TessC

Morrison did a more important job for the book, but I enjoyed Whedon's run much more.

The thing I haven't seen people mention when they talk about how important Morrison's run was is the way it really settled into the idea of the the Xavier School fully being an ongoing school. Unless there's bits I missed somewhere in the epic world of X-Men continuity, past books (the original X-Men, New Mutants, various since) brought in specific groups of students to form a team, but didn't so much feel like an ongoing school with classes and students and stuff. Morrison made it really feel like a school, something that has been so foundational to the series since that it's impossible to overstate the importance.

And yeah, bringing in Emma, updating Scott and Hank, finally moving Logan's story forward some with Weapon Plus, introducing Cassandra Nova and Fantomex, all of that was great. Classic elements like Phoenix, the Sentinels, the Shi'ar, and Magneto were revisited in interesting ways rather than just being trotted out again. And there were some utterly magnificent grace notes: Quentin's mutant terrorist fashion statement (courtesy of an old Daily Bugle), the Magneto Was Right shirts, Jumbo Carnation, No Girl, Negasonic Teenage Warhead(!), Beak and Angel, Esme as an ultimately ridiculous attempted villainess. There's just so much wonderful stuff going on in those books.

And yet, as someone who grew up on the Claremont X-Men in the 80s, Joss's run has to be my favorite. It did solid things with many of the pieces Morrison put into play and introduced a bunch of new things, but ultimately, it felt like a love letter to classic 80s X-Men. There's no way to convey how much it meant to me to get to see Kitty (my fave X-Man of all time) get reunited with Colossus and get a make-good on that horrible editorially-mandated Secret Wars plotline that broke them up the first time around. And that great Breakworld scene of theirs calling back their night in the Brood saga when they thought they were going to die, oh man. Joss even brought Lockheed back -- as a spy, no less! I also felt like Joss did fantastic work moving the Scott/Emma storyline forward -- rather than Emma being there mostly to play against Jean, seeing how it worked for them to actually be together was great. And Armor is probably my favorite new X-Man of the post-2000 era.

It's not as explosive as some of the stuff from Morrison's run, but there were a lot of great elements. The Breakworld was great, especially the way it subverted our expectations about good guys and bad guys on that planet. S.W.O.R.D. and Agent Brand were an incredibly clever new addition to the Marvel Universe that seem to have become ongoing fixtures. (Brand's "I am so hot for you right now I could frikkin' pass out" is totally the best.) Danger was a fascinating reinterpretation of something that had been part of the mythos forever, and the Cassandra Nova and the genocidal sentinel were brought forward from Morrison's run in really interesting ways.

Finally the John Cassaday/Laura Martin art (her colors add so much that it doesn't feel fair not including her as part of the art team) is some of the most gorgeous art put to comics. I'm certainly a fan of Quitely -- I wish he had done more of the Morrison books, but the ones he did were great -- but Cassaday and Martin have been favorites of mine since Warren Ellis's Planetary, and this is more world class work by them.

So, I don't blame anyone who likes the Morrison run better, but for me, it has to be Joss.