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    X-Men

    Team » X-Men appears in 13410 issues.

    The X-Men are a superhero team of mutants founded by Professor Charles Xavier. They are dedicated to helping fellow mutants and sworn to protect a world that fears and hates them.

    When, in your opinion, where the best years of X-Men comics

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    PotatoBaron

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    #1  Edited By PotatoBaron

    Please explain

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    alfacess

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    #2  Edited By alfacess

    I'd say the 80s and 90s

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    Koays

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    #3  Edited By Koays

    01- 08.... I usually only say 04-08 but I'm coming around.

    There are far better years in terms of classics, in terms of influential stories and in terms of high points. But this to me is the era of the greatest payoff for X-Men fans.

    Everything and everyone from the 70's to the 90's was at or around the X-mansion. The New Mutants and Gen X were teachers or full on X-Men. The Excalibur mutants were back in the fold. There were three major X-Men teams that were distinct and 3 lower ones that were just as distinct but all were united. We got to see the X-Men as a both a organizational structure and a family.

    But really this is where you go if you want to see the X-Men take what they've learned an execute it. They are training the next generation, dealing with hopeless situations, building and supporting the mutant community and being superheroes when the moment calls for it.

    We get to see Xavier go from the only one who can drive the car to seeing multiple leaders and teams step up to take a role in helping this one cause. For me its the best years of X-Men because after you've read through decades of books and watched your heroes fall and get back up it makes you feel good that they've learned from their experiences and stand unified and so affective that even the death of members, change of leadership and decimation of mutants couldn't shake the structure that was built. It really feels like all of X-Men continuity is leading up to this point and it's made even more awesome the further back you go before getting to that point.

    (Ends speech)

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    UHypocrite

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    AwesomePerson

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    The 80s

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    adamTRMM

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    Depends on what character we're talking about. For Magneto it was his first retcon, for Cyclops it was Decimation. Colossus, 90s I think, loved the rage issues. Current take on Magik is also very best for her, Rogue all in all had a slow but pretty good growth as character, so it's all good for her, until Remender happened of course. My favorite Emma was written by K/Y, pretty much Decimation also, currently she's a mess. Wolverine until Aaron, Bendis and whoever came up with restoring his memories were done with him was also a good character. PAD's take on Polaris is very likable, but she has still lots of continiuty and character fixing to walk through, still he took the right course for her. Loved K/Y Archangel, Warren was strong enough to deal with his issues, and his bloodlust was aimed at the right targets. Again, until Remender.

    All in all, Decimation is the best era. It drove X-men to the extreme, with X-forces and Extinction Teams, with characters making the most controversial decisions, fighting for survival and winning at the process. Even New X men were interesting, and I always found comic book teens extremely annoying, the concept of the last generation represntatives and good writing made me love those kids.

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    HexThis

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    Tough choice. The 80's came up with storylines that Marvel will use in every iteration of the X-men- "God Loves, Man Kills", "The Phoenix Saga", the Silver Samuri storyline- it's when the stories were richest. But in the 90's, contrastingly (to now), the X-men were treated like superstars which is particularly sad to think of now. While Iron Man, Captain America, and the Avengers were sort of floundering and susceptible to stupid storylines, the X-men were the cool kids on the block and every character got the spotlight rather than it being the Wolverine/Cyclops show.

    The 80's wins out because it's the golden age but the 90's is where my heart is, in part because of nostalgia but also because ANY side character got a shot at being fully developed. Characters like Boom-Boom and Marrow, people were actually interested in giving them a background.

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    cattlebattle

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    While my answer is the correct one, which is the 80s, because it's when the X-Men became THE X-Men, I have to say that what @koays said is pretty legit. Around 02 to around 08 was definitely a resurgence for the X-Men franchise, which "died" a pretty bad "death" in the mid-late 90s. Definitely second runner up

    @koays said:

    Everything and everyone from the 70's to the 90's was at or around the X-mansion. The New Mutants and Gen X were teachers or full on X-Men. The Excalibur mutants were back in the fold.

    I think this comment is sort of embellishing what really happened though. Kitty and Nightcrawler returned to the X-Men in the late 90s, and whenever X-Men that have sojourned on another team returns, it isn't always a good thing because they have too many characters to know what to do with. Kittys returning to the X-Men had her eventually winding up leaving the team for several years, and Nightcrawler became a depressing character who held religion above everything else.....mainly because they brought these character back and really didn't have anything to do with them, so they have to take these new dramatic avenues, which don't always synch up with the characters established personality.

    Also, the comment about Gen X and the New Mutants is a bit exaggerated, Only about 2 or 3 of the actual New Mutants have become actual X-Men or teachers and it was only for short amounts of time, or they were just background characters at the most, same with Gen X. It is sad when you think about it because I guess what the New Mutants and Gen X were really being taught all those years was learning how to be obscure :/

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    deactivated-5ba149167b2c0

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    90s, With Age Of Apocalypse being one of my all time favorites.

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    Koays

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    @koays said:

    Everything and everyone from the 70's to the 90's was at or around the X-mansion. The New Mutants and Gen X were teachers or full on X-Men. The Excalibur mutants were back in the fold.

    I think this comment is sort of embellishing what really happened though. Kitty and Nightcrawler returned to the X-Men in the late 90s, and whenever X-Men that have sojourned on another team returns, it isn't always a good thing because they have too many characters to know what to do with. Kittys returning to the X-Men had her eventually winding up leaving the team for several years, and Nightcrawler became a depressing character who held religion above everything else.....mainly because they brought these character back and really didn't have anything to do with them, so they have to take these new dramatic avenues, which don't always synch up with the characters established personality.

    Also, the comment about Gen X and the New Mutants is a bit exaggerated, Only about 2 or 3 of the actual New Mutants have become actual X-Men or teachers and it was only for short amounts of time, or they were just background characters at the most, same with Gen X. It is sad when you think about it because I guess what the New Mutants and Gen X were really being taught all those years was learning how to be obscure :/


    To slightly defend my impassioned statements....I do normally only go from around '04. And I don't remember Nightcrawler being around prior to 01....so i assumed he was still hanging in somebody's lighthouse prior to then. And really between he, Kitty and Rachel he's the only one who didn't really find his niche quickly once on the main team.... so i'd call that more successful then the usual attempts given how many other characters were migrating to the X-Men at the time.

    As for New Mutants and Gen X, sure they were background most days but Roberto was leading the Hellfire club, Rahne left the school for X-Factor and Dani, Karma, and Cannonball were either full blown X-Men or on staff. It didn't feel like anyone was really left behind....(except Magma, but you know comas and all). Really looking at the roster size around that time i'm surprised as many main X-Men got focus as they did. If you were a fan of Karma you may not have been fulfilled but at least you knew where she was an how she was contributing to the cause.

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    Rabbitearsblog

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    Definitely the 80s with the years 2000-2007 close behind. The 80s really defined the X-Men as the characters they are known as today and they had many great stories such as "The Dark Phoenix Saga," "God Loves Man Kills," and "Days of Future Past" that are still looked at fondly to this very day. The years between 2000-2007 was also a great time for the X-Men as many have pointed out, it helped transitioned the X-Men from being students at Xavier's School to actually teaching a new generation of mutants to defend mutantkind, which was something I really enjoyed and I wished that Marvel actually tried to utilize the new X-Men students a lot more.

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    HAWK2916

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    I'd say the 80's and early to mid 2000's

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    cattlebattle

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    @koays said:

    To slightly defend my impassioned statements....I do normally only go from around '04. And I don't remember Nightcrawler being around prior to 01....so i assumed he was still hanging in somebody's lighthouse prior to then. And really between he, Kitty and Rachel he's the only one who didn't really find his niche quickly once on the main team.... so i'd call that more successful then the usual attempts given how many other characters were migrating to the X-Men at the time.

    Excalibur disbanded in 98, and Kitty and Nightcrawler rejoined the X-Men while Rachel was stuck in time, if I am remembering correctly. Kitty left not too soon after and Nightcrawler was actually given leadership of one team....which you would figure is a good thing, but in terms of continuity it didn't makes much sense. He has lead Excalibur mainly because he had grown to be close friends with all the members of that team over the years and they functioned more like super heroes than anything. On the X-Men, he was given leadership over a bunch of characters he didn't know really well, like Iceman, Angel and Juggernaut, which, if you are looking at the X-Men as an ongoing story, doesn't make a whole lot of sense as he has had minimal contact with the actual Xaviers institute while he was in Excalibur over the years.

    I suppose you could argue that he "was developed over the years to be a leader of the next generation of mutants, he grew during his time in Excalibur", but he wasn't, and he didn't, he lead a team of characters that had been X-Men longer than he was and then he wasn't even leader for that long. They were better off just having him retire to a supporting role while giving new characters that hadn't been around for twenty something years some spotlight. That is a main point, as you know, I always argue about the X-Men; that editorial always seems to be more worried about "hey, look at these familiar characters in this book!" more than they are worried about treating the characters like real people in a continuing narrative.

    @koays said:

    As for New Mutants and Gen X, sure they were background most days but Roberto was leading the Hellfire club, Rahne left the school for X-Factor and Dani, Karma, and Cannonball were either full blown X-Men or on staff. It didn't feel like anyone was really left behind....(except Magma, but you know comas and all). Really looking at the roster size around that time i'm surprised as many main X-Men got focus as they did. If you were a fan of Karma you may not have been fulfilled but at least you knew where she was an how she was contributing to the cause.

    Sunspot leading the Hellfire Club was probably one of the best developments of the past 12 or so years, however, in the original New Mutants stories it was implied he would be more villainous when he takes control of the Inner Circle, not a stereotypical villain, more like "he believes what he is doing is right for mutantkind" villain, kind of like Magneto, which would have been vastly more interesting, but whatevs.

    I think you are just kind of exaggerating the roles the younger mutants have had over the years. Pretty much every member of Generation X and the New Mutants with the exception of maybe 2 or 3 would have the words "short" and "stint" follow their mentioned tenure on the X-Men team(s).....Even when someone like Rahne was a part of X-Factor, that was in the 90s and X-Factor Investigations stories weren't really tied to the X-Men story. They weren't really indelible to the X-Mens progress or stories in the, er...2000s(?) is what I am saying. Saying things came "full circle" is overstating, I believe.

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    Koays

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    Excalibur disbanded in 98, and Kitty and Nightcrawler rejoined the X-Men while Rachel was stuck in time, if I am remembering correctly. Kitty left not too soon after and Nightcrawler was actually given leadership of one team....which you would figure is a good thing, but in terms of continuity it didn't makes much sense. He has lead Excalibur mainly because he had grown to be close friends with all the members of that team over the years and they functioned more like super heroes than anything. On the X-Men, he was given leadership over a bunch of characters he didn't know really well, like Iceman, Angel and Juggernaut, which, if you are looking at the X-Men as an ongoing story, doesn't make a whole lot of sense as he has had minimal contact with the actual Xaviers institute while he was in Excalibur over the years.

    I suppose you could argue that he "was developed over the years to be a leader of the next generation of mutants, he grew during his time in Excalibur", but he wasn't, and he didn't, he lead a team of characters that had been X-Men longer than he was and then he wasn't even leader for that long. They were better off just having him retire to a supporting role while giving new characters that hadn't been around for twenty something years some spotlight. That is a main point, as you know, I always argue about the X-Men; that editorial always seems to be more worried about "hey, look at these familiar characters in this book!" more than they are worried about treating the characters like real people in a continuing narrative.

    Well i think the problem with Nightcrawler was more of an issue of Austen's weakness as a writer then him having peaked as a character. If i'm remembering right, this is the same period where he butted heads with Scott when he wanted to let someone else lead because despite asking to lead a team he was being overwhelmed by the role. It's something that would've been a great thing to focus on if Austen had made that the character direction from the beginning instead of just commenting on his ineffective writing of Nightcrawler as a leader. In this instance i wouldn't even disagree with your sentiment that Nightcrawler may have been better off taking a step back and giving room to another character. I mean really after this arc i can't remember an issue where Nightcrawler had more then a scene until Fraction....and then he died. It would've almost been more effective a death if he had been retired since Excalibur and come out of retirement only to be KIA as a way to shake up the newer and older mutants.


    All in all though, i'd still defend the "familiar background mutant" idea as opposed to the approach where the X-Men are like a highschool with new characters constantly coming in and having adventures as the old ones ride off into the sunset. To me its more comforting to have the majority of your characters on a bench waiting to be called up whenever theirs a role they can specificaly fill. It gives a sense of community that all these characters have so much history because of the different ways they've shuffled together and, especially during the 01-08 period, it makes the team seem so much more potent when they can delegate some of their most experienced members to a teaching position and not seem like their losing a huge asset.



    Sunspot leading the Hellfire Club was probably one of the best developments of the past 12 or so years, however, in the original New Mutants stories it was implied he would be more villainous when he takes control of the Inner Circle, not a stereotypical villain, more like "he believes what he is doing is right for mutantkind" villain, kind of like Magneto, which would have been vastly more interesting, but whatevs.

    I think you are just kind of exaggerating the roles the younger mutants have had over the years. Pretty much every member of Generation X and the New Mutants with the exception of maybe 2 or 3 would have the words "short" and "stint" follow their mentioned tenure on the X-Men team(s).....Even when someone like Rahne was a part of X-Factor, that was in the 90s and X-Factor Investigations stories weren't really tied to the X-Men story. They weren't really indelible to the X-Mens progress or stories in the, er...2000s(?) is what I am saying. Saying things came "full circle" is overstating, I believe.

    Sunspot leading the Hellfire Club to me was one of the biggest waste in X-Men. It really would've been great to see that play out in a more prominent manner then it did because it's so forgettable now with how little came from it. Very big miss in my opinion, because a Hell Fire arc set after the Decimation could've been a defining moment for Roberto and his ideas. Though at this point i shouldn't be surprised that any idea that might be interesting involving the Hell Fire Club will get minimal payoff.

    Your right about me overstating their relevance. But i feel like not mentioning that after about a decade of running around with Cable or just not being visible, the founding members of the New Mutants we're back at Xavier's sort of leaves out the best part of this time period. To me the main reason that this time period even worked so well was that there were so many established X-Men characters and they were all living and operating together. They weren't all major contributors, but to me this is where the X-Men were at their most successful inuniverse because not only were they so united and firing at all cylinders, the fact that so many well known X-Men are either at the school or reporting to it showed just how far the X-Men had come from the smaller teams of the 80's. It's the team, mentoring and family aspects of the X-Men that are given so much weight in this time because characters like Jubilee, Karma, Husk and Moonstar were around to legitimatize it...even if they weren't the focus. (Here's hoping that made sense as i type this walking in the rain)

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    Rabbitearsblog

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    @koays: Agree. I really miss that family aspect of the X-Men nowadays...

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    Fabulosity

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    @alfacess said:

    I'd say the 80s and 90s

    I approve this.

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    SOG7dc

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    They had a decade of awesomeness in the 2450s.

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    SOG7dc

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    I'm a time traveler btw

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    Koays

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    @rabbitearsblog: I find the only book that has it really is XX-Men. Though it may just be how well the cast interacts and seems to be on the same page....either way they seem to really like each other and any of the other X-Men they encounter

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    alfacess

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    @sog7dc: Oh, can u tell me what happened in Batman V Superman Dawn of Justice then, because I can't wait for the movie

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    cattlebattle

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    @koays said:


    Well i think the problem with Nightcrawler was more of an issue of Austen's weakness as a writer then him having peaked as a character. If i'm remembering right, this is the same period where he butted heads with Scott when he wanted to let someone else lead because despite asking to lead a team he was being overwhelmed by the role. It's something that would've been a great thing to focus on if Austen had made that the character direction from the beginning instead of just commenting on his ineffective writing of Nightcrawler as a leader. In this instance i wouldn't even disagree with your sentiment that Nightcrawler may have been better off taking a step back and giving room to another character. I mean really after this arc i can't remember an issue where Nightcrawler had more then a scene until Fraction....and then he died. It would've almost been more effective a death if he had been retired since Excalibur and come out of retirement only to be KIA as a way to shake up the newer and older mutants.

    Yeah, it was also the time he became a much more depressing character because of his religous beliefs taking precedence. I agree, that it does have pretty much everything to do with the writer but my point was more along the lines of criticizing your point of having all the X-Men come back together, it isn't always the best thing as it crowds the books. Especially when the character didn't have much incentive to return to the book in the first place. The 2000-2010 X-men comics had a perfect opportunity to rejuvenate themselves for a new millennium, and they did to an extent, but at the same time I feel like just bringing a lot of characters that had grown apart back into the fold can be kind of superfluous.

    @koays said:


    All in all though, i'd still defend the "familiar background mutant" idea as opposed to the approach where the X-Men are like a highschool with new characters constantly coming in and having adventures as the old ones ride off into the sunset. To me its more comforting to have the majority of your characters on a bench waiting to be called up whenever theirs a role they can specificaly fill. It gives a sense of community that all these characters have so much history because of the different ways they've shuffled together and, especially during the 01-08 period, it makes the team seem so much more potent when they can delegate some of their most experienced members to a teaching position and not seem like their losing a huge asset.


    I think you misinterpret my meanings when we discuss this. I don't want the older X-Men that have been through the ringer and back to just be like "Well, time to call it a day" and leave, I more so just want the characters to feel like they are living in a world where they can age, die, or just want something else other than perpetual super heroics. Like maybe a character just doesn't want to be a super hero anymore, maybe Captain Britian dies and Psylocke has to replace him...which may subsequently lead to a story where Psylocke needs the X-Mens assistance and they get dragged into an international, possibly inter dimensional conflict....maybe Storm stays the Queen of Wakanda and that leads to the X-Men getting pulled into a conflict there because it involves someone who was formerly one of their own. They are living in the "Marvel Universe" after all......there is other super heroes floating around doing stuff. It is just weird to me that people will just do the same thing forever and be happy with it, are all the characters involved in the first season of something like "Game of Thrones" still doing the same things and are in the same places they are than where they are in the fourth season?? Nope. Are you still living and hanging around the same places and people you did when you were twelve than you are now?? Probably not.

    You apparently see at as a community where I see it as a laundry list of characters with no direction or real importance.

    @koays said:


    Sunspot leading the Hellfire Club to me was one of the biggest waste in X-Men. It really would've been great to see that play out in a more prominent manner then it did because it's so forgettable now with how little came from it. Very big miss in my opinion, because a Hell Fire arc set after the Decimation could've been a defining moment for Roberto and his ideas. Though at this point i shouldn't be surprised that any idea that might be interesting involving the Hell Fire Club will get minimal payoff.

    Hmmm. I agree

    @koays said:


    Your right about me overstating their relevance. But i feel like not mentioning that after about a decade of running around with Cable or just not being visible, the founding members of the New Mutants we're back at Xavier's sort of leaves out the best part of this time period. To me the main reason that this time period even worked so well was that there were so many established X-Men characters and they were all living and operating together. They weren't all major contributors, but to me this is where the X-Men were at their most successful inuniverse because not only were they so united and firing at all cylinders, the fact that so many well known X-Men are either at the school or reporting to it showed just how far the X-Men had come from the smaller teams of the 80's. It's the team, mentoring and family aspects of the X-Men that are given so much weight in this time because characters like Jubilee, Karma, Husk and Moonstar were around to legitimatize it...even if they weren't the focus. (Here's hoping that made sense as i type this walking in the rain)

    Again, I think you are making it sound a lot better than it was. If you take Cannonball for instance, he was on X-Force being a victim of crap stories for a long time and then he quasi retired, and came back to the X-Men and was briefly a member Rogue/Cables team.....even though he had been leading a team of mutants since he was around 17, then he was on the New Mutants again for some reason instead of that team just being X-Men. Did anyone read the original New Mutants stories where the whole point of the book was that they were supposed to be the X-Men one day and the problems they carried would snowball into larger problems? X-Men problems?? Saying its the family and mentoring aspects doesn't really carry any water if the characters don't have any real goals and they are just largely secondary characters in the X-Mens seemingly endless line up.

    Yes, if you typed this apparently on a mobile device while in the rain that's amazing.

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    oldnightcrawler

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    1980-1987 (the best period of Claremont's classic run)

    1993-1994 (best period for 90's X-men, both X-men and Uncanny' were pretty good for a while, the beginning of Generation X was cool, and X-men Classic was reprinting the mid 80's books)

    2004-2008 (Whedon and Cassaday's Astonishing run was one of the best, David's X-factor was great, House of M was decent)

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    SOG7dc

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    @alfacess: I signed a contract not to talk about details of things that haven't come out yet. But I can tell you that millions of nerds raged over insignificant things.

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    Koays

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    @cattlebattle: I'm getting a better picture of where we disagree on this. Your saying that just having characters be around for the sake of familiarity and in worst cases just to remind people they exist can hinder a story, and i don't disagree with that. Nor do i disagree that serving as background in someone elses story isnt going to do much for a character with their own rich history and development accept add placeholder to their resume'.

    But my point is that this is one of the times when it does work. I mean i won't be pointing to this as the time of great characterization for Cannonball and the New Mutants. But it definitely helped my opinion of this era that they were featured at different periods. I'm positive i'm overstating their importance right now but to me as much as having the cast of Astonishing show up in New X-Men was important to showing where they fit in with the 4 books of the time, having New Mutants appear where they did made the school feel bigger. And without the Northstars', Gen X's and other mutants who were contributing to background at the time we'd lose a pretty cool aspect of that time periods X-Books that sets it apart from other ones.

    Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't include the San Fran or Utopia days in this period because as nice as it was to see all these characters it actually hurt the story that their was so much named fodder lying around taking attention solely for fanservice. But i think this is just cool fanservice during this 01- 08 era that complimented the great writing (for the most part) and contributed to the feel of the team hitting an all time high...especially after Morrison's run left the X-Men shattered inuniverse.



    I think you misinterpret my meanings when we discuss this. I don't want the older X-Men that have been through the ringer and back to just be like "Well, time to call it a day" and leave, I more so just want the characters to feel like they are living in a world where they can age, die, or just want something else other than perpetual super heroics. Like maybe a character just doesn't want to be a super hero anymore, maybe Captain Britian dies and Psylocke has to replace him...which may subsequently lead to a story where Psylocke needs the X-Mens assistance and they get dragged into an international, possibly inter dimensional conflict....maybe Storm stays the Queen of Wakanda and that leads to the X-Men getting pulled into a conflict there because it involves someone who was formerly one of their own. They are living in the "Marvel Universe" after all......there is other super heroes floating around doing stuff. It is just weird to me that people will just do the same thing forever and be happy with it, are all the characters involved in the first season of something like "Game of Thrones" still doing the same things and are in the same places they are than where they are in the fourth season?? Nope. Are you still living and hanging around the same places and people you did when you were twelve than you are now?? Probably not.

    You apparently see at as a community where I see it as a laundry list of characters with no direction or real importance.

    There are like a thousand characters bunched in to one little corner of what's supposed to be a world filled with wonder, your right about that. And i wouldn't mind some of the more natural transitions in order to space some of these characters out and give them room breathe and some of the other characters more space to be explored. But i'm an X-Men fan so despite as close minded and harmful as it can be at times, i'd mostly prefer X-characters to just do X-Men stuff or nothing at all. Ship some of them off panel to rebuild Genosha or have a few of them retire to the Higher Evolutionary's mountain. Even Storm and Wakanda isn't a bad idea, but i feel like spreading the characters thin has never been a real problem with the X-Men and i don't want that to be come one.

    To me as much as it would open the door to new stories to have some of the characters exist elsewhere instead of living in Xavier's basement for the next 20 years....it's just not appealing for me that if i put down my X-Men books now i could come back in 5 years and not have the easy identifiers like the school, Cyclops, Logan and a bunch of other familiar faces that i can connect with easily. And really there's so much more to be done with what we have that i'm not sure we should be reaching outwards for more stories just yet. i'm positive that the best Mr. Sinister story has't been written yet. The Hellfire club is long overdue for a return to relevance. The world owes Apocalypse a story. There's just so much stuff to touch on and while it may make them seem limited and even unrealized as characters. i'd really like to see most of these characters around when those stroies are written.

    I get your perspective from a character side of things, but i always thought that the reason X-characters never strayed to far from the circle was because of how noble a cause Xavier's is. And i can't really see alot of ppl who choose to risk their lives for equality deciding that they have something better to do.


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    cattlebattle

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    #25  Edited By cattlebattle

    @koays said:

    @cattlebattle: I'm getting a better picture of where we disagree on this. Your saying that just having characters be around for the sake of familiarity and in worst cases just to remind people they exist can hinder a story, and i don't disagree with that. Nor do i disagree that serving as background in someone elses story isnt going to do much for a character with their own rich history and development accept add placeholder to their resume'.

    But my point is that this is one of the times when it does work. I mean i won't be pointing to this as the time of great characterization for Cannonball and the New Mutants. But it definitely helped my opinion of this era that they were featured at different periods. I'm positive i'm overstating their importance right now but to me as much as having the cast of Astonishing show up in New X-Men was important to showing where they fit in with the 4 books of the time, having New Mutants appear where they did made the school feel bigger. And without the Northstars', Gen X's and other mutants who were contributing to background at the time we'd lose a pretty cool aspect of that time periods X-Books that sets it apart from other ones.

    Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't include the San Fran or Utopia days in this period because as nice as it was to see all these characters it actually hurt the story that their was so much named fodder lying around taking attention solely for fanservice. But i think this is just cool fanservice during this 01- 08 era that complimented the great writing (for the most part) and contributed to the feel of the team hitting an all time high...especially after Morrison's run left the X-Men shattered inuniverse.


    Overall, I agree with what you are saying about the era you are talking about, there was more attention to detail and cohesiveness after the abysmal 90s and even if Morrisons run is considered good, there is still a lot of it that's kind of debased by fans. I just didn't like it for some of the reasons you touted.

    I understand that mutants are a race in the comics and people discriminate against them, so it's cool to see a large contingent of them living together, but, the disconnect comes from the fact that apparently 90% of mutants are just super humans.....which begs the question "why would being a mutant be a bad thing in this universe?? I think it actually works better when the X-Men are a smaller group of heroes, the uh, "lucky" ones who fight to help the ones less fortunate or the ones who might misuse power.....So, yeah, I am usually opposed to the X-Men just seemingly like a hyper powered army, which is something that began in or around 04 or 05.

    @koays said:

    There are like a thousand characters bunched in to one little corner of what's supposed to be a world filled with wonder, your right about that. And i wouldn't mind some of the more natural transitions in order to space some of these characters out and give them room breathe and some of the other characters more space to be explored. But i'm an X-Men fan so despite as close minded and harmful as it can be at times, i'd mostly prefer X-characters to just do X-Men stuff or nothing at all. Ship some of them off panel to rebuild Genosha or have a few of them retire to the Higher Evolutionary's mountain. Even Storm and Wakanda isn't a bad idea, but i feel like spreading the characters thin has never been a real problem with the X-Men and i don't want that to be come one.

    To me as much as it would open the door to new stories to have some of the characters exist elsewhere instead of living in Xavier's basement for the next 20 years....it's just not appealing for me that if i put down my X-Men books now i could come back in 5 years and not have the easy identifiers like the school, Cyclops, Logan and a bunch of other familiar faces that i can connect with easily. And really there's so much more to be done with what we have that i'm not sure we should be reaching outwards for more stories just yet. i'm positive that the best Mr. Sinister story has't been written yet. The Hellfire club is long overdue for a return to relevance. The world owes Apocalypse a story. There's just so much stuff to touch on and while it may make them seem limited and even unrealized as characters. i'd really like to see most of these characters around when those stroies are written.

    I get your perspective from a character side of things, but i always thought that the reason X-characters never strayed to far from the circle was because of how noble a cause Xavier's is. And i can't really see alot of ppl who choose to risk their lives for equality deciding that they have something better to do.

    Yeah, I get why people like the familiarity, and I know why Marvel does it, to solidify iconography even though that always seems like its more of DCs MO,.....it's just me not liking it, lol. I can agree with some aspects of it keeping it the same too, like you get to see long time characters get better story arcs; Cyclops is a good example: if Morrison would have never used him and given him the rub that he needed he would have been one of the most boring X-Men that had ever existed....only over the past decade or so has he really been pushed. So, it does have benefits.

    This stuff I complain about is not me imagining things either, this is how Marvel was during the 80s. Characters would move on or the writers would attempt to write out old characters in favor of new ones. For instance when Walt Simonson wrote Thor, he killed off the Executioner, portrayed characters like Enchantress in a new light, and he also killed off Odin and had Thor become the ruler of Asgard. If you were a reader of Avengers at the time it was probably exciting to see who would fill the power house role he left behind; would Beta Ray Bill join the team?? And bring some new cosmic villains and stories with him?? but then Thor just comes back later and the Avengers fight Loki and the Enchantress again :/ because they don't like to change things, that's boring to me.

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    Overall, I agree with what you are saying about the era you are talking about, there was more attention to detail and cohesiveness after the abysmal 90s and even if Morrisons run is considered good, there is still a lot of it that's kind of debased by fans. I just didn't like it for some of the reasons you touted.

    I understand that mutants are a race in the comics and people discriminate against them, so it's cool to see a large contingent of them living together, but, the disconnect comes from the fact that apparently 90% of mutants are just super humans.....which begs the question "why would being a mutant be a bad thing in this universe?? I think it actually works better when the X-Men are a smaller group of heroes, the uh, "lucky" ones who fight to help the ones less fortunate or the ones who might misuse power.....So, yeah, I am usually opposed to the X-Men just seemingly like a hyper powered army, which is something that began in or around 04 or 05.

    Yea, if you prefer the X-Men as a smaller more streamlined group i can understand that. To me though it's one of the reasons its hard to support the whole shared Marvel Universe concept when it comes to the X-Men. I mean i can get why their would need to be 30 Avengers operating out of a helicarrier but in a world where you have that, why do you need 30 X-Men assigned the specific task of superheroics. To me it just makes more sense when you don't have to factor in the rest of the Marvel U and how they work, because then it makes more sense that the X-Men have a home, away, security, killsquad and babyshower team line ups for the different types of things they'll face. And then you get to say "look how far we've come" instead of "do we really need 10 X-Men let alone 30".

    And really, i just prefer the larger roster at times because it makes them appear so much stronger.



    Yeah, I get why people like the familiarity, and I know why Marvel does it, to solidify iconography even though that always seems like its more of DCs MO,.....it's just me not liking it, lol. I can agree with some aspects of it keeping it the same too, like you get to see long time characters get better story arcs; Cyclops is a good example: if Morrison would have never used him and given him the rub that he needed he would have been one of the most boring X-Men that had ever existed....only over the past decade or so has he really been pushed. So, it does have benefits.

    This stuff I complain about is not me imagining things either, this is how Marvel was during the 80s. Characters would move on or the writers would attempt to write out old characters in favor of new ones. For instance when Walt Simonson wrote Thor, he killed off the Executioner, portrayed characters like Enchantress in a new light, and he also killed off Odin and had Thor become the ruler of Asgard. If you were a reader of Avengers at the time it was probably exciting to see who would fill the power house role he left behind; would Beta Ray Bill join the team?? And bring some new cosmic villains and stories with him?? but then Thor just comes back later and the Avengers fight Loki and the Enchantress again :/ because they don't like to change things, that's boring to me.

    Lol I can respect that idea. And really in any other medium a story that goes on for decades only to constantly return to it's status quo would be taken about as seriously as an episode of the Simpsons. The predictability and inevitability that eventually all things will end up as they were can take alot of the backbone out of a story. I mean most people who complain about Bendis say they can't wait for his run to be over because then the X-Men will be back on track (back to status quo)....but if someone was having an awesome run and someone said that when the awesome run is over everything will reset as though it never happened, people would flip.

    To me though one of the things about the X-Men that's cool is that they have changed so often. It may not be the Claremont style decade of constantly flux, but i feel like the characters come out of every Era having evolved from their experiences in the previous one. I mean Claremont's Cyclops wasn't ready to lead Utopia, neither was Morrison's.But after Whedon he'd graduated to a character that could lead Utopia and from that into what he is now. The same with Storm who i don't think in the 80's or 90's was someone i'd say could become the headmistress at Xavier's even though she was a proven leader. But more to the point it's because these characters moved up and took on bigger roles that characters like Rogue, Kitty, and Nightcrawler became leaders instead of just the muscle, brains and clown of the team. And because these are the team leaders newer characters and fresh faces could come in under them and fill out teams.

    In a way we've gotten the best of both worlds as we've gotten the iconic status and years of development for older characters and made room for newer or fresher characters. The only thing is that it can get kind of crowded do the lack of people leaving but as cheap (and hallmark) as it is....the X-Men is a family, and no one really leaves a family.

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    #27  Edited By cattlebattle

    @koays said:

    Yea, if you prefer the X-Men as a smaller more streamlined group i can understand that. To me though it's one of the reasons its hard to support the whole shared Marvel Universe concept when it comes to the X-Men. I mean i can get why their would need to be 30 Avengers operating out of a helicarrier but in a world where you have that, why do you need 30 X-Men assigned the specific task of superheroics. To me it just makes more sense when you don't have to factor in the rest of the Marvel U and how they work, because then it makes more sense that the X-Men have a home, away, security, killsquad and babyshower team line ups for the different types of things they'll face. And then you get to say "look how far we've come" instead of "do we really need 10 X-Men let alone 30".

    And really, i just prefer the larger roster at times because it makes them appear so much stronger.


    One of the best things about the X-Men has always been all the different challenges they face, but I think it lessens the quality of storytelling if they just have certain teams that deal with certain problems, they should all have to deal with whatever problem comes their way.

    About the Avengers; I actually hold my same stance for all of Marvel, because they never change anything or progress the characters they wind up with 100s of a heroes and thousands of villains just up in limbo, I think the fact that there is also twelve groups of Avengers is also silly. If you look at DC, the benefits of them rebooting is that they avoid this stuff, they can get rid of certain characters and heroes as they deem fit, Marvels position was always that they were supposed to be more "realistic" by having a more plausible universe with characters having real problems and living in real places, most of it is thrown out the window though when the characters just have to get retconned through some ridiculous means.

    @koays said:


    Lol I can respect that idea. And really in any other medium a story that goes on for decades only to constantly return to it's status quo would be taken about as seriously as an episode of the Simpsons. The predictability and inevitability that eventually all things will end up as they were can take alot of the backbone out of a story. I mean most people who complain about Bendis say they can't wait for his run to be over because then the X-Men will be back on track (back to status quo)....but if someone was having an awesome run and someone said that when the awesome run is over everything will reset as though it never happened, people would flip.


    Its funny that you liken it to The Simpsons show, because that is how X-Men and most Marvel comics are perceived these days....as a cartoon. I have relatives in Britain that say, and I quote, "I wouldn't wipe my ass with American comics" because just the utter silliness of all the retconning, resurrecting, not aging the characters etc. There is even series within Marvel that make fun of it, like "Nextwave". Heck, even Peter David didn't really want his last X-Factor run to be that connected to the main X-Men stories because of how ridiculous it is. Peter David is even a great example to use when belaboring my point, because he actually did things like attempt to retire characters (Madrox, Layla Miller) and have some other characters take on new roles in the Marvel Universe (Strong Guy, Siryn) and this leads to my next point....

    Fans want the X-Men status quo to never change because they don't know what they want. Seriously. Look at the most famous runs from each franchise in comics....Claremonts X-Men, Davids X-Factor, Byrnes Fantastic Four, Siminsons Thor, Morrisons All Star Superman, Millers work on Daredevil and Batman. All of those runs do different things with the characters, change the status quo and attempt to progress the characters and do different things overall....thats why they are popular, yet they simultaneously, hypocritically clamor for things to never change. It's weird

    @koays said:

    To me though one of the things about the X-Men that's cool is that they have changed so often. It may not be the Claremont style decade of constantly flux, but i feel like the characters come out of every Era having evolved from their experiences in the previous one. I mean Claremont's Cyclops wasn't ready to lead Utopia, neither was Morrison's.But after Whedon he'd graduated to a character that could lead Utopia and from that into what he is now. The same with Storm who i don't think in the 80's or 90's was someone i'd say could become the headmistress at Xavier's even though she was a proven leader. But more to the point it's because these characters moved up and took on bigger roles that characters like Rogue, Kitty, and Nightcrawler became leaders instead of just the muscle, brains and clown of the team. And because these are the team leaders newer characters and fresh faces could come in under them and fill out teams.

    Again, I think you are simplifying this. Just because different writers come along and decide that they want to do x things with x characters doesn't necessarily count as "development" Just shunting Rogue or Nightcralwer into a leadership role doesn't always make sense and her being around a long time isn't really a justifiable reason to do it. You mention Claremonts Storm for instance.....who probably never would have wanted to be a headmaster of the school, during story lines like "Life Death" and the "Mutant Massacre" it is sort of implied that Storm doesn't want to lead the X-Men forever, she wants more out of life, she is taking the leader role for the time because she is needed to...nobody else could do it. Comparable to these days?? There is literally like 10 X-Men that can do it, and they all live at the mansion.... same goes for Cyclops during Claremonts run.....leading the X-Men wasn't always in his future, things were changing, he fell in love, Magneto was becoming an ally, the X-Men he grew up with had moved on....If anything Karma and Moonstar would have likely grew to be headmasters under Claremonts pen, probably because he actually created those characters more than anything else. Nightcrawler was never just "the clown" archetype and did actually lead the X-Men for a brief period during Claremonts run, and he didn't want job, because he just wasn't cut out for it, because in life not everybody is going to be able to do anything, and that is what I mean by treating the characters like people instead of just a bunch of super hero drawings.

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    #28  Edited By Koays

    @koays said:


    Lol I can respect that idea. And really in any other medium a story that goes on for decades only to constantly return to it's status quo would be taken about as seriously as an episode of the Simpsons. The predictability and inevitability that eventually all things will end up as they were can take alot of the backbone out of a story. I mean most people who complain about Bendis say they can't wait for his run to be over because then the X-Men will be back on track (back to status quo)....but if someone was having an awesome run and someone said that when the awesome run is over everything will reset as though it never happened, people would flip.


    Its funny that you liken it to The Simpsons show, because that is how X-Men and most Marvel comics are perceived these days....as a cartoon. I have relatives in Britain that say, and I quote, "I wouldn't wipe my ass with American comics" because just the utter silliness of all the retconning, resurrecting, not aging the characters etc. There is even series within Marvel that make fun of it, like "Nextwave". Heck, even Peter David didn't really want his last X-Factor run to be that connected to the main X-Men stories because of how ridiculous it is. Peter David is even a great example to use when belaboring my point, because he actually did things like attempt to retire characters (Madrox, Layla Miller) and have some other characters take on new roles in the Marvel Universe (Strong Guy, Siryn) and this leads to my next point....

    Fans want the X-Men status quo to never change because they don't know what they want. Seriously. Look at the most famous runs from each franchise in comics....Claremonts X-Men, Davids X-Factor, Byrnes Fantastic Four, Siminsons Thor, Morrisons All Star Superman, Millers work on Daredevil and Batman. All of those runs do different things with the characters, change the status quo and attempt to progress the characters and do different things overall....thats why they are popular, yet they simultaneously, hypocritically clamor for things to never change. It's weird

    @koays said:

    To me though one of the things about the X-Men that's cool is that they have changed so often. It may not be the Claremont style decade of constantly flux, but i feel like the characters come out of every Era having evolved from their experiences in the previous one. I mean Claremont's Cyclops wasn't ready to lead Utopia, neither was Morrison's.But after Whedon he'd graduated to a character that could lead Utopia and from that into what he is now. The same with Storm who i don't think in the 80's or 90's was someone i'd say could become the headmistress at Xavier's even though she was a proven leader. But more to the point it's because these characters moved up and took on bigger roles that characters like Rogue, Kitty, and Nightcrawler became leaders instead of just the muscle, brains and clown of the team. And because these are the team leaders newer characters and fresh faces could come in under them and fill out teams.

    Again, I think you are simplifying this. Just because different writers come along and decide that they want to do x things with x characters doesn't necessarily count as "development" Just shunting Rogue or Nightcralwer into a leadership role doesn't always make sense and her being around a long time isn't really a justifiable reason to do it. You mention Claremonts Storm for instance.....who probably never would have wanted to be a headmaster of the school, during story lines like "Life Death" and the "Mutant Massacre" it is sort of implied that Storm doesn't want to lead the X-Men forever, she wants more out of life, she is taking the leader role for the time because she is needed to...nobody else could do it. Comparable to these days?? There is literally like 10 X-Men that can do it, and they all live at the mansion.... same goes for Cyclops during Claremonts run.....leading the X-Men wasn't always in his future, things were changing, he fell in love, Magneto was becoming an ally, the X-Men he grew up with had moved on....If anything Karma and Moonstar would have likely grew to be headmasters under Claremonts pen, probably because he actually created those characters more than anything else. Nightcrawler was never just "the clown" archetype and did actually lead the X-Men for a brief period during Claremonts run, and he didn't want job, because he just wasn't cut out for it, because in life not everybody is going to be able to do anything, and that is what I mean by treating the characters like people instead of just a bunch of super hero drawings.

    I really do see your point especially when pointing out the stand out runs of the different franchises. The evolution, changes and development to the characters involved are generally things that make those works stand out as classics. But to me too much change is a turn off to most fans because familiarity is why we're fans. I'm usually very critical of Morrison's work (which hurt me because i had to defend it this debate) because, as pioneering and different as his run was from the burnout the 90's had given us, it was so filled with new ideas, SO filled with shake ups, SO filled fresh faces and concepts that it almost felt like the writer had disdain for the older concepts. Like the things that brought us to the franchise and things that we enjoyed and stayed around for through the bad times weren't worth anything to the writer compared to their own ideas. And when i think of the status quo complaints with Morrison in mind i can see where there's a point to them, because for all Morrison's contributions his biggest rival is Whedon who didn't really do anything pioneering except use the pieces that Morrison had created to tell a story. Astonishing X-Men exist as the shining example that as much as change is needed sometime you need to just work with what you have and cultivate good stories as opposed to looking for the next one.


    My point with the Rogue, Nightcrawler and Storm thing wasn't so much that being around for long periods makes them qualified to move up in the X-Men but more along the lines that these are now the veterans who have been forged into leaders. And with Rogue, Cyclops and Kitty we sort of see how between Claremont's X-Treme until about 2008 they are all slowly evolving as characters into these leaders and not so much just being put into these positions based on seniority and notoriety. And while i would like to see X-Men be more realized as characters with goals an aspirations that don't revolve around the letter "X", i don't necessarily think that that idea an the idea of a bunch of characters that live together and fight for equality for people like them are mutually exclusive. In my mind a person like Storm isn't summed up by the word "X-Man" but that's a big enough part of her character and her life that she considers it when she makes a decision about the direction of her life.

    It's hard to illustrate my point because the "why we do it" question hasn't been prevailent in comics for a few years and X-Men for at least 2 decades. But to me the reason a character like Rogue wouldn't run off an start a family the first time she gains control of her powers is because she prioritizes her role as an X-Man as something important and not something that she can just put behind her. And really that's what i think is true about most of the other X-Charaters, that they have a "DC Comics" like selflessness, that not everyone has when it comes to important causes.

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    ShadowoftheLight

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    I like the 2000 :D

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    kingjonthoo_

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    I'd say the 80s-mid 2000s

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    deactivated-5a04a566e9ae3

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    I love almost everything from 1975 to 1995, but it kind of goes downhill after that(for me) until about 2001 when Morrison jumped on. If I had to narrow it down a little, I'd say the best years were 1979- 1989, and 2001-2008.

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