In Marvel's defense, MOST of the time that they are running three titles for one character (I'm looking at you Spider-Man!) you don't actually need to read all three to get a coherent narrative. It's hard to see for the continuity oriented but it doesn't really matter what order you read those three books in.

I couldn't agree more. The only reason I started working on this project is Marvel is a complete mystery. At least they are much better on the Ultimate series where the numbering makes sense, but when you run 3 titles for 1 character at the same time, it is hard to follow.

A lot of whats wrong with the X-Men titles is symptomatic of what is generally wrong with Marvel. People talk about 'too much continuity' being the problem. Continuity is not the problem. Having stories and characters spread across a dozen different titles whose cover numbers seem to get reset and 'un-reset' at random while providing next to no guidance to your readers as to how he should navigate the resulting maze is the problem. Marvel and DC need to make their entire comic book line more user friendly.

Marvel is so good at hype! Crazy good!

Boo to 'decompressed narratives' boo to 'compressed narratives' just tell a good, well paced story. Is that so hard? (Probably, it is.)

I'd say there is a strong hint of cash grab in it. Wolverine & the X-Men does have a new creative team but it's a team centered around Wolverine so it sort of is a cash grab. The new Uncanny will have the same creative team and is relaunching with a new number 1, total cash grab. Generation Hope and X-Men I am honestly surprised they are still going.

Yea, I wasn't buying it much either. So is it lazy writing or money grab really?

It's a pretty weak argument, needing so many titles to tell the two sides of a pretty weak story so far (Schism) doesn't cut it. About the only positive out of this is that Havok will finally be where he belongs in X-Factor.

Did you guys see this article where Axel Alonso defends the increasing number of X-Men titles?

http://www.digitalspy.com/comics/news/a337446/x-men-title-amount-defended-by-marvel-exec.html