At this point I thought I would be writing about the Jim Aparo Artist's Edition but since that book was rescheduled to the end of November and then to December and now nobody has a f - word - ing idea when it will come out I am extending X - MEN MONTH and finally writing about what might be my favourite X - Men issue of all times, UNCANNY X - MEN 328.
The story is written by Scott Lobdell who for me is one of the criminally underappreciated writers of the X - Men universe. He and Fabian Nicieza were tasked with steering the mutant ship when the biggest and hottest artists all left Marvel Comics to form iMAGE Comics which may be one of the reasons why their run on the x - books is not as revered as others.
Because a lot of comicbook readers also left Marvel Comics - or at least the mutant franchise - for iMAGE Comics. Anyway, it was about this time that a young upstart by the name of Joe Madureiras came on board and really came into his own during the AGE OF APOCALYPSE mega crossover.
I totally plan on doing a separate post on AGE OF APOCALYPSE - once I have enough material for a proper post - but since there will be a video about this in the pop culture trivia / cult siren section of this post I don't want to write too much about the story since I don't want to spoiler it.
What I am going to say is that it is not only one of my personal favourite X - MEN crossovers but also of a lot of comicbook fans and comicbook critics alike. Although I have to say that this is one of these cases where the fans liked it first and later on the critics came around to like it.
When Marvel Comics did the crossover cancelling an entire line of books and restarting with eight brand new series with a number one was an unprecedented move and it could have been the final nail in the coffin of the x - books. But instead it reinvigorated the franchise and the sales.
I think that one of the things that sets AGE OF APOCALYPSE apart from all the other crossovers that followed is that it was manageable. Okay, so it did go through several - new - x - titles BUT you didn't have to read them all to enjoy the full story. Granted IF you read them all you got a better view of this new alternate reality but some of the books contained just side quests which were interesting but not really crucial to get the gist of the story. There also was the X - UNIVERSE two part prestige format series drawn by none other than Carlos Pacheco that dealt with what the rest of the characters from the Marvel universe who were not mutants were doing for those who were curious but it was not essential reading.
The main part of AGE OF APOCALYPSE was happening in AMAZING X - MEN written by Fabian Nicieza and drawn by Andy Kubert and ASTONISHING X - MEN written by Scott Lobdell and drawn by Joe Madureiras who leaned heavily into his love for manga especially when redesigning the X - Men and X - Women. For a lot of people this was their first exposure to the manga aesthetics since back then manga publications had not arrived in the public mainstream. At least not in such a big way like it has Today.
finish him
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