Like Hillskill says, wherever you start reading X-Men you're going to be lost for a while. Best thing is to just go with it, unless you start buying all the "Essential X-Men" and starting from square 1. I think I posted a short reading list, starting with Avengers: Disassembled, which takes you through House of M and leads you all the way up to current storylines - it really does depend on how much time and money you're looking to invest, to be honest, but a lot of stuff these days is going to reference House of M and Messiah Complex. You can always, of course, just Wikipedia certain large "events" and get a broad synposis that way.
Short answer, no, if you dip in and out, you'll be missing out lots of stuff - it's not always a problem, but if you want to get a sense of the ongoing stories, you will lose out.
Ultimate series are far easier to get into, since they don't have decades of back story. Same with Superman: Earth One - it's a totally new book, with no preconceptions about what you might have read in the past.
Hope that helps.
Hawky, thats a really decent list for X-Men there. Go for it data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
I am in the same kind of predicament -being a die hard daredevil and batman fan, but dropping all my comics purchases around 7 or 8 years ago and only recently started grabbing Daredevil back issues (around £120 and counting over the last few months).
The iPad was the big change for me. As part of my 'not buying comics' I actually picked up some of the Gitcorp collections after a mate bought me the x-Men for my birthday about 5 years ago.
The iPad came, and now I have a massive collection to read and with collections like Civil War (I do have a point, honest!) and Ultimates, the reading order of 40years of series is really doing my bean in. data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
I had intended to try and read the whole Civil War run, and still have the pile from a teacher at work, but am struggling to be honest, some of the story with the smaller groups is filler in my opininon, and I think anyone wanting to read more than just the seven main issues should stick to the main heroes such as x-men, spiderman, iron man etc.
There is also a huge storyline before this, which is what Newman mentions in an earlier post, and this helps you understand why the opening scenes of Civil War have the x-men being watched by sentinels.
I personally intend to read the first 100 or so of Iron Man, Spiderman, Avengers, Fantastic Four then skip all the badly drawn and crappy stories of the 80's and early 90's and then pickup on the arcs that Hilly mentions, before moving on to the fabulous looking Ultimate Comic graphic novels that I keep picking up in FP and Watstones before putting back down again. data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
I doubt any of that helped at all...........data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
This may sound preachy, or just really geeky, or both, but I can't stress enough how important House of M is to the X-Men backstory, but like I say, if you're going to read it, start with Avengers: Disassembled... You don't have to, but I appreciated the story more...
Civil war is a fantastic storyline in and of itself, and if you can deal with not really understanding a lot of the backstory, it's still an absolutely cracking read, and is essentially about that balance between protecting the nation and infringing an individual's (or group of individual's) civil liberties in the name of "safety" - something I think everyone can relate to in these times.
In fact, it is so much so a good read that even though I have all the first prints of Civil War, (including a sketch variant of Issue 4 - an important issue: Spoiler: ) I'm still tempted to buy all those sexy looking hardcovers that have just been released.return of Thor, sort of
I stopped reading the Civil War stuff, and digesting Batman Knightfall & KnightQuest (which reading again I really am getting bored with as I data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
I will be starting again, but making sure I read all NewMan list above before I read Civil War in its entirity.wait for Jean paul to just go away and have Bruce come back, he really is a whiney annoying character while attempting to be dark and broody. All he does is shoot people in the hand with his bat shuriken
Ok, either it's just early and you're grumpy as you've not had your coffee yet, or you're possessed by the devil. data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
How can you be getting bored with those books?! If you don't have it already, and are able to do some DC magic with your iPad, I'd strongly suggest picking up the Shadow Of The Bat two-part (I think) story involving the Tally-Man. I think it's issues 19 & 20... Some of the Shadow of the Bat Knightfall/Knightquest storylines are awesome - like The God Of Fear (Scarecrow story, if you hadn't guessed)...
Oh the Tally man was good, and the Catwoman episodes are also very good (apart from the actually Catwoman comics where the quality of art drops like a stone), but some issues such as the baby one, Mr Freeze and some others that I have instantly forgotton about are not. Plus, as I mention, JP's style and methods are nowhere near Bruce's.
Plus, everyone and their mother seems to have seen through him as being a 'temp'. I will be continuing with them, there is no dount about that! I have another 10 or so in the arc to finish I think.
Just wanted to go back to this a second, but as well as the main Civil War story, Civil War: Frontline was well worth reading too - same story, more or less, but from a different perspective. I found I really enjoyed it.
Didn' read any of the Catwoman ones, I don't think, but agree that the Catwoman ongoing series was a bit poo.
I think most of the big villains saw through him because of their history with Batman, and so could easily spot him... Tally Man didn't notice, and neither did many of the people who tend to be at arms length, like the mafia lot. Surprisingly, even Commissioner Gordon didn't notice, which to me says a lot about their relationship....
And don't forget THAT bit with the family shown in gory detail on a two page spread.
Well, I just had to order Crossed after seeing all the data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7 posts! I'm sure old Garth won't let me down with the shockers data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7.
I also ordered "Chew" by John Layman on impulse, as it's been showing up in my Amazon recommendations and it's got great reviews. Seems like a strange premise - anyone read it?