What a year we have had. There have been some truly landmark events for this site such as the 100th spotlight, an entire event season and a brand new forum. In case you have missed any of the releases here is a blow-by-blow account of the last 12 months. Enjoy.
January
We kicked off 2013 with a profile on the X-cutioner and then quickly followed it up with another on Stinger. To show you that we meant business this year we also decided to give you updates on the Chamber and Cannonball spotlights. Still not finished with January we gave you another instalment in the popular Secrets Behind the X-Men: X-Men and X-Factor united series as well as entry for the X-Men Timelines Trading Cards.
February
We slowed things down slightly for February and just released a profile for Alchemy as well as continuing our regular releases of Secrets Behind the X-Men : Upstarts, High-Lords and Armageddon and another trading cards update with the X-Men 1991 series.
March
In March we turned our attentions to existing articles. With Sunfire appearing in the newly released Uncanny Avengers we updated his spotlight and we also threw an update to Darkstar into the mix as well just for fun. Another fantastic instalment in the Secrets Behind the X-Men: Post-Apocalypse followed as well as an entry for the X-Men series 1 trading cards.
April
April Fools has become a very popular day on this site and 2013 was no different. With the popularity of Game of Thrones growing more and more we decided to jump on the bandwagon and announce that the site was abandoning the X-Men and devoting itself to the popular books and TV series. After we had our fun, we got back to the real business of the site and gave you a new profile in the form of the Leper Queen. April was a relatively quiet month and anther entry for the Secrets Behind the X-Men: Changing X-Men directions was the only other release.
May
We ramped things up a little in May by releasing the first spotlight of the year. The addition of Synch meant that the main group of Generation X had now all received a spotlight. We also gave you a profile of Jenny Ransome to enjoy as well as another Secrets Behind the X-Men: Forbidden tales of the X-Men. Not to be forgotten was our Exiled crossover entry, featuring an adventure with the X-Men's mutants and the Midguard-bound Asgardians.
June
June was a bittersweet month as we gave you the final instalment of the Secrets Behind the X-Men: Taking the X-Men to the extreme. The series or articles had become a very popular staple on our monthly release schedule so it was sad to see it go. As well as that we also had two more entries for the trading cards section in the form of the X-cutioner’s Song and X-Men series 2 sets. The real interesting thing in June came at the very end, though. As many of you had noticed we were fast creeping up on a very important milestone. When we released the Maverick spotlight, it meant that he was the 99th entry in the infamous Spotlight On... series. Who could number 100 be? Well we gave you a huge hint at the back of Maverick’s spotlight and told you to check back soon.
July
It finally happened. Over a decade after this site began, the Wolverine spotlight was finally released. Spread out over two weeks, we drip-fed you the War and Peace-length tome. Many of you assumed that the spotlight would be the only thing we would do as it was an event in itself. It became apparent at the end of the two weeks though that something was amiss. We hadn’t released any info on his alternative versions. Instead we invited you to join us for the Wolverine SEASON. That’s right, as we were planning things we realised there was so much we could do that a simple event would not cut it. With his second movie out in the cinemas, we gave you our 101st spotlight with the Silver Samurai. Entries for Yukio, Mariko Yashida and the Yashida family tree rounded off one of the most memorable months in the site’s history.
August
As Summer continued, so did our Wolverine season. Viper was the first of Wolverine’s rogue’s gallery to receive a Bring on the Bad Guys entry and she was also our first release of August. With the major players of the Wolverine movie now on the site, we turned our attention to other aspects of his life and a profile on Tyger Tiger followed. Moving away from the character-related entries we mixed things up with the synopsis for X-Men Origins: Wolverine , his first movie, as well as an article detailing the mythical metal that is Adamantium. Since Wolverine is on so many teams we thought we would give you some of the entries so we released detailed histories of X-Force III and X-Force IV.
It can be hard at times keeping up with Wolverine’s family connections so with that thought in mind we released the Howlett/Hudson family tree. Turning back to the character related articles we ended August with a profile on Mister X and a Bring on the Bad Guys article on one of his most infamous enemies, Lady Deathstrike.
September
Unlike many of Marvel’s events, we were not showing any sign of fatigue. More of Wolverine’s enemies got in on the action and profiles on Cyber and Matsu’o Tsurayaba started off September. Although he has only been around for a relatively short time, Daken was given a spotlight next and that was quickly followed by an article on the various women that have held a special place in Wolverine’s… heart. After we released Bloodscream’s profile, we thought we would continue our loose theme of family with the release of an X-23 spotlight. September was rounded off with an article on the various swords Wolverine has wielded as well as a profile for Albert and Elsie-Dee.
October
All good things must come to an end and so the event season reached its final month. But as many of you had pointed out, Wolverine still didn’t have any entries on his alternate versions. So we released them over the course of two weeks, as well as a detailed profile on one of his more prolific alternates Weapon X from the Age of Apocalypse. An entry on the Weapon X organization was next, closely followed by our only X-Marks the Spot for the event, Madripoor. As we neared the final weeks we released a Bring on the Bad Guys article on Omega Red and then readies ourselves for the end. We always intended to bookend the event with Wolverine’s ultimate nemesis and so the final week was dedicated to Sabretooth. With that, the Wolverine event was over and all the staff breathed a huge sigh of relief.
November
November saw the return to normal scheduling. Many of the staff took long deserved rests but some just couldn’t stop working and so a team entry on Gamma Flight II was released, as well as an entry on the X-Men: Ultra '94 trading cards.
December
Things started to pick up in December with the release of the Lila Cheney spotlight and the Shinobi Shaw profile. An update of a different kind also happened just before Christmas. The forum had grown and become its own powerful entity over the years and so the time came for it to receive a makeover. Moving to a new domain www.unstablemolecules.com/, the forum was relocated to a more stable server. With that out the way, we turned our attentions to the next entry on the main site. With the end of the year looming it seemed fitting that we should release something appropriate. The X-termination crossover entry rounded off one of the biggest and best years in the site’s history.
Article Summary List
- Profiles - 15
- Spotlights - 8
- Bring on the Bad Guys - 3
- Spotlight updates - 4
- Secrets behind the X-Men - 6
- Misc updates - 5
- Misc articles - 10
- Total - 51
Summaries
And let us not forget about Issue Summaries, which are our most regular releases. Not that July through October coincided with our Wolverine Event, all of which were of course Wolverine-related issues.
- January - 52
- February - 36
- March - 54
- April - 42
- May - 30
- June - 32
- July - October - 53
- November - 30
- December - 43
- Total - 372
That's over 1 summary per day, which is impressive. Unfortunately, according to our calculations, Marvel released 373 X-Men related comics over the year, so it is a negative year. :(
UXN Logos
Of course it would not be a year at the UXN without multiple logos, masterfully crafted by our crack team of image manipulators. - This logo ran from October 2012 to March 2013
- In March we switched to alternating between the following two logos. We also added Marvel Now corner boxes on rotation at the same time.
- Just prior to the Wolverine Event, we teased the upcoming event with the following two teaser logos.
- During the Wolverine Event itself, we ran the following three logos.
- By the time the event ended, X-Men fans were abuzz by the return of Nightcrawler, so to celebrate...
Wallpapers
As well as our main releases each month, we also gave you some great wallpapers to put on your desktop or phone. wallpapers2014 With a release schedule bursting at the seams, you are in for a treat for 2014. Whilst it is unlikely you will be seeing any form of event anytime soon, you shouldn’t go worrying. It just means the staff can bring you an eclectic mix of Profiles, Spotlight and other articles.
Nevertheless, we hope you have taken inspiration from this past year. We want to reach out to you more in the hope that you will contribute back to this site. We are planning on updating the relationship map and would love your input in who has been flirting, dating or merely hooking up. This is just one way that you can help us make this the best X-Men resource site there is. Issue summaries, updating old articles or even just grammar checking, there is so much you can do.
Have a great 2014 and we look forward to your feedback