I had quite a few of the Essentials during the first wave in the late 90s, including the first 2 X Men volumes. Definitely my favorite X Men (I've never been a huge fan in my 40+ years of comic reading). I traded in a good chunk of my Essentials about 5 years ago when I did a big purge coinciding with subscribing to MU and thinking "well, if I want to read that stuff again, I'll just read it here". Thankfully I kept Conan, Dr. Strange vol 1, Howard the Duck and Defenders vol 2-3. These days I'm definitely on the lookout for cheap copies of Essentials, plus the equally wonderful Showcase Presents from DC