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Post by Reptisaurus! on Aug 31, 2015 17:29:13 GMT -5
1) Greatest comic ever?
2) About as good as anyone could possibly do, considering the environment they were working in?
3) Hugely over-rated, Claremont sucked until Sovereign Seven and John Byrne was a mere novice, certainly not equal to the titan of the industry who gave us Spider-Man: Year One.
4) Other?
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Post by fanboystranger on Aug 31, 2015 18:10:13 GMT -5
Very, very good comics occasionally rising to the level of true excellence. Like them or not, they did change the face of the mainstream superhero comic, particularly team books, and that influence is still persistant today. And that Byrne sequence of Wolverine stalking through the sewers under the Hellfire Club is one of the finest sequences in comics of all time. That's what I immediately think about when I think Claremont/Byrne X-Men.
Out of 5 stars, I'd give it 4.5.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Aug 31, 2015 18:57:43 GMT -5
One of the best runs ever. I'm not sure a mainstream comic ever truly wrote women with depth until Claremont came along. I certainly can't think of any consistent examples. And, while the X-Men weren't the first to do it, they were one of the best examples of a team growing over the course of time, maturing and changing as a consequence of all they'd endured.
In short, it's one of the best mainstream comic book runs ever written.
I can't separate the Byrne X-Men run from the Cochran X-Men run. Byrne's art was generally superior, and there's no doubt the stories were getting better by Byrne's time (how much was him and how much was a rolling rock building momentum is up for debate), but the earlier Claremont'Cockrum stories were essential building blocks for what followed. I'm perfectly content to refer to it as the Claremont run, fully understanding that Byrne, Cockrum, and Wein all made very significant contributions and that the book hit a serious decline sometime in the mid 1980s, long after Byrne's departure.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2015 20:29:37 GMT -5
I consider this run is 2nd to Lee/Kirby run of the Fantastic Four. Why? ... Because it's fast-paced, action-packed, filled with great characters, good writing, decent to exceptional art and most importantly - it's Marvel Comics at it's very best.
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Post by Icctrombone on Aug 31, 2015 20:53:45 GMT -5
It was a solid run but Claremont over dialogued the hell out of that series.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Aug 31, 2015 20:56:42 GMT -5
It was a solid run but Claremont over dialogued the hell out of that series. Welcome to the Bronze Age. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2015 22:28:02 GMT -5
I'd put it somewhere between 2 and 3 on Reptisaurus scale. I think it is very good for most of it, at times even truly groundbreaking, but it has flaws, and at times Claremont does rely heavily on familiar, almost hackneyed tropes, in some of his storytelling. People overlook the flaws and the missteps in it because the bulk of it was so good and it has such a sterling reputation. It was the best book of its time at Marvel, but not among those I consider the best of all time.
-M
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Aug 31, 2015 22:53:07 GMT -5
It's very good corporate comics. Particularly for the time period. It's also frequently overwritten. And while it is better than the norm for the time in regards to female and ethnic characters it still falls back on stereotypes a lot.
It's good comics. But not anywhere near the best of all time.
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Post by MDG on Sept 1, 2015 8:25:25 GMT -5
Very, very good, speaking as someone who hasn't reread an issue since they originally came out. I'm not a Byrne fan, but I think he drove a lot of it--the thing became virtually unreadable after he left.
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Post by DE Sinclair on Sept 1, 2015 9:36:50 GMT -5
I'd put it somewhere between 2 and 3 on Reptisaurus scale. I think it is very good for most of it, at times even truly groundbreaking, but it has flaws, and at times Claremont does rely heavily on familiar, almost hackneyed tropes, in some of his storytelling. People overlook the flaws and the missteps in it because the bulk of it was so good and it has such a sterling reputation. It was the best book of its time at Marvel, but not among those I consider the best of all time. -M It's very good corporate comics. Particularly for the time period. It's also frequently overwritten. And while it is better than the norm for the time in regards to female and ethnic characters it still falls back on stereotypes a lot. It's good comics. But not anywhere near the best of all time. I think I agree most closely these two esteemed gentlemen. Definitely really good comics, but not without their flaws, and not the best of all time. |
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Post by Warmonger on Sept 1, 2015 11:35:32 GMT -5
Greatest Superhero Team run ever IMO
Two masters working together at their peaks.
I always favored the X-Men over the Fantastic Four, Avengers, Justice League, etc anyway.
They were just more interesting, edgy and relatable IMO. And as a whole, more badass than any other Superhero team even though they weren't the most powerful or imposing.
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Post by dbutler69 on Sept 1, 2015 13:02:05 GMT -5
Greatest Superhero Team run ever IMO Two masters working together at their peaks. I always favored the X-Men over the Fantastic Four, Avengers, Justice League, etc anyway. They were just more interesting, edgy and relatable IMO. And as a whole, more badass than any other Superhero team even though they weren't the most powerful or imposing. I agree with this. I'd give them a 5/5, or at least a 4.5/5. However, the last 30 years of X-Men comics has left a bad taste in my mouth, and tainted my love the X-Men, even of this historic run. At this point, I think that there are some runs on the Avengers and Legion of Super-Heroes that I love just as much. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 1, 2015 14:49:59 GMT -5
As a long time reader that never really liked the X-Men this was the creative team that made me like the title. I think separately they were good creators but together they were great. IMO no other creative team on X-Men were as great as Claremont/Bryne (before them nor after them)...
The only creative teams that captured "lightning in a bottle" like that were Wolfman/Perez on Teen Titans & Levitz/Giffen on LoSH. |
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Crimebuster
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Post by Crimebuster on Sept 1, 2015 16:00:44 GMT -5
Very good stuff. Sometimes great. Overall I'd say 4 out of 5 stars. There are superhero team runs I think are better, like Lee/Kirby Fantastic Four, and several different Avengers runs. But this is really good stuff.
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Post by berkley on Sept 1, 2015 16:59:50 GMT -5
I was a fan at the time and still feel some nostalgia for that run, but for me it's always been on a completely different, and lower, level than what I consider the best comics of its era - things like Steve Gerber's various series (Man-Thing, HtD), Englehart's Doctor Strange, Moench's MoKF, the Wolfman/Colan ToD, Starlin's Warlock, Kirby's Eternals, etc. I would also rank it well below what I consider the top superhero series of all time - e.g. the Kirby/Lee FF and Thor, Englehart's Avengers, Gerber's Defenders, Alan Moore's various superhero books, Ennis's The Boys, etc.
IOW, solid superhero entertainment that doesn't break out of the conventions of the genre.
This isn't in any way meant as a put-down: I'm actually in the process of trying to replace my lost or missing issues of the earlier Claremont run, up to around #150 or so, which was where I stopped following the series altogether.
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