Probably. Bendis and the latest X-Men and Avengers storylines killed any interest I had in the Marvel universe. I limit myself to independent stories and characters now with an actual progression in plot and consistent characterization. The power fantasy of superheroics just seems stale. And there is nothing wrong with growing up and moving on to other things. The movies are fun, though.

Life is way too short to wait around for ten plus years for a team or "hero" you followed in your childhood-young adulthood to be written well.

@adamtrmm: Holy lord.

@rickbarry:

I guess you don't know what's going on there. Good for you!

@adamtrmm: I have an idea, but I stopped buying Battle of the Atom after the second or third issue. It's just too out there.

I'm reading lots of independent comics also, so I could care less at the moment about what's going on with the X-Men.

I just got back into Marvel because of Marvel Now. I only read X-Men consistently from the 60s to the 80s and then read some of the early 90s. I don't feel lost at all. I was really interested in the when All New X-Men and Uncanny X-Men began. I started to loose interest. I don't enjoy the characters or the story anymore. I actually got pretty much all caught up with the essential stories from the 2000's and enjoyed them. Wolverine was my second or third favorite character, but I didn't find him likeable at all in the modern comics. However, I read some of Jason Aaron's stuff and while I was kind of underwhelmed by some of the stories, I like how he writes Logan. I hate Mark Millar's, J. Michael Straczynski's Brian Michael Bendis' Wolverine. There's a lot of others, I just don't remember them, but they write him as an overpowered, self-righteous jerk.

I'd say take a break or check out another X-Men related title and see if they interest you. Or go back through the old stories. I just went through my Essentials and had a blast!

I'm enjoying the X-Men stories from the 80s and Joss Whedon's run on Astonishing X-Men was the last run that I actually shown any interest in the X-Men.

@rabbitearsblog I'm glad to hear you liked it. I don't like Joss Whedon's writing at all. I just feel like I'm reading a bunch of immature clowns. Unfortunately, it's why I hated the Avengers movie. 80s is awesome! It was so good to see how much they developed, especially Wolverine,Storm, and Rogue. I could never decide which line up I liked best, because I loved whichever one I was reading. If you haven't checked out Messiah Complex, I thought it was great! That felt align with what I loved about Chris Claremont.

I also loved the 80s X-Men! Everyone got development and some of the most memorable stories (The Dark Phoenix Saga, God Loves Man Kills, Days of Future Past) came from that era!

@rabbitearsblog: Yeah man! Every time they added new characters, I was worried that it would be overload, but nope! Every time they got a new leader, I was hesitant. They turned out awesome! I thought no way could Wolverine lead the X-Men, when Storm went away with Forge. He was fantastic! What a ride!

It's been very hard to be an X-man fans in the past few years but I feel like the titles are finally getting more interesting and well thought out. That being said, I quit the X-men titles a year or two ago for erm....many reasons. Let me count thee ways....

1. Storm, who was a pretty crucial fixture, just disappeared for a few years. As if mutant rights would somehow become less important to her after marrying?
2. For what seemed like an eternity Marvel used plagiarist Greg Land for Uncanny. Joe Quesada said his "covers sell well". Well, they were all under popular and classic titles, brainiac, I've never seen an artist more hated than him. No idea why Marvel held onto him so long under the X-men titles.
3. Scott became indefensibly douchey and single-mindedly militaristic without a shred of his former self. He also was deemed god king of all mutants all of a sudden simply because he was the X-men's FIELD LEADER early on.
4. This continues to be a problem but Mystique, who used to be an interesting conflicted anti-heroine, seems to be an agent of chaos which makes her very 2 dimensional (teaching villain classes? REALLY?!).
5. The editors teased Jean Grey's return in Endsong, Messiah Complex, throughout Hope's title with Cable, during Uncanny's Sisterhood arc, Second Coming, Avengers vs. X-men and never delivered. Even now, it's pretty tentative, they could just dismiss this other version of Jean any time they please. Just admit it guys, you need Jean.
6. Much like Storm, huge characters like Psylocke and Rogue were absent for long periods of time.
7. Some characters with interesting histories like Boom-Boom or Canonball that aren't as famous (but could be) have been essentially devolved to caricatures, if they're acknowledged at all. You can cop that up to just poorly-read editors and writers.
8. Xavier was inexplicably hated passionately by someone of power, he must've been because they killed him twice within a few years and retconned his history to paint him as some negligent leader who is very cavalier with the lives of others.
9. The titles were no longer social or political, the mutant race was acting like some group of guerilla soldiers instead. Lead by the George Bush of mutants, Cyclops.
10. All the way up to Schism it seemed like there were no "chairmen" when it came to the X-men, they weren't acting like they were a team. Beast or Storm or Iceman or Psylocke all witnessed Scott and Emma do stupid things but acted like he was dictator they had to take orders from until Wolverine, who was never a leader and willingly took kill orders from him, stood up to Scott? Really? Seriously?

That being said. I'm ready to give X-men a second shot. I think there's at least more cohesiveness with the titles than there ever has been. But I still think Scott should pay handsomely which I have yet to see..

Yeah, I loved the way that the 80s X-Men series focused on each character!

I feel the same way as you and I am only 16.Currently Marvel are a publisher that I just couldn't care less for.There are only several titles that I care about and follow with joy and the others are just read by me because I want to see whaat will happen next. Of course times like these pass with time because comic books can always get more interesting or you can somehow start to like the storyline or how things are.

Or, you know, fans themselves could just get into the business an right all of the wrongs. Though that's much easier said than done.

*Sigh* If only that were possible...

The assumption that the people who do make X-men comics are not fans themselves not withstanding..

Even if every writer/artist/editor/etc involved with the process of making every X-men comic is a die-hard X-men fan, it doesn't mean that they're all going to agree on what to do with them, right? I mean, it's not like even every fan on this one forum could agree with each other about that stuff. So, as far as I know, everyone making comics now might just have that very attitude that you've proposed. It seems just as likely to me that maybe they are all fans, and they are all trying to do their best by the characters, but they've got to negotiate those changes among each other.

For every change a writer wants to make, there will be other fans who don't like it; when things don't change, people complain about that. I'm just saying, I don't think it's as simple as fans having the opportunity to "right all of the wrongs", because the fans are never going to all agree about what those wrongs are to begin with.

I'm not trying to be contrary or defeatist; I'm just saying that not everything's going to be for everyone. We all have X-men stories we love, and we all have those that we don't, but we, the fans, never all agree on which are which.

Not that it applies to all current creators in the X-Line because there are, indeed, a select few who've turned out to be the saving graces and actually care about the characters they're writing and the stories they're weaving because it shows in their work. This isn't an assumption in light of both Bendis' and Aaron's work, of which you've been keeping a close eye on so you should know about all this.

Fans, as indecisive, incoherent and incohesive as we may be, do have a general consensus and guideline for what should and shouldn't be the norm in X-Comics. And yes, you're right, there's never solid ground and a clear and cut vision because we naturally just don't agree on things--there'll be some quirks here and there and another slight modifications over there, but all in all, as fans who've been following the franchise since how long, i believe we would know what's best. And as it stands, we do.

Change is one thing, contrived change for the sake of justifying something that was even more contrived in the first place is something else altogether. Especially when the initiator of change isn't a fan of the franchise or knows their continuity and characters like a real fan should. When a majority of fans begin to see the pattern of irregularity and cheapness along the line, it should tell you something.

Even though it doesn't exactly look like there's going to be that big a comic-book market in the distant future, this can still happen. Soon enough.

I actually haven't read any of Aaron's stuff for months, but I have been reading Bendis' books (All-New and Uncanny X-Men), and have enjoyed most of his issues. I know you don't care for Bendis, and you do make some valid criticisms of his work, but I enjoy it and I don't think it's anywhere near as bad as you seem to think it is. In fact, personally, I find most of it pretty refreshing.

See, there's two things I'm seeing here: firstly, that you're assuming to speak for longtime fans by saying "we would know what's best". I consider myself a longtime fan, and though I do often agree with the values champion, I sometimes don't as well. And that's just two of us.

Secondly, I don't think my opinion, even as a longtime fan, is categorically more valid than that of someone who's only been reading a few months. Decades of reading X-men may have made me more well versed in what has happened, but that in itself doesn't make me any more qualified to say what will or should happen.

Also there's still the assumption that the creators themselves aren't longtime fans, and I don't know what you're basing that on other than that you, personally, don't care for their work.

See, here's another thing we seem to disagree on: the importance of continuity and character consistency. While I can agree that those things may be necessary within a given story, the idea that all of the stories are supposed to be continuations of each other is, to my mind, one of the main reasons the X-men's history is as contrived as it is. But then saying that anything is contrived in an X-men comic is really an arbitrary distinction anyway, given the premise. It's largely splitting hairs.

you ever read any of Stan Lee's X-men? I know you've read Claremont; the Siege Perilous? what the hell was that? Mojo?

I do get where you're coming from, there's lots of stuff in X-men lore that I don't like because I find it overly contrived (Cable and especially X-man are my go-to examples), but in a stories like the X-men, I have to recognize that those are ultimately arbitrary distinctions based solely on my own personal sensibilities. Because it's all contrived, really.

Anyway, see how even the longtime fans don't always agree?

I'm in my late 20's and still read from time to time. I don't think you can ever be too old to read them. With that said, I get in and out of comics. I can go years without a interest and bam! I'll be obsessed with them for several months. X-Men TAS from the 90's is what made me hooked for life. I love those stories and the majority of them are based off of 80's comics. Those are still the best imo besides Joss Whedon's run several years ago. Everything since hasn't been appealing enough for me.

You're never old!

I actually haven't read any of Aaron's stuff for months, but I have been reading Bendis' books (All-New and Uncanny X-Men), and have enjoyed most of his issues. I know you don't care for Bendis, and you do make some valid criticisms of his work, but I enjoy it and I don't think it's anywhere near as bad as you seem to think it is. In fact, personally, I find most of it pretty refreshing.

Yes, refreshing it may be to you. But where's the substance? Where's the thought-provocation? Where, exactly, are those on the edge of my seat moments? What's there to look forward to, month after month, other than contrived explanation after contrived explanation for something so...contrived? Isn't just an even bigger waste of time?

See, there's two things I'm seeing here: firstly, that you're assuming to speak for longtime fans by saying "we would know what's best". I consider myself a longtime fan, and though I do often agree with the values champion, I sometimes don't as well. And that's just two of us.

Secondly, I don't think my opinion, even as a longtime fan, is categorically more valid than that of someone who's only been reading a few months. Decades of reading X-men may have made me more well versed in what has happened, but that in itself doesn't make me any more qualified to say what will or should happen.

Also there's still the assumption that the creators themselves aren't longtime fans, and I don't know what you're basing that on other than that you, personally, don't care for their work.

And i'm not seeing how this makes sense. In fiction and in reality. Social Normative Influence--although it doesn't necessarily relate to this--dictates that we naturally, out of some sort of innate compulsion, follow and heed by those who are more experienced, knowledgeable and cognizant of things within the world because of the credibility behind those people and other desires that i won't go into. So then, by your logic, the credibility and validity of both Bendis and, say, Simonson's opinion on anything X-Related else would be on equal grounds even if one of them was more adequately equipped to make a decision or suggestion due to the bigger amount of knowledge they'd have on the matter ? I mean, who would you listen to ?

Lol. This is just obvious. Sometimes the passion a writer has for a franchise or concept exudes through the pages to fans because it's so intense. Sometimes the pressing lack of enthusiasm or creative interest a writer has for the same franchise/concepts are just as obvious, cause it shows through the product and detrimental tropes. For example, Aaron's constant fan-wanking of Wolverine and using him as the proponent of all things noble in the X-Men when we're aware of the guy's complicated past. A real fan would be aware of this and would try at the very least to take it into consideration in portrayal, regardless of the story they're trying to tell. You have to respect and acknowledge continuity. It is not, as the ignorant Brevoort stated, "a tool". A real fan of the franchise would also try to substantially develop and integrate different elements and themes from the franchise into their own stories to satisfy themselves and the fans and to demonstrate the grasp they have the franchise, as opposed to just shoe-horning their hand-picked favorites and overused plot-tropes, again and again. A real fan would also show some respect. And like i said, passion.

Anyway, see how even the longtime fans don't always agree?

Indeed, Gallant, i see. But that still doesn't...mmh.

you are never to old to be reading wether its a regular novel or comic. beats drinking and doing drugs