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Why Are Marvel’s X-Men Comics So Terrible Right Now?

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I agree that they seem directionless, and that's definitely the main thing that's hurting them

-'92 is really fun, but not intended to be much more than a shot of nostalgia and cheesy fun,

-Uncanny is bad, being nothing more than a poor man's version of Remender's UXF. Land on art made the first arc entirely boring, then the second arc had Lashley which was a much needed improvement. However the trade-off for significantly more interesting and enjoyable art is a nigh incomprehensible writing.

-All-New is mediocre. I appreciate the attempt at making a much more character focused book, but I don't feel like it's really capturing my interest. It's interesting to see Young Beast becoming more like older Beast, though.

-Extraordinary started shaky with some solid moments (fighting off a horde of demons in Limbo). I feel like it's progressively getting better. The Omega World arc was pretty good, and it's definitely picking up with the current plot threads.

While they certainly aren't as good as the glory days, I'm an optimist.

Straw that broke the camels back was the Children of the Atom arc. Just seemed like everything related to X-men had to do with a shitty future which is resolved by time travel.
Battle of the Atom, and you are correct in saying it's bad.
Ironically enough they just did this with Kraven's daughter.
It's unknown if she's an Inhuman.
 

Adnor

Banned
All Marvel has to do is give the X-Men to Al Ewing and he'll make a great book. He loves them, just look at the latest issue of New Avengers
hell yeah Warlock!
 

The Kree

Banned
It seems like the demands of the medium aren't attractive to a lot of writers and artists. It just so happens that this is affecting the X-Men the hardest right now. The pacing of Marvel's release schedule is kinda crazy.
 

Varna

Member
Granted I haven't read comics seriously in 10+ years but I just can't get over the stupidity of things like time displaced teen Cyclops, Jean, etc and old man Logan. I mean, jesus... Character deaths don't mean shit in comics in general, but now you just swap out younger version of them and call it a day?
 

The Kree

Banned
Granted I haven't read comics seriously in 10+ years but I just can't get over the stupidity of things like time displaced teen Cyclops, Jean, etc and old man Logan. I mean, jesus... Character deaths don't mean shit in comics in general, but now you just swap out younger version of them and call it a day?

They haven't swapped them out. They exist side by side. That might technically be worse than swapping them out, though.
 
seriously, it was obvious they had no direction when they went for the old "mutants are in danger of extinction" trope. I mean they did it not long after they finally reversed the effects of House of M.

Here's the thing: the X-Men have always been about overcoming great adversity, more so than any other character or group except maybe Spider-Man. Once you push the "we are in danger of extinction" button, it's hard to reset the stakes to something more reasonable. So they've been in danger of extinction over and over since Wanda first said "No more mutants." Marvel doesn't seem to know how to scale it back.
 

Neoxon

Junior Member
I have a gut feeling that Mark Waid is gonna do Young Cyclops justice in the Champions book. I really hope that Scott ends up leading the team.
 

charsace

Member
I just read this:
latest
Don't bother with the other xmen related stuff at this point.
 

Neoxon

Junior Member
Well he outright said he's going to lol.
The term "Easier said than done" comes to mind. But given that I'm a fan of most of Mark Waid's work, I have faith that he'll do right by Young Cyclops. I mean, Mark Waid supposedly begged Marvel to let him use Young Cyclops on the team, so I'd expect Waid to bring his A-Game for Scott.

All New Wolverine and Old Man Logan are standout books IMO.
I can vouch for this, & it's not just because I'm a Tom Taylor fan (who writes All-New Wolverine).
 

Machine

Member
They haven't called Peter David

X-Factor was one of the best books as the 00s

Spiderman 2099 is one of the few Marvel titles I'm buying these days and its solely because PAD is the writer. Marvel knows that if he has a title, his fans will buy it (sort of like Gail Simone). I could be mistaken but I think that he has expressed dislike for having his titles interrupted by cross-overs which is why they try to give him a quiet little corner to play in. I would also assume that since his stroke he's not interested in high-pressure assignments anymore.
 
X-Men comics went down with the Schism and AvX events. They tore the status quo apart but didn't actually have any good ideas to build on top of the steaming rubble they themselves made.
 
Does she actually act like Laura or the Bendis-version of Laura that's been around since All-New X-Men?

It's actually a major leap forward for the character. She's trying to live up to the name Wolverine and has matured a lot as a result.

Meanwhile the current volume of ANXM is running with a terrible, juvenile take on the character, which is a shame.
 
Man I really hate this whole mutant going extinct thing. I know how run was controversial, but I liked when Grant Morrison wrote that the mutants were having a population explosion. It was a very interesting concept with great possibilities.
 

jiggle

Member
Thats what happens when u let the person partly responsible for jean's death into team
Have her cheat with loser scott
Then kill jean again
RUDE
 
Spiderman 2099 is one of the few Marvel titles I'm buying these days and its solely because PAD is the writer. Marvel knows that if he has a title, his fans will buy it (sort of like Gail Simone). I could be mistaken but I think that he has expressed dislike for having his titles interrupted by cross-overs which is why they try to give him a quiet little corner to play in. I would also assume that since his stroke he's not interested in high-pressure assignments anymore.

And if he DID take a high profile book that constantly gets hit with crossovers, my vote would be for him to take over Amazing Spider-Man whenever Slott's finally ends.
 

ghostmind

Member
The books have had a steep decline since Secret Wars.

I'm one of them few (?) who enjoyed the Bendis run, even if it meant losing Gillen. Currently, I think that Old Man Logan is the best xbook out there currently by a large margin.

I really miss Remender though. I recall that there were plans centering around him giving the franchise a soft reboot, but those all fell through for some reason.
 
They should bring back the MAX line and let the X-Men loose in that. Wolverine MAX always had potential and ended up being kinda alright in the end.

Though I assume by in large the MAX line never sold well, so I suppose that's a major barrier, especially since it's not the kinda thing they're likely to put a whole lot of promotion behind.
 
They should bring back the MAX line and let the X-Men loose in that. Wolverine MAX always had potential and ended up being kinda alright in the end.

Though I assume by in large the MAX line never sold well, so I suppose that's a major barrier, especially since it's not the kinda thing they're likely to put a whole lot of promotion behind.

The MAX line is kinda redundant when current comics already show enough gore, sex, and swearing. There are parts of Old Man Logan that are pretty graphic with it's gore.

4byng70.png
 

Macam

Banned
I haven't read X-Men in ages, and having just gone through the first volume of the Extraordinary X-Men, the OP ain't wrong. I wasn't really familiar with the recent developments, but it lacked a certain chemistry to it all.
 

Mafro

Member
The books have had a steep decline since Secret Wars.

I'm one of them few (?) who enjoyed the Bendis run, even if it meant losing Gillen. Currently, I think that Old Man Logan is the best xbook out there currently by a large margin.

I really miss Remender though. I recall that there were plans centering around him giving the franchise a soft reboot, but those all fell through for some reason.
Remender was originally going to be on Extraordinary X-Men after Secret Wars http://www.bleedingcool.com/2015/08/25/what-extraordinary-x-men-was-originally-about/

Originally it was intended to be the X-Men book still set on Earth. After the mutants had left Earth for Europa, as a result of the newly released Terrigen Mists forming new Inhumans and killing mutants, these would have been the ones who could, for whatever reason, survive the mist.

Whether the team would be the same whether the justification is the same, whether the plot is the same I do not know. But the cover does show a bunch of folk who could, potentially, protect themselves from such mists in one way or another…
 

trikster40

Member
Step 1. Make the comics as bad as possible.
Step 2. This will make people not like the X-Men.
Step 3. These fans will no longer go see Fox's X-Men movies.
Step 4. Fox begs Marvel to help them with X-Men movies ala Sony/Spider-Man.
Step 5. Being X-Men back into the fold.
Step 6. Avengers Vs X-Men movie. Similar to BvS when we learn that Cap and Wolverine's moms have the same name.
 
Too many characters and books, any time I try to jump in, I'm confused and lost due to there always being a ton of new mutants with ancient or long hidden backgrounds from another book series. Back in the day you could pick up an x-book, and you knew the characters, but it seems that every writer that works on a x-series, introduces a host of new characters who get pushed aside by a new group.

Also everyone seems to be against each other always, there is a big lack of harmony amongst the xmen themselves, for years they have been infighting, taking sides, separating, changing allegiances... its confusing and annoying to read about a bunch of unhappy a-holes.

They are so grim dark it feels, no fun, always some kind of "end of our kind" threat when they aren't busy fighting amongst themselves.

And for fucks sake its always been bad with so many different books running at same time, but so many of these don't even feel like they are happening in continuity each other, or make sense in how they are supposed to coexist, making it hard to follow when they randomly are forced to share story lines and you have no idea whats going on with these other characters or books.
 

Mudcrab

Member
That isn't really impacting the comics (outright cancelling the X-Books would cause a PR shit-storm, & Marvel knows that). The only reason why they were able to get away with cancelling the Fantastic Four is because their comics weren't selling that well to begin with. However, if this was the video game or cartoon side of things, you'd have a point.

Do I understand you correctly? You're claiming the only reason Marvel hasn't cancelled all the X-books is because "they can't get away with it?"

That the fear of a backlash, the same backlash Marvel gets every time they do anything fans have even a slight problem with mind you, is the reason they're pumping out 7 X-books and an upcoming event and not because the X-men sell no matter how dogshit the books are?
 

nicanica

Member
Battle of the Atom, and you are correct in saying it's bad.

I stand corrected.

The problem is that most mutant related books nowadays is just mired in garbage with some brief shining moments.

Last time I remember fully committed to a book without hesitation was Wolverine and the X-men. It felt like a fresh and natural progression to Xavier's school. The teacher's pet goes off the reservation looking to create a militia, while Wolverine is just trying to keep the truest to Xavier's legacy.

And what he renamed the school, what a great moment.

Magneto's solo book where he just went full Charles Bronson on everyone, just slicing up skin heads and mutant haters with barbed wire and rusty nails was pretty great for a bit there.

Even for someone who keeps up with most storyline continuity, X-men is a terrible mess.
 

Parallax

best seen in the classic "Shadow of the Beast"
Step 1. Make the comics as bad as possible.
Step 2. This will make people not like the X-Men.
Step 3. These fans will no longer go see Fox's X-Men movies.
Step 4. Fox begs Marvel to help them with X-Men movies ala Sony/Spider-Man.
Step 5. Being X-Men back into the fold.
Step 6. Avengers Vs X-Men movie. Similar to BvS when we learn that Cap and Wolverine's moms have the same name.

1 has nothing to do with 3
 

Neoxon

Junior Member
Do I understand you correctly? You're claiming the only reason Marvel hasn't cancelled all the X-books is because "they can't get away with it?"

That the fear of a backlash, the same backlash Marvel gets every time they do anything fans have even a slight problem with mind you, is the reason they're pumping out 7 X-books and an upcoming event and not because the X-men sell no matter how dogshit the books are?
They also still sell, that's the other reason. While sure, their rank went down recently in comic sales, one could attribute that to the DC Rebirth hype.
 
In terms of end result what's the difference between Inhumans and Mutants?

currently, barely any difference

It used to be that mutants can pop up anywhere at anytime and that was scary and dangerous while inhumans remain powerless until the genetic council lets them undergo terrigenesis. Now with the mists covering the earth inhumans can also randomly pop up anywhere. Narratively the inhumans used to be more involved with cosmic marvel, that was their niche, now they're all on earth like the mutants so.....yeah.

xmen and inhumans still have different types of stories but when it comes down to it they've probably become far more similar than they should be.
 
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