To be a collector is to ignore a thousand red flags at one point or another. To be a comic collector is to ignore a billion. Right now, I've got about 150 single issues sitting near my desk, and I'm about to add 12 more this Wednesday. My typical routine is:

1. Buy a bunch of comics.
2. Scan all the Marvel comics for their Free Digital Codes.
3. Read Marvel on my iPad
4. Read DC Comics via the DC Infinite Ultra subscription... also on my iPad.
5. Gather my single issues once a month and file away in short boxes.
6. Oh snap! I forgot Space Ghost existed. Time to pause my cleaning progress and read this!

There's probably not a better sign to just make the digital jump than the drudgery of organizing a stack of unread books. Yet, here we are.

I can't be the only crazy man living life like this... right?

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Speaking of, this week is another stacked week of releases. I'm probably most excited to check out Deniz Camp's latest creator owned work, Assorted Crisis Events. I've REALLY been enjoying his work on The Ultimates, and while I've yet to check out 20th Century Men, I'm excited to jump in on the ground floor of a new Camp series.

What I'm not crazy excited about is yet another X-Men crossover. Fun fact, the first time I ever fell behind on my reading pile was during 2020's X of Swords crossover. Jonathan Hickman's House of X is what got me into comics, and I was excited to see what the first event of the Krakoa era had in store. But trying to read 3 issues a week for a single story IN ADDITION to everything else on the list (looking at you Dark Knights: Death Metal) just proved to be a task too difficult for this comics fan.

Here we are, nearly 5 years later, and it's that time again. The Krakoa experiment has given way to the From The Ashes era. Part of the promotional push for the current slate was the team expressing that you only need to read the titles you're interested in. While there's a shared state of affairs, there's no unifying plot, and each book is doing its own thing. Then issue 2 of Jed McKay's X-Men featured one side of a conversation you had to read Gail Simone's Uncanny X-Men to complete. Then, we had a 4 part crossover in those aforementioned titles. And now? Now it's time for X-Manhunt.

Charles Xavier is on the loose, making questionable decisions as usual. And he's running through every book in the X-Men line to state his case. Is it good? I'm not sure yet. I haven't made it to my comic shop to pick up the first 3 issues (all released on 3/5/25). Man.. I miss when monthly comics were actually monthly. I could sit back and wait for the trade, but that's not coming until November!

And here I go ignoring those flags again.

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Read Something Dope Today,

BJ KICKS