X-Men Comics...

Post by **Best First** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 4:00 pm

After collecting both titles for the last decade or so i am seriously thinking of jacking them both in - i mean they are just crap now eh?

obvioulsy Astonishinh is great.

IronHide · Post by **IronHide** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 5:42 pm

I plan on keeping mine until the line is just about dead and then pullin the relics out.

I have almost all X-Men, X-Factor, Wolverine, Gen-X and X-Force up til 99. Should be worth somethin.

Impactor returns 2.0 · Post by **Impactor returns 2.0** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 8:13 pm

I havent caught much of any of it since the onslaught saga, which in conjunction with cable comics etc I thought was bloody ace and i would have liked to have seen TF comics using a similar format.

so has xmen really gone that much down hill?

Post by **Best First** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 8:34 pm

it went very much uphill IMO, with Grant Morrisons run, but sadly then they got Clairemont back.

fair play to his old ork, but his new stuff is gash.

Post by **Denyer** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 9:01 pm

I've found reading about X-Men more interesting than reading X-Men for a long time now—maybe I should pick some stuff back up and see what's happened recently, but between scans and random issues I've not spotted anything to make me sit up and take interest. Last thing I bothered to track down and read was the stuff with Gambit and New Sun. And a big chunk of Death's Head II, but I'm odd like that.

Changes in writers, situation resets, characters constantly coming back from the dead, etc. all took their toll. Age of Apocalypse, for example, effectively killed Gen X off in its tracks, when it had top art and was distinct from the other X-books.

I'll enjoy the occasional self-contained story arc focusing on one or a few characters—four issues seems a good length—but I think three or four years' worth of comics is enough for most characters or teams. Triple digits is rarely a good sign.

More creative risk-taking, dammit!

(Have you read any Tom Strong? Seems to capture the "simple fun" thing well in early issues.)

Post by **Best First** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 9:37 pm

Denyer wrote:Age of Apocalypse, for example, effectively killed Gen X off in its tracks, when it had top art and was distinct from the other X-books.

I don't think that's true - what killed the title off was the combined moving of Lobdell, who had a clear vision in plot, wit and character terms, and Mr Chris, whose art was wonderfully distinct, at more or less the same time.

In both cases it was their decision to leave to go onto other (and in Lobdells case certainly higher profile) projects, and nothing to do with AOA as far as i am aware (which, as an aside, i thoroughly enjoyed).

What killed it was the fact Larry Hama had no idea what he was doing.

Still, lookingback for me that was when the X-Titles were vaguely decent - there weren't too many core books, well, ok, there were 7... each had a distinct feel and a solid core cast and by and large they didn't contradict each other and once every 18 months or so came together for a nice cross over.

Now... all the books seem utterly divorced from each other, people die in one while having tea in the other, loads of the best (IMO) characters have been sidelined, and to cap it all we have Clairmont insisting Sage is even vaguely interesting.

Thank god for Ultimate X-Men.

Dark Link · Post by **Dark Link** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 10:00 pm

Best First wrote:
Thank god for Ultimate X-Men.

I agree. While I haven't much read any of the othe X-Men stuff in a long time. I picked up an Ultimate X-Men TPB off chance (Return of the King) and loved it. Since then I have bought six more and just fallen inlove with this series.

I like the fact it is taking some what off of the movie and X-Men evolution.

Hound · Post by **Hound** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 10:32 pm

The quality of the books has gone downhill badly. Do the sales reflect this I wonder?

Only astonishing interests me, and ultimate. Did we really need Xcalibur and Xforce back? They were pretty dull and uninteresting in the first place.

The whole franchise has gone horribly backwards. A couple of years ago we had a top quality film sequel, Morrison writing some stunning stories, A satiric piece of genius in Xstatix and everything felt fresh and relevant.

Now we have the daughter of Wolverine...all the dead characters are back, Psylocke's reintroduction was an insult...I stopped reading a while ago.

Post by **Best First** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 10:34 pm

i love the way its the same guy who killed her as he had no other way to make hi snew vanity series interesting that then goes and brings her back as he has no decent ideas for new characters either.

Its so sad the guy ho made X-Men great is now killing it off.

Still, they can always kill Hawkeye and let Bendis write it...

Post by **Denyer** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 10:53 pm

Best First wrote:I don't think that's true - what killed the title off was the combined moving of Lobdell, who had a clear vision in plot, wit and character terms, and Mr Chris, whose art was wonderfully distinct, at more or less the same time.

In both cases it was their decision to leave to go onto other (and in Lobdells case certainly higher profile) projects, and nothing to do with AOA as far as i am aware

I've always been under the impression that the forced hiatus on Marvel's books at the time meant a lot of things had to be shelved. Lobdell had plans for Skin to develop in other directions, for example, and wasn't set on the family shuffle situation with Penance.

AOA had strong points, but it was only because of the UK reprints and the net that I really managed to track what was going on. I don't know how easy it was to follow when it was split across titles in the US printing.

What was welcome was that it managed to shake things up.

Best First wrote:each had a distinct feel and a solid core cast

Mostly, yeah. The 'start-up' teams (New Mutants, etc) were always the ones I found most fascinating. Re-jigging existing teams (eg, the group evolution of X-Factor) never held much interest.

Massive cross-overs... to be honest, a lot of the time it just seemed to highlight how much the backgrounds of teams didn't gel together, or how much redundancy there is in terms of character design—every team gets its 'strong guy' powerhouse, etc.

edit: Plus, the more characters, the less dialogue and the more stock the character writing.

Hound · Post by **Hound** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 11:12 pm

I really enjoyed AoA, i have every issue from the series and it ties together into a lovely little saga. There is a new mini series out now, drawn by Bachello...it's ok, but lacks the appeal of the first series as they have now pretty much undone everything that was bad the first time around.

IronHide · Post by **IronHide** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 6:24 am

IMO. (which is favored by 9 out of 10 dentists and a few cats)

Every X title was at it's peak right before the Onslaught series, then it happened, the ridiculous piece of crap that became known as X-Men: The Movie. I mean WTF were they thinking?!? I really wanted to go and slap the piss outta Stan Lee and ask him why he made my heart sad. But not only did they stop there, they decided to make yet another fantastic adaption of pure comic brilliance into a giant steaming log that some may know as X-Men United. Now granted, my overwhelming distaste for the movies didn't stop me from occasionally picking up the comic every now and then, but when they warped the story line to incorporate the movie?!?! I'm fairly certain my heart broke, or at least a piece of it chipped and shattered.

But I'm straying from the subject, the Marvel goodness that was the 80's and 90's. Hell AoA had to have been my favorite series, it's right up there with The Phoenix Saga, X-Cutioners Song, X-Tinction Agenda, The Phalanx Covenant, etc. These were the griping comics that we rushed out to get every month. What happened to that magic? Occasionally I've come across a comic or two that I can stomach, but then there's some minute hint of the movie storyline in it and it just ruins the moment. I remember when there was talk of ending the X-Men storyline back in the day and it nearly killed me, now, I wouldn't give it a second thought.

Jetfire · Post by **Jetfire** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 8:17 am

I'm like Denyer I hate reading the comics but I do want to know whats going on. I suspose I see X-men as old friends-I grew up on them and spent years caring deeply what happened to them. But yeah constant resurections, characters histories being crapped on, it's just not marvel.

Marvels strength was it's continunity. It's why Marvel thrashed DC for 3-4 decades. Every event was reconsised, sure some took some explaination but it happened like it would in someones life. It's why the death of a none too maajor Daredevil character like Karen Page could mean so much.

DC's strength and weakness has always been it's lack of need for a true continunity but marvel needs to be a different company. Death is a joke. WHen Jean was resurected it had a credable ish reason and resurections of long dead characters were rare.
Now its a joke.
I grew up regular X-men rewding why Cyclops merged with Apolkysipe and they claimed he was dead. It was a decent story but the whole Cyclopes is dead to amke the story seam biger when it was so stupidly done made me quit in discust.
I tried Moorison briefly but again his teachnique for simply destroying characters that "don't fit his vision", sensationism stories and the fact he can't write other characters and well as hacking up the main comic to fit the movie (It was the single most popular comic for 20 years why does it need to change overnight for a reasonable successful movie?) just put me off forever.

Hearing Marvel is still sensonalising stories by killing off Haweye the most intresting Avenger so they can pretent their "big event" story is actually good finally made me lose hope of ever reading mainstream comics again.

Brendocon · Post by **Brendocon** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 10:41 am

I dropped the main titles shortly after Morrison left. I think it was finding out that Claremont had unkilled Magneto again that did it... didn't want to waste my time getting emotionally invested in an arc only for it to be ignored by events of a parallel title again.

But then came Astonishing, which is pretty much self-contained and joygasmic beyond belief.

Really wasn't stunned to see Psylocke on the cover of whatever it was recently. Even picked it up to flick through the first few pages. "Oh, she wasn't dead at all? Whatever." Hardly surprising, Claremont probably only did it because Joss was allowed to bring back Colossus.

Exiles > All bar Astonishing.

Post by **Best First** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 4:58 pm

I love Exiles - but i loved it more when Vaughn was writing it.

The art has decklined as well.

What is the name of the Bachelo AOA series?

My new standing order is:

Exiles
Ultimates
Ultimate X-Men
Astonishing X-Men
Ultimate Spider Man
Y The Last Man
Planetary
BPRD
Hellboy
New Avengers
Amazing Spiderman
Thunderbolts
Ultimate Fantastic Four
Fantastic Four

I have ditched Powers, but i may chnage my mind on that one for the letters page alone... hmm.

Blacksword · Post by **Blacksword** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 6:55 am

I stick strictly to Ulimate titles where everything more or less makes sense (though the dimwits at Marvel managed to throw a few continuity glitches in there too... the editors and writers really need to get their acts together).

Ultimates 2 has been absolutely sublime so far. [composite word including 'f*ck'] brilliant. Vaughan's run on Ultimate X-Men has been stellar (aside from having Gambit and Rogue hook up waay too early). Warren Ellis's stories for Ultimate Fantastic Four have been quite good overall. While the current story arc's been a bit slow Doom was amazing. I have to say the reimagining of Doom as Victor Van Damme has been my favourite ultimatized villian so far. Ultimate Spidey's been on a bit of low recently, though the Hobgoblin arc looks promising (despite the fact it's not quite teh story I'd have wanted it to be)

Yes this is X-Titles, but there are simply too many book in the main Marvel universe and too much screwed up continuity and plain crap to be bothered. At some point I'll pick up Morrison's run on New X-Men and maybe the Astonishing trades if I'm feeling generous. Ultimate X-Men is simply the best X-title and the only one I care about.

In fact the only main universe title I'm presently collecting is Secret War, which has been very good so far (though as a quarterly the wait's a tad frustrating). At least someone finally decided to come up with a reason for all those supervillians running around with all that expensive harware minus the finances for it. Norman Osborne made sense - he's a multi-millionaire and scientific genius, the original Hobgoblin also made sense as he too was rolling in cash to begin with. But most of the other losers in Marvel's rogue's gallery? Glaring plot hole that Mr. Bendis has made (an admittedly somewhat forced) fix for.

sprunkner · Post by **sprunkner** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 10:17 pm

Best First wrote:Exiles
Ultimates
Ultimate X-Men
Astonishing X-Men
Ultimate Spider Man
Y The Last Man
Planetary
BPRD
Hellboy
New Avengers
Amazing Spiderman
Thunderbolts
Ultimate Fantastic Four
Fantastic Four

I have ditched Powers, but i may chnage my mind on that one for the letters page alone... hmm.

Good list. I can't keep up with that many per month as I am still catching up on Sandman. Spectacular was good for awhile, then went downhill when Ramos left. MK Spidey looks pretty good.. I should pick it up.

Yea, so, X-men. I still don't like Vaughan as much as Millar, but Ultimate is the only one that can even hold a candle to Astonishing. Joss should write all the X-titles.

I always thought it would be a good idea to bring Lobdell back. He masterminded some good stuff.

Blacksword · Post by **Blacksword** » Sat Apr 02, 2005 5:58 am

Millar's run on Ultimate X-Men was fun but not all that deep. Plots were pretty over the top when you think about it, especially the first arc. Characters tended to be a tad one dimensional, save for maybe Xavier, Jean and Beast. I will say Millar can write amzingly funny scenes though. But Ultimates was just so much better, I think because Millar saw it as a much more serious book. Ultimates is realism, X-Men for Millar was more written as a traditional action comic. It's odd though because Millar's character work in Ultimates is so rich while his UXM run was really short in the character department. Priorities I guess.

Post by **Best First** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 10:38 am

I reaslly enjoyed Miller on X-Men - it was more action focussed but thats no bad thing.

Collosus standing up to Magneto was awesome.

Ultimate FF is pretty good as well. Teh only poor ultimate title so far has been the rubbish Daredevil elektra stuff.

I would probably pick up X-Men again if Lobdell came back, his stuff was pretty fun...

...altho he did introduce Maggott.

Hound · Post by **Hound** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 11:26 am

Best First wrote:
...altho he did introduce Maggott.

He's dead now...although I woulndt want toplace bets on how long for...

Post by **Best First** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 11:55 am

Hound wrote:
Best First wrote:
...altho he did introduce Maggott.
He's dead now...although I woulndt want toplace bets on how long for...

Yes, but i woudlhave to read the crappy weapon X to find that out...

hands up who finds Sabretooth massively dull these days?

Post by **Denyer** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 12:35 pm

These days?

How many characters are/were running around with adamantium bits? I was never a fan of copy-characters at the best of times, but Sabretooth always seemed particular overkill.

edit: Completely OT, did that transfer thingy go through alright?

Hound · Post by **Hound** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 12:44 pm

The only time I have enjoyed Sabretooth is in Age of Apocolypse.

Although he is not as tedious as the likes of Rogue, Gambit and Storm have become.

Post by **Denyer** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 1:14 pm

Yeah, he was rather fun when subbing for Wolverine in the AOA team... though perhaps the most inventive switcharoo was Pyro...

edit: Don't remember Storm ever being interesting. Rogue/Gambit weren't bad before too much of the mystery was broken. Last I heard they'd burnt out their powers and were getting some R&R, which seemed a nice way to leave things.

Dark Link · Post by **Dark Link** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 11:25 pm

Best First wrote:
hands up who finds Sabretooth massively dull these days?

*SPOILERS*

Since I only read Ultimate I can stand him since... welll... he has no head. Or did they bring him back to life and I am going to find that out shortly?

sprunkner · Post by **sprunkner** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 3:56 am

You've got to see these... sheer genius.

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/218160

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/219810

KingMob · Post by **KingMob** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 7:04 am

Seen 'em. They are ace. I'm particularly fond of the authentically-accented Canuck Wolverine and him being on every team.

I gave up all the X-books halfway through the Search for Xavier, because they had all been utter mince for about a year at that point. And I used to get all of them. It felt really weird just dropping them. But I haven't regretted it. X-Men books are just bad.

Although I did sneakily keep on with Gambit until it was cancelled.

And I went back for Morrision, obv.

And I picked up 'Gifted' in TPB.

And I still read www.thexaxis.com

...oh God, I'm in denial! I'm still an X-Men fan!

I found Sabretooth slightly interesting when he was in X-Factor. They ruined that book with the cast-change that included switching him in, but I did kinda enjoy waiting for him to just brutally massacre the lot of 'em. After he busted out and hospitalised the whole team, I dropped the book and pretended they were all dead. And the characters were all so minor-league that none of them ever turned up in any X-Book I read ever again, so it was a pretence that kinda worked.

Although I believe Polaris is now in one of the main teams and has had her entire character completely and totally banjaxxed.
Not that she ever really had one, mind you.