X-Men Comics Geek: Comics Shelf

In which I attempt to pick up after a very long extended hiatus

but also have no plans to be fully committed about it

This blog had been decommissioned for almost five years now mainly because I've been writing my own stories in earnest using a platform that I won't disclose, but it's been nonetheless gratifying for me. That is not to say I just stopped reading comics in general; it's only been superhero comics that I've taken a break from since I also couldn't find time or focus to sit down and type reviews among more important responsibilities to attend. However, I'm feeling rather nostalgic after I perused through the things I've typed here, especially the insights each meaningful X-Men story fostered and revealed about myself not just as an avid reader and writer but also as a person.

Recently, I began re-reading and selecting favorites from the very rich Charles/Erik XMFC fan fiction catalog in AO3. The compilation of my recommendations about this pairing is still small yet steadily increasing, until one day soon I hope to post them here in this blog. I believe I've made a promise that it will be the latest installment for the CHERIK essays I've written five years ago. One might say I am a Cherik shipper first and an X-Men the second. It wouldn't be an unfair claim. And so if you stumbled upon this blog for the first time, either via my Goodreads page or a random Google search, curb your expectations because I claim no professional authority in comics or X-Men lore. I'm just a geek catching up on stuff that defined my childhood and early adulthood, and those include the X-Men. Read THIS as the official introduction to the blog.

Coming back here (and on my Batman Blog), I can't help but have this playing in my head the entire time:

Oh, boy, I surely missed a lot! That includes how much the formatting of blogspot was updated, which was easy enough to navigate as someone who's been a LiveJournal user since he was a teen. Speaking of which, I feel as if I must disclose that I identify now as a transmasculine non-binary person. I use the pronouns 'he/they'. This will be a much needed context, particularly since earlier reviews from 2016 in this Blog would have me address myself as a woman, which I discovered after some soul-searching that I've never been, and that's probably one of the reasons I was drawn to the X-Men comics. There was this strife inside me that I denied and sugarcoated, complicit was I in maintaining heteronormative status quo for myself, but alas, though a laborious journey which took thirty years to reach the apex of epiphany of, I'm glad to be in a much better place now. I can understand what makes me a person wholly, and I'm no longer scared of it.

My experiences in reading and reviewing certain X-Men titles are as immersive as they could get once you understand that the underlying context was my quest for a more stabilized sense of gender identity and sexuality. It's why some stories resonate far more deeply to me than others, and why certain characters, themes, and tropes that appear in X-Men's canon reflect the adversity I tried to overcome since I was twenty-two. And so if you wish to read through my posts here, please keep in mind that this is foremost a journal. I was never getting paid writing these reviews, so don't expect anything professional or polished. And that's part of the charm of it, I guess.

Below are the titles I've finished from 2015-2016. Someday I want to add more to the shelf. In the meantime, enjoy reading the entries! I provided links for each crossed-out name on the list for easier navigation in case the tags on the corner or on top are a bitch to navigate.

At the moment, I plan to read the ongoing 2021 title WAY OF X. I'm dropping into that story with no context whatsoever, so my reviews for the first five issues should be a hoot. I plan to do some small research and then figure out the rest as I go. If I'm intrigued by he story enough, I may follow-up on the accompanying roster of titles that operate in the same continuity, but there are no guarantees!