X-Men Run vs Run: Excalibur (Claremont & Davis) vs Uncanny X-Men (Lobdell)

Excalibur was great. A book that was initially supposed to be "X-Men in Europe" became more of a wacky comedy that would basically become the catalyst for later enjoyable titles like "Exiles". The book was unique for its time and it is extremely difficult to find any flaws in it. The character stuff is great, the art is great, the books were actually printed on a higher quality paper, the adventures were fun, it had the typical complex Claremont story lines. All good.

I never really cared for Lobdells X-Men. It first of all has the misfortune of coming after Claremonts amazing work on the book. A lot of the story lines and character development that had begun in the prior years seemed to get shunted in favor of mindless action or needlessly convoluted explanations. There is also the fact that the X-Men comics weren't allowed to have any dramatic changes or developments because it had to be similar to the cartoon for new readers. The whole element of the X-Men being these sort of outcast heroes was missing as well. They more or less seemed like another team of Avengers during Lobdells time on the book.

Lobdells run was definitely an example of "style over substance". Excalibur all the way.

@koays why in most pictures of jean grey, shes wearing no make-up. no wonder scott leaves her for emma(who wears lots of make-up)

lol umm idk? Jean's a redhead, maybe she thinks she's striking enough without it...and technically he didn't leave her, she mindcontrolled him when she ascended to a higher plane

Yuo know whats weird. If scott and emma find there way back together then that means jean didnt push them together for the second time or maybe they would make o5 jean grey go back to there time and pushes them together?????????

She told him to live. Technically everything he does, even his fight for survival of the mutants and he risk he's willing to take could just be following the mental order she gave him. I like Emma and Scott but it would kill them for me if they broke up and got back together with little development

I'm voting for Uncanny Xmen by Lobdell. Im generally not a fan of the wacky and mystical stuff. To me mutation is sci-fi not magical and mystical, let the disney princess movies and harry potter films give you your fix for that stuff.

Excalibur while decent and interesting had alot of that mystical and magical stuff in it. There were also stories like the ones where they did more with the Days of Future Past world that Rachel came from. Rachel's power set was well displayed also. The team up of Rachel, Kitty and Nightcrawler was priceless though i was never really a fan of Captain Britain and Meggan and all the otherworld stuff.

Uncanny by Lobdell is a very underrated run in my opinion. The Phalanx covenant was a dud but it did produce Generation X. AOA was the 1st of its kind and has been rehashed and attempts have been made to duplicate it. It could have been better but it was huge and equal imo to the hype that AVX got, but it actually delivered a whole lot better. The Legacy Virus stuff was big and Fatal Attraction was a very good story in my opinion.

There were some drop-offs and duds throughout Lobdell's run, as in all runs but I would give it the edge over Excalibur more so because of Excalibur's wacky and zany mystcal schtick as oppposed to the more sci-fi and in my opinion appropriate Uncanny Xmen run.

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the excalibur adventures was a diversion from a more realistic world of the x-men. it was set to to depict a more magical and out of this world setting, most of the time turning wacky. The good about excalibur is closeness of the members. Since they started out as 5 members, they were really close as family. sad that the team disbanded quickly just after the team grew to about 10 members.

excalibur was a powerful team. MEGGAN has LOTS of powers under her sleeves, plus she can tap on nature's energy, captain britain is strong and durable/impervious to most attacks because of his magic based powers. plus they have a phoenix.

The art was great on the first 50 issues

Magic and mysticism has always been a huge part of the X-Men mythos. A lot of their major story lines and characters are rooted in magic.....in fact, the X-Men deal more with magic probably than mostly any other super hero team, sans maybe The Avengers and obviously a team like The Defenders or Justice League Dark. It doesn't even take me 2 seconds to name at least a dozen magical characters that are intrinsic to the X-Men franchise...Magik, Forge, Amanda Sefton, Madelyne Pryor, Spiral, Selene, Dani Moonstar, Juggernaut, Pixie, Layla Miller, a slew of Alpha Flight members etc.

Though Excaliburs lighthouse was also a power cell for Merlyn, there wasn't any more magic in that book then there was in the main X-Men title. Excalibur dealt more with alternate realities...it was essentially, like "Sliders" or "Exiles". Dimension hopping with a little more lightheartedness than the X-Men title of the late 1980s, which was kind of grim at the time.

@cattlebattle: Ok, that is true but as I said, the magic and mysticism is something I dont care for. I prefer the more scientific approach and explanations. Each of those characters you mentioned I could do without, with the exception of Dani Moonstar. Selene would be just fine as an immortal type psy-vampire in a similar way to Apocalypse. Spiral would be great as a Weapon X scientific experiment. Juggernaut could be fine as just a powerful unstoppable mutant. Magik could just teleport.

All I'm saying is the same characters could exist and be just as fun to read without a heavy reliance on the mysticism and magic. And I'm not saying its all bad or anything, I just think that like time travel and the Phoenix and character deaths that dont stick, magic and mysticism as well as alternate realities are overused. I well know that its a part of the mythos but its not my favorite part and any series that heavily focuses on that will not be my all-time favorite. Hence why I voted against Excalibur as compared to Uncanny in this instance. Excalibur was just fine but for my preference I liked Uncanny better.

@koays:

"Match 1- Is close but i'm calling it for X-treme X-Men over Astonishing

Match 2- K&Y's New X-Men defeats Lobdell's Generation X pretty handily

Match 3- Saw the New Mutants (Claremont) beat out Peter David's X-Factor

Match 4- Appears to be a "Murder Stomp" by Morrison over Bendis' Uncanny X-Men"

Whedon's Astonishing X-Men should have been X-treme. They're both great, but Astonishing' is just better. Claremont has the best run of them all in his 80's stuff, no one can touch that, but Whedon's run beats any of his later work.

New X-Men and Generation X both only had around a dozen really good issues anyway, and I really think people's preference towards either over the other has more to do with nostalgia and character preference than how good the actual books were.

I don't know why you would even compare these two books. Maybe if you were comparing X-factor to New Mutants (vol.3) I could see it, but Claremont's New Mutants and David's X-factor are really just two different to compare.

Morrison's New X-Men was a breath of fresh air when it started, but it got pretty crappy in the second half. If it's beating Bendis' Uncanny X-Men in the polls, it's probably only for the same reason people hated Morrison in 2001: people hate change. Bendis' run has been great so far, and easily as interesting as the beginning of Morrison's run, and just as enjoyable. I voted for it.

As for Excalibur vs. Lobdell's Uncanny X-Men, I think it's another case of them being too different to compare. I loved the original Excalibur when Claremont was still writing it, but it was either a specific side of the X-men or just something else altogether. I also still really love Lobdell's stuff from 1993-'94, and I consider it one of my favorite X-men runs, but it was really a darker, more central-to-the-mythos style X-men run.

If I were to compare Lobdell's run to anything, it would probably be either Fabian Nicieza's run from around the same time (which it would beat), the original X-Factor from 1986 (which it would beat), or Ed Brubaker's run (might be a tie).

Excalibur I would only think to compare to Claremont's own original run on The Uncanny X-Men (of which it's a seqquel to), or maybe either volume of Wolverine & the X-Men, which seem to have the same sense of fun and focus on the Phoenix mythology.

I am not really a tremendous fan of magic myself, as the abilities each user has just seem like plot conveniences most of the time. However, I do enjoy the almost endless diversity it lends to the franchise. The X-Men are at their best when they are battling their way through whatever comes at them, whether its space aliens, bigotry, the government, demons from a mystical realm. Thats whats always been so great about the X-Men to me. If everything they encounter is just an "evil mutant" or a genetic experiment turned loose by the government it can get kind of redundant and boring...to me at least.

It seems like you would take some of the most interesting aspects away from certain characters because you don't care for magic. One of the reasons Magik was such a great character was because her backstory of being trapped in Limbo was really tragic (definitely not Disney or Harry Potter friendly) and when she used to cast spells she would slip closer to her Darkchylde persona, which gave her limitations, so she tried to avoid it, she also would have bad ass magical armor and would summon demons to aid the New Mutants if they ran into an enemy they couldn't defeat......it used to be real fun stuff. I could understand why someone might not like her now as she just seems to be written like some magic Mary Sue. All the interesting aspects of being a magic practitioner are gone.

@cattlebattle: I just think magic is overused as you said a plot device. Im not saying all of it has to go away but if the Xmen are about mutants then a mutant heavy focus is just fine for me. Introducing new or different plot devices just for the hell of it is a cover up for weak storytelling in my opinion. I agree that Illyana's tragic story is awesome but as I said before I think its equally interesting to tell a more complex story as opposed to just explaining everything away as being magical. I will a ah ree that Magik's story is the exception though her current Mary Sue status is totally uncreative. Ut the rest that I mentioned are not enhanced at all by the magic stuff

I was more then surprised by Astonishing taking the loss to X-Treme. I like both but it's a clear lead for Astonishing iin my mind, though from what i read of the comments Astonishing seems to have just taken the loss because of a combination of "hype backlash" and the Claremont name. As for the 80's Claremont, i tried every possible combination but it's just not fair to even include it, maybe as a bonus against the winner; but it's one fandom you can't split.

New X-Men just has a larger fandom then it probably deserves, so despite it's lack of substance compared to hype i'm positive it's fans will push it over the top, and was initially hoping for it to face Astonishing since i think there was a lot of fandom overlap.

Honestly Peter David's X-Factor is another i thought would get pushed because of it and David's fandom. New Mutants was just what i put because i wanted to give it a run for its money.

You hit the nail on the head with Bendis. I can see why some people would think New X-Men might maybe be better but it's clear that they voted for it because it was a vote against Bendis

Excalibur was a late addition, mostly because i completely forgot about it, and had to remove something else from the list so it ended up paired with Lobdell. I think this match sells better since it's pretty much just to fresh starts for the X-Men characters and it really is the science vs magic argument that Cattlebattle and Hawk2916 have over what fits more with X-Men. The problem with Lobdell is that his 90's contemporaries aren't well liked so despite being easier to compare as you pointed out it would beat most of them clearly.

Really i was trying to get match ups that most people probably hadn't already considered in their minds. New X-Men vs Gen X is an exception, but I think everyone pretty much has already decided that Aaron's run is trash compared to any of the others, or Nicieza is one of the worst of the 90's writers. Just helps to make people compare two things they accept as good but didn't think about as relates to eachother.

Uncanny X-Men by Scott Lobdell

@oldnightcrawler: @koays: Im genuinely shocked by some the results as well. Some are much closer than I expected.

I actually like the match-ups because it kind of makes you think about what you like most or least about each run. I dont think its a comparison of similar stories so to speak as opposed to what draws you to the Xmen and what qualifies a run as good to you personally.

I wonder if some of the votes are swayed any by how a person reads. What I mean is some pick up each individual comic and read one at a time while others trade wait. When I think back to say Astonishing and how bad it was on scheduling and all the delays, it felt like the pacing was horrible as opposed to Xtreme. Going back and reading the trade makes the run feel legendary. My complaint about Bendis is the same in that his run is just annoying in that its taking what two years to establish whats happening and still no semblance of a revolution. Everything almost feels like an interruption and distraction to whats supposed to be happening. Coupled with the thought that Ive seen expressed a few times in that Gillen may have been better for the revolution as opposed to Bendis and that Bendis doesn't fit the Xmen, along with his contributions to BOTA, and the weak premise of All new (discussed ad-nausea) and the seeming angst felt toward him for his Age of Ultron, and moreover his complete control over the x-verse ( its like he can do what ever the hell he wants with no regard or acknowledgement of other writers or continuity) and I think thats were the hatred comes in.

I personally dont care for Morrison or Bendis to be honest. In fact I think Morrison's run had huge implications was thus important but alot of what i dislike about the xmen today and over the last decade or so from characters to stories had its roots in Morrison's run. ( Here's looking at you Fantomex, Xorneto and Cassandra Nova) Both Bendis and Morrison seem to be all about change and making their own mark and thats the predominating thing as opposed to anything else. Change is fine but change just for the hell of it can be a problem in and of itself. Especially when at times it seems as though their knowledge is lacking in some instances all in the name of change though. That said, i will say this that Bendis does read better in trade and if we could get maybe 2 issues a month of Uncanny that might speed up things for sure, which I'd be all for. It would at least take away some of my criticisms.

By the way am I the only one that thinks Lobdell, Brubaker, and Carey are hugely underrated

Oh yea, I'm 100% with you on Carey, he was never the guy building the outside of the house but he did awesome work with all of the supporting X-Men and characters. Though i feel Brubaker is more often forgotten about then just being underrated, he still someone i'd like to see back one day (possibly on XX-Men).

I have a personal dislike for Lobdell's style but i feel like his run was still 7.5-8 out of 10 on average which for the 90's was big.

As for the votes swayed by how a person reads. I was reading X-Men by Carey, David's X-Factor and New X-Men at the same time as they came out, and those are the runs i've had to reread the most to remember what happened aside from the highlights. As such my opinion of those runs tends to be a bit higher then it probably should be and runs which i read straight through like X-treme or Lobdell's run don't compare as well as those and things i've picked up weekly don't usually compare well to those two. So it could be that depending on how well the story was formed in your head that it effects the reader to the point that "New X-Men- Academy X" could stomp out Lobdell just because its story is remembered better. Interesting

Bendis just has a bad reputation that its hard to seperate from the quality of his work. I think All New X-Men has hit new consistent lows most of this year and is insulting to X-Men fans and readers in general at times and depending on the issue that takes me from being slightly annoyed but generally happy and interested in Uncanny X-Men to being irritated at its flaws which he doesn't seem interested enough in to fix or acknowledge. Dude is polarizing

darn it i meant to vote for uncanny x-men not excalber

that's why I didn't bother voting on most of these. Without a basis of comparison, most of the votes just become arbitrary.

Finding out that burgers are more popular than sushi doesn't tell you who makes the best sushi or burgers.

@oldnightcrawler: So it was beneath you?!!! Lol just kidding.

Yeah I understand what you mean but it's still cool to see what appeals to people especially with the explanations as to what they liked or disliked about each

Well i like to think that were at least in the same food group. or their using the same ingredients...a little more specific is all.

The arguments for New Mutants vs X-Factor pretty much show that despite being vastly different because both are well liked people chose based on writing quality, characters, story arcs and consistency. Im basically trying to say "I know you like/dislike both of these but now you have to choose between them" it may come down to popularity in some instances, but there's a reason a person may chose one book over the other.