Unless there’s an iPhone app for X-Men continuity, there’s no way I can keep track of what’s going on. Who’s dead, who’s alive, who’s good, who’s bad, who’s banished, who’s lost their power or gained new ones. I can’t rattle off the names of the current X-Men or the books they appear in.

That’s not a criticism. Plenty of people know all that and more, and more power to them. As I’ve gotten older, I like the books that pop up on the fringes, usually with apes or zombies or alt cartoonists.

However, I still like the X-Men characters and will still occasionally pick up a title outside of continuity where I don’t have to know a lot going in. (I was like that with my college courses, too.)

Coming in January 2011, Marvel’s got something that fits my interest. Howard Chaykin is writing a one-shot X-Men tie-in book, Magneto.

I’ve made no secret of my fan-crush on Howard Chaykin’s work. I love how he’s able to bounce between his own projects and corporate work with relative ease, as a writer, an artist and sometimes both.

I don’t know anything about the artwork inside, and apparently neither did Marvel at the time the solicitation was due to Diamond, but I’m still all in.

Howard’s going back to Magneto’s early years as a young Magneto “gathers mutants to join his cause,” and asks the question: does he “have what it takes to build an army?” And somehow this will involve The Absorbing Man (and please let someone call him Crusher Creel). This is one of Marvel’s special $2.99 titles.

The cover is by Roger Cruz.

[Artwork: Magneto #1, © Marvel Comics]