1998, my last year with the X-Men
While researching the year in comics, I realized 1998 was when I stopped really collecting the X-Men.
For this week’s Illustrious Gentlemen episode we talked about comics from 25 years ago. Mostly Marvel stuff, and when looking over the covers while researching I realized this was about when I stopped collecting comics for a while, and more importantly, X-Men comics. I have a handful of issues starting in the late 180’s but I started collecting monthly right around issue 201, thanks in large part to this stunning Rick Leonardi cover (inked by Whilce Portacio according to the Marvel Fandom site). Though I did get these sub 220’s copies as back-issues.
I collected straight on through until somewhere towards the end of 1998. That year had Chris Bachalo and Carlos Pacheco doing most of the issues and they were really strong additions to an insanely strong stable of X-Men artists for over 20 years.
Part of me misses collecting monthly but with so many books and frequent changes to creative teams… I just don’t have the energy for all that, but I’ll always have years of issues by Silvestri, Lee, Portacio, Madureira, Bachalo, Pacheco and many more to fall back on.