Historical text from Comixfan:

jephyork

Nov 17, 2010, 03:09 pm


http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j7.../SEP100704.jpg Hey, everyone! I didn't see a thread about this book yet, so I thought I'd start one up. I'm not trying to toot my own horn (well, okay, maybe a little bit), but I wanted to remind the Index fans on the board that this book comes out TODAY -- and I urge you all to pick up a copy!

While the two previous Index trades (Iron Man and Spider-Man) featured typo and error corrections, and a few new entries in the back as "bonus features", the updates and polishes made to the X-Men book are much more in-depth.

The first five issues' worth of the original Index -- covering Uncanny X-Men #1-229, Giant-Size #1-2 & Annuals #1-11 -- have been more or less completely overhauled. They now feature expanded character listings, updated and corrected chronologies, additional background information, and have been re-formatted to be consistent with the format of later Index issues. (We didn't quite nail down our style sheet until Index #6 or so.) We also made use of the increased space and flexibility of the TPB format to expand some of the entries that originally had to be compressed to fit into the monthly format ... all told, we added 13 new pages to issues #1-5.

We now go further in-depth into some of these early issues. The Index now reveals which covers are reproduced on the cover of UXM #138, which characters appear on the Wanted poster in #141, which real-world British government figure appears in #150, which creator Storm passes in the street in #155 ... and much much more!

Index #6-14 received minor edits and updates as well; mainly adding in obscure appearances in characters' chronologies that were overlooked during the monthly issues' production -- or seeding in flashbacks from stories published in the last year. We're now current as of books published through September 2010 ... Wolverine's appearance in "Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four vol.2 #3" is listed between UXM #272-273 where it belongs.

I also added three "cover gallery" pages that showcase various second print, re-issue or variant covers that we skipped the first time around. Marvel Milestone Editions, gold 2nd-print covers, newsstand variants, all kinds of neat curios.

And finally, this book covers the entire run of Classic X-Men! Yes, all 110 issues are covered in an all-new special section in the back! We were originally going to publish Classic X-Men in Index #13-14, but we ran out of room and ended up switching to X-Men: the Hidden Years instead. Since the Classic material was already written, we thought it would make a great bonus here!

All told, this book covers 686 comics:

Uncanny X-Men #1-514 and #minus-1
Uncanny X-Men Annual #1-18, 1995-2001 & vol. 2 #1-2
Giant-Size X-Men #1-4
Astonishing X-Men (Age of Apocalypse) #1-4
Special Edition X-Men
Heroes For Hope Starring the X-Men
Dark Avengers/Uncanny X-Men: Utopia
Dark Avengers/Uncanny X-Men: Exodus
X-Men: the Hidden Years #1-22
Classic X-Men #1-110

I wanted to get "The Uncanny X-Men at the State Fair of Texas" in there too, but we just plain ran out of room.


So there you have it! Updated, expanded, vetted and polished until it shines! This TPB is the ultimate way to get your X-Men Index fix, and it's in stores TODAY. I really enjoyed overhauling this book, and I hope you all enjoy it!!

-Jeph!




bigvis497

Nov 17, 2010, 03:57 pm

Sounds pretty awesome, gonna try to get rid of my pamphlet indexes so I can pick these trades up.




ToddCam

Nov 17, 2010, 05:11 pm


It's beautiful! I love it so far.




Andy E. Nystrom

Nov 17, 2010, 08:06 pm


Oddly, the fact that there's so many changes further compells me to keep the originals, so I can compare the old entries to the new ones. I love the trade format and the quality white paper.

One thing I would have loved to have seen had there been more room is the Amazing Adventures reprint series which did some weird stuff (splitting the initial X-Men issues in half and then adding the origins from the 50s after each split issue; this made the original Brotherhood storyline seem like it ran a lot longer than it really did). But given the choice between that and Classic X-Men, the latter makes more sense. It was already written, plus, at least at first, there's new material in CXM beyond just touch-ups.




Roger Ott

Nov 18, 2010, 12:37 pm

I love these TPBs! Unfortunately, I didn't preorder the X-Men one like I did the Iron Man and Spider-Man ones (IM and Spidey being my two favorite characters), but I'll definitely be putting this one on my wishlist. Considering the size, they'd fit nicely in a Christmas stocking...




rplss

Nov 28, 2010, 10:40 pm


This book is incredible. AND ONCE AGAIN, I learn some new things from the new minutiae that I never even heard of before. Love, love love the book! I wish an update would come out every once in a while in this format (just X-Men issues, I mean).




jephyork

Nov 29, 2010, 03:23 pm


Thanks, guys!

Rplss, the Note section is my absolute favorite to put together. Glad you're liking the new factoids!

Andy, I do the same as you -- save both versions to compare them every now and again. By the way, Amazing Adventures #1-14 was indexed in Olshevsky's '80s Index series.

-Jeph!




Andy E. Nystrom

Nov 29, 2010, 09:47 pm

jephyork wrote:

Andy, I do the same as you -- save both versions to compare them every now and again. By the way, Amazing Adventures #1-14 was indexed in Olshevsky's '80s Index series.

Yeah, I've tracked it on my new index master list that I mentioned in another thread earlier today:
http://saneinsanities.blogspot.com/2...ster-list.html

I'd still like to see it covered again eventually because the new index team is even better at spelling out differences between the originals and reprints.