@adamtrmm

i wish teen jean could have been on both anxm and extra x-men

Yea I think so considering the last sighting of Jean was AVX before Teen Jean and she hasn't been alive in quite a while

It was an interesting idea, however the writing from bendis dragged down the book. We will need to see what happens in All new X-men vol.2 to see if it was worth it.

There was a story attached to that stunt? If so I didn't really see it. They came, they interacted, all of time and space collapsed... If there was a reason beyond the stunt for them to come I don't know what it is. Since the past is destroyed they can't really go back, so I guess one plus for X-men fans is now you have two different versions of the original five for the writers to play with. Beyond that and the secondary stunt of turning Bobby gay I don't see a reason for them to have come forward.

absolutely not

Pfft, someone check my comment backlog i'm sure there's a less derogatory comment about how pointless, circular and vastly under written the "story" is then the ones i'm thinking now.

I mean it was pretty cool seeing a team of the original X-Men again, kind of like seeing the Avengers Prime (Cap, Thor, Tony) back together after Civil War and everything. It probably would have been much more interesting if it had been the current versions of the characters with how different they are and how much they have grown apart .

A team of:

• Revolutionary Cyclops
• Hypocritical Beast
• Gay Ice Man
• Back From The Dead Again Jean
• New Age Hippy Angel
• Retired School Teacher Wolverine (I know he's not O5 but just add him for completion)

Would have been cool.

THIS! So much THIS! Get rid of the O5! Make an All-New X-Factor! Anyone know why the O5 stayed even the after the Secret Wars anyway? I still don't get it. I'm actually surprised that the score for yes and no are tied. I would actually like to hear from the people who said yes why they did so.

@hopesummersforthefuture:

How about that, send o5 home and use Ultimate Jean instead?

Ah... Rachel.... Poor girl. They needed to put her of her misery in Second Coming the way it was planned originally.

Can't really see how it's a good thing.

Can't believe Iceman's full gayness is being compared to years of character development and actual personality changes due to major events effect from Beast, Cyclops and Warren... Bendis was right I guess.

Oh I don't like it, I just think that with more characters the law of averages states that sooner or later someone at marvel will come up a good story for them. All we have to do is be patient and sit through all of the bad ones. There's not much else we can do after all.

@mark_stephen:

Hopefully, Hopeless will make them hopeless. ;)

X-Factor Reunion tour!

Lol seriously though they need to do this book one day.

It was a bad idea. I've said this before in other threads...the premise was ridiculous. Having multiples of the same characters running around is stupid. The gay iceman thing is just beyond irritating at least for me and really came off like Bendis just throwing some s#&t at the wall and hoping something would stick so he could be "memorable" and "change the status quo".

Really if Beast was going back in time why not just get the real Jean Grey and Xavier. Or stop the Scarlet Witch altogether and we would never have gotten to this point?

The whole thing was a waste and a ridiculous joke

But it sold, so marvel has the last laugh.

Had potential - bad idea in the beginning that could have ended up being good if handled well. It wasn't handled well. So just ended up as a bad idea.

@mark_stephen: That still doesn't make it a good idea. You slap a certain name in anything and it will sell but since when does that in and of itself make something a good idea

I agree from an artistic and character integrity view point, but marvel operates for money and only money. Good or bad if it sells it's going to run. We've seen characters decimated for years now and it keeps selling. Have any of their character assassinations actually hurt sales? Even Bendis's original hack job on Wanda and his reconstruction of the Avengers sold. In general we care about characters and stories, marvel cares about dollar signs and that's that. As long as those sales are high they can laugh at any objections we have. Those sales prove that we're the minority and that they don't have to care about us. In fact I think that they enjoy angering us.

@mark_stephen: I definitely agree with that. Its sad but it is possible to make money and keep artistic and character integrity. But you are right... They seem to feel any press is good press. Which is cheap and stupid but that's the way of the Marvel world now. And sadly some people will buy any and everything disguising it as support for Marvel, which is multimillion dollar company and will only respond to sales numbers. The sooner fans realize this maybe the product will improve.

oh yeah, X-Factor -the first time they screwed up continuity for the sake of bringing the band back together..

While I personally like the way Cyclops and Beast have evolved over the years, Angel and Jean have only become more convoluted as time's gone on, and Iceman's character has rarely been distinguishable from a teenager anyway. I dunno, people like the dynamic of these characters together, I guess, so I can totally see the appeal of wanting to start the team over fresh.

The story and explanation of how and why they ended up in the present didn't really interest me, but some really fun stories have happened from having them around this way again. It's basically tossing continuity to the side for the sake of getting a fresh take on the characters, but the X-men's continuity is crap anyway.

I mean, if by "was it worth it?" the question is "do the ends justify the means?" ...well, the ends is a chance to use fresh versions of the characters to make new stories, and the means was a not very great story that messed with continuity.. well, I'll refer back to X-factor.

no

(1) This is the reason why I love Vertigo, Fables and Y: The Last Man are still my favorite books of all time.

(2) Sadly, I'm one of these people. I buy everything as long as Hellion and X-23 (all of the NXM kids actually but mostly these two) makes a speaking appearance on it regardless of the quality. This is the prime reason why I bought All-New X-men TPBs and I hate those books, especially the way Bendis wrote Laura (if she turned out to be a Skrull, I won't be surprised). I decided to collect stories with these characters but I wish they are better written. In my opinion, these two haven't been written well since the end of X-Force (for Laura) and X-men Legacy (for Hellion).

@oldnightcrawler: Well as the chief (and only as far as I've seen) defender of the OG X-Factor around these parts I find that comparison a little to harsh.

I mean I was never outright against the All New X-Men as a story element because the idea is ripe full of potential. But everything from "O5 get trapped in the present" just fails or falls flat structurally. I mean I guess if the complaint is about the continuity aspect then X-Factor is guilty as well for drastically altering the past to fit their story needs... But its at least got the weight of developing this O5 faction and their relationships. All New's biggest failures come from characterization and dealing with the implications of most of its story elements even on its cast. So really if the endgame is to see and explore the dynamic of these characters or to tell more stories about these characters and their ongoing adventures without convolution then they didn't really succeed.

Again its not a critique on the concept or even what the endgame for them was, but the execution directly hindered the idea of inspiring interest in these characters, or even telling good stories without the weight of convolution.

I don't think we can ignore the concept and premise in hopes of a good story. I think it is weak from the beginning and it was not even a good idea. But even still the idea could have been improved with some simple things. The execution was garbage though

I don't hold anyone at fault for buying what they like, but I amazed anyone has the budget to keep up with all of this. Truthfully if this stuff was still at the .50 to .75 cents range I'd consider it, but it's a lot harder to tolerate a bad story the more expensive that story becomes.

we don't have to. The Arms of The Octopus and the Cyclops series were good stories. I wasn't speaking in the abstract; good stories have come out of this concept whether you liked Bendis' book or not. There's no reason that others couldn't as well.

I wasn't a fan of how the main story was executed either, but what didn't you like about it? how would it have been better for you?

how so?

really? what did X-factor do to develop the characters more so than All-new'? in, say the first 40 issues..

for which one?

I really don't want to defend Bendis since I dislike both him and his writing now but was this whole O5 thing really all Bendis' idea cause I seem to remember that around the time it was announced they said in some interviews that it had supposedly been floating around x-offices for a while and Bendis sort of grabbed it for his books from there. (would that equal editorial mandate?)

As to my feelings about it, well when it was announced I wasn't really against it but not much for it either. After the first few issues and after hearing more about the point of the story I started thinking that maybe it could have potential after all. Having a team of rookie O5 seeing their future could have been a decent or even a great little story if it had been executed much better and had they allowed it to come to a solid conclusion instead of dragging it on and on. There was no point in letting it continue past a year or so considering that they never really did anything with the O5 anyway. Jean and Scott got some stories and focus but other than that all they accomplished is that Beast had a crush on Jean all these years (gasp!), Angel became cosmic powered and that Iceman was gay all along (gasp again! What a twist! Wait... How does that make any sense?) And that's literally all they accomplished in 3 years!!! And two of those were accomplished in the last 3-4 issues (out of 40!) or so while the Beast thing was only talked about in the first 3-4 issues (again, out of 40!). That is just sad.

I so wished this non-story could have been over and done with after SW but nope, it's still continuing. O5 serve only one purpose and that is to take focus away from the actual mainstream X-Men characters, both adult X-Men and teen X-Men.

Loved the jean character development. I just wish they didn't send cyclops off to outerspace. Yeah, marvel had us all on our toes on this one. BOTA, trial of jean grey both had a fun start and a terrible let down in the end. having the o5 was back is still kinda fun

eh, to me the idea was strong but the execution was spotty at best. I think the idea may have worked really well as a self-contained miniseries, but that by having the changes last and affect the rest of the x-universe, things have just become way more convoluted than necessary . . .

That said, I'm really loving the All New X-Factor idea, with adult versions of Cyclops, Jean, Beast, Iceman, Angel and maybe Wolverine! I think that'd be great reading! As good as the Extraordinary X-Men title coming out soon, at least.

Well honestly it all starts with Jean Grey's big moment in issue 5.

We can overlook things like Beast's insane troll logic for doing what he did, or Jean magically developing telepathy. Those are just a (poor) means to get the O5 here and with the stats wanted for the book (Beast could've sprouted fur with the same logic). But here things start straining credibility. She makes this emphatic stand that she and the O5 are staying, then she takes a vote which establishes Warren's dislike of the idea. But the Present day X-Men just seem to agree to go along with it. They have a slight argument a little prior but after Kitty says she'll watch them, the consequences of them staying aren't considered by the X-Men again until BotA. Then during BotA after the consequences of having the O5 going on their own missions are clearly shown, Kitty does a 360, thinking the O5 need to stay, then thinking the 05 need to go immediately, then thinking they need to stay and being mad because no one else agreed with her. Same with Cyclops, who goes from thinking "this is crazy and they need to leave" to letting them live in his house. And all of that is trumped by Kid Cyclops going into space with Corsair. The book presented a problem that said that the death of one of these characters can erase a person from existence at least, and cause time to distort at most....and then it continued to allow the older more mature X-Men to allow these kids into the front lines and in Cyclops case (the one we know for a fact cause the time distortion) they allowed him to go into space with his space pirate dad. And that's just the failure of attaching consequences to something and then not addressing them again.

Character arcs fall completely flat. Angel sees his future self and panics but is overruled, so he joins the Uncanny team to see if staying in this crazy future is worth it. BotA happen's and we don't hear from him again until he hooks up with X-23. Then Black Vortex happens and after nearly 20 issues we're reminded that he has problems with his future when he touches the Black Vortex and says it's because he was so desperate to do anything that will change his future. So he's both so desperate that he'd touch a cosmic Vortex to change history, but so positive that he forms a relationship based on how he helps X-23 to be a real girl? Sorry Angel but i don't sympathize with you when you just got a new bad@ss girlfriend and things were swinging up.

This is present in all the characters to an extent as they spend most of their time in the future, ignoring their personal futures, despite their motivation for staying being to better their futures. The majority of their problems go unaddressed, and while i've read enough comics to know that X-Fan's cling a little to tight to continuity whenever motivations are brought up, i think maintaining integrity within one books continuity is pretty basic.

Aside from having more solid linear route for it's story arcs (which is what hurts All New's characterization the most) it did A LOT more for it's characters then All New has.

X-Factor Cyclops- Left his wife and kid to see a resurrected Jean Grey despite being threatened by his wife. Gets pulled into forming X-Factor and reluctantly is forced to promote himself as a mutant hunter by a shady business men, so that his team can save the mutants they hunt. Is frustrated with trying to distinguish Jean from Phoenix and if they ever had anything serious between them. See's his best friend Warren brutally maimed, and returns home (read as- Jean sends him home) only to find that his wife and son are missing and theirs no evidence she even existed. Before he can deal with that Warren dies. The X-Men die (his wife included). His son is missing. And he has a breakdown because the shady businessman who he's been dealing with is trying to mind screw him which leads to him taking off his visor at point blank in front of Jean because he thinks she can hold back his optic blast. And Warren comes back as a Horseman of Apocalypse.. (the majority of this during the first 10 issues) He goes back an forth with Jean and his sexual tension, but feels like he's betraying Maddie's memory. All of this culminating in Inferno (which starts just before 40 i think) where he goes after his son and saves him from the orphanage that he grew up in, finds out his wife is alive and gone insane. And then when he can't reason with her and she pits X-Factor against X-Men he ends up watching her die in battle and confronting Mister Sinister who reveals that his wife is a clone of Jean and just one of many manipulations of his life. During the clean up to Inferno he Jean save a bunch of people before finally saying screw it and boning after another argument.

All New Tyke- Comes to the present because he's been told that in the future he's gone crazy and is about to lead them to a mutant genocide. Find's out it's not true, but stays in the present anyway because Adult Cyke is still off the wagon and killed Xavier so the future is screwed up. Finds out he marries his crush but after seeing her own future through the eyes of Beast she want's nothing to do with him. Has an introspective conversation with Mystique where he finds out that Adult Cyclops was controlled by the Phoenix force. Argues with Logan. Nearly dies in BotA and erases his adult self from existence, but still runs off with Jean when she doesn't trust the Future team only to end up going back to arguing with her over X-23. And then....nothing. Tykes' next moment after that is going into space with his dad because he misses him....which is acceptable, but he's not in the book again until Black Vortex where he doesn't do anything to move forward.

Alot more for X-Factor, and it's worth noting that a great deal of Tyke's stuff is in another book but X-Factor wins here.

X-Factor Jean- Is found at the bottom of Jamaica Bay by the FF with her last memories being of the shuttle crash. Tries to contact her old friends only to find that they've all moved on to other teams or retired on top of that Xavier is dead and the X-Men are lead by Magneto. Not liking the world she's woken up to and how anti-mutant it is she vows to do something to change it, inspiring the others to form X-Factor and the X-Terminators as a cover. Discovers she was replaced by a cosmic entity and Cyclops refuses to talk to her about it or anything else involving the two of them. Warren gets hurt and she finds out from Beast he's married to some chick that looks just like her and he has a son. Scares the crap out of her teammates by using high levels of power. Becomes den mother to the X-Factor kids (and says some creepily seditious stuff about mutants/humans). Beats the crap out of Cyke when shady businessman manipulates him into thinking she's the phoenix and just lying about it. She argues with Scott over Phoenix, Maddie, the X-Men and his son only to end up deciding to just be supportive of his chase for his son. Finds out her sister and her family have gone missing, but manages to find her sisters kids and save them from Goblin creatures (or demons..whatever). Has her parents turned into goblin slaves while being forced to fight the X-Men and then has to battle with Maddie who nearly kills them both because she found out she's a clone. She then ends up with the memories of Phoenix and Maddie in her head before moving on to the clean up with Cyke and the boning.

All New Jeen- I'm not even going to transcribe this because this chick is Blackhole level Mary Su. She has way more development and it about evens out on good to bad despite learning the same lesson repeatedly.

But the real kicker is when you get to the bodies of the team

X-Factor Not Jott Trio- Jean comes back and Angel leaves the Defenders (Avengers?) to form X-Factor. He introduces shady businessman to the group and put him in charge of their image. After Warren get messed up, shady businessman has his wings clipped in the hospital. Which leads to Angel flipping out and crashing his plane. Warren ends up coming back after he joins up with Apocalypse to get his wings back and becomes the horsemen of Death. He's freed from mind control by Iceman of all people and helps fight apocalypse, only to end up leaving X-Factor to use his new deathseed brooding powers for a while. The man gets multiple focus issue including one where he finds out that his girlfriend was kidnapped by shady businessman who actually is the leader of an anti-mutant faction. His girlfriend dies, and he kills shady businessman before going back to rejoin X-Factor. Bobby spends time as a babysitter for the X-Factor kids before he gets kidnapped and amped by Loki and has a short period of being the strongest member of his team. Meanwhile Beast regains his human appearance, then finds out that the process is actually lowering his intelligence everytime he pushes his powers and won't stop going through an arc which leaves him near retarded and ending with him big, blue and stronger then he was.

All New Not Jott Trio- Angel meets the post Lifeseed Archangel and gets scared, but everytime he tries to object to the teams actions Jeen mind controls him or ignores him. Bobby tells jokes.... and um....snow hulk? And Beast saves the life of his present self by forcing a mutation, makes out with Jeen before ignoring her for science. And then, doesn't really do anything else accept play tech guy.

Archangel's story alone dwarfs any type of growth most of the characters go through in All New X-Men. Bar maybe X-23's focus issues, none of the team except for Jeen get focus or even progress after Cyke leaves. While X-Factor is guilty of doing the bare minimum with only Iceman, It seems that the only time someone gets to do something is when it would effect Jean or be a cool splash page to end the issue on.

Lol All New is clearly the failure here.

While X-Factor is notorious for not being 80's Claremont and for reviving Jean Grey. If you just read it without that additional perspective being an X-Fan presents in terms of examining quality and retcons against this idea that something is lost, then it's a solid run and the best one featuring these 5 characters. On the other hand All New X-Men just alternates between being poorly written and being under written. A paragraph can be said (and has) about All New's retcons, continuity and characterization issues as it relates to the franchise; but even without all of that i don't want to keep reading about these characters anymore because they aren't doing anything but going in circles, relearning the same lessons and not coming out of it with even more information on a situation. I get that the longer a book goes on the less it should be about whatever the initial plot was...but they never addressed anything plot wise and just vaguely hinted at things. X-Factor's greatest sin is not being as good as other X-Books of it's time and bringing back an infamous character for a story largely less impressive then the one that made her infamous. All New X-Men's greatest sin is that people are so annoyed by it's premise that they don't realize how bad the actual book is do to ignoring it's premise as often as people bring it up.

@hawk2916: excellent post

@oldnightcrawler: it just came off like Beast really being petty and stupid. First with the time machine or whatever (which by the way can we kill the time travel stuff). I mean why not get Magik to take you back right? But even still Beast and his time machine.... so you decide to go back to basically bring the younger selves to the future to teach a lesson. Why not go back and bring back Professor Xavier and Jean Grey? Especially since All New has really been all about teen Jean anyway. So go back and bring the real Jean (adult) back. And i know you would argue that teen is the real Jean because of the Phoenix death and all but wouldn't it have been more profound to get jean just before the Shiar took her out and bring her to the present showing her what Scott did with the same Phoenix Force that caused her to go dark? Or why not go back and stop Wanda from extinguishing the x-gene which is what lead to everything in the 1st place?

Now even taking the story as is just a bit of tweeking on the logic could have made more sense. For me at least it would be more conceivable for Hank to have traveled back in time to try and stop/change the current circumstances in order to save one of his oldest friends and his mentor. Then possibly having something go wrong and thrust him into the past with the O5. Perhaps the time-travel has taken a toll on him physically and mentally and he babbles about the events from the time he has left and the O5 in their curiosity of what seems unbelievable as well as trying to help him travel to the present. To me that premise or something similar doesn't discredit Beast and make him seem petty in the extreme. And of course that would be an arc not a whole book. Them simply being in the future alters things so it might be an interesting concundrum for the current Xmen to have to take them out to save their current state of things if s*#t just started blowing up and disappearing. If there was an absolute need then the book could be them going back with the knowledge of the future and how that changes them and their surroundings, thus possibly creating an alternate universe where the old stories can be retold somewhat similar to what the ultimate line was supposed to be.

Thats just how I would change it. The dialogue and teen jean's personality as well as yet another cosmic powered whatever were a problem. Angel knowing his future but yet still choosing to be cosmically powered was ridiculous. Throwing X-23 in and making Iceman gay was unforgivable as well. Not to mention how everything just dragged and nothing really happened.

At one point I thought they might just merge the O5 with their present-day selves. How? I dunno, some kind of Chronomolecular Con-Fusion Reactor or something. Give Forge a one-up on Beast for once on this one.

So...X-Face Cyke merging with his naive O5 self would pull the reigns a bit from his current full-speed-ahead charge toward terrorist Magneto status and make him feel less certain about his mission. Let him disappear for a while and come back a changed man after revisiting his past insecurities and facing them. Oh, and he gets his regulator gland thingy fixed and can finally control his powers. Chip. Off. Shoulder.

Current-day Celestial Seed consciousness possessed body of Archangel merging with Celestially imbued young Angel would result in a partial restoration of Warren's memories and a serious union of Celestial power. The Cosmic Avenging Angel reborn :)

Y'all may not like it for one reason or another, but let's just consider it. Today's heterosexual popsicle Bobby combining with young, gay and almost proud baby Bobby unveils personal revelations of repression and guilt and he becomes a stronger, more whole human being. The weight off his shoulders allows him to focus on honing his powers and he becomes a full-on ice elemental just as powerful as displayed by his wizard future self from BoA and his AoA counterpart.

Beast's merge would come with a few upgrades, he'd be able to switch between human and Beast form like in the X-Men: DoFP (c'mon, let him have this) with his Beast form displaying heightened senses and strength. And he's still a mega-genius, so he's got that going for him.

Jean. Ooooh Jean. What passes as my idea of present day Jean is still floating around in the White Hot Room. Young Jean has a totally different personality and a ton more power even without the Phoenix. Such power has been a blessing and a curse to both counterparts...and with that realization they opt to alter their new self, shifting the X-Factor Gene just slightly to erase her telepathy and psychokinetic powers and replace them with still powerful healing abilities. Stay out of our heads, Jean.

@koays:

"This is present in all the characters to an extent as they spend most of their time in the future, ignoring their personal futures, despite their motivation for staying being to better their futures. The majority of their problems go unaddressed, and while i've read enough comics to know that X-Fan's cling a little to tight to continuity whenever motivations are brought up, i think maintaining integrity within one books continuity is pretty basic."

you bring up some decent criticisms, yeah. The focus seems more on writing them to be like kids than really establishing solid motivations beyond the moment to moment drama; although, and not to defend it, but that is kind of what kids are like.

As for ignoring their personal futures, the way I remembered it was that they were staying to save the future, not their futures, as none of them seem impressed with what this future has made of them. Like I say, I'm not trying to defend the story, I'm just not sure that particular criticism is as strong as your others.

As for the X-factor comparison, I'll grant you that both Cyclops and Angel did get more development there than in All-new' (it's kinda Angel's only classic arc, and among the more classic for Cyclops), but I still think it's a draw overall.

Beast's major developments in X-factor deals with him learning about how his mutated powers are messing him up; his first arc in All-new' did the same and more, with the revelations of the future changing his perspective on the group dynamic. Iceman's only X-factor development was that he started to realize how much more powerful he could be; again, All-new touched on the same theme by having him meet multiple future versions of himself, and he is finally given some development reflective of an actual teenage outsider by being confronted with the fact that he's been hiding his sexuality even from himself, which -like it or hate it- is more personal character development than he had in any of X-factor (and his jokes are actually funny).

And I would argue that Jean's also had more character development in All-new than in X-factor.

Not liking the world she's woken up to and how anti-mutant it is she vows to do something to change it,

Discovers she was replaced by a cosmic entity

finds out from Beast he's married to some chick that looks just like her and he has a son.

Scares the crap out of her teammates by using high levels of power.

check, check, check, check.. it's like it's the Jean Grey story all over again..

People keep saying she's a "Mary Sue" in All-new', but to my mind she was far more so in, well, everything up until All-new'. At least teen Jean has a personality beyond that. I honestly think people's real problem is that she's less of a Mary Sue than she ever was before; the classic Jean never did anything wrong or unlikable (unless she was possessed), this one does, and that bothers people more, despite that it makes for a more well-rounded, believable, and entertaining character.

So X-factor wins for having the only noteworthy Angel story, and All-new wins for having the only Jean Grey that's not a Mary Sue. I still don't think either one of them was very well written overall, but All-new at least provided some good laughs.

"Lol All New is clearly the failure here.

While X-Factor is notorious for not being 80's Claremont and for reviving Jean Grey. If you just read it without that additional perspective being an X-Fan presents in terms of examining quality and retcons against this idea that something is lost, then it's a solid run and the best one featuring these 5 characters. On the other hand All New X-Men just alternates between being poorly written and being under written. A paragraph can be said (and has) about All New's retcons, continuity and characterization issues as it relates to the franchise; but even without all of that i don't want to keep reading about these characters anymore because they aren't doing anything but going in circles, relearning the same lessons and not coming out of it with even more information on a situation. I get that the longer a book goes on the less it should be about whatever the initial plot was...but they never addressed anything plot wise and just vaguely hinted at things. X-Factor's greatest sin is not being as good as other X-Books of it's time and bringing back an infamous character for a story largely less impressive then the one that made her infamous. All New X-Men's greatest sin is that people are so annoyed by it's premise that they don't realize how bad the actual book is do to ignoring it's premise as often as people bring it up."

firstly, just to get this out of the way, the actual best run with those 5 characters was Scott Lobdell's run of Uncanny X-men. That's just my opinion, of course, but you brought it there.

Anyway, I can see you have X-factor up on this pedestal that I just can't understand. I just don't think either book was really all that great. At least All-new actually made me laugh, and had good art. But, for me, X-factor's greatest sin was that it was just boring; from the characters to the stories to the art: boring. It wasn't that it wasn't Claremont, it was that it wasn't what I liked about the X-men.

All-new's greatest sin is that it wasn't made for people who've been reading X-men since Claremont; it's greatest sin is that it wasn't made for guys like you an' me, is all.

I'll give you that it's more of a hopeful reader wish then a critique of the actual work when i say they don't explore their own personal futures. But really the book is the one that brought it up. And when it comes to trying to actually save the future....well they didn't do anything like that either. It's clear to me that All New takes a lot of heat for what it should be instead of what it is (which is why i tried to be as legitimate with my critiques as possible)....but what it is is a book that introduces elements and then doesn't explore them, introduces moments and doesn't have them matter..and relies WAY to heavily on having people make mental leaps about facts that aren't present in the narrative. (Xavier not being around to limit Jean as an excuse for her crazy power levels wasn't confirmed till i think issue 35 despite in being tossed around as fact for a year or so prior). I mean moments like Iceboy creating Icehulks mean nothing to the story because even though he's met Iceman, and the future Icegramps and a sentient Icehulk he hasn't said 2 sentences to any of them other then joking about not wanting to be an Icehulk. Theres no journey and no growth for these characters.

If it's a draw then it's because X-Factor can be VERY tedious to get through, which i admit since i even skipped a considerable number on my last read through(especially after Inferno with like 30+ more issues when it probably should've stopped). But it tells a story and has characters and good number of great moments, All New has 2 characters and no plot or direction....but it had the best/most consistent art by far during it's go and it's individual issues were good. But the work as a whole goes nowhere nothing really changes.

I think i've pointed out before that Bendis' Uncanny had a lot of similiarities to X-Factor in terms of story structure (replace Dark Beast with Apocalypse and it's eerie) but I hadn't really considered how closely All New was following it as well.

Lol She's not old Jean your absolutely right. But that's not why i think she's a definet Mary Su.

Where classic Jean had one thing that was interesting about her (Phoenix), one reccuring plot (Her and Cyclops) and other then being a pushy or overtly emotional at times, no real negative traits....at worst it made her dull.

Teen Jean though, is a blackhole for plot. She's ridiculously powerful....and it's not even a plot point beyond BotA. She just happens to be stronger then everyone and it's neither questioned nor focused on. Everyone is in love with her...Tyke, Beast,Angel, Miles, Quire, Adult Cyke, even one of the Cuckoo's is unnaturally aggressive to her. She has no consequences for bad behavior, and is the hero of every arc and battle in this story. It would be one thing if they were just giving her those selfish and impulsive teenage traits they give to other teen characters in order to show a more well rounded character then classic Jean's "nice girl who bad things happen to" traits do. But this character is unlikeable because everything she does goes unnoticed and is treated as an everyday occurence despite everyone standing around in awe the next time she does it.

Lol you'll never get me to credit Lobdell....

But yea I admit I read X-Factor for the first time during Morrison's run. So in part that's why i'm a Jean fan with her and her struggles being so integral to both. It's also one of the first run's i got to read/own from start to finish in it's entirety so it does have it's place in my field of bias...but All New is just poorly written. I like to think that even if a run isnt for me i can be honest about it's positives...and for all the coulda/woulda/shoulda gripes i have as a X-Men fan about this run as a fan of comics it's just a bad example of writing a team book. And if you replace the names of these characters with say the Justice League, it's problems would be the same because it has about as much structure as a marathon of Spongebob.

To me X-Factor is just so much better if only because it tells a story, I mean they both clearly had stronger starts then they're follow-ups. And had All New kept the same quality it had in the first arc (or even the ones right before BotA) i'd think differently...but where X-Factor is just a really long (74 issues) and tedious walk down hill in quality, All New is like a dead drop that never even has the moments of recovery or satisfaction you'd get from seeing plotpoints resolve.

If X-Factor is boring...well then I can't really say that's an excusable critique about anything that's designed to entertain but you can read the story and gain something from it. But a book that has funny conversations but a merry-go-round "didn't we just learn this lesson" plot....well it's hard to be invested in that or to ask someone else to be invested in it.

So really is it a greater sin to be boring or to be bad?

@koays:

"I'll give you that it's more of a hopeful reader wish then a critique of the actual work when i say they don't explore their own personal futures. But really the book is the one that brought it up. And when it comes to trying to actually save the future....well they didn't do anything like that either. It's clear to me that All New takes a lot of heat for what it should be instead of what it is (which is why i tried to be as legitimate with my critiques as possible)....but what it is is a book that introduces elements and then doesn't explore them, introduces moments and doesn't have them matter..and relies WAY to heavily on having people make mental leaps about facts that aren't present in the narrative. (Xavier not being around to limit Jean as an excuse for her crazy power levels wasn't confirmed till i think issue 35 despite in being tossed around as fact for a year or so prior). I mean moments like Iceboy creating Icehulks mean nothing to the story because even though he's met Iceman, and the future Icegramps and a sentient Icehulk he hasn't said 2 sentences to any of them other then joking about not wanting to be an Icehulk. Theres no journey and no growth for these characters."

To be fair, the point of the X-men has been to save the future since 1963, and can any permutation say they've accomplished it? it's just how they justify everything, y'know, they're super-types.

As for details like Jean's telepathy, given all that was going on in the first few arcs, it doesn't seem implausible that no one would sort it out until later. Anyone picking this book up knows Jean as a telepath, and that she is is largely what drives the story. To me it's no different than how she started X-factor without telepathy, A. to make it more like the original book (like how Beast was de-furred), and B., again, to make sense of the story (since Hodge's scheme wouldn't work around a telepath). Iceman has only ever been limited by his imagination, so seeing new uses for his power really should be enough. No, it's not all explained through tedious narration like the Lee/Claremont/every-other-classic-X-writer would do, but that's really just a difference of story-telling style. Like I say, different audience, right?

"If it's a draw then it's because X-Factor can be VERY tedious to get through, which i admit since i even skipped a considerable number on my last read through(especially after Inferno with like 30+ more issues when it probably should've stopped). But it tells a story and has characters and good number of great moments, All New has 2 characters and no plot or direction....but it had the best/most consistent art by far during it's go and it's individual issues were good. But the work as a whole goes nowhere nothing really changes."

When I decided to read every X-men comic, I figured all of the original O5 X-factors should count, and as someone who lived to tell the tale, it's unlikely you missed anything. I'll not do it again. Plots be damned, I read comics to be entertained, and the original X-factor offers very little of that. As for nothing changing, beyond Archangel, by '91 the O5 were back to the status quo of 1975: all alive, back at the school, furry and coupled. Plus ca change, plus c'est meme chose, what?

"But yea I admit I read X-Factor for the first time during Morrison's run. So in part that's why i'm a Jean fan with her and her struggles being so integral to both. It's also one of the first run's i got to read/own from start to finish in it's entirety so it does have it's place in my field of bias.."

I can totally get that. seeing how a lot of X-fans disregard Lobdell's stuff makes me pretty keenly aware of my own bias, actually. But when I started reading it was '93: him in Uncanny' and Claremont's '84 run in Classic', so it was hard not to see how one informed the other. I think everyone's somewhat biased to when they started..

"...but All New is just poorly written. I like to think that even if a run isnt for me i can be honest about it's positives...and for all the coulda/woulda/shoulda gripes i have as a X-Men fan about this run as a fan of comics it's just a bad example of writing a team book. And if you replace the names of these characters with say the Justice League, it's problems would be the same because it has about as much structure as a marathon of Spongebob."

you had me at "marathon of Spongebob" --where do I sign? Seriously, that sounds awesome.

"To me X-Factor is just so much better if only because it tells a story, I mean they both clearly had stronger starts then they're follow-ups. And had All New kept the same quality it had in the first arc (or even the ones right before BotA) i'd think differently...but where X-Factor is just a really long (74 issues) and tedious walk down hill in quality, All New is like a dead drop that never even has the moments of recovery or satisfaction you'd get from seeing plotpoints resolve.

If X-Factor is boring...well then I can't really say that's an excusable critique about anything that's designed to entertain but you can read the story and gain something from it. But a book that has funny conversations but a merry-go-round "didn't we just learn this lesson" plot....well it's hard to be invested in that or to ask someone else to be invested in it.

So really is it a greater sin to be boring or to be bad?

I think you're criticism's fair, I'd just personally rather read (or reread) something entertaining than something dull.

so..

@oldnightcrawler: I feel like a story should have a beginning, middle and end. In All New, stuff just happens. Nothings explained (which is a quirk of Bendis), nothing is addressed, and nothing is resolved. And that sorta just leaves all the details out as the only thing we can really take from the book, which is why it's so consistently analyzed. Like I know why Jean has telepathy, i get that from a writing perspective that it needs to happen because that's the version of the character they want to use and they don't want to tell a prolonged story about her getting her powers. But then there's the scene where she gets telepathy...which is literally "hey i can read minds!"... it kind of insults my intelligence. Where as X-Factor was similar with their "By the way you can't read minds" they sort of get a pass by dealing with a more abstract force then telepathy...Where as All New basically implies that if we take Emma Frost back in time and have her turn into a diamond her past self will be like "By golly now im a diamond too!"

Don't get me wrong, I agree that this book isn't for those who have read through as much as we both clearly have....but I feel like we're the only ones who could get through "Iceman creates sentient life out of snow" and not throw our hands up since anyone else reading doesn't have the knowledge to come up with a flimsy justification for why that can sorta make sense even though it seemed to be the culmination of his elderly persona's powers. It's asking you to both come in with a blank canvas and to have prior knowledge. And because it doesn't fill in details to even it's own plot you have to keep making assumptions everytime something happens (maybe Bobby's been practicing bringing snow to life since BotA?)


On the need for change in plot...I think we sort of touched on this in a previous discussion about rereading old issues or something, but basically I feel like even if X-Factor was completely irrelevant by 93 and nobody cared that Warren was a brooding emo for while, if you were gonna pick up an issue of X-Factor then the how's and why's of that were very important to the overall story. While Jean turning into a purple psychic powerhouse doesn't effect the story at all after it happens. I get it, if you follow it long enough it all stops mattering in the long run (usually 3 years) but if it's in the same run....i'd think a plot point would matter longer then the time it takes to happen.

Lol clearly marathon thing is just to point out how each issue of All New may as well be self contained (which is an argument in it's self); but I guess if you pit a marathon of Spongebob against a marathon of the history channel we know who'd win the entertainment value award. But if i've got to pay for one (another entirely seperate debate)...i'll take the history channel because if i'm watching for Spongebob to actually get his license i'll be very disappointed, especially if i'm looking for depth.

I disagree. I think the only reason anyone would find it frustrating that Iceman can suddenly make sentient snowmen is if that person had read enough to know that he never had before. A new reader wouldn't think to question it because, unless you have prior knowledge of the character, it isn't any more fantastic than anything else he does.

And for Jean, a character that people are most likely to know from other adaptations, telepathy is the power she's most associated with, so again, why would a new reader ever question it? It's not at all like your Emma example either, because long-time readers would also be aware that in-cannon Jean always had telepathy and it was only that it was suppressed in the early days. That's giving new fans a little old-school trivia that really should be enough to satisfy the long-time fans as well.

Basically, I feel new readers will be more likely to accept the elements of the story that long-time fans would scrutinize.

Considering that the All-new X-men are an updated version of Stan Lee's X-men (not, say, Claremont's X-men -a relevant distinction, I think), and that you could easily apply these same criticisms to Lee's original X-men stories, it makes me feel like maybe it's your expectations of the stories that are misplaced, more than the style of the stories themselves..

@oldnightcrawler: Well my Emma example is more to the point of how it handles the introduction of these story elements. It's like I get it "Jean Grey reads minds" is entry level X-Men and pretty much universally known by even those who have only slight knowledge of the team. As a writer you may not want to retell the story of her slowly gaining that power orit eventually breaking through. But with all the ways to make this change, of all the ways to get the character where you wanted her, to just say "Oh wow, i can read minds". That's just weak.

But even that would be forgivable in the long run as just a rough transition while trying to get this new story going. However things like that continue to happen without ever getting a explanation, and as it piles up it starts to sour me on the book to the point where even though i was enjoying it up until the "Trial of Jean Grey" arc, afterwards plot threads were just left hanging to the point that Jean gaining her powers was looking more and more like the start of a problem

For a new reader, while i don't think it would be as big a deal as it is to me, I think they'd notice because the dialogue of BotA Future Bobby made it seem like this was some next level of power, that he eventually achieved.... and then Lil' Bobby does it...and THEN we're told that it's been 2 months since they got there. Sure on a first read through that probably doesn't even register...but if they also take notice of things like Teen Jean gaining TP in one arc and then defeating her (supposedly) Uber powerful future self...they'd start to notice the problems with this stories internal continuity.

Lol hey look, if this were billed as the return of Stan Lee, i'd expect this. But this was one of 2 flagship titles leading the X-Men into the new era of Marvel and it didn't feel like anything or anyone advanced except the powersets of the characters. And I'll defend the book a bit by saying that it had 3 major crossovers nearly back to back on top of sharing it's early issues with the cast of Uncanny. I'd be lying if i said i didn't go into each issue looking for something to save the book and coming back disappointed...but it doesn't change the fact that it's a very underwritten story.

I was happy to see Jean back but that's it.

I dunno, I guess it didn't bother me. Besides being something I associate with being intrinsic to the character, even a novice Jean Grey would have had some experience with someone else's thoughts being in her head after 8 issues of hanging out with Xavier. I'm not saying you don't have a point, but I thought it was handled organically enough that I personally didn't notice :/

Jean Grey gaining access to her powers is meant to look like a problem, that's been a theme of her character for at least 40 years.

But I'm not gonna lie, after BotA I only skimmed or read the odd issue here and there, so when the question "was it worth it..?" was posed, I was primarily only considering the arcs that lead up to the O5 being stuck in the present (which seemed like what the question was actually asking, although given TRMM's bias, who knows?).

Like I've already said, I don't necessarily think All-new' was a great book overall (I can't anyway, since I haven't read it all), nor do I think the story of how/why they are in the present was especially well handled; but my point here was more that even if Bendis' story of getting the O5 into the current stories wasn't a great story in itself, that doesn't mean that having the O5 in the current continuity doesn't offer lots of great story potential. We're all X-men fans here, all of us must like at least some of the original X-men, yet it seems like we're letting one bad series sour us on the potential presented by getting to read about these characters.

I didn't notice.

I can agree that a lot of what I read was "underwritten" (though, me agreeing doesn't make it a "fact" -watch that)..

..but the day any marvel comic needs a disclaimer that the work within might not be better than Stan Lee's, well, then I'll know for sure I'm no longer included in the target audience :/

@oldnightcrawler: Lol well I get where your coming from, i mean I sort of supported the title in the beginning so i can't say that there's no potential there.... And arguably the first arc is great as a beginning for the characters and if you read that and stop at Jeen saying "We're staying" you can see the immense potential of the story of "O5 stuck in the present". But when I read "Was it worth it?" I feel like as valuable as what they could still accomplish is, what's more relevant is to look at what they've done so far and we didn't really get much from it entertainment, plot or X-Men wise (as vague as those descriptors may be).

Idk if you picked up any of the ANX issues from the Ultimate Universe.Arc...but that's what I'm thinking about when the question is posed. An arc where everyone splits up, we get one scene between the teams and then they have a short fight with Ultimate Doom. It's like "ehhh" which isn't what you'd expect from the first meeting between the Ultimate and 616 X-Men....or a story about the O5 in the future.

But yea, i'll agree that they may still have a place in the current comics stories and arcs, that potential hasn't been completely squandered as long as they still have a story about them going back in time, or their exploration of their futures...etc that they can explore. And teen Jean likely has a place in the long term....but as a whole I don't expect people not to or blame anyone for having a problem with them sticking around long term. Because as backwards as the X-Men are/can be, having the time displaced O5 permanently as staples of the X-Books (replacing or in addition to their present day counterparts) that's not really them using their potential...that's them burning through the story potential of all the other characters we currently have alternate double or not..

I still think the 1st 15 issues stand up, I guess. And the characters have been in other stories since that I've liked. If Mike Costa or Greg Rucka had taken over after BotA, I probably would have stuck with it.

Does the series accomplish anything? well, I guess I didn't go into it expecting God Loves, Man Kills, y'know? I liked it a lot more thanX-Men Adventures or X-Men: Evolution, which I think it's more comparable to. Even if I didn't like the series as a whole, I like the initial arcs (I did find them entertaining) as an updated story with Stan Lee's X-men, and I like that now more writers will get to use the classic characters in new stories.

I didn't read that, but yeah, doesn't sound very interesting. But I guess I never cared much for the Ultimate X-men.

how so?

I agree, a writer change after BotA would've done wonders (really the same could be said about a couple other books at the time) and possibly indirectly improved some of Uncanny's issues as well. I find that Bendis' style is to introduce a element without giving all the information and letting the mystery build without being addressed until the conclusion where it should all make sense....but it doesn't always. So even just having someone else handle the details without changing all the elements could work.

I don't want to make it seem like it had to be super profound or groundbreaking. But it should at least do something.to justify it's self other then present us with character. In a way even Stan Lee created concepts alongside characters which could be built upon and explored better over time...this story just gives us slightly different interpretations and doesn't advance them....so on it's own it's weak, but it doesn't really leave much for the net writer to work with either.

Lol well other then Spencer and Wood's outings I don't get much joy from Ultimate books as a whole (a bit depressing and hopeless in my opinion). But even given their recent history and storylines you'd expect a bit more from an interaction. And (just to spitball) in my opinion it's one of the few times having Cyclops' Uncanny team under the same writer would've helped the story, since the Ultimate mutants have had it so bad it could inspire the Uncanny cast in one direction or another...because the biggest problem for the arc really was that the only one who could take something from it was X-23. But instead..."We're the X-Men, your the X-Men, lets go fight Doom and go home".

Well it's basically taking the setting established by, just for instance, Cyclops; and everything that he's done over years of comic history, his relationships, his friendships, his personality and his developments....everything that's made him relevant and important and taking it away from him by writing him out of the story. Then we're given Tyke and he just subplants him, and despite not sharing the same experiences or developments and being essentially a different character by everything but powers...he is held to all the standards and treated as though he is the same person. So a fan of Cyclops who is still looking to see more of his story and where it goes won't be able to turn to Tyke for that, because he's not Cyclops...he's some kid with optic blast. And 15 years down the line...he won't have turned into Cyclops because he'll be a completely different character from a completely different journey.

It's sort of like (and this may be a bit on the nose) when they brought AOA Nightcrawler to the 616. They have this whole story between him and Wolverine where Wolverine is expecting him to behave or act similar to Kurt, and in the end he got betrayed by him because....well he wasn't Kurt. It's not like its impossible for their to be people who like both versions, but to me what's happening to present day Angel is worst then if they killed him, since he's got an interesting story following his rebirth, but they're already doing a story with O5 Angel and X-23 as the teenage couple with issues so the odds of Angel re-surging is lowered immensely.

I guess that's why I feel that it's more fair to compare the book (and concept in general) to X-Men: Evolution.

But for me the main difference between between 'Evolution and All-new' is that the latter still (mostly) acknowledges the history and continuity of the original characters. The original Cyclops is still around, and he still has all of his history with the other characters, so to me he's not really replacing the established character so much as reprising the original role.

I dunno.. I like how Dick Grayson's character has evolved, but part of me is always going to be up for a story where he's still Robin, because that's the role that made me like him first, and that still informs what his character's about. For me, it's the same thing with the All-new' gang. It doesn't bother me that Beast and Cyclops hate each other now (or whatever), because I can appreciate all the history that's gone between them; but at the same time, I have no problem with Beast and Cyclops also still being kids who are friends, because that's something I enjoy about both characters.

I do think from a story perspective it's pretty different than your AoA Nightcrawler example. I mean, that character, and AoA in general, was supposed to be about how the characters would be different than in the main continuity; that was essentially the whole premise of the story. But the All-new' kids are supposed to be the same as the originals --updated, sure, but still representing the same archetypes and core character values.

And, yeah I suppose it's a matter of personal preference, but to me, having the original characters as teens again still has more story appeal than bringing adult Jean Grey back from the dead again... or anything they've done with Angel since The Dark Angel Saga.

QFT

@jeangreyo5: The xmen in general have been written by the wrong people lately. But the premise was far from what I would call excellent, it was weak at best and maybe worthy of an arc or two. The way time travel was used and then having multiples of the same characters running around over all this time is really ridiculous. I mean if we using time travel then why not go back and stop the Scarlet Witch in the first place or bring Xavier back or stop what happened in AVX. The idea could have been executed better in several ways as opposed to what we got

No. I really don't see how there presence accomplished anything. They only thing there presence effect was Battle of the Atom. The whole thing was pointless.

no ur wrong i would rather have adult jean grey back with her proper place then getting stories that go no where teen jean and the rest .also do we really need two beasts, iceman, angels cyclopss??????