shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Nov 26, 2014 19:16:13 GMT -5
Mohawk Storm did it for me. I wasn't enjoying the book nearly as much as I had been, but Punk Storm was a signal that they were running out of ideas. I read sporadically to #200 or so and I never saw anything that made me think I had made a mistake. While I didn't care for the look, this was Storm at her best in terms of characterization. Claremont really played with her psyche and revealed both tremendous vulnerability and immense strength within. |
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fuzzyblueelf
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People of Color doesn't mean Red Plastic
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Post by fuzzyblueelf on Nov 26, 2014 19:16:42 GMT -5
At least he didn't actually date her, or sleep with her. Like how they decided another certain Teacher figure should with one of his students which was actually an issue published in recent times. I was quite pissed they did that to Wolfsbane. Oh, hey, I got an idea, X-SIDE-OF-THINGS, let's ruin ALLLL the classic characters so we can insert a bunch of new characters that no one gives a shit about because NONE of you will EVER spend ANY time developing ANY of them past a 30 issue team book.  I was actually referring to Doctor Strange during the Defenders where he slept with one of his students. I have no clue about what bad things happened to Wolfsbane other than KyYost deciding she needed to be tortured by her Extremist Father only for her to exact her revenge by eating him. I think it would be a great idea to make more and more new X-Characters because hey why not? It's not like we have over 300 in limbo or anything guys! |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 26, 2014 19:20:00 GMT -5
Oh, then there's that. The Doctor Strange thing.  |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Nov 26, 2014 19:21:27 GMT -5
Prof. X falling in love with Jean was a one issue development in the original series that pretty much got forgotten after. They struggled a lot with the Professor's characterization in those early issues, and giving him a crush on Jean was an attempt to humanize him and make him seem younger/more relatable to young readers by getting away from the stern old guy characterization. That inability to make the professor accessible is also, presumably, why he ended up appearing to die and vanish from the comic for a length of time shortly after. It was only in later years that writers chose to return to this idea of the professor having a crush on Jean, where it was definitely better left forgotten.
I always liked the Professor's relationship with Lilandra. Far more appropriate, and also quite endearing.
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Post by Paste Pot Paul on Nov 26, 2014 19:51:31 GMT -5
I remember beginning to get bored with the X-Men around the time of the Mutant Massacre. I was really disliking Marc Silvestri's art, I always thought it was bland and lacking detail, missing JR jr, and the team was changing as well. I hated the Morlocks, I hated them in Australia, I hated Wolverine in Madripoor, and the stories were becoming even more melodramatic.
BUT...I was an addict and continued to buy through to Fatal Attractions or so. I cant for the life of me remember what any of the crossovers were about other than the Massacre (cos thats self explanatory). ALL that writing, blah blah blah, I could never follow anything.
I'm attempting to read these again but am finding some of it tough going. Uncanny is not too bad, but early X-Force is appalling. New Mutants after a year or so is awful, how the heck did Power Pack last over 3 frickin years ? and at least the latter NM and XF has Cable shooting shit (THAT I can understand).
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Post by badwolf on Nov 26, 2014 19:56:00 GMT -5
I thought Power Pack was good until it got turned over to Jon Bogdanove and a weirdly infantilized Franklin Richards joined them.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Nov 26, 2014 20:30:50 GMT -5
For me the moment the X-Men jumped the shark was the moment it went from being the X-Men to being the X-Universe, and that was 1982 with the dual publication of the New Mutants graphic novel and the Wolverine mini-series, which is ironic because they are both good stories in of themselves, the problem is they diluted the concept and the focus of the X-Men. When X-Men was a single book (not the core of a franchise) there was a singular vision guiding it, a singular story being told, and an inherit limit to the size and scale of the storytelling that prevented it from becoming a bloated mess.It was the story of the X-Men, a small group of misfits fighting the good fight in a world that feared them. With those two publications it became the story of a group of misfits fighting the good fight in a world that feared them and the story of the next generation training to take their spots and the story of a noble savage-the berserker with the heart of gold, and from there it kept adding ands to the story as a splash effect form the shark jump. Once it jumped and made the big splash, the ripples kept going outwards and the focus, the purity of the concept and the quality became diluted, more so over time as the ripple effect got bigger and bigger. But the actual shark jump was when the book stopped being a book and tried to become something else-a line, a franchise, a cash cow, or whatever Marvel tried to make it. There was no going back. Part of what made it what it was, was the fact it was a book where anything and more importantly everything happened. After 1982, everything didn't happen there. It was no longer one story being told, one concept, etc., etc. It was something different. (Some may argue better, but that doesn't invalidate it being different). -M This is more or less my feeling as well, I started reading my father's collection of X-men as a kid which pretty much stretched from the original run with Stan Lee to about 1980 and I loved it. However, when I tried to jump in to the then current books of the early 1990's I was very frustrated that you couldn't just read one book and get a whole story, it wa always continued in X-factor #97 or as seen in New Mutants #68 which killed me. I can deal with multi part stories but I hate having to buy other books that I'm really interested in in order to get the story and the X-men were always doing that kind of stuff. O5 being in the present. I can deal with Future X-men being in the present because they'll only change a future we won't see, the O5 are literally the original X-men of that Universe and don't seem to care about the consequences of them staying in the present, doesn't make me fond of them. And in general when they decided to make Time Travel a common thing for X-men I did say that I don't mind the Future X-men but I still think it's ridiculous that we have so many time travel plots and they are all basically the same thing "The future is so screwed up we have to come back to change it by killing someone or preventing someone's death!" You know what would be a unique X-men storyline? how about them fighting for Mutant rights for once. See, i liked seeing the O5 back in the picture again. I loved the O5 stories from the 60's and 70's so seeing them again made me pick up X-Men again, and it was good for a bit but again it became a huge event and suddenly you had to pick up x-factor and uncanny avengers and wolverine if you wanted to read the rest of the story. |
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Post by earl on Nov 26, 2014 20:37:16 GMT -5
I know for me, it seemed like something was lost when the split the X-men into three titles adding X-Factor and Excalibur. The X-Men stories quit having conclusions and went more into soap opera mode.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 26, 2014 20:44:33 GMT -5
I'd probably like them a little more if someone other than Bendis was writing them. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 26, 2014 20:45:43 GMT -5
I know for me, it seemed like something was lost when the split the X-men into three titles adding X-Factor and Excalibur. The X-Men stories quit having conclusions and went more into soap opera mode. *gasp* You...didn't like Excalibur? |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Nov 26, 2014 20:48:04 GMT -5
However, when I tried to jump in to the then current books of the early 1990's I was very frustrated that you couldn't just read one book and get a whole story, it wa always continued in X-factor #97 or as seen in New Mutants #68 which killed me. I can deal with multi part stories but I hate having to buy other books that I'm really interested in in order to get the story and the X-men were always doing that kind of stuff. I think they generally handled that tastefully. With so many books featuring an overlapping cast of characters with close connections and overlapping missions, they were going to cross paths regularly. But, when they did so, you seldom HAD to read the crossover stories. They did a nice job of recapping what you missed if you stuck to one title. And some of those overlaps were simply silly and cute, just to reward those who happened to be following the two books simultaneously. Where did that character go? Well read the next issue of Thor to see. Why are the New Mutants in Belasco's dimension for two whole panels? Go read their most current issue to find out. The only time you really had to read the other title(s) to not feel like you were missing out was with the mega crossovers they began doing annually, but I saw those as being shake-ups from the norm, even if the pay-off wasn't always satisfactory. Better to hype an event by making it into a massive crossover than by pulling some cheesy stunt like killing a character you just know is going to come back anyway. I read because they were BIG and exciting in their scope, not because they made any promises about long term shake-ups. |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Nov 26, 2014 22:42:15 GMT -5
However, when I tried to jump in to the then current books of the early 1990's I was very frustrated that you couldn't just read one book and get a whole story, it wa always continued in X-factor #97 or as seen in New Mutants #68 which killed me. I can deal with multi part stories but I hate having to buy other books that I'm really interested in in order to get the story and the X-men were always doing that kind of stuff. I think they generally handled that tastefully. With so many books featuring an overlapping cast of characters with close connections and overlapping missions, they were going to cross paths regularly. But, when they did so, you seldom HAD to read the crossover stories. They did a nice job of recapping what you missed if you stuck to one title. And some of those overlaps were simply silly and cute, just to reward those who happened to be following the two books simultaneously. Where did that character go? Well read the next issue of Thor to see. Why are the New Mutants in Belasco's dimension for two whole panels? Go read their most current issue to find out. The only time you really had to read the other title(s) to not feel like you were missing out was with the mega crossovers they began doing annually, but I saw those as being shake-ups from the norm, even if the pay-off wasn't always satisfactory. Better to hype an event by making it into a massive crossover than by pulling some cheesy stunt like killing a character you just know is going to come back anyway. I read because they were BIG and exciting in their scope, not because they made any promises about long term shake-ups. It felt more excessive rather than tasteful to me, I'd say especially as a younger reader but as I said I recently tried to get back into X-Men and the same thing happened again so it wasn't just the young me who got frustrated by the endless crossovers. I'm not against ancillary titles, they provide different kinds of stories to match other tastes but I've always felt that other offices, like the Batman office, did a much better job at providing different books with out making you feel like you were forced to read them. Even events like Knight Fall were much more manageable with their tie ins, as they merely added to the story rather than integral parts. |
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Post by Randle-El on Nov 26, 2014 23:43:52 GMT -5
I think I'd have to agree with MRP that the "beginning of the end" was when the X-Men became the X-Universe, though I would hesitate to say that's when it jumped the shark or reached a point of no return. My favorite era of the X-Men will always be the Claremont/Byrne/Cockrum years -- Professor X as the leader, living and working out of the mansion, with just a single team that would be called the X-Men. I always thought of the X-Men as embodying Professor X's dream, so it just doesn't feel right whenever he's not part of the book, or when there are multiple X-Teams running around, some of them arguably having little to do with Xavier's dream.
That said, I have enjoyed X-Men stories without Professor X, or ones that came after the expansion into an X-Universe. I actually liked the Mohawk Storm era myself (though Mohawk Storm herself was not so interesting to me). Fall of the Mutants and its aftermath were "meh", but things picked up for me during the Jim Lee era. And I have probably mentioned this more than a few times, but I enjoyed the early years of Scott Lobdell's time on the book. In particular, he wrote a few of my favorite X-Men issues -- I can't remember the numbers of the top of my head, but they were
1) the death of Illyana due to the Legacy Virus
2) the Thanksgiving issue where Jean proposes to Scott
3) the aftermath issue of X-cutioner's song, where Jubilee and Professor X go roller-blading
At this point though, there are so many mutants and different areas of the X-Universe that I feel like the whole thing has just gotten too big to be enjoyable anymore. I made one last attempt to follow the X-Men a few years ago, when Jason Aaron did his run on Wolverine and the X-Men. That was actually a fun read. It was quirky and took the concept somewhat back to its roots by opening the Jean Grey School. But then they lost me when Scott killed Professor X.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Nov 26, 2014 23:51:47 GMT -5
but I've always felt that other offices, like the Batman office, did a much better job at providing different books with out making you feel like you were forced to read them. Even events like Knight Fall were much more manageable with their tie ins, as they merely added to the story rather than integral parts. That's where you lost me. I could see your point with the rest, but for years on end prior to the Crisis, a story would regularly start in Batman and continue in Detective Comics. One of my favorite stories from that era, the one with The Monk, was particularly frustrating to follow because it would be in two issues of Batman back to back, then cross over into Detective, then back to Batman, etc. Then you had the opposite problem Post Crisis in which Batman and Detective were two entirely separate entities, even portraying a Jason Todd at two completely different ages in the two books, and handling characterization completely differently while building two different internal continuities. I think the X-titles hit a happier middle road than those two extremes. |
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Post by earl on Nov 27, 2014 0:03:27 GMT -5
I didn't read much of Excalibur. Alan Davis was one of the best artists of the late 80s, in his prime. It just seemed like every issue of Uncanny X-Men Claremont started adding more and more mutants and other than 1 in done character issues, which were pretty good in that exact period, the comic seemed to drift into a never ending story arc. The ties between the other titles were kind of tentative. It's obvious it was a huge sales boon and there are plenty of characters and a couple story lines that came out of that period that were highly influential (Apocalypse/Weapon X).
I know I was just on to other comics at that point from DC and the Indies too.
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I was actually referring to Doctor Strange during the Defenders where he slept with one of his students. I have no clue about what bad things happened to Wolfsbane other than KyYost deciding she needed to be tortured by her Extremist Father only for her to exact her revenge by eating him.
