Dear X-Men Editors,

STOP IT WITH THE MINI-SERIES ALREADY!!!

As a fan in a tough economic time, I can't stand that you keep putting out so many freaking mini-series for me to follow.

Fortunately, I'm not a big Wolverine fan, just an X-Men fan in general, so I'll skip all of his solo minis outright. Still, this month that meant that I have purchased Worlds Apart, X-Infernus, Manifest Destiny and Kingbreaker. The only reason I skipped Ghost Boxes is because I can't understand what the hell is happening in Astonishing X-Men in the first place.

What's even more upsetting is that excluding only Manifest Destiny, all of these stories could have been told in the main books. And they would all have been better than what is happening in the main books right now! Instead, you're asking me to spend an additional $3.99 each for what should have been in Uncanny anyways instead of the S&M-tastic return of Madelyne Pryor.

We the fans deserve to know what's been happening since "The Rise and Fall of the Shi'Ar Empire" to the characters who were abandoned at the story's end without having to pick up two mini-series with a third looming on the horizon in War of Kings. We deserved some followup to "Quest for Magik" that didn't involve buying something extra.

It wouldn't burn so incredibly badly in my wallet if the quality of these books was not so much higher than that of the core books. Worlds Apart felt like a story that would have been told in the eighties had circumstances been the same, and it would have been right in Uncanny. So what if it sidelines a few other characters for an arc? That's what happens in a team dynamic!

I'm just asking for a slowdown to the number of stories being published because it's obvious a streamlining will help in quality. These contained stories seem to be infinitely more fascinating. Not to mention that, in recent memory, these mini-series seem to be more germinating to the next crop of creators than what's happening in the ongoing books. The core books, now that there are three of them, should be plenty of space to tell the stories that need to be told.

So, I'm sure you'll advertise three new mini-series tomorrow and totally ignore this post, but know that at some point, my budget is going to give and something is getting dropped *coughAstonishingcoughLegacycough*.

Broke,

Patrick James