Before I debut the final guide of my Indie Comics Month, first I have the next installment in my weekly X-Men Guide update series. This time, it’s not just an update, it’s a whole new guide! I’m thrilled to announce the my Guide to X-Men – The Age of Krakoa is now available to all readers as we anticipate the announcement of more details of “The Fall of X” this weekend from Marvel at MegaCon.
Guide to X-Men – The Age of Krakoa
This guide is different than all of my other X-Men guides, because it’s not just about a single title or a group of flagship books. It’s about an entire publishing line with several distinct eras.
That has been a hard challenge to crack, which is why this page has stayed Patron-exclusive for just over two years. When I originally built the page in February 2021 were were just wrapping up X of Swords, which meant all we knew of this era was the initial “Dawn of X” and its eight ongoing titles plus the newly-launched SWORD.
At the time, the entire X-line was still very much thought of as “X-Men by Jonathan Hickman” – and that’s what the guide was called when it launched.
That status quo began to quickly shift after X of Swords as we accelerated towards the first annual Hellfire Gala and learned the shocking news that Hickman was leaving the X-line behind after just a two-year tenure. We continued through the “Reign of X” and “Trials of X.” 2022 brought us to the “Destiny of X” with Kieron Gillen returning to steer the X-Men line with Immortal X-Men as part of a trio of flagship titles alongside Gerry Duggan on X-Men and Al Ewing on X-Men Red.
Trying to split those flagship books up across multiple different guides based on their titles made no sense, nor did it make sense to send CK readers to all-new, all-different guides for first-time titles like Marauders or Hellions. They all function as a chorus together. The Age of Krakoa is one of the most tightly-coordinated line of superhero comics we’ve ever seen from the Big Two, rivaling the “Triangle Era” of Superman.
That’s how this Guide to X-Men – The Age of Krakoa came to be. Over the course of several revisions it turned into part single title guide, part index of multiple guides, and part explainer on how to make sense of reading this era from the start. While it still isn’t perfect, I’m now satisfied that it’s one of the best resources on the entire internet for this era of storytelling – which is always my litmus test for whether a guide is ready for its public debut.
There’s still room for it to get better. As with last week’s update to the Guide to X-Men Flagships (2010-2019), the perfect way to organize this guide probably won’t emerge until years after the Age of Krakoa ends… which I hope is NEVER. Even if I don’t love all of the individual books, I think this is the best era of storytelling in the history of the X-line and I hope that after the “Fall of X” we get a “Rise of X” to continue the story.
I’m sure the guide will continue to grow and adapt as more of that story unfurls – and now, thanks to the immortal support of Patrons of CK, it’ll continue that growth as a resource available to all readers.
Excelsior!
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