That’s one of the good things about the current structure of the Marvel Universe: you can skip parts you don’t care about, with no real loss. I don’t read Fantastic Four these days – haven’t for maybe four years. I like it when they pop up as guest characters in other titles, but I don’t care what they’re up to in their own.
The Marvel Universe is a multiverse, loosely connected by a pseudo-continuity. And in some cases, not even that. How many different X-Men universes are there right now, all totally isolated from each other?
Smorgasbord continuity! I like it.
(Hey, it looks like they’re bringing back Black Bolt! Yay!)
Isn’t there that Xiles one and the totally incomprehensible “The future that would have happened if I hadn’t been FIRED!!!1!!!1!! from the book but now I’m back and this is what you missed out on” one by Claremont? Or are those gone?
Yeah, I have to disagree that the X-Men are particularly complicated right now. I’m reading a fair number of the X-titles (Wolverine & the X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, X-Men, New X-Men), and they hang together fine for the most part as long as you apply the standard suspension of disbelief regarding characters (e.g., Wolverine) popping up all over the place.
I will say that Reed Richards’ role in New Avengers is a bit odd considering what’s going on in his book, but, eh, it doesn’t bother me. And I think New Avengers is a neat sort of commentary on DC-style Crisis events.
I like how other books have incorporated the events of Superior Spider-Man (which, again, is a book that I can’t stress enough how much I love).
I like Avengers, but it’s definitely a Hickman book. That is, it’ll take dozens of issues to get the whole picture of what’s going on. Conversely, I think just about every issue of Uncanny Avengers is incredibly satisfying. The initial arc with the Red Skull is just fantastic with the gorgeous John Cassaday art. Remender is even somehow making Wonder Man interesting to me, which has to be a feat of sorcery.
Also, the Claremont alternate universe X-Men book was X-Men Forever, which has been cancelled for years.
*Edit: there’s also X-Treme X-Men, which was alternate universe X-Men doing whatever (most notable for having a gay Wolverine in a relationship with Hercules), but that was recently cancelled.
The last Exiles book was put out back in 2009. Definitely not a part of Marvel Now. Is the other title you’re talking about X-Men Forever? That was cancelled back in 2011
The first few issues of the JLA turned me off to the whole line. It was like they decided that Batman would now have a reasonable personality but that meant the others had all become obnoxious. Especially Hal Jordan.
At this point my only DC books are Legion and Wonder Woman. My opinion of WW is higher than the comments upthread.
Besides that I still love Invincible and am enjoying Invincible Universe (or whatever they call it)
I still wonder how many people were turned off the Titans just from Starfire’s antics in the first comic or so. I don’t read recent comics, as I find them expensive, but I used to watch a famous comic reviewer who gave up on them after that one issue, and had someone in the comments say that it was all fake. I argued that it was too late if it made an uber-Titan’s fan quit.
Yeah, but those universes are still out there. DC had the initial Crisis on Infinite Earths because there were 3 parallel worlds in regular use (One/Two/S) and 3 other worlds that showed up from time to time (Three/X/Prime). If they thought the general public thought 3 earths were too confusing (or 6, if you want to be technical*), and except for Earth-Two (which was used monthly) there wasn’t any duplicate character confusion.
By that standard, the X-Men books are a mess. Not only are there a half dozen of parallel universe X-Books that’ve existed, there’s alternate future X-Characters running around as well (Cyclops has…what? 3 kids from different future timelines running around, maybe 4?**) I’m not saying that’s affecting current books, just that it’s still out there and people could bring it back.
That said, given that in the final issue of Age of Ultron Wolverine breaks the multiverse that could all be easily Crisis’d away.
Oh, and changing the topic, I’m loving the Ultimate Universe and hoping Galactus doesn’t eat it in the upcoming “The Hunger” mini. I’m enjoying seeing…“real world” (You know what I mean ;)) consequences of stuff. Magneto wipes out NY and there’s a world-wide depression for a year or so and the anti-mutant sentiment grows to the point where there’s “relocation camps”. Reed goes nuts and is scarier than Doom ever was. I’m enjoying the Ultimate stuff more than I’m enjoying any other comic universe.
*X showed up like 4 times since the early 1970s, not counting the crisis, Three showed up maybe 6 times since the early 60s and Prime, probably 6 times as well…not heavily used worlds)
**Is Hope related to Jean and/or Scott or not? (Yeah, by adoption, but genetically)
