Age of X: Chapter 4 hit the shelves yesterday and it’s another fantastic installment of Mike Carey’s mysterious X-Men saga. Within its pages, we finally learn what happened to the world we know, but the revelation is so over the top crazy that it only raises new questions about who could have done it and how. With two chapters remaining in this crossover, the timing and nature of the reveals here are pitch perfect as things really start to escalate.

Spoilers for the issue and series will follow.

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When Marvel’s May solicitations appeared earlier this month a group of books were very conspicuous by their absence. Four X-Men titles (Uncanny X-Men, X-Men: Legacy, New Mutants, and Uncanny X-Force) had no listings and it was clear that something was up. Last week Marvel released a set of teaser images for these titles and they’re giving more details all this week on Marvel.com. Every day at 3PM Marvel will host a series of “liveblogs” focusing on what they’re calling MMXI: Year of the X-Men featuring X-editor Nick Lowe and the creators behind each of these titles kicking off yesterday with New Mutants.

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Age of X: Chapter 2 shipped side by side with Chapter 1 last week and while I’m confused by this publishing decision, I did enjoy the instant gratification. After what felt like a long time waiting for these books after the information blitz leading up to the series, I’m very satisfied with how things are unfolding. Chapter 1 introduced a new world for the familiar mutants of the X-Men line along with a host of mysteries and Chapter 2 really moved things forward.

Spoilers for the series will follow.

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There was a lot for this X-Men fan to be thankful for this week as all four major X-titles shipped on Wednesday. While in many ways this is great, I can’t help but recognize how much the publishing scheme for these books has changed after they had been coming out weekly for almost all of 2010. With this in mind, I thought it might be a good time revisit the state of the books post-Second Coming.

This will probably contain what some would consider spoilers, so keep that in mind if there are things you’d rather not know about these books.

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The end is here. The final issue of X-Men: Second Coming is out now and it makes for a very satisfying conclusion to what has been an epic crossover event. After the climactic battle in Chapter 13, the finale is a much more personal issue that surveys the damages inflicted on the X-Men and looks forward to what’s coming next.

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