X-Men (Part II)
As promised earlier, here's the rundown of the new X-Men comic books in my eyes...


Uncanny X-Men
It's now the series that has all the "freaks" now: Nightcrawler, Chamber, Iceman, Wolverine, Archangel. They're the guys that'd stand out in a crowd. It's being written by Joe Casey and drawn by Ian Churchill. There were some people complaining already in the new ish about super-inconsistencies in the new plot. Not a good sign. The art is pretty good. Churchill's rendition of Iceman actually makes him look pretty cool. His Wolverine reminds me of Rob Liefield's style (That's a bad thing). Hmm... too bad they're all wearing black leather uniforms now (same in New X-Men, below...)


New X-Men (previously called "X-Men")
Oh no! I was actually liking Lenil Francis Yu's hyper-realistic artwork on this series. It's being taken over by writer Grant Morrison and artist Frank Quitely. The new story will try to put the characters back into our time and make them relevant again. The art actually pretty expressive and gets the point across. But now, everyone looks... wrinkly and chubby!

It's the main characters that remain, including Professor X (who looks like he's in a rolling toilet bowl now), Cyclops (chubby!), Jean Grey (chubby!), Beast (He looks like the Beast from Beauty and Beast now....) and Wolverine. Adding to the roster is former headmaster for the Generation X crew, Emma Frost, Angel (no, not Warren Worthington III, aka Archangel... it's a girl with attributes of a fly... go figure) and the "The Man From Room X", whatever that means. Hmm... the smaller roster is probably better. We'll see...


X-Treme X-Men
I'm getting the feeling this will be your classic 90's X-Men. It looks very promising with writer Chris Clairemont and artist Salvador Larocca. What's cool is it has a bunch of my favorite characters in the roster: Storm, Bishop, Beast, Rogue, Thunderbird, Psylocke, Sage and soon, Gambit. The art's pretty cool, but the lack of inking makes it harder on the eyes. You've got to see the sketches Larocca did of Gambit and the rest of the team... wow. =)

This feels like classic X-Men stuff. The downside is the plot, which is to race to find several books that foretells destiny. It sounds like one of those dead end plots like the Star Trek Voyager concept. You know they won't find all the books anytime soon (just like how you didn't expect Voyager to actually go home in the first few seasons), so hopefully it's the trip that's actually interesting this time...


Ultimate X-Men
I had my doubts. First, they were revamping X-Men for a new generation, taking out all the huge continuity problems that persist. Secondly, there was Mark Millar, who did some wacky ultra-violent stuff on the Authority book from WildStorm. Then there was the artists of Adam and Andy Kubert, who's style is a bit more cartoony than I liked from previous comic books.

But wow... this series is amazing. I read the first story arc (Issue's #1-6) and it was one of the best storylines I've ever read for X-Men. It was the right mix of a comedy, love story, and action flick all in one. Millar gets us to feel for the characters... and it's kinda cheating a bit, since he doesn't have to set up the characters as much cuz we know them so well, I still liked the way he placed everyone in a new light. The art and coloring was amazing too. You just have to see the artwork where hundreds of Sentinels start attacking. Wow.


And More...
There are a couple of other series like X-Factor, Cable, Wolverine that are still left that I didn't mention, while others like Mutant X, Generation X and more gets axed.