Howdy guys, I just discovered that there was a short-lived comic series based on the awesome X-Men cartoon from the 90s. Apparently Marvel put out some books in the "BLANK Adventures" style that DC also used to adapt their cartoons back into comics. Has anyone read this? Is it any good?
I like those issues, and many can be found really cheap in quarter bins.
The numbering can be quite confusing, however.
There's basically four volumes of the same title, and even a complete name change. The series started as "X-Men Adventures" and ended as "The Adventures of the X-Men."
The first 15 issues of X-Men Adventures are adaptations of the cartoon's first season, with a few unique twists on the plots... sometimes making them a bit more violent as in the case of Wolverine-Sabertooth's first on-screen confrontation (issue #6).
http://www.comicvine.com/x-men-adventures/4050-4823/
The second volume restarted the numbering and adapted season 2 of the cartoon, and ran for 13 issues.
http://www.comicvine.com/x-men-adventures/4050-6684/
Volume 3 restarted the numbering and adapted season 3, but changed to a nifty new logo with the 8th issue:
http://www.comicvine.com/x-men-adventures/4050-5337/
It ran for 12 issues.
The fourth and final volume relaunched the numbering with the new "The Adventures of the X-Men" title and finally started featuring all-new stories (pretty exciting ones too) that build off the cartoon's continuity but don't necessarily acknowledge any developments from the show post-Phoenix and Dark Phoenix sagas. I have examples of at least two different printings for this series: traditional stand alone issues and odd double-sized issues where the X-Men title makes up one-half of the book and the other side contains the independently published "The Adventures of Spider-Man" (previously "Spider-man Adventures") which was the complementary title that had been adapting the Spider-man cartoon until eventually going to all-new stories as well; issue #3 is a two-part story which requires one to read both titles.
http://www.comicvine.com/the-adventures-of-the-x-men/4050-11067/
http://www.comicvine.com/the-adventures-of-spider-man/4050-19159/
Volume 4 is certainly my favorite, as the stories are quite engaging expansions of the toon-verse, and the ending is quite shocking. I don't quite agree with how they ended the series, but the final issues are certainly must-reads. I don't own the final Spider-Man issue, so I'm also curious if they tried to propose a similar resolution to that Spidey-verse as well.
The covers are truly artistic stand-outs... maybe the best part of the whole series, and the interior art is often quite good as well.
Thanks Winters, that is a hugely helpful review! Well, I'm definitely adding this to my reading list, and I'm going to start buying them! :) I had my eye on that last volume, so I suppose I'll start there.