X-men, I'm so confused

Daxon

Alrighty so I just watched the third xmen movie for the first time and I loved it. Not because it was a good movie, but because it had xmen. So NOW I've got this urge to watch all of the xmen cartoons but I've got no idea which ones are good and it which chronological order they come in (man there are billions of different xmen series D: )

So I'm just wondering if anyone knows which order I should watch the cartoons (assuming I can find a box of it or something) and which I should definitely watch/avoid. I remember when I was a kid that I watched a bit of some xmen series that took place in a pretty normal place (like today) then later on they started getting all fancy with the mega robots marching around and generally creating a post-apocalyptic mood.

Edit: Move this if it doesn't belong here... I found myself at a loss when thinking of a place for this to go.

striderstew

all of the cartoons suck

yes, even the one that came on fox kids years ago

preemptive: no, fuck you, it's horrible

Iroh

It's true. They didn't hold up well.

I suggest getting your hands on some of the actual comics. The source material is definitely better than the movies.

Malkor

If you're gonna watch superhero cartoons stick to DC. X-men: The Animated Series is good for nostalgia, I guess, but not the greatest. Pryde of the X-Men is from the 70s, I've never watched it though.

striderstew

pretty much the only worthwhile stuff outside of the stan lee originals and most of claremont's 70's run is new x-men by grant morrison. and maybe joss whedon's astonishing x-men, but he takes too damn long to get anything going in that

amateurhour

Daxon wrote: »

Alrighty so I just watched the third xmen movie for the first time and I loved it. Not because it was a good movie, but because it had xmen. So NOW I've got this urge to watch all of the xmen cartoons but I've got no idea which ones are good and it which chronological order they come in (man there are billions of different xmen series D: )

So I'm just wondering if anyone knows which order I should watch the cartoons (assuming I can find a box of it or something) and which I should definitely watch/avoid. I remember when I was a kid that I watched a bit of some xmen series that took place in a pretty normal place (like today) then later on they started getting all fancy with the mega robots marching around and generally creating a post-apocalyptic mood.

Edit: Move this if it doesn't belong here... I found myself at a loss when thinking of a place for this to go.

As far as watch/avoid, that's all opinion.

What's considered the best series overall was the Xmen series of the early 90's, which ran in parallel with the X-Men comics series that launched at the same time. A lot of people feel that it hasn't aged well, but that's up to you. Unfortunately, at this moment, there is no DVD distribution at the moment, but VHS transfers stay on ebay pretty regularly, and they're decent enough quality for what you pay for them.

Comic conventions are also a good place to secure the cartoon in DVD format, and usually it's a better quality transfer.

Daenris

all of the cartoons suck

yes, even the one that came on fox kids years ago

preemptive: no, fuck you, it's horrible

However... the one on fox kids years ago was way better than the bits I've seen of the newer one (X-Men: Evolution) with the X-men as teenagers... gah.

Daxon

Yeah I've seen a bit of that teenager crap, man what's with all cartoons having to be high school dramas nowadays?

Thanks for the advice but it seems maybe the awesomeness factor I saw in xmen cartoons was just kiddy nostalgia, perhaps I'll go to my local comic bookstore and see if they have anything (though I just started reading The Sandman by Neil Gaiman and that's kinda prioritised at the moment)

Edit: Do the crazy robots come into the xmen comic books as well or was that only the cartoons?

grungebox

The crazy robots (Sentinels) are in the 2 cartoon series, yes. I actually liked X-Men Evolution (where most of the X-Men are of high school age), though only from the end of season 2 onwards. The first season is garbage.

Pryde of the X-Men (from 1989) is not a series. It was a pilot episode for a series that was not picked up. If you download and watch it you'll see why.

They're making a new X-Men cartoon called "Wolverine and the X-Men." There's a trailer on the interwebs if you're interested. No release date yet, I think.

Iroh

striderstew wrote: »

pretty much the only worthwhile stuff outside of the stan lee originals and most of claremont's 70's run is new x-men by grant morrison. and maybe joss whedon's astonishing x-men, but he takes too damn long to get anything going in that

That's a pretty narrow view of it. Carey's X-Men has been great, as was Kyle, Yost, and Young's New X-Men. X-Factor is also highly acclaimed, though I can't comment on it since I don't follow it (unfortunately).

Tomanta

Iroh wrote: »

striderstew wrote: »

pretty much the only worthwhile stuff outside of the stan lee originals and most of claremont's 70's run is new x-men by grant morrison. and maybe joss whedon's astonishing x-men, but he takes too damn long to get anything going in that

That's a pretty narrow view of it. Carey's X-Men has been great, as was Kyle, Yost, and Young's New X-Men. X-Factor is also highly acclaimed, though I can't comment on it since I don't follow it (unfortunately).

X-Factor is awesome.

But if you are fairly new to X-Men, I'd recommend starting with Ultimate X-Men, most of those should be available in TPBs and you don't have to deal with the ridiculous amount of history that the main titles have. Or for some old-school X-Men, pick up the Essential TPBs. They are in black and white and on pretty cheap paper but you get a lot of issues for very small investment.

Chief1138

If you're interested in the comics, then this is pretty much the best thing ever

Balefuego

I actually would not reccomend that CD-Rom, the silver age Lee/Kirby stuff really shows its age and when you start getting to the more modern ones it starts not making sense because that CD is only the Uncanny issues, and the titles frequently crossed over in those days.

If you are interested in X-Men comics these would be my reccomendations:

Essential X-Men

This features the start of the "modern" X-Men and Claremont's legendary run, this was when Colossus, Nightcrawler, Storm, Wolverine et al were introduced to the team. This volume (and the ones following) are great deals, they are thick phonebooks almost, featuring 16-20 issues a piece and are very cheap. The only thing you may not like is they are in black and white.

If you want some "current" stories then:

Astonishing X-Men by Joss Whedon is an excellent series, and it is relatively self-contained.

There's also Grant Morrison's New X-Men
This is good too, and Astonishing is technically a follow up to this series, but this is extremely different to the X-Men from the cartoons or really any other iteration out there. It goes to some really strange places, some of it works, some of it dosen't. Astonishing is a much more classic take and the one I prefer.

There's also Mike Carey's X-Men which I am also a big fan of, this is really current (Carey is still one of the current writers).

There's also Brubaker's Uncanny run which is tons of fun but hard to get into without some prior knowledge.. the first 12 issues are basically all about the Shi'ar.

Don't read anything with Chuck Austen or Rob Liefield's names on it. Don't read anything by Chris Claremont after 1992. Stay far far away from Onslaught.

Arikado

Chief1138 wrote: »

If you're interested in the comics, then this is pretty much the best thing ever

It's only Uncanny X-Men so you miss out on all the crossovers and anything to do with X-Factor (which had some major story lines early on) and New Mutants (personal fav).

I have the Spiderman one of this thing and I'm happy with it but it tangents off the crossover stories as well.

GoodOmens

I've been thinking of checking out the old comics too, but just trying to wrap my head around a single character's storylines through history gives me a migraine. I think I'll hit up my Borders today and see if they have the Essential series, and go from there.

Scooter

Tbh, other than maybe a few bits like Phoenix Saga, it might be best to just use wikipedia to catch yourself up and then jump on to where things are now. There's been a gigantic number of x-book issues over the years and not all of em really matter anymore.

supabeast

Just a warning, getting into the X-books can be a real mess if you don’t have years of time to kill. Decades of nonsensical plots have made the entire thing a really murky mess. The last time I tried getting back into X-Men I found myself spending as much time reading Wikipedia entries to figure out what the fuck was going on as I did reading the books.

Balefuego

It's not essential to have every bit of backstory for every character in your head, not only because thats going to be a rediculous amount of minutae, but because as much as I love the characters... there have been many many bad stories throughout the years. All you really need is some general backstory, and you can pick up the rest of what you need as you go.

I successfully got back into X-Men with the Morrisson/Whedon stuff, and as the rest of X-books got back into shape I managed to jump on them as well. In my opinion the current state of the actual X-men is the most promising it's been in a long long time.

amateurhour

My reccomendations on the comics are:

Astonishing Xmen
The House of M, DeciMation (post house of m storylines), Rise and Fall of the Shi'Ar Empire and Messiah Complex Trades to get you caught up (Messiah Complex coming soon)
Uncanny Xmen
Xmen
and finally, Cable and Deadpool, the first few trades, just for the humor.

Anything past that is good, but it's also a lot.