This thread's for all of the X-Men comics and spin-offs (X-Force, X-Factor, New Mutants etc.), whether they're decades old or brand new.
- Apart from the main Marvel Universe titles, Ultimate X-Men, X-Men 2099, X-Men "What If?" stories, crossovers, guest appearances in other books, Alternate Universe tales and things like Marvel's manga adaptations are all on-topic here.
- X-Men 'family' books are on-topic (as are their own crossovers, guest appearances etc.) - e.g. Wolverine, Deadpool, Ms. Marvel and Cable.
- Characters and comics that originated in X-Men and its related books but are no longer connected to the franchise are not on-topic, unless you're discussing historical connections and crossovers. If in doubt, check before you write a long post. If this isn't the right place, there's a more general Marvel Comics thread
which covers them.
Technically, Marvel's Infinity Comics (and their predecessors, Infinite Comics) are webcomics, not comic books, but it's fine to talk about their X-Men related stories here.
Discussions that are only about X-Men adaptations in other media (films, video games etc.) are off-topic, but discussing the differences between the adaptations and the original comics is fine - as long as spoilers for the adaptations are tagged.
Please follow the spoiler policy rules
- tag spoilers for the latest issues, for any previews or content leaks, and for off-topic comics. When including spoiler tags, try to write so that tropers can make an informed decision before viewing them (e.g. which series and issue will they spoil?).
I have to say that the X Men franchise has been going on for decades. Maybe not as many as the Superman franchise has, but it still has quite a number to it.
One thing I am certain of is that the franchise seems to be subverting Status Quo Is God in recent years. Magneto and Professor Xavier seem to be fading into the background, with Cyclops and Wolverine taking their places. A lot of villains associated to the X-Men have been killed off and have actually stayed dead so far.
All this gives me the general impression that the franchise is trying to reinvent itself. Do you think that's what's going on here?
Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 29th 2023 at 10:02:23 AM
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
Look, Goldballs is awesome. I don't care what anyone says. GOLDBALLS!
Also, apparently Jean saying "I'm the only "me" that ever was" was actually a reference to this.
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
That's from Inferno.
I think I might even have that one.
Ok, that's totes Jean.
Hickman knows his stuff.
One Strip! One Strip!
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Agreed. Goldballs is a great character. An easy favourite. And he's one that a lot of people do like, because he's just so dorky and charming.
The Head of the Hydra
At least he's not a crazy fuck like that Tempus chick is.
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."
This method of resurrection seems pretty similar to the one Sinister uses on his goons, doesn't it? That plus this cover
really makes me wonder if he's pulling the strings behind why the heroes are acting so off somehow...
Yeah, I'm surprised at the breadth and depth of his knowledge. He's not just taking stuff from the Claremont era, either, but stuff from the Morrison era and the Bendis era.
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
I mean those are THE eras right?
The ones that everyone likes.
Of course he'd draw from there.
Edited by HandsomeRob on Sep 18th 2019 at 9:25:21 AM
One Strip! One Strip!
I haven't heard too many people like the Bendis era.
The Head of the Hydra
Has Tempus ever appeared again after threatening to ret-gone Cyclops?
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
Well they like Goldballs, and he's back, so they must have liked something.
Why isn't the Whedon era mentioned though?
I'd think it's Claremont, Morisson and Whedon for the big dogs of the X-Franchise.
One Strip! One Strip! If we're honest, Whedon didn't really add much to the franchise. Armour and Danger, but beyond that, his run was very much standard X-Men stories. He didn't change anything.
The Bendis run, if nothing else, had mutant revolutionaries as the heroes, which was a big change of pace. He had Scott's team being proactive, not just reactive. Still, reaction to Bendis' run was mixed at best. I don't think most people hold it up as one of the bigger runs.
Lee/Kirby, for creating the X-Men, Claremont/et al, for making the X-Men what they are, and Morrison/et al, for flipping the table, are the Three Big X-Men Runs.
X-Men X-Pert, my blog where I talk about X-Men comics.
Monet's response to Storm after being resurrected was everything.
While Whedon's run didn't shake the table, I do feel like his Astonishing X-Men was one of those runs that even some non-comics fans can be familiar with. It's actually better when re-reading it. And yes, Bendis's run ran out of steam towards the end but I would say it's probably one of the better recents runs. And I kinda wish Gillen had more time with it.
Who would you say had the worst run? I haven't been into comics for very long, but I remember not feeling anything during some Fraction issues and then the last run was just a slog to get through. At least during the terrigen era, there were some good individual issues.
The Head of the Hydra
I'm gonna say Rosenberg's run was pretty awful considering no one had any nice things to say about it.
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."
The big runs that everyone likes talking about are:
- The Lee/Kirby run, which started off the X-Men and introduced the Original Five X-Men, Xavier, Magneto, and...little else.
- The Claremont/Byrne run, which established a ton of stuff that is still being used today.
- The Jim Lee era, which was the early '90s period that included a lot of crossovers like "X-Tinction Agenda" and "X-Cutioner's Song."
- The Morrison run, which upended things after a long period of middling stories.
- The Whedon run, which re-established the X-Men as superheroes and made Kitty Pryde as the central character.
And these are the runs that, for one reason or another, people don't really talk about:
- The Roy Thomas/Neal Adams run, which made Havok and Polaris into main characters. (Note: this is actually a pretty good run, but nobody talks about it because nobody remembers it.)
- The Chuck Austen run, which was post-Morrison.
- The Matt Fraction run, which had them moving to San Francisco and then making their own island, Utopia. (Note: Fraction had some good ideas, but it was all bogged down by horrendous art from Greg Land and then a crossover involving vampires and Dracula. Yes, this is the run where Jubilee became a vampire.)
- The Kieron Gillen run, which was post-"Schism" and led into Avengers vs X-Men. (Gillen had a lot of great ideas, including a more radicalized Cyclops, but his run was also pretty short. His Uncanny also ran parallel with Jason Aaron's Wolverine and the X-Men.)
- The Bendis run, which was post-AVX and ended with Secret Wars. (Bendis brought in the time-displaced Original Five X-Men and wrote two X-books in parallel, but his run kind of ran out of steam in the end. Uncanny X-Men #600 was his finale and it was super delayed and also marked with controversy over his handling of Iceman's outing as gay.)
- The Jeff Lemire run, which was post-Secret Wars and ended with Inhumans vs X-Men. (Lemire also had some good ideas, but they were all bogged down by editorial's insistence on the war with the Inhumans. If you take a look at the "Apocalypse Wars" storyline, you can see a much better story going in the background.)
- The Marc Guggenheim run (or "ResurrXion," still a stupid name), which was post-IVX and ended with Uncanny X-Men being relaunched. (Guggenheim was basically trying to copy Claremont, but ended up being a very meh Claremont cover band. X-Men: Red by Tom Taylor was awesome, though.)
And, of course, the most recent run by Matthew Rosenberg, which ran parallel with Age of X-Man and then ended with the cancellation of everything (aside from Dead Man Logan) and Hickman launching House of X and Powers of X.
Edited by alliterator on Sep 18th 2019 at 11:26:16 AM
As unpleasant as Rosenberg's run was, I don't think it comes close to the Chuck Austen run in terms of sheer badness. Rosenberg had to 1) set up Age of X-Man and 2) basically set up HOXPOX. It wasn't fun to read, and it wasn't written well. And yet...
...did it have suicidal communion wafers? Did it try to make Nightcrawler the Pope? Did he create a Mary Sue to split up Havok and Polaris, who herself became a nearly-unsalvageable mess? Did he make Nightcrawler's dad literally the devil just to make some point about how religion sucks? Did any woman talk about anything besides sex or babies? (While standing at Skin's grave, Jubilee sadly looks down at it and sighs, saying "I wish I could be naked with Angelo", which unintentionally may be the funniest awful thing I've read in X-Men.) And that's not even talking about The Draco.
Uncanny X-Men has been around long enough to see a shift in emphasis from "one author totally defines the direction of the stories for years and a new X-book is a big deal!" to "if we put #1 on the cover, we can at least keep sales stable". The time it took Fraction, Lemire, Bendis, Gillen, Guggenheim and Rosenberg to do their runs took less than the defining 15 years Claremont wrote Uncanny X-Men from 1975-1991.
There's a few other runs that slip through the cracks:
Who can forget the beginning of Roy Thomas's run post Lee / Kirby? Remember El Tigre? The Locust? Um...Plantman and Unicorn? No? It wasn't very good, but it was Silver Age and Roy Thomas was basically an Promoted Fanboy, and as mentioned, the run with Neal Adams was much better.
Claremont's second run on Uncanny X-Men around 2000 which lasted about a year, involving the Neo ("they're as far beyond mutants as mutants beyond humans!"). As I recall, it was poorly received by almost everyone, and even Claremont fans were reluctant to recommend it.
Edited by flawlessvoid on Sep 19th 2019 at 10:52:37 AM
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
Eh. I heard a lot about how bad Austen's run was. And it sounds like quite a few runs just didn't get time to proper percolate.
Also, I totally want to know what Mystique was asked to confirm her identity:
Mystique: Wait! What?
Storm: Now answer truthfully: how many times have we kicked you ass?
Mystique: ....no....fuck you....not doing this...
Storm: As one of us, you must answer and confirm you identity!
Mystique: ....god damn you Storm....555!
Storm: This is Mystique! And she is a Mutant!
Crowd: Mutant!!!!
Storm: Still a bitch though.
Mystique: >:l
Edited by HandsomeRob on Sep 19th 2019 at 9:43:32 AM
One Strip! One Strip!
Claremont's writing has some seriously squicky elements.
I blocked this out why did you bring it back why
I could totally see Mystique shapeshifting into Storm and saying "Haw haw! You can't confirm shit."
Look, if I have to remember it, so do all of you.
In fairness, though, Claremont went on to write a much better mini-series featuring Kitty called Mekanix, where Kitty and Karma were roommates and going to college.
Takat Empress
Kitty Pryde: >:l
Yeah, the works of the many runs of X-Men always had one or two moments of stupidity in them even Claremont isn't free of this common problem.
Mileena Madness
The best X-Men run was the one by Mark Millar.
Ultimate Secret Wars
He was one of the new mutants in the Bendis UXM run.