I first discovered the X-Men with issue number 123 of Uncanny.
It was the villain Arcade that caught my eye in the spinner rack of the store24 in Boston. I remembered him from a two-parter in Marvel Team-Up with Spider-Man and Captain Britain that was one of my favorites. For some reason, Arcade will always be jumbled up in my head with the villain from The Man with the Golden Gun and Kiss meets the Phantom of the Park. All things that were terribly important to me as a wee lad.
Anyways, from that issue on I was hooked. John Byrne was the first artist whose name I took notice of. He was the pinnacle of artistic achievement in my 10 year old eyes. And the characters were so cool. Back then, Wolverine was still a man of mystery and his antagonistic attitude toward his own teammates was something that hadn't been seen before (at least by me). He really felt dangerous and you got the feeling anything could happen with this guy. Mark Millar managed to recapture that feeling for a short while in Ultimate X-Men, but unfortunately it didn't last long after his departure.
I remained obsessed with the X-Men through the end of Byrne's run whereupon my mother unceremoniously threw out my entire collection for reasons which are lost to to time and unreliable memory. Heartbroken, I couldn't bear to buy any new X-Men comics for a few years, but I came back on board with the advent of The New Mutants and the beginning of Paul Smith's run.
This short period was a new renaissance for the X-Men. The Brood Saga, The Morlocks, and From the Ashes were the equal of any of the high points from the Byrne run.
And The New Mutants became perhaps even dearer to my heart than the originals.
This was a brilliant idea for a spin-off book with instantly relatable characters with cool powers and distinct personalities. I loved Bob McLeod's art and then when Sienkcewicz came on I hated it. Until I loved it. I think it took about three issues to get used to it, but then...wow.
What a ballsy move by Marvel and by the artist himself to take comic art to the next level.
Alas, it was all about to come crumbling down. I generally enjoyed John Romita Jrs initial run.
High points were issues 183 and 190-191 and 193 but then....
X-Factor killed the X-Men.
Looking back, when Marvel put the original X-Men back together in a book not written by Claremont, ressurecting Jean Grey in the process, that was the moment the X-Men lost the magic "whatever" that made them great. It made no sense storywise. Nobody had come up with any great new characters like the New Mutants. The reason they came up with for the originals to get back together was ridiculous and not compelling at all. It was a creatively bankrupt money grab. And it ruined the X-Men.
Of course, I didn't realize it at the time. I kept right on buying all the titles, waiting for them to get better. But they never really did. I think I mostly just wanted Cyclops to get back on the stinking team. I feel like he was always an essential element of the ongoing soap opera and with his characterisation being handed off to another writer, it left the book without a heart. I was not a fan of the Silvestri run and all that nonsense in Australia. There was a little bit of cool stuff when Jim Lee came on as artist - in particular the Wolverine/Captain America/Black Widow issue but it never came close to the heights of the Byrne or Smith eras.
And then Claremont was off the books. I kept reading for a good long while but eventually dropped all the X-Men books right before the Age of Apocalypse began. I think there was an issue where the world ended and I just decided that that's where it would indeed end for me.
And so it did. Until Grant Morrison.
When Morrison came on the book I of course had to give it another look. Animal Man was one of my favorie comics of all time so I just had to see what Morrison would do. For the most part it was pretty good. But I think it was really hobbled by the inconsistency of the art. I think it would probably be close to a masterpiece if the whole run had been drawn by just one artist. Igor Kordey caught a lot of crap for his work on this, but I think the series would have fared better as a whole if Kordey had actually been the artist for the whole thing from the get-go.
Set him up from the beginning with X-Men as his only book and he wouldn't have been rushed. He could have just cranked out the book monthly and we'd have been left with a handsomely coherent whole. Overall, the run was interesting, but still never ascended to the heights of yesteryear in my eyes.
And finally, there was Joss Whedon.
Man, did I love this run. Maybe 'cause Whedon was obviously nostalgic for exactly the same eras that I was myself, but this one hit me right in the sweet spot. Perfect characterization, keen plotting, surprises on top of surprises, and all stuck firmly in continuity and building marvelously off Morrison's new foundation.
So there's your happy ending. I still think I'm kinda mostly done with the X-Men at this point. I mentioned recently that my favorite comic of the moment is Criminal by Ed Brubaker, and wouldn't you know it... Brubaker is also writing the X-Men. But I just can't get into his run. Maybe Warren Ellis will keep me interested with Astonishing but I don't know. It's a weird and sad day when my favorite writers can't get me excited about the merry mutants. But heck, you never know. All of a sudden I'll get reeled right back in. I hope so. Growing up is no dang fun.
Oh, I am looking forward to the Wolverine movie. I loved all three of the X-Men films. That's right all three. So I've got that going for me.
Here's an old sketch of Wolverine I had lying around.
God that was long and nerdy, wasn't it?
Geek, out.
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