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Post by sabongero on Jan 15, 2018 13:06:28 GMT -5
I am familiar with just some of the basic popular X-Men stories (Dark Phoenix Saga & Days of Future Past) but mostly from seeing them in the 90's X-Men cartoons. What were some of your favorite X-Men stories (from all the different variations of X-Men comic books over the years) and why did it resonate with you?
On a side note, why is there a lot of Chuck Austen hatred in the internet when it comes to X-Men. I came across a few while searching for X-Men writers.
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Post by brutalis on Jan 15, 2018 13:47:45 GMT -5
Had to visit Mikes Amazing World to jar my memory cells: Will skip the Steranko and Neal Adam's issues as everyone knows to grab those gems!
X-Men #29: Mimic versus the Super Adaptoid.
X-men 41, 42: Grotesk the Sub-human.
X-Men 98, 99, 100, 101: New X versus Sentinels and birth of the Phoenix.
X-men 107, 108: New X versus the LOSH, er, uhm I mean the Imperial Guard.
X-Men 111, 112, 113: New X versus Maggie-Neato!!!
X-Men 115, 116: The New X go waaay down under to the Savage Land and get their cro-magnon on...
X-Men 123,124: versus Arcade. Nuff Said!
X-Men 131-137: Hellfire club and death of Phoenix.
X-Men 153. Kitty's Bamf tales arrive.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2018 15:25:45 GMT -5
X-Men 98, 99, 100, 191: New X versus Sentinels and birth of the Phoenix.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2018 16:05:54 GMT -5
1. For me mostly the Claremont issues with Cockrum, Byrne & Paul Smith.
2. Austen was unpopular on most of his DC & Marvel work. Mostly for having characters acting out of character in some creepy ways.
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Post by sabongero on Jan 15, 2018 16:25:58 GMT -5
2. Austen was unpopular on most of his DC & Marvel work. Mostly for having characters acting out of character in some creepy ways. Kindly please advise in what ways were the characters acting creepy? Like villainous, and being bad guys? |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2018 16:34:12 GMT -5
2. Austen was unpopular on most of his DC & Marvel work. Mostly for having characters acting out of character in some creepy ways. Kindly please advise in what ways were the characters acting creepy? Like villainous, and being bad guys? In his Action Comics run he had Lana Lang divorce Pete Ross. Started "stalking" Clark. Tried to have Lana break up the Clark/Lois marriage.
In his Avengers run he had Hawkeye advise Capt America to punch more female villains to help with not having a girlfriend.
In his X-Men run he had Polaris act insane (it involved sex & violence).
Do you see a pattern?
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Post by sabongero on Jan 15, 2018 16:58:30 GMT -5
Kindly please advise in what ways were the characters acting creepy? Like villainous, and being bad guys? In his Action Comics run he had Lana Lang divorce Pete Ross. Started "stalking" Clark. Tried to have Lana break up the Clark/Lois marriage.
In his Avengers run he had Hawkeye advise Capt America to punch more female villains to help with not having a girlfriend.
In his X-Men run he had Polaris act insane (it involved sex & violence).
Do you see a pattern?
Wow! That's blatant character assassination. Hawkeye may have said that to Captain America, but it would make more sense in prior issues of volume one Avengers, when he was a villain. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2018 17:18:46 GMT -5
Wow! That's blatant character assassination. Exactly. It was character assassination. In every one of his runs at DC & Marvel he did this to several characters. He also had bizarre plots (even for comics). |
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Post by Icctrombone on Jan 15, 2018 17:19:37 GMT -5
I really enjoyed the Grant Morrison run and the Josh Weedon run in Astonishing. They both seemed to separate themselves from the top heavy continuity that had been weighing the X-men franchise down for years.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2018 17:20:47 GMT -5
I really enjoyed the Grant Morrison run and the Josh Weedon run in Astonishing. They both seemed to separate themselves from the top heavy continuity that had been weighing the X-men franchise down for years. The Josh Whedon run was excellent. |
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Post by Icctrombone on Jan 15, 2018 17:22:59 GMT -5
Both the runs had excellent artwork. Well ,the Morrison run suffered when Quietly left , actually.  |
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Post by rberman on Jan 15, 2018 18:01:01 GMT -5
Claremont was running on all cylinders from about issue #101 (first Phoenix appearance) through #200 (the trial of Magneto, just before the return of Jean Grey after her death on the moon). Magik and Wolverine each had a four issue mini-series whose plots tied in tightly to stories in this range. Claremont's parallel work on New Mutants often dovetailed nicely into the stories in the main X-book, except during the forced crossovers (*cough* Team America *cough*) which I can only assume must have been editorially mandated. The early Sienkiewicz-drawn New Mutants stories (Demon Bear, Cloak and Dagger, Legion, Warlock, roughly issues #18-28) are essential reading.
After that, brand dilution and editorial interference and an over-reliance on alternate-reality versions of existing characters turned things into a declining mess for a while. Almost anything with Cable, Bishop, or anyone else holding a gun bigger than his thigh should be avoided. (Except when Morrison did Bishop as Hercule Poirot; that was awesome.) I stopped reading for quite a while. I came back later and checked out collections of Onslaught (which was really bad) and Age of Apocalyspe (which was OK, inasmuch as it's basically a yearlong "What If" story where all the characters have a new alternate reality configuration), but I wouldn't really recommend those.
Grant Morrison's run on New X-Men had a terrific beginning. The Immensity story (and resultant Shi'ar appearance) and the Sentinel attack on Genosha (leading to Emma coming to the X-mansion) and Trans-Human storyline were interesting, as was the X-Corporation following Professor X "coming out" to the world as a mutant. I really liked the subsequent mansion-centric stories with the next generation of mutants including Quentin Quire and the Stepford Cuckoos and Beak. Quitely's art was terrific as well. The Morrison run ended badly with a conclusion to the Xorn storyline which I frankly thought was a complete cheat based on what had been presented up to that point. You can currently get Morrison's entire run in a hardcover (1120 pages, covering New X-Men 114-154 plus an annual). It's also broken up into three softcover collections, of which the first two contain the excellent stories, and the last one was a letdown, but you still sort of need to read it for completion, even if it leaves you (like me) shaking your head.
You also need to read the end of Morrison because Joss Whedon's run (Astonishing X-Men #1-24) built off of it, and I can't say enough good things about those 24 issues, a set of four Kitty Pryde-centric stories that are the best thing anyone has ever done with that character, Claremont included. He also got the X-Men back into witty heroic mode instead of gritty leather-clad mode, and Wolverine was simply a part of the ensemble rather than hogging the spotlight. Cassaday's art is terrific, and I want to see more of new X-Man Armor.
If you want extra credit, consider these:
The Mojoverse stuff (Starting with the 1985 Longshot mini-series, spilling over into a couple of X-annuals) was a fun media satire, especially with Art Adams as penciler, even though the character never really made sense as an X-Man to me. Spiral was a really cool villain, moreso when her origin was revealed.
Excalibur was a zany, alternate-reality heavy cousin that's optional, depending on how much you want to know what Nightcrawler and Kitty Pryde were up to in England.
X-Club is sort of a lighthearted "X-Men does Doctor Who" sci fi story.
The Fallen Angels mini-series (Sunspot, Warlock, and a band of misfits including Boom Boom) was too wacky for me, but if you like the idea of mutant lobsters who talk in 80s emoticons, then this is the series for you.
The X-Men/Micronauts mini-series was alarming for making Xavier a pedophile.
The Kitty Pryde/Wolverine mini-series (where she becomes a ninja) was generally panned, but the sequel "Shadow and Flame" series (with Paul Smith art! Yay!) was better IMHO.
The X-Men/Fantastic Four crossover dragged the conflict between the two groups out too long.
Mekanix (2002-3) was a good "Kitty Pryde goes to college and psychotherapy" series.
Claremont's "The End" was a fascinating imaginary story about the final outcomes of the X-men characters. It does require rather encyclopedic knowledge of the X-universe to know who is doing what and why, though, so it's sort of a love letter to continuity porn fans.
So again the short version of my favorites: Original X-Men series #101-200. New Mutants #1-28. Wolverine mini-series. Magik mini-series. New X-Men 114-154. Astonishing X-Men 1-24.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jan 16, 2018 1:00:37 GMT -5
I tend to fall more in the early days, with Claremont and Cockrum. There was such an energy there, as Claremont was getting to work on something bigger and Cockrum was having the same kind of fun he had with the Legion. The 2-part with Count Nefaria, which re-started the original series (after the Giant Size debut), the introduction and subsequent Eric the Red/Shi'ar stuff, the first battle with Magneto, their battle with the Sentinels that led to Phoenix, the first meeting with Weapon Alpha/Guardian/Vindicator, Arcade, the Proteus storyline, Dark Phoenix, the introduction of Alpha Flight, the history issue that followed Jean's death, Kitty's first days, the Magneto storyline that culminates in issue 150 and gets into his WW2 past, Kitty's Fairytale, the Hellfire Club return and the brainswitch between Storm and Emma Frost, the brood Saga (up to a point) the annual with the Badoon and the FF, the Impossible Man scavenger hunt, the Asgard storyline.
A lot of them just have to do with how the story grabbed me, like Magneto's reappearance (on Muir Island), and Weapon Alpha. The Shi'ar stuff from Claremont and Cockrum was epic space opera, with superheroes, Arcade was fun. Proteus was pretty damn scary stuff, as even Wolverine was unnerved and their seemed to be no stopping the character; plus, the ties to Moira MacTaggert.
The Classic X-Men back-up retro stories, to fill in the page count on some of the earlier, shorter stories, where you see things like the beginning of Wolverine and Nightcrawler's hunting matches, and why Nightcrawler stopped using his image inducer. Also, there is a great spot illustration by, I believe, Art Adams, of Wolverine and Beast coming their hair with cans of mousse nearby.
God loves, Man Kills graphic novel.
The Roy Thomas Neal Adams run, the Steranko issues, for the sheer artistry on display.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 16, 2018 9:13:55 GMT -5
Uncanny X-Men #183 I have the book and I've read this story 2-3 times a year and never, ever disappointed me!
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Post by The Captain on Jan 16, 2018 9:44:22 GMT -5
Kindly please advise in what ways were the characters acting creepy? Like villainous, and being bad guys? In his Action Comics run he had Lana Lang divorce Pete Ross. Started "stalking" Clark. Tried to have Lana break up the Clark/Lois marriage.
In his Avengers run he had Hawkeye advise Capt America to punch more female villains to help with not having a girlfriend.
In his X-Men run he had Polaris act insane (it involved sex & violence).
Do you see a pattern?
He also had Havok get engaged to Lorna, but then realize he really loved Nurse Annie, who was at the mansion because of her mutant son, which caused all sorts of hijinx, except they weren't even remotely entertaining. Austen also wrote the horrid "Nightcrawler's dad is a literal demon" story as well as coming up with the idea that mutants couldn't get AIDS. |
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