“This was confusing as hell, and I figured out why.
Here is the suggested reading order from an excellent Age of Apocalypse web site (http://www.uncannyxmen.net/db/time/showquestion.asp?faq=13&fldAuto=58):
1) X-Men: AoA One-Shot [3rd story]
02) X-Men Chronicles #1
03) X-Men Chronicles #2
04) Tales of the Age of Apocalypse #2
05) X-Man #minus 1
06) X-Man Annual ’96
07) X-Men: AoA One-Shot [2nd story]
08) Tales of the Age of Apocalypse #1
09) X-Men: AoA One-Shot [1st story]
10) Blink #1
11) Blink #2
12) Blink #3
13) Blink #4
Here is the reading order of this trade paperback, near as I can figure it:
1. X-Men Chronicles #1
2. Tales of the Age of Apocalypse #2
3. Tales of the Age of Apocalypse #1
4. X-Men Chronicles #2
5. X-Man -1
6. X-Man Annual â96
7. Blink #1
8. Blink #2
9. Blink #3
10. Blink #4
So, if we add the two pieces of data together, the reading order I was presented with, expressed numerically, is as follows:
2, 4, 8, 3, 5, 6, 10, 11, 12, 13
The only issues remotely in order are the last four, and even those apparently exist outside the normal timeline. Here is the summary from the aforementioned web site:
Blinkâs own four issue limited series takes her amnesiac into the Negative Zone, from which she later returns after encountering Blaastar and Annihilus. The last three pages of issue #4 flash forward to the end of the Age of Apocalypse and show Blink getting teleported away from the timeline shortly before it was apparently destroyed.
So we’ve got a character I know nothing about, in the Negative zone where who knows what the hell is going on, and then a flash forward to the end of the Age of Apocalypse.
I know things were pretty chaotic, what with Apocalypse taking over the world and culling all non-mutants. But could we at least hear the story in some kind of order?”