What shall I get?

[Lawrence]

Right now, I get a comic in the UK every month called Ultimate Spiderman and X-men. It reprints (you've guessed it) Ultimate Spiderman and Ultimate X-men and is about 6 months behind America. I am looking for some advice.

Right now, we've just finished "The Most Dangerous Game". Should I buy Hard Lessons as a TPB and get 1/2 and the Annual with it, or should I carry on buying the British reprints? If I do buy the TPB, I'll start getting the American issues instead but I'm not sure if it will be more expensive or not and I won't get Ult. Spiderman anymore so I'll have to hunt down the conclusion to the current storyline but X-men is my priority.

Advice anyone?

[The Fury]

Few questions:
Are these Ult Spider-man and Ult X-men about A4 sized? In other words, did you buy them from WHSmiths or any where?
Where are you located? City wise?

I ask these question becuase it may pay to find a comic shop that imports the comics form the week they are released. There's at least 1 comic shop in most the major cities in the UK.

As for recomendations, Ultimates (in the same Ultiamte line as the other 2 Ulitmate comics your currently getting), Uncanny X-men. The Astonishing X-men TPB's when they come out might be good (writen by Joss Whedon, the creator of Buffy). Runaways, New Avengers.

This covers a nice range of comics.

[Lawrence]

Wow, it's a way faster response here than the books forum.

Yeah, I'm getting them in a WH Smith but there is a comic book store near there.

Also, I've already planned my Bday and Xmas presents, and most of them are TPBs.

If everything goes to plan, on the 26th October, I'll have Ultimate X-men Vol 1-7 (TPBs), Essential X-men 6 and Essential Uncanny X-men 1. I'm getting XML2 too. As for Xmas, I'll get:
X-Men: Day Of The Atom
X-Men: Golgotha
X-Men: Bizarre Love Triangle
Astonishing X-Men Vol. 1 Gifted
Astonishing X-Men Vol. 2 Dangerous
X-Men: Phoenix - Endsong
Uncanny X-Men The New Age Vol. 1: The End of History
Uncanny X-Men The New Age Vol. 2: The Cruelest Cut
Uncanny X-Men The New Age Vol. 3: On Ice
Uncanny X-men Vol. 1: Hope
Uncanny X-men Vol. 2: Dominant Species
Uncanny X-Men Vol. 3: Holy War
Uncanny X-Men Vol. 4: The Draco
Uncanny X-Men Vol. 5: She Lies With Angels
Uncanny X-men Vol. 6: Bright New Mourning

I'm trying to bridge the gap between the Essentials to the current Uncanny comics without buying singles. Does anyone know how often the essentials come out so I can work out how long it will take before I can do that? And does anyone know whether a "X-men 2nd series" Essential will come out anytime soon? If so, what the hell will they call it?

[The Fury]

TPB's are alwasy a good way to catch up.

While your Bday set seems a very good set, there are a few of the Chrimbo TPB's that I wouldn't recommend, they stories were not exactly good (mainly the ones writen by Austen), but stick with the Astonishing ones and it'll be fine. But it is your choice.

Of course you could alwasy go to a local Waterstones or any other book shop like that and read them in store before you buy (if you do at all).

As the Essentials, i have no idea. Someone else might be able to help on that subject.

[Lawrence]

My local Waterstones suck, it doesn't have any comic-related stuff although Ottakars has a few TPBs. I'm going to get them in the comic book shop though. It's quite good.Thanks for the advice, but it's a goal of mine to read through all of Uncanny, from 1975 and possibly from 1963 if I can get it.

[The Lucky One]

The Essentials come out approximately whenever the hell Marvel feels like it. That said, they've pretty much averaged one a year for the X-Men recently, and with 24 new Essentials slated for next year, I'd pretty much guarantee we'll see Essential X-Men volume 7 in '06. (And Essential Uncanny volume 2 if we're really lucky.) But since volume 6 just came out, I wouldn't anticipate 7 until late in '06.

As for an Essential of the 1991 X-Men series, don't hold your breath. The point of the Essential program is to reprint comics that are old/hard to get ahold of... that's definitely not the case with X-Men. Never say never, but I think it's unlikely.

-D

[Lawrence]

Thanks a lot. :)

[fishtaco]

Get the X-Treme X-Men tpbs, and if you are a new reader, pick up the essential X-Men volumes pronto.

[Lawrence]

No, I'm not really a new reader of X-men. I also collect another of the X-men reprints and we're halfway through X-treme, just finished God Loves man Kills 2. I have all the essentials except the sixth one which I'm getting on the 26th. I really liked X-treme, until half the team left. I know they're coming back though, which is comforting. I also really like new X-men too!