I grew up reading and collecting comic books. I especially loved the X-Men and I have some really old collection of the title from the Dark Phoenix Saga, to the Marc Silvestri art, and finally to the last of Jim Lee's work.

I stopped collecting comic books when some of my favorite artists got too corporate and sold out to the big companies. I saw that the comic book industry was become too much of a business rather than a passion and then I stopped collecting them. I only bought some titles occasionally in college when some great new art started to surface like Madureira's Battle Chasers and Campbell's Danger Girl. But it got too corporate again and these two heroes of mine stopped working on these titles and I felt betrayed again.

I then ventured to the land of Mr. Gaiman, turning now to books and graphic novels. Threw in a few manga here and there but they were too expensive for me to collect back then and there aren't much english translated manga back then like now. I bought the Batman 'Hush' series because it was a Batman title and Jim Lee pencilled it. Wasn't that much engaged in the story and art and again stopped buying. I then turned to more realistic endeavors like booze, women, and work.

Then, when I joined Deviant Art and watched Mr. Lichtner, I learned that Mr. Madureira was doing a marvel title again: Ultimates 3. I rushed to the nearest comic book shop (at SM Megamall) and reserved all 5 issues immediately. Then, I saw my beloved X-Men with a new saga: Messiah Complex. I was completely blown away when I saw the first chapter of the Messiah Complex. Marc Silvestri did the pencils! And I bought and reserved the entire saga again (there goes all my money).

I was so happy to see Marc Silvestri do the X-Men again. When I was in elementary school, I read the X-Men comics with Mr. Silvestri doing the pencils and immediately he became one of my idols in drawing. I was so impressed with the work Silvestri did in chapter 1 of the Messiah Complex. The other artists were good too. But I was completely lost. I didn't know the new characters. I hate Cyclops' new costume. And what the hell was Emma Frost doing with the X-Men?!

So I researched for an entire evening doing a decade's catching up on my favorite comic book. I learned that Jean Grey is dead (again for the nth time), and Rogue's a leader of one of the teams, and they're all scattered, and Cyclops is screwing Emma Frost. Wow. What a decade. I'm glad that I didn't go through it all. The only good storyline for me is when Scarlet Witch screwed up all of Mutantkind leading to the Messiah Complex saga. Wow.

So now, I'm a comic book fan boy geek again. My friends and family were right when they told me I was growing up backwards. No worries though.