Out of all the X-Men writers, who do you hate the most.

@oldnightcrawler: But then for me Gillen's run was too serious. Despite the flamboyant Sinister. I am probably just too picky!

Gillen never spent enough time developing the group dynamic of his team to make me actually care about it, which is especially a shame considering that he had such an interesting cast to work with. Basically, I would only recommend his run to someone who wanted to read a good Mr.Sinister story; as an X-men book, there's just not enough there.

Personally, I don't think that being picky is a bad thing, as long as you realize that not every X-men story is going to be the same kind of story, and try to appreciate each story for what it does well before judging it.

Does anyone know how responsible Bendis is for House of M/Decimation of mutantkind and the demonization of the Scarlet Witch? And how much do you wanna bet that AvX was his idea?

I agree with this and that's why I just can't appreciate Fraction's run. I really have tried but I just don't think it ticks any boxes for me!

@ageofhurricane:

It's nice to see how you avoided everything I was trying to say, just to make your point. And I am the silly one?

Maybe you wanted details? Let's go then:

1. Morrison referred so much to evolution, so how is evolution coming into service with freak-mutants when there already were people like Exodus or Iceman? What for? As I said, all this was one big step back, not a progress I'm interested in. You say he had balls while no one else did, well if he really had, he would make a human be responsible for the Genoshan genocide and let's end this discussion if you don't see the difference. His writing style wasn't completely bad, but he made characters complete hypocrites just to draw out his way to the story he was telling, most of writers do this and he is just one of them. The reaction (or let's say the total absence of it) of the X-Men on this same genocide I'm talking about so much, was just ridiculous. Beast was joking around on corpses of Genosha, this guy is supposed to be sensitive while he acts like a fool. Jean was saying to Emma "Magneto and Genosha are dead and so are his ways" like it was something good, and after that she was the one calling Emma a bitch. Really?! This is **cking nonsense in it's purest form. If these are the protectors of mutantkind, then even Xorneto was right.

There is no such thing like mutant culture, it just can't happen yet, because they live in a world humankind have already determined, it doesn't matter if mutants live in a closed community, still they act human, so all this was pointless. I don't have a problem with overpopulating the Earth with mutants, I do have a problem with doing it to make genocide look credible in a story, that was my point. Marvel are not prepared (and never will be) to replace humans with mutants. So, why?

2. First of all, people who like the X-Men comics see them as an example of something. The most common are racism, sexism and all the bigotry stuff. As for me, I don't really see how a fear of an energy god like Vulcan has to do anything with homosexuals, sorry. There is a strict difference if you'd ask me, between a new dominant species and the dying breed that want to continue to rule. If I was a human in MU I would be ****ing afraid of Magnetos and Apocalypses, but then, if I would be Magneto, I wouldn't act differently. So the conflict is understandable, without introducing freakish muties and turning it into a pity. As for me, freakish mutants and their story had to end with Morlocks. Then it would all make sense, evolution would make sense. There is no evolution in a long neck or three faces.

Killing off Jean Grey was one of a few good things he did.

Fraction for his embarrassing displays of obsession over Cyclops, his patronizing portrayal of women (and particularly the domestication and humiliation of Emma Frost), and general inability to write a compelling narrative for the X-Men. His run was an antiseptic portrayal of suburban d-bags with super-powers.

Also, I think there are valid criticisms to Morrison's run, but I found none in the OP.

@lykopis said:

I saw this and thought "oh gosh, who's this cretin", then I saw it was Lykopis.

For shame.

No one thinks Morrison can do no wrong, but the majority of complaints about him come from people who didn't read his stuff properly. Every complaint I've ever read about Final Crisis (or his X-Men, for that matter) stems from the fact that the reader wasn't spoonfed everything, genuinely ignored things, or was just too stupid to think about a concept for more than 5 minutes. People completely ignore the fact that Magneto was high as a kite throughout the entirety of the run, Jean and Scott were the most stagnant and boring coupling in the history of boring couples that consisted solely of Scott waiting around for Jean to come back to life, Beast became a blue lion because as accelerated metabolism combined with increased stress combined with prolonged experiments on yourself will eventually lead to bad sh*t happening.

People saying "he killed Jean for no reason" are the same people who would think that Miracle Man was a saga about a Captain Marvel rip off, or that Watchmen was a cool cold war thriller except for the stupid ending. There's a reason for everything Morrison does, whether it's good or not is a case of YMMV, but there's always a reason.

Anyone that complains about him introducing flawed and legitimately debilitated mutants should be shot. Morons.

@time: Oh wow, you're seriously the first person I've met that doesn't like Keiran Gillen. And I've never heard anyone call Grant Morrison naive...

Playing the race card? How pertinent. Because, you know, race has proven to be such a factor when it comes to membership in the X-men.

So much win.

Chris Claremont is the X-Men writer I dislike the most.

Claremont is the writer whom made the entire X-Mythos huge but he also made it a hodge-podge of too many unresolved storylines and subplots.

I personally disliked some of Fraction, and Gillen's work, though they both did some good stories. Same goes from Aaron, but he also did fantastic on Wolverine solo. The best X-Men writer however has to be Chris Claremont, who was a genius.

Are people really pulling the Race card?

You know...when I do a Godwin's law, it's primarily for comedy.

a bold statement, to be sure, but I don't entirely disagree.

Between the end of the Mutant Massacre in Uncanny X-Men #213 and The Muir Island Saga in #278, there's really only one or two stories (Welcome to Genosha and X-Tinction Agenda) that have anything to do with the X-men being mutants; only Claremont could have gotten away with that for the better part of 5 years. And his later subsequent runs were nothing to write home about either.

Let me just say I am not a person that can't admit Claremont can do now wrong, there are plenty of things I could criticize and plenty of stinkers in his run. Although, I believe the majority of unresolved plot lines were due to circumstances outside his control, like editorial making changes or another writer taking a different direction. He was pretty good with tying things up. I would say writers in the 90s had more of a habit of just forgetting what they wanted to do.

Nah. There is tons of stuff, whether its interludes with the government plotting the mutant control act or otherwise. During that time the X-Men battle Master Mold/Nimrod, in which has a subplot where Senator Kellys outrage with mutants grows due to his wife being murdered, The Reavers who just generally hated mutants and became cyborgs to combat them aside from the mad on some of them had with Wolverine, the Hand plotting to use mutants as assassins and weapons, Forge and Charlotte Jones being hunted by Genoshan Magistrates etc. There was lots of stuff. It just wasn't always in the forefront.Claremont was plotting a huge storyline with Shadow King so there was more focus on that stuff with Muir Island for a good amount of issues.

okay, I did forget about some of this stuff.

But I still think there were lots of those things that, as PowerHerc mentioned, were ultimately left unresolved. Maybe Claremont genuinely did have some big, far reaching plan to wrap them all up eventually, but between fighting demons, alien body-snatchers, cyborg land pirates, etc, the book definitely lost a lot of focus and direction in the late 80's. You're totally right that the writers of the 90's were probably worse for this, my point was more that no one else would have gotten away with doing it for as long as he did.

i would also like to add that as much as Claremont ruled in his time, there was a lot of stuff that were awful and confusing and could have been done better, and the flaws really began to show in Claremont's work by the end the 80s. The times may have been changing so fast that Chris couldn't keep up with the pace but i wish he had been told his time was running out and he could have been allowed to wrap up his story arcs that he had planted at the start of the decade.

So much of the faults might have been due to Marvel's interference that forced the resurrection of Jean against Chris' wish, and then turned Maddy into some clone who then went evil, and aftermath of the Fall of the Mutants could have had a greater affect on the Marvel Universe. Then they turned Magneto back into a villain after all Chris had done to redeem him and the X-men were turned into a brand in the 90, which then saw the end of Chris Claremont on the X-men.

Race has always been an issue, since the X-men began and appropriated a lot of the civil rights ideas and concepts into their mythos but didn't have any black people except for Storm who was the only non-white member til the 90s. So yeah it's an issue and it also matters when the writers of the book have all been white males and continue to dictate the way the story are told and who will get the attention and focus in the books. And it's no surprise that the character that get the most story about them are the white men of the X-men.

Until we see a better representation of real diversity in the X-men with more African, Asian, South American and/or Native American X-men then don't try to dismiss that race is not a problem that alienates certain fans and entitles others.

I agree with all of this, for sure.

I guess I just wasn't a fan of most of the stories from the late 80's anyway, so that's my bias. But I doubt that there's anyway he could have wrapped up everything he had laid out that would have made so many (what I consider) mediocre issues seem like they had been worth while.

Obviously you've never heard of the New Mutants. Or Forge for that matter. Or Sunfire, or the first Thunderbird. Only non-white X-man until the 90s my ass. Either take the time to learn about what you presume to lecture people about or shut up, because you clearly have no idea what you're talking about.

All I care about are the female and minority characters in the X-books. That is why Storm is my favourite character and the New Mutants were the first comic books i ever started to buy and collect. And as a woman of colour I take a lot of offense to your ignorance.

So how about we check your privilege Squares and see why you have a problem with me bringing up race?

As for the those names you mentioned none of them were on the X-men for long and are not on the team now. Thunderbird died in the issue right after Giant Size X-men, Sunfire left the team by the end of Giant Size and become irrelevant for decades, and Forge only joined the team by the start of the January 1990, but then moved over to X-Factor. So neither of those three men were given their due and allowed to be in the X-men.

Not including the lack of any non-white characters in the X-men from 1963-1975, Storm served as the only non-white member for 15 years after Giant Size X-men came out in 1975, until Forge joined in December 1989. After that the 90s we saw a lot more diversity and inclusion of people of colour, like Jubilee, Bishop, Kwannon, Maggot, Cecelia Reyes and the third Thunderbird. But what became of all these characters, after they joined.

Well, Jubilee was made to join Gen X, Bishop had a good run until they turned him into a villain and banished him, Kwannon died in Betsy's white body, Maggot was killed off, and Neal Shaara and Cecelia Reyes were ignored for years after (until Cecelia was saved thanks to Marjorie Liu).

So yes, the way minority characters are treated unfairly and unequally has been a problem with the writing through out the history of the X-men. And right now in all the X-men books, we only have one person of colour, with Storm, once again representing for everyone, which isn't right. If only Astonishing X-men wasn't being cancelled we could have seen bigger and better things come from Marjorie Liu, but once again the comic book culture (of entitled white men) has failed minorities, and women, yet again.

I really don't want to get into a huge debate about race but surely this is an unfair comment? Why is comic book culture entirely comprised of entitled white men? Isn't the character Triage in uncanny X-men a 'person of colour' ?

@chapmar: Not sure about the other X-titles as I'm currently only reading Uncanny X-Men. But that title has three minorities in their ranks Triage, Fabio, and Hijack.

@chapmar: I don't want to get into a debate either but i just care a lot about the X-men as metaphor for those oppressed and marginalized by society. And issues like race are not taken seriously enough by the characters, fans, or the industry itself.

Comic book culture has been as boys club for a how ever long they have been around, and all those boys have been white. There have been exceptions, which i am so grateful for, but those don't solve the systemic problems that keep comic books a medium mostly for white men. It is because of their power and privilege in society that those in charge are mostly white men, who then create stories for mostly white men, about characters who are mostly white men. So that is excluding a lot of other kinds of people that deserve just as much representation in this medium because of the history of not being included.

So if you still think there is not a flaw in this system, then you are obviously benefiting from all that privilege and blissfully ignorant.

(P.S. Triage is not the band-aid that will make it all better. Unless in a few years he's leading the Uncanny team, because then i would be very impressed by the progress.)

How did it lose focus and direction?? It was always like that. Its weird that people often think, that maybe due to the films or the Grant Morrison stories, which are both great by the way, that the X-Men are some super practical, realistic force fighting for mutant rights constantly. I am not saying that you do specifically but a lot of people on this thread seem to think like that. At the end of the day they are comic book characters, the limit of adventure in comic books is your imagination, the X-Men have always fought inter-dimensional creatures, demons, time travelers, omnipotent entities, magical beings robots etc. along with their assortment of government shadows, mutant terrorists and anti-mutant groups

The only thing the late 80s did differently is the outback era, which felt more mature through violence and sexuality, but in a way that was sophisticated and well handled. Then, after they went through Siege Perilous the book became almost like an episodic, anthology series, like X-Men Unlimited or something. Yes, it was different but the X-Men were still fighting against the same threats and had the same themes.

But in a few years time if he is leading the team is that not just as much of a pointed and ridiculous statement as anything else? Like Bendis has done his share for minorities and gender divides, his characters are people like Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and he created the new Ultimate Spider Man, Miles Morales. It seems to me that he wants characters of all ethnicities at the front and center of his books.

You can't blame anyone for inheriting the main characters of a franchise that has been around for at least 20 years and using these characters at the forefront.

I do agree with what you are saying about some writers being mostly White males, but look at artist's and co-creators like Fiona Staples, kathryn immonen and Pia Guerra. There are lots of talented artists and creators out there that are not just men. I believe comics are one of the mediums that are progressing with a rapidity not seen in most other mediums.

well I started reading in the early 90's, but I was also reading stuff from the early 80's in X-Men Classic at the same time, so by the time I got around to the stuff from the late 80's, it just seemed way more random than either of those periods. You may have a point that that's just my perspective, but I felt like I had a pretty good sense of what the X-men were by the time I read that period. But maybe it just seemed that way because I knew that a lot of would go nowhere before returning to a kind of status quo.

I guess I just felt that all of the weird mysticism of Fall of the Mutants, Inferno, and especially the Siege Perilous, had become too central to the main story, for stuff that was really pretty far from the themes and concepts that already made the book distinct. Between how central that stuff was, to random elements like the Brood, the Reavers, not having them at the school, and eventually not even being a team, somewhere between all of that, it just felt like it lacked direction more than any other period. For me, anyway.

Well, there are ways to include the next generation of x-men while you showcasing the legacy characters as well. There needs to be a balance of the old and new and the different.

This is why i am so upset with the X-books of Marvel Now! with its focus on X-men from the past and the future, who are a lot of the same people deemed "popular", instead of moving the story forward with new mutants and the X-men of now!

But i am hopeful thing will change with more writers like Marjorie Liu will get more recognition and work with the main X-men then sidelined to the fringes. And i love that there are great arists who are women and people of colour but they don't get as much say and influence in the direction of the stories, so over time maybe their voices can be heard too. I am sure many of them are very intelligent to help plot the stories they are drawing too.

Austen is the worst. In terms of current runs, it has to go to Humphries. Everytime I read his x-force, it feels like I'm reading a dumb pre-teen hipster interpretation of x-force.

They did the same things though. One of the first Uncanny stories post Claremont was the team going to another dimension where they met Colossus's brother who was alive after supposedly dead, then when they returned they met Bishop and Fitzroy who were characters from a future not too dissimilar from Days of the Future Past. Not to mention "X-Cutioners Song" which had the whole Cable/Stryfe story of clones, alternate futures and such, that whole debacle is more confusing and complicated than anything Claremont wrote .Then there were stories with the Gamesmaster, who was some sort of omnipotent entity, and even tangled with Phalanx, which was an offshoot of the Technarchy alien race. Then even later they battled Gene Nation who were brought back from the future or something....ugh, that stuff is headache inducing. All in all, on paper, the same sort of stuff Claremont did. I will admit the story telling mechanics were slower, like they would have 3 issues of the X-Men debating whether or not they should have Sabertooth in their sub basement, that stuff used to be as enthralling as reading a drivers manual.

I think you are remembering things a little unilaterally. Fall of the Mutants was kind of a weird story but no weirder than some other stories and it was only 3 issues, and Seige Peilous was sort of a plot device used to easily write out characters, but it was explained well, and Claremont revisited most of the character after they went through. Inferno wasn't really about magic for the X-Men, the Limbo elements were focused on in the New Mutants books seeing as Magik had that connection and they were building up the story after Magus infected a large amount of demons prior to the crossover. The Uncanny X-Men stories in that crossover were more about Madelyn Pryor and Mr Sinister.

Things like the Brood and the Reavers were all things that they have done before, Peirce, Lady Deathstrike and the Hellfire Club cyborgs had all appeared before, I wouldn't really call that random, it was just a storyline that has been looming coming to a head. I could see how people maybe didn't like the team not being at the school or not having a core team for about 14 issues but I have always favored change...I mean if you are watching a tv series things are never the same way as the first season as they are in the fourth, right?? Different characters come into the spotlight, other characters leave, things progress, thats the nature of evolution, whcih the X-Men are all about.

oh, yeah, I remember. I guess starting out when Rachel was on the team in the past (in X-Men Classic) and Bishop was on the team in the present, just made all of the future stuff seem like it was always a major theme. Which, if you consider that The Uncanny X-Men basically starts with Days of Future Past as it's begining, doesn't seem too crazy.

Gamesmaster may have been omnipotent, but he still just seemed like a powerful mutant pulling the strings of other powerful mutants, in the tradition of Sinister, Apocalypse, or Mastermind. When first introduced, the Phalanx seemed like they were just another new breed of Sentinel, like Nimrod mixed with the body-snatching of the brood, so that didn't seem that out there. Gene Nation, despite their contrived origin, were essentially just a new breed of Morlocks. I'm not even going to pretend that any of this was less contrived, it just seemed contrived in a way that still somehow fit the themes of the book.

Stuff like the Siege Perilous just seemed like it was too far out of left field for how important it became to the direction of the book. Maybe that's just my own sensibility, but I've never been big into the magic stuff in X-men. I know there was a lot before and after that period, I just didn't like how central it became to the direction of the team in that period.

But, I dunno, maybe it is just a personal preference thing.

Everyone should say Chuck Austen, but beside him, Fraction, Morrisson, Bendis and Aaron are also terrible