Oh, you thought I was done with X-Men guide updates for the week? Not quite yet, my mutant friends! How could I complete yesterday’s update to Uncanny X-Men’s “Crossover Era” without also updating the guide to its sibling in crossover madness? That’s right, it’s an update to my Guide X-Men Vol. 2 (1991) in the 90s.
Guide X-Men Vol. 2 (1991) in the 90s
The collection status of this decade of X-Men comics hasn’t changed much in the past few years. There’s even less to report from this update than there was for Uncanny X-Men in the same period, since a few more issues of X-Men (1991) had already been covered by Pre-Epic Collection paperbacks.
That doesn’t meant there was nothing to improve on this guide page!
I cleaned up all of the collection listings, adding years of release, format, and ISBNs. I rechecked the placement of all eight of the annuals in this run and made that more explicit in the reading order. I noted how certain issues tend to be collected along with other lines, like X-Men (1991) #8-9 with Ghost Rider and X-Men (1991) #25 with Wolverine. And, I broke the era into several additional chunks so it would be parallel with the same divides in the Uncanny X-Men guide of the same era.
Why not just merge this guide with Uncanny X-Men, since the titles were so often interwoven and they share oversize hardcovers and Epic Collections? I’ve considered it, but trying to track two separate titles in a single guide quickly gets messy. Plus, some people are trying to read (or collect) their way through one title and not the other, and it’s not as though every issue of X-Men (1991) is matched explicitly with a twin issue of Uncanny X-Men (1963).
This guide update means my march through updating the pages of X-Team guides through the end of the 1990s is complete! I’ve now updated Silver Age X-Men, X-Men by Claremont, New Mutants & Young X-Men (which includes Generation X), X-Factor, Excalibur, X-Force, Crossover-Era Uncanny, and now my Guide to X-Men Vol. 2. But, there are still many more X-Men guides to update – both for 2000s-era titles and solo characters!
X-Men guides will always have the highest priority as I continue to update, revise, and expand Crushing Comics Guides to Marvel Comics. Keep your eyes on the CK home page for regular bulletins on further guide updates in the coming weeks.
Do you have any questions, X-Men or otherwise, or a guide you’re dying to see me update or launch? Please let me know in the comments below.