Crushing Krisis

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New Mutants

X-Men Reading Order Guide – Era #3: The New Mutants

A reading order for stories starting from Uncanny X-Men #143 in March 1981 and ending with Uncanny X-Men #200 in December 1985. A part of Crushing Krisis’s Collecting X-Men: A Definitive Guide. Last updated October 2018.

Era #2: Second Genesis  X-Men Reading Order Guide  Era #4: X-Factor

What does Era #3: The New Mutants include?

This era of the X-Men Reading Order is focused on the widening of the X-Men’s world beyond the Second Genesis characters from Giant Size X-Men.

It includes Kitty Pryde and Rogue as active team members, X-Men beginning to make wider guest appearances, the spawning of a second ongoing title with New Mutants, the first spin-off books in the form of New Mutants and limited series like Wolverine and Magik. It ends with the X-Men’s popularity exploding and on the verge of Jean Grey’s return and the launch of a third ongoing title, X-Factor.Rogue joins the team in Uncanny X-Men (1963) #171

I’ve always had a hard time deciding where this era ends. While the poetic Uncanny X-Men #198 feels like a natural stopping point prior to Magneto’s trial, the bigger break comes with issue #200.

In that blockbuster issue Cyclops and Maddie are about to have a baby, Magneto is on trial, and a near-death Professor Xavier is whisked into space by Corsair and Lilandra. That sets up the epic fight over the team’s leadership in issue #201 to kick off the next era, “X-Factor.”

Flagship X-Series in this era:

Ongoing X-titles released in this era:

  • Alpha Flight (1983) #1-28 – see Alpha Flight
  • Dazzler (1981) #1-40 – see Dazzler
  • Defenders (1972) #103-124 – see Defenders
  • New Defenders (1983) #125-150 – see Defenders
  • New Mutants (1983) #1-35, Annual 1, & Special Edition – see New & Young X-Men
  • Captain Britain in: (see Captain Britain & Excalibur)
    • Hulk Comic (1979) #1 & 3-46 and Incredible Hulk Weekly (1980) #47-55 & #57-63
    • Marvel Super-Heroes (1979) #377-388
    • Daredevils [Marvel UK] (1981) #1-11
    • Mighty World Of Marvel, Vol. 2 (1983) #7-16
    • Captain Britain, Vol. 2 [Marvel UK] (1985) #1-14

Limited Series released in this era:

Later X-titles set in this era:

  • New Mutants: Truth Or Death (1997) #1-3 – see New & Young X-Men
  • Weapon X: First Class (2009) #1-3 – see Wolverine
  • Wolverine: First Class (2008) #1-21 – see Wolverine
  • X-Men & Alpha Flight (1998) #1-2 – see Alpha Flight
  • X-Men Gold (2014) One-Shot
  • X-Men Unlimited (1993) #39 & X-Men Unlimited, Vol. 2 (2004) #11 – see X-Men Ongoing Series

Notes:

  • There is very little guidance on where to place Alpha Flight, Captain Britain, and Dazzler amidst the stories of this era. I did a lot of reading, research, and going with my gut to fit them into a reading order.

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Top 12 X-Men Collections of 2011 – New Material

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Uncanny X-Men issue #534.1, from Uncanny X-Men: Breaking Point

Today I bring you a list of the best collections of new X-Men material released in 2011, which collect stories originally published over the last 18 months of comics.

Occasionally I wonder if comic collecting as an adult is merely a shameless attempt at recapturing our youth now that we have the budget to appreciate it properly – especially as I and many other fans (let’s be honest) fetishize premiere format reprints of the comics we coveted as a kids. (Last week’s post covered the best of those from 2011.)

Is there anything to this hobby other than rewarding our inner teenage geeks?

If there’s an answer to be found in X-Men comics, it must be on this list. These are the twelve new X-Men stories that captured my imagination like those old issues I still obsess over, and I categorize “the wonder of feeling like a kid again” separately from “trying to recapture youthful feelings with a dose of well-preserved nostalgia.” [Read more…] about Top 12 X-Men Collections of 2011 – New Material

Top 12 X-Men Collections of 2011 – Reprinted Material

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Welcome to 2012 – I am still a comic book geek.

Specifically, the X-Men.

Yep. That’s a lot of comic books.

Specifically, I own something like 95% of every X-Men comic book ever reprinted.

On New Years’ Eve I said to myself, “You dashingly handsome scoundrel, how can you use your obsession to aid people who like the X-Men a normal, healthy amount – unlike you?”

The answer? I will count down for you the top twelve collected editions reprinting X-Men comics originally released before 2010. There’s a vast world of thousands of X-Men comics that have been released since 1963, and not all of them are readily available to buy in book format. These reprints mean that hard-to-get, or never-before-reprinted issues can be bought in handy collections with better reproduction of the line art than original issues.

(As for new X-Men material from 2011, that will require a whole new post to cover!) [Read more…] about Top 12 X-Men Collections of 2011 – Reprinted Material

X-Men Hardcover & Trade Paperback Review, Late September Edition

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Back after a while in mothballs, it’s my X-collections recap!

Marvel hardly lets a single comic book issue go uncollected in book form, which means every week brings new hardcovers and trade paperbacks packed with their most major heroes – including The X-Men.

Read on for capsule reviews of the X-books out in the second half of September, which were unusually focused on past stories. Plus, get the skinny on all of Marvel’s other new collected editions from the latter half of the month.

If you’re looking for more X-info, head over to my Definitive Guide to Collecting X-Men Graphic Novels. Or, for a more basic approach, my Intro to X-Men (on a budget). New to the X-Men? Try my Where to Start Reading X-Men to pick a place to jump in.

X-Men Collection of the (latter half of the) Month:
New Mutants: Fall of the New Mutants TPB

CK Says: Buy it! When I first picked up the hardcover version of this collection earlier this year it was out of habit, but I quickly discovered the book was impossible to put down. Writer Zeb Wells capitalizes on a dangling plot thread from 80s blockbuster Inferno anda year of slow-boil character development to deliver a complex saga worthy of the X-Men’s rich dramatic history.

It’s hard to imagine a story more harrowing or epic than what the team had just endured in Second Coming, but Well’s pulls it off with art from Leonard Kirk, an efficient, unflashy penciler I’ve grown to love. I don’t want to spoil the story – if you enjoy this team of characters you’ll love it, particularly developments for Cannonball, Moonstar, Karma, and Magik.

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New Mutants, Generation X, Academy X, & other young X-Men – Reading Order & Comic Book Collecting Guide

Updated Feb 21, 2025!  Follow Marvel’s youngest mutants in New Mutants, Generation X, Academy X, Young X-Men, Wolverine & The X-Men, All-New X-Men, and Age of Krakoa comic books in a definitive issue-by-issue collecting guide and reading order for omnibus, hardcover, and trade paperback collections. Find every issue and appearance! Part of Crushing Krisis’s Crushing Comics. Last updated February 2025 with titles scheduled for release through October 2025.

X-Men launched as a comic book about a school of mutants, but by the early 80s it was clear that a team written by Chris Claremont and featuring the likes of Cyclops, Storm, and Wolverine had outgrown being students.New Mutants (2019) #1 by Rod Reis

While the injection of the occasional teen like Kitty Pryde or Jubilee into the team would briefly revive the scholastic concept, there was no getting around that Xavier’s School For Gifted Youngsters was neither a school nor filled with many youngsters.

Marvel’s solution to this was to capitalizing on the X-Men’s massive popularity to have Chris Claremont launch a second X-Men series and a third wave of new mutants. The book was called, appropriately, The New Mutants. It launched in 1983 with a prestige graphic novel followed by a series that ran for 100 issues.

New Mutants was meant to bring the X-Men back to their roots – a team of teens who had just discovered their powers, as mentored by Professor Xavier. As it turns out, even though comics characters don’t need to age, comics about teens have the same problem as TV shows about high school students – eventually there’s a need for them to learn something and eventually graduate! The New Mutants transformed into the more-proactive X-Force (see Guide to X-Force), once again leaving the line without a school-based title.

Marvel rectified that in 1994, when the Phalanx Covenant crossover launched Generation X – a fourth generation of new mutants. This generation was based in Emma Frost’s Massachusetts academy as mentored by her and Banshee – long-since retired from active adventuring.

Generation X ran through 2001, when Grant Morrison’s arrival shook up the entire X-Men line. Morrison repopulated the world with mutants, spawning new characters with bizarre powers at every page turn. The concept of the school moved back into their title, the newly-christened flagship of New X-Men. However, that book was mostly focused on the core of teachers at Xavier’s school, so Marvel launched a new volume of New Mutants alongside it where the former New Mutants could find even-newer mutants to recruit to the school.

This was the fifth genesis of new mutants, which became codified as New X-Men: Academy X. Academy X was the first real “school book” that kept the high school experience centered throughout its run and between team adventures. continued through several other flagship X-Men runs and transform into Young X-Men in 2008.

By that point, the effects of House of M meant there hadn’t been any new mutants in several years of publishing, and the X-line was under the direction to keep the mutant population contained. That changed again in 2010 after the end of “Second Coming” with the arrival of Generation Hope – the first of a sixth wave of new mutants.

Generation Hope subsequently was consolidated into Wolverine & The X-Men, which combined Academy X students with members of the new sixth genesis. That continued into Marvel Now, which would add some familiar faces to the sixth genesis – the original five X-Men, plucked from their Silver Age run as teens and brought to the modern day! This familiar cast of old new mutants took the spotlight off of the sixth class, although we’d continue to see new sixth class members as late as 2017 with a revived Generation X (with the original team as mentors).

Finally, the advent of the Age of Krakoa in 2019 began the seventh class of new mutants. This generation of mutants was different than what came before, because they arrived in a mutant society that promised them everything – health, happiness, and safety. However, that brought with it challenges unique to the mutant world, including many old foes intent on corrupting these young mutants to their own aims.

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