aaaaand he lost me

In possibly the fastest-ever reversal on a comic book I’ve ever experienced, X-MEN FOREVER #2 put me off reading the series entirely. I’ll probably pick it up in (softcover) trade, but wow, I’ve never gone from really quite eager to read a series to dropping it that fast. There’s no continuity between 1 & 2. They skipped a huge chunk of action, which we will presumably learn As The Story Plays Out, but it’s not a storytelling ploy that I’m willing to accept. It just pissed me off, and even Ted, who is *much* more lenient than I am, said, “Well, I can wait for the trade now.”

I also picked up the hardcovers for ASTONISHING X-MEN 1 & 2, because I’m hopelessly behind on the X-Men in general, which is not a good state for someone who’d like to write for Marvel to be in. I’m still pissed at one of the Astonishing storylines (and think Joss’s Emma and Kitty sound like Spike and Buffy, which, no. gah. bad. wrong.), so Ted was very surprised when I picked them up. B I have to start catching up *somewhere*, and Astonishing is at least an obvious and visible break point from some of the stuff that’s come before. And I’ve *read* most of what’s come before, so at least I’ve got legs to stand on there.

At P-Con, /Paul Cornell and I were bemoaning the lack of a Complete Marvel Graphic Novels page on the internet. We believe it should exist. We believe it should tell us all of the Marvel graphic novels, and the order in which to read them. We both, it turns out, have thought, “I should make that list!”, and then thought, “Wow, but such a lot of work, somebody else must have done it by now,” but neither of us have been able to find it. I suspect there’s an entire internet full of Marvel fans thinking, “I should make that list! …wow, but such a lot of work, somebody else must have done it by now…”

ytd km swum: 47.7