.

This is all much of a muchness but it does allow for a berserk vision quest issue, which is always a fun time.

It's some fun stuff!

If only I knew or cared what any of it meant.