House of Ideas, Books of Mystery

It’s no secret that Marvel has felt…aimless as of late. Not just the MCU malaise so many non-comics outlets have bemoaned (or perhaps celebrated, for those who think it is a blight) but the comics themselves. I’ve shared my own frustrations with its current slate. A slate that, aside from one or two standouts and a couple solid runs, feels like it's circling the drain and huffing its own farts. There’s a creative stagnation at the company and an even greater editorial one.

But that’s not what I’m here to bemoan. I’m here to scream about how fucking difficult Marvel makes it to read its books. It’s like they don’t want readers! The company seems to be actively antagonistic to gaining new fans and trying its damndest to alienate the mainstays. I’m not even talking creative choices here. Bemoan Paul all you want but he’s not why it’s so hard to get new fans on the monthly circuit (and he’s not even in the top 1000 worst things to happen to the Spidey books. Chill out people.)

What sent me on this spiral? What made me take time out of my day to dig my heels in and scream off the top of a mountain? Why. The X line, of course.

Despite what it might seem, I’m not really an “X-men” fan. That wasn’t my corner of the universe and while I thoroughly enjoyed the Krakoa era, most of my time in the Marvel fandom has seen that corner dominated by mediocre era after mediocre era. ‘From the Ashes’ felt like a return to that mediocrity from all the ways it was presented, so I dipped and haven’t looked back. I must’ve felt the disturbance in the force because wouldn’t you know it, the line went back to the nonsense of a crossover every 6 months with the latest being a line stopping, alt-universe event with “age” in the title: “Age of Revelation.”

Ah. It’s like it’s 2018 again.

Now, I can’t speak to whether the books are good or bad so I won’t. This is not about what’s inside the pages. This is about the outsides; or, more specifically, the way they collected this fucking thing in trades. Here are their names:

• “Age of Revelation: Overture”
• “Age of Revelation: Book of Revelation” 
• “Age of Revelation: World of Revelation”

One would assume from those titles a few alternatives:

1. This is a three part event and each trade corresponds to a different movement, if you will.
2. There are a number of key issues or a central event which makes up the middle volume (but not one that shares the name of the event for some reason) and then there are a bunch of important issues that lead up to the event and a number of tie-ins that flesh out what’s going on during it.
3. There isn’t really an anchor mini so it’s just kind of a free-for-all and thus the order doesn’t matter. (A terrible way to do a short-term event, unless there is a core book that everything else is reacting to.)
4. This isn’t an event but a lengthy ongoing series (or line of titles) that’s finally being collected in three trades! Wowie zowie. How long did this “Age of Revelation” run for? 50 issues?

None of the above options are correct. As it turns out, “Age of Revelation” is collected in such a way as to have the important issues split across all three volumes with nary a note as to the proper reading order of said volumes. And I’m sure you’re wondering: couldn’t I just go by release dates for the order? Usually yes but oh. What’s this? They all came out on the exact same day? That’s just dandy.

Actually. Let’s back up. Because the whole numbering structure of this event is bonkers. Here’s the order:

• Issue #0
• An “Overture” issue (whyyyyy so many levels whyyyyyy)
• “Book of Revelation,” aka the main series, which sounds like the spin-off tie-in anthology series and not the core of the three-month alt-universe whatever this was.
• Then a “Finale” issue.
• Oh, and I guess “Amazing X-Men” - the relaunched equivalent of the main title, itself a homage to the one from “Age of Apocalypse" - is part of the main series too.

The conceit of the event had every book stopping and a bunch of new titles taking their place. Think “Secret Wars,” “Sins of Sinister,” “Age of Apocalypse,” (the original this is aping) etc. Fine and good. Whatever. I like two of those events and the third I’m gonna get crucified for saying I never read.

You would expect, then, that number two of my options would be the best way to handle the event. Name the volume “Age of Revelation" and be done with it. I guess they kinda did that second part cause the “main” title is called “Book of Revelation,” isn’t it? That’s not fucking confusing at all.

Alternatively, the main mini and the rest of the renamed series could get their own volumes, as standalones or as the next volume of their respective series’ runs. Maybe even put out a “Road to” or “Prelude” volume showing the lead-up. Or, ugh, an “Overture” volume.

But no. #0, “Overture,” “Amazing X-Men” and a metric ton of the minis are in “Overture,” “Book of Revelation” and more minis are in “Book of Revelation,” and the rest of the minis plus “Finale” are in “World of Revelation.” What possible reason could there be to do it this way?

Let’s take the most charitable reading and say the event’s structure is so nebulous that the only pieces whose order matters is 0, “Overture,” and “Finale,” and they need to be at the start and finish. Fine. Whatever. I’ll accept that.

…Why, then, didn’t they fucking number the volumes? If only a couple issues matter, put them in one book and let fans who want more read more. If all or even most of the issues matter, AND you’re gonna make it so there is a clear throughline through the books, then number the goddamn trades! Don’t put your “finale” issue in the volume that sounds like it contains extraneous (to the main plot) issues and series! That’s just comics binding 101.

This is 2026! We should know this crap by now! I shouldn’t have to create a fraggin’ spreadsheet to figure out trade paperback orders. I shouldn’t have to guess which one needs to be read first or which one has the actual damn event in it because they didn’t name the event book after the fucking event!

It’s baffling. It’s nonsensical. It flies in the face of good sense and bookshelf ordering. I would have forgiven them a little, a little if each volume contained the #1s, the #2s and the #3s of all the minis because at least you can discern rather quickly the order that way and get the real-time movement of the plot instead of this jagged mess.

This is not how you make readers enjoy your books, Marvel! This is how you get a reputation for impenetrability and then you wonder why younger readers aren’t flocking to the floppies. It’s not the only reason, or perhaps even the primary reason as being priced out of the floppy market and not having an easy way to go from trade to singles on a good day - the delay is killer for that - are larger factors. But that’s a topic for another day.

If you’re wondering why I get so riled up about this when it seems like such a minor thing, it’s because it makes this medium I love worse. It’s clear the thought isn’t being put into making it easy to find and follow series and while there are other, broken, alienating pieces of the industry as a whole, this is one I encounter on a daily basis.

I’m a librarian. I catalog and label these books. I think about this all day long. Trades are meant to be simpler than single issues. They’re somewhat curated by their very nature as collections so these choices matter, especially when the books in question are actually fucking linked and have an actual damn order to them. Someone with zero knowledge of where to start and where to continue from there should be able to figure it out from design elements and the information inside, which is not the case here.

Marvel’s even figured it out with the Epic collections! Yeah, there aren’t numbers on the outside because they think it looks more “book-like” without volume X or Part Y on it. But you know what they do? They put it right on the first page, like this:

• “Age of Revelation,” Vol. 1: Overture
• “Age of Revelation,” Vol. 2: Book of Revelation
• “Age of Revelation,” Vol. 3: World of Revelation

There. I solved it for you.