Begin At The Beginning

After much thought, I've decided to start a satellite blog to my main bastion of insanity.  Rather than the scatter-shot approach to topics employed there, this site will be focused on a single project with the same intensity as a lion stalking a wildebeest, an eagle circling above a rabbit, or a leopard doing something despicably twattish.  Like leopards do.

The task in question will be long and arduous, but its importance to civilisation is such that I am prepared to undertake it.  You're welcome, humanity.  Beginning in the next few days, and stopping when my will to live abandons me completely, I shall be re-reading Uncanny X-Men from the very beginning, not so as to review the issues (though comments will doubtless be forthcoming) but to answer the question that has baffled academics and fanboys since 1963: just how long has it been since the X-Men formed.

Actually, that was probably a pretty easy question in 1963.  But it's gotten harder since.

Obviously, such a portentous undertaking requires ground rules.  In attempt to enforce at least a shred of plausibility to the timeline, I shall make the gaps between stories as short as possible.  Consecutive issues will be assumed to have taken place on consecutive days, unless information within the issues contradict that. We'll start at September 1st, 1963 (the start of the first month the book was published), revising that date whenever circumstances demand.  This will be accompanied by an algebraic expression of time passed, because I'm a mathematician and from where I'm from linking X-Men to unknown values constitutes hilarious comedy.

As far as such evidence goes, only relative time will be accepted as evidence (as in "Emma, you've been wearing that costume for three months and you still haven't learned how to avoid knocking vases over with your implausible decolletage."  Absolute time-stamps, such as specific years, will be ignored.  Similarly, references to contemporary historical events and guest appearances by celebrities or historical figures will be noted, but not considered.  As well as relative dates, other clues such as season changes, pregnancy durations etc. will be accepted, though I may have to exclude Christmases; we shall see.  Just call me the retrospective Grinch.

As I say, there won't be full reviews, but comments on each issue will be made, mainly from the perspective of the differences between contemporary comics and the kind of shit they could get away with back when Nixon still had a career.

We shall kick off very soon with the very first issue of Uncanny X-Men, imaginatively entitled "X-Men".  Our journey begins...