A MILESTONE TO CELEBRATE

Just about four-and-a-half years ago, I put up a post discussing how close Marvel was to collecting, via a mix of hardcover and paperback, my definitive X-Men run -- the beginning of the Chris Claremont era, circa 1975, through the end of the Scott Lobdell era, circa 1997. At the time, a lot had been collected -- the majority of the issues, in fact -- but there were still holes to be plugged in both the Claremont period and the Lobdell/Fabian Nicieza period, and certain older editions were crying for updates.

Well, today I can finally say my goal is complete. Mind you, the book hasn't been published yet, but with the recent Amazon ghost listing for an X-MEN: ONSLAUGHT AFTERMATH volume to plug the very last remaining gap next spring, it's safe to declare that within the year, that run of twenty-two years' worth of X-Men will be fully represented on my bookshelf -- and the vast majority of it will be in a handsome hardcover format.

The Claremont stuff was a no-brainer. We all knew it would be released in its totality eventually. You can't ignore the definitive run by the definitive creator in a franchise's history. But I will never cease to marvel (no pun intended) at the fact that the much more divisive and oft-derided material from the nineties will be comprehensively collected, too. And we're not just talking the Lobdell/Nicieza era here, either. Beyond "X-Cutioner's Song", "Fatal Attractions", "Phalanx Covenant", "Age of Apocalypse", "Onslaught", "Zero Tolerance", and everything in between, Marvel has also collected (or will have collected, again, within the year) the full Joe Kelly/Steve Seagle run which followed Lobdell, as well as the Alan Davis run that came after them. Plus, just this month, Claremont's ill-received return to the series via the "Revolution" event found its way to hardcover via an Omnibus. It's all out there. The entire decade of the nineties for X-MEN and UNCANNY X-MEN exists in hardcover and/or trade paperback (as well as in digital format), preserved for all time in glossy, high-end collections.

Mind you, happy as I am to have all this stuff available, I won't complain if Marvel eventually upgrades all the paperbacks to hardcover format (I'd dearly love an Omnibus of the 1999 Alan Davis run, for example). And I'll continue to update my X-MEN COLLECTED EDITIONS CHART whenever something like that happens. But for the time being, at least, I'm taking a rest. I can see the end of the road, and it's a wonderful thing. The X-Men -- my X-Men -- will soon be home for good, and I couldn't be happier.

(Now, will all these books upcoming in the next year or so to round things out, it's probably time I resurrected my semi-monthly photo-reviews of the things...)