krisis

Is this thing on? Or, more accurately: Is anyone still listening? Checking in to see if I should be posting and participating here...

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krisis

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#1  Edited By krisis

I've always said I wanted Jean's, but thinking about practical uses in the real world Storm's might come in handier.

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#2  Edited By krisis

I haven't looked at sales data to back this up, but I would speculate that Forever took a hit when the new adjectiveless X-Men launched, since that's a more easy-to-pick-up volume of X-Men that sells outside of Direct Market (which, I assume, was at least part of the strategy behind Forever).

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#3  Edited By krisis
@Fortanono: Haha, how did none of us manage to mention that already? Awesome.
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#4  Edited By krisis

Argh, I am so pissed I missed this. 
 
I kept the Bowen site bookmarked but, honestly, it is arranged so badly that I never could figure out how to actually browse or order anything. I'll miss having the statue, but it's their loss of business ;(

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#5  Edited By krisis
@Hawkling: Thanks! I added those plus a few other major new and dead characters ;) I think I might have to add this to my blog, it's pretty handy!
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#6  Edited By krisis

It sounds like you left off shortly before House of M? If so, take this path to present to catch up on the most pertinent plot points:
 

  • House of M (Scarlet Witch makes a mutant-centric world where only Wolverine knows what's up.) 
  • Decimation (Scarlet Witch greatly reduces the number of mutants on Earth, ends mutant births.) 
  • Blood of Apocalypse (A generic Apocalypse encounter that is more and more important; particularly, Gambit becomes Death and Polaris loses her tenuous grip on sanity.) 
  • Deadly Genesis (Remember that third Summers brother? This is a masterful retcon to explain him.) 
  • Rise and Fall of Shi'ar Empire (If you like space stuff, Havok and Summers #3 fight for the Shi'ar Empire.) 
  • Messiah Complex (A mutant baby is finally born! Chase scenes ensue! Cable and Bishop fight over the baby, and whisk her to the future.) 
  • X-Force, Vol. 3 #1-11 (Cyclops lets Wolverine go rogue with a violent task force, which doesn't succeed very frequently.) 
  • Manifest Destiny (X-Men move to San Fransisco; people like them there.) 
  • Messiah War (X-Force runs into Cable in the future, where he's guarding the mutant baby from Bishop.) 
  • X-Men Legacy #224 (Where has Rogue been, exactly? It doesn't matter, but now she can control her powers!) 
  • Utopia (Norman Osborn tries to demonize the X-Men and run them out of SF. Only partly successful.) 
  • Nation X (If you like downtime issues about bureaucracy (and i do): Cyclops effectively becomes the mayor of all remaining mutants, has paperwork to do.)
  • Second Coming (Mutant baby comes back more fully-grown; X-Force enemies stage an all-out-assault that is chillingly effective.)
 
Holler if any of those are missing summaries and I'll write one. Also, characters:  
   
New(ish):  Hope, Daken, Vulcan, Darwin, Pixie, X-23, Layla Miller
Depowered, still hanging around: Moonstar, Richtor, Prodigy, Jubilee (now a vampire)
Lost in space:   Havok, Polaris, Rachel Summers  
Dead: Nightcrawler, Cable, Bishop, Sabretooth, Feral, Wild Child, Skin, Wither, a bunch of X-Men Academy students
Back from dead: Colossus, Kitty Pryde, Magik, Psylocke, (per @hawkling:) Doug Ramsey & Warlock, Shatterstar & Longshot (were they dead?), a bunch of old-school anti-mutant villains
Not back from dead (yet): Jean 

There, you're caught up!
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#7  Edited By krisis
@ForbushBug said:
" Claremont, because being a bland writer is better than being one getting a chubbie from his own self-referential wisecracks. "
Wait, was that was a vote in favor of Claremont? Because, that sounds like a description of Claremont ;)
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#8  Edited By krisis

This is a really fascinating question!
 
I think Xavier would have followed a very similar path, but Magneto would have been much more dangerous and insidious. Think back to his earliest endeavors, like the missile launch in X-Men #1 - he could have just convinced other people to do it for him. However, even with his deadly powers, it was years before Magneto was an outright murderer (Leningrad in UXM #150) - would he have been deadlier earlier if he had psychic powers?
 
I think just like magnetic Magneto, psychic Magneto's defeat would be in frequently overextending himself - he might change many minds in the short term, but he would still fail and be seen as a terrorist.

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#9  Edited By krisis
@Thunderscream said, re: Claremont:
" @Silkcuts: He did do alot of great stories back in the day. DID being the key word. He hasn't evolved with his audience at all. Read his run on Exiles and then tell me he's a good writer with a straight face.  I appreciate what he's done, but he just needs to leave the X-Verse and create a new one because he's rather spiteful and territorial of his characters and completely convolutes their stories to undo what other writers have established.
You captured my opinion on Claremont entirely. He told amazing, groundbreaking stories. He developed characters consistently into the people we love to read about today. He spun amazing threads over time that turned into into incredible stories deeply rooted in continuity. 
 
BUT, since then his writing has been out of touch, and he leans too heavily on his old favorites. He's written a few good stories since then, but they're not the leading edge of storytelling anymore.
 
Fraction, I remain undecided even after catching up entirely. I love the tone and pacing of his writing for Uncanny, which I like as the more cerebral title, but I think he's missing the voice of a lot of characters so he chooses to avoid them. Plotting I think he hasn't shown much muscle - yeah, Manifest was awesome, but the two brief arcs afterwards were weak and then almost two years of crossovers! Let's see where he goes after the current arc.
 
Lifetime, advantage Claremont, likely for all eternity. Recently, advantage Fraction, barely.
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#10  Edited By krisis

I would say that - aside from Giant-Sized and Dark Phoenix Sage - nothing pre UXM-200 is necessary for your understanding of X-Men today. Will you miss some references? Yes. You'll probably be slightly puzzled to references to the early stories of Kitty Pryde, Rogue, and Magic. Otherwise , they were X-Men, they had adventures. The end. 
 
200-280 is a little trickier, because a lot of this stuff still gets referenced. To this day I've never completely read Mutant Massacre, but that's a key story. If you never read the Siege Perilous and the following issues you'll have no idea why Psylocke is Asian rather than British and blonde. The 260-275 range wasn't exactly awesome when it comes to plotting, but it introduced Gambit , explains why Magneto and Rogue are always flirting, and X-Tinction Agenda sets up Genosha (important in Morrison and beyond). 
 
281-350 is crossover city, and if you understand what happened in the crossovers there's not a whole lot of other use for it. Tucked in there is some character development on Emma, Jean, Psylocke, and Iceman that still gets referenced. It introduced Colossus's brother and also the decimation/transformation of the Morlocks. However, I would say that early XMv2 actually has a lot more content - Asteroid M, intro of Omega Red, re-intro of Longshot/Dazzler, Legacy Virus stuff, Rogue/Gambit flirting, etc. I think that's more worth reading. EDITED TO ADD: Eldestrisk is right, directly above - Fatal Attractions has a lot of stuff that continues to reverberate through today.
 
350+ in Uncanny is a crap-shoot with a few good issues, but nothing really riveting until Claremont starts to right the ship again in 444, and now we're much closer to present day. If your friend has the Magneto War issues from UXM/XM then you should read them to understand what was up with Genosha shortly pre-Morrison.
 
Also, you might poke around in the 71-100 range of X-Factor of you like those characters, or various points of Excalibur through 100 if you like Nightcrawler/Shadowcat. I don't know that anything truly unmissable ever happened in X-Force.