X-Men discussion thread

[Small Man Big Horse]

Actually I think I'll leave it there, on a high - a good place to end it. I prefer just reading them now.

Still gonna jot some thoughts down though because there are some cool things in these books - Colossus and Juggernaut going at it (fighting) in a pub for one thing. But these more in depth things can sometimes ruin it.

And definitely might try to read whatever happens after House and Powers of X with the more modern stuff, see if that comes anywhere close to this.

This has been a fantastic thread, so thank you so much for it, and I hope you enjoy reading the newer stuff - I've got the House of X and Powers Of X TPB from my local library and plan to begin reading it this week.

[madhair60]

then you have you wait for Wheedon's Astonishing X-Men for a brief vision of how X-Men comics could've been all those years.

and even that is mostly other peoples' ideas

and yeah New X-Men was the last time X-Men was vital, though I do have a bit of a soft spot for the Gillen > Bendis eras (though the latter, being Bendis, just goes to pieces as much as you'd expect) mostly because they were when I got myself back on board with reading the series and American comics in general

[Dr Rock]

and even that is mostly other peoples' ideas

Todally. Honestly I'd rather read old Byrne issues for the tenth time, but it had something. Nice art probably.

[madhair60]

good moments, very cinematic. Colossus reveal, "What other lies have you told?", and the denouement. I re-read it a fair amount. but it's very surface level.

[Dayraven]

This has been a fantastic thread, so thank you so much for it

Seconded.

[bgmnts]

Thanks all.

The onnibuses I was reading both finished on a very apt note. Uncanny ends with #193, harkening back to John Proudstar and the events of Giant Sized, and New Mutants ended with #34, where now fat Karma has the control of the Shadow King removed from her. It was genuinely a buzz to see Karma back!

I found them weirdly nostalgic and so both series came sort of full for me a bit. Although I did first read Giant Sized like 10 years ago so that makes more sense.


Edit- I've also decided that of everything I've read so far: peak X-Men is Giant Sized to about #150 or so; Anus the Untouchable should have had loads more appearances; Blob is probably my favourite character, and I reckon Claremont just had too many ideas and not enough issues to get everything he wanted in.

[Dr Rock]

Who are the best artists?

[bgmnts]

Oh John Byrne and Dave Cockrum for me.

Neal Adams's and Bill Sienkiewicz's stuff was gorgeous too, but they had quite short runs. But I'll give the nod to Sienkiewicz as his run had stories that were seemingly tailor made for his surreal, abstract style.

I'm probably going to read on in Uncanny until it gets just dogshit because everyone noshes off Jim Lee's artwork. Anything I've seen of 90s superhero art just makes me gag a bit, so I'd want to see if it works for a full issue.

[Dayraven]

I'd say Marc Silvestri becoming regular X-Men artist in about 25 issues' time is when the 90s style starts appearing regularly on the books - quite early, because the X-Books are where a lot of the biggest names associated with the style first became big.

[Small Man Big Horse]

House Of X issue 1 by Jonathan Hickman, Pepe Larraz and RB Silva - Taking the X-Men in an all new direction this is a much more serious affair as Charles has created a brand new home for the X-Men, and three drugs which will aid humanity just as long as they leave the X-Men alone. The art's great, the story's intriguing, but I really doubt I'll read any more of it if only because I've heard Hickman ended up leaving the series as he wasn't able to start the second act of the story, and while there are now plans for this era to come to an end there just seems to be so much of it that collecting all the trades would be far too expensive. A shame really, as it's a 4/5 start, but unless I win a large sum of money it's doubtful I'll ever read any more of it.

[13 schoolyards]

I picked up the collection of his first twelve issues (the two six issue mini series) for cheap and it worked reasonably well as a stand alone read - clearly the door was wide open for stories we never got from Hickman, but if you wanted to keep going just to see what he was setting up it was a pretty interesting series that came to a reasonable jumping off point

[Small Man Big Horse]

I picked up the collection of his first twelve issues (the two six issue mini series) for cheap and it worked reasonably well as a stand alone read - clearly the door was wide open for stories we never got from Hickman, but if you wanted to keep going just to see what he was setting up it was a pretty interesting series that came to a reasonable jumping off point

It just seems there's so much of it, could you get away with reading those first 12 issues, and the 15 X-Men issues he wrote after that, or do you need to be reading New Mutants, Wolverine, Excalibur, X-Force etc, and various mini series and one shots as well?

[13 schoolyards]

It just seems there's so much of it, could you get away with reading those first 12 issues, and the 15 X-Men issues he wrote after that, or do you need to be reading New Mutants, Wolverine, Excalibur, X-Force etc, and various mini series and one shots as well?

I just read the 12 issues and that was it. There were plenty of questions and subplots and so on that were clearly going to carry on, but treating it just as a one-off X-Men story worked okay (for me - I've always treated the X-Men as an ongoing story that I just dipped in and out of).

Like, it definitely leaves things in a place where I wanted to know what happens next, but knowing that what happens next was "Hickman leaves" meant the ending worked pretty well as an ending.

Basically, less of a conclusive ending than Whedon's Astonishing X-Men, more of a conclusive ending than pretty much any Claremont issue.

[bgmnts]

I read it, and thought it was quite a clever way to reset everything and do something new.

Although I don't like retcons, and find the idea that Moira MacTaggart was a mutant all along, and everything I've read from the 60s/70s/80s was part of her plan (I think?) a bit much.

And yeah there were SO many books after that. I did read a bit of X-Factor, which I think tried to add some stakes around the fact that any mutant can be revived at any time so death is trivial.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Thanks for both of those responses, I've renewed it online for another three weeks so will go back to it tonight to give it another shot.

[letsgobrian]

It just seems there's so much of it, could you get away with reading those first 12 issues, and the 15 X-Men issues he wrote after that, or do you need to be reading New Mutants, Wolverine, Excalibur, X-Force etc, and various mini series and one shots as well?

X-Men (2019) issues 1 to 12 should stand alone. Even the two issues that tie into the Avengers & Fantastic Four focussed Empyre event.

Then you get to 13 to 15 which are part of the X-Men event Swords of X. Which are 3 chapters of a 22 chapter(!) cross-over like Tom DeFalco was back in the EiC chair. I can't remember if these work alone or not. Looking at the synopses, I think they do.

Then 16 to 21 are back to being fine to read without further context.

That being said, I don't think these are the best comics of this era of X-Men, nor the best version of these ideas that Hickman's done for Marvel.

[madhair60]

FWIW I'm trying to offload my complete runs of Reign of X and Trials of X tpbs, if anyone is interested.

[Deskbound Cunt]

Every time I see this thread bumped I do a little jig of joy in my head. Fantastic stuff.

I remember my first comic con talking to Louise Simonson about Tom Orzechowski's lettering. My lip was literally shivering because I was talking to a woman to someone that actually worked at Marvel.

[bgmnts]

Nice one!

Wein and Orzechowski lettering and colouring seemingly the entirety of that entire run of Uncanny and New Mutants is one of the most impressive things for me, they're like the C3PO and R2D2 of X-Men.

[bgmnts]

Just realised I have had the first volume of X-Factor (1986) sitting here for months! I may as well read it, just to see what post-Claremont X-books not written by Claremont are like.

I don't think I'll miss much plot as I know that Scott leaves Maddy Pryor to be a superhero again (one of the more interesting parts of his history) and Jean somehow comes back due to a major retcon involving the Phoenix force (shiiiiiiiite).

That's it though right? The other three have just been messing around the Marvel universe for the past 15 years yeah?

[letsgobrian]

Just realised I have had the first volume of X-Factor (1986) sitting here for months! I may as well read it, just to see what post-Claremont X-books not written by Claremont are like.

I don't think I'll miss much plot as I know that Scott leaves Maddy Pryor to be a superhero again (one of the more interesting parts of his history) and Jean somehow comes back due to a major retcon involving the Phoenix force (shiiiiiiiite).

That's it though right? The other three have just been messing around the Marvel universe for the past 15 years yeah?

Beast was in The Avengers, bought a dog, joined The Defenders, briefly tried hooking up with Dazzler, didn't sacrifice himself to defeat the Dragon of the Moon and the dog disappeared from comics.

Iceman tried to be an accountant, joined The New Defenders, unknowingly hooked up with the daughter of an abstract concept of the universe, was transphobic to a genderfluid intelligent nebula, and also didn't sacrifice himself to defeat the Dragon of the Moon.

Angel funded The New Defenders, but didn't lead The New Defenders, continued to date Candy Southern (from X-Men 37!), and of course, didn't sacrifice himself to defeat the Dragon of the Moon.

The "didn't sacrifice himself to defeat the Dragon of the Moon" element is why they are free to join X-Factor, because all their colleagues in The Defenders are dead and their book has been cancelled.

The Dazzler mention would have been important if Kurt Busiek hadn't told Roger Stern how he thought Jean Grey could be brought back, because the X-Factor pitch involved Dazzler replacing Jean Grey. This is evident towards the end of her series.

[bgmnts]

Ha gutless X-Men love it!

Can't believe Candy Southern stuck around, that's an incredible bit of continuity to stick to.

Think it works better with Jean anyway, as much as I like Dazzler.

[bgmnts]

Had a quick flick through and my oh my how I was spoilt with Byrne, Cockrum, Sienkiewicz and even Paul Smith, as well as Alan Moore artists' stuff.

This looks like a silver age X-Men, just 8 or 9 bland panels per page. Is this what most 70s/80s marvel comic books looked like? Obviously I know this is the original team so it's possibly just mimicking that style but it looks well dated and boring.

[letsgobrian]

Had a quick flick through and my oh my how I was spoilt with Byrne, Cockrum, Sienkiewicz and even Paul Smith, as well as Alan Moore artists' stuff.

This looks like a silver age X-Men, just 8 or 9 bland panels per page. Is this what most 70s/80s marvel comic books looked like? Obviously I know this is the original team so it's possibly just mimicking that style but it looks well dated and boring.

From Bob Layton:

My Editor, Mike Carlin, was wrongly fired off of the series after the first issue.  The Editor-In-Chief insisted on having a third of the first issue rewritten and redrawn (and not for the better, in my opinion). Controversy and problems continued from issue to issue until I had simply had enough.

So nobody was doing their best work at first due to circumstances. It settles down once The Simonsons have fully taken over the book.

[bgmnts]

Tidy, nice one! Bit of a tease about the editor getting 'wrongly' fired there.

Although won't lie, this got me:

Bob: I wasn't much of a fan of the new X-Men.  To me, The Beast, Marvel Girl, Iceman, The Angel and Cyclops were the real X-Men.

Fair enough if you grew up with them as a kid I suppose, and I have a place in my heart for those old issues, and with that team of X-Men - with the love triangle and the Hank and Bobby double act etc - but the Giant Size X-Men team are much, much better and more interesting surely? It's all opinion but cmon.

[Dayraven]

Can't believe Candy Southern stuck around, that's an incredible bit of continuity to stick to.

She actually gets some development in the New Defenders, where they realise that her business skills make her best placed to be their team leader.

I'd say Cloud (the aforementioned genderfluid intelligent nebula) predates Northstar as Marvel's first explicitly LGBT superhero by some years, though it's related to their alien nature rather than simply being gay.

[Small Man Big Horse]

House Of X / Powers Of X - Parts 1 - 12 - I really enjoyed this, even though I have to say that a fair amount of it went over my head as it's so steeped in the history of the comic, but thankfully https://www.polygon.com/2019/8/22/20828371/house-of-x-powers-of-x-comics-reviews-spoilers-jonathan-hickman had a whole bunch of detailed reviews of each issue which filled in the gaps, and as a whole I think it's a pretty incredible achievement, one which flits between timelines to show

Spoiler alert

that no matter what the X-Men do they always lose

[close]

, and it's packed with some really intriguing ideas and themes about not only the comic's characters and settings, but also what the future for humanity might hold. 5/5

I read it, and thought it was quite a clever way to reset everything and do something new.

Although I don't like retcons, and find the idea that Moira MacTaggart was a mutant all along, and everything I've read from the 60s/70s/80s was part of her plan (I think?) a bit much.

And yeah there were SO many books after that. I did read a bit of X-Factor, which I think tried to add some stakes around the fact that any mutant can be revived at any time so death is trivial.

The whole thing with Moira MacTaggert and her being a mutant might still work if what happened in the 60s/70s/80s was part of her first life was before she was aware of being a mutant, off hand I can't remember what happened in which incarnation though.

X-Men (2019) issues 1 to 12 should stand alone. Even the two issues that tie into the Avengers & Fantastic Four focussed Empyre event.

Then you get to 13 to 15 which are part of the X-Men event Swords of X. Which are 3 chapters of a 22 chapter(!) cross-over like Tom DeFalco was back in the EiC chair. I can't remember if these work alone or not. Looking at the synopses, I think they do.

Then 16 to 21 are back to being fine to read without further context.

That being said, I don't think these are the best comics of this era of X-Men, nor the best version of these ideas that Hickman's done for Marvel.

Thanks for that, I can see there's an omnibus out there with X-Men 1-11 and #16-21; Giant-Size X-Men: Jean Grey And Emma Frost, Nightcrawler, Magneto, Fantomex And Storm And Material From Incoming! #1, and I do really want to read more of it. It's around £50 at the moment but I'll keep an eye out on both Amazon and Ebay, and hopefully pick it up cheaper at some point.

[elliszeroed]

I enjoyed House Of X/ Powers of X but stopped reading during the Arako/ Realms of X stuff.

Sins of Sinister is pretty good (and you don't need to read much between House/ Powers of X and this).

I haven't read the Hellfire Gala collection yet, but I will as it ties into Fall Of X which ties into the reboot.

I have no idea how the X-Men timeline at this point meshes with the wider Marvel Universe, nor do I care really.

[bgmnts]

Finished X-Factor Vol.1.

Starts off quite crap, and gets a bit better towards issues 8 and 9. You do get the sense that times have indeed drastically changed and as a result Scott is really fucking angry all the time. That is a bit of a problem for me: it's VERY melodramatic and unsubtle. Again, perhaps a deliberate choice to remind us that these are from a different time and quite out of place.

I also quite like that they keep persisting with this stupid idea in the first place, despite it flaring up anti-mutant sentiment to an absurd degree, I wonder if that is a dig at the old issues.

I'm a sucker for Artie and getting to see Leech and Caliban again was ace. I'd like to see more of them and whatever the fuck is happening with the Morlocks, but I'll have to get the next Uncanny omnibus for that (I've missed a lot of action in 15 issues!)

Of course, the biggest highlight is seeing my beloved Blob one more time. He owns this universe.