X-Men (General Discussion) Comic Book

I’ve been on a big X-Men kick lately & want a place to throw my thoughts outside of Twitter, the comics thread, & occasionally a couple movie threads.

So, here’s a thread for general X-Men discussion, inspired by the similar Spider-Man one I made. (Will eventually update this post to have a bunch of comic recommendations & thread links, like that one has.)

Excited about the comic line Jonathan Hickman is curating right now? Nostalgic for the 90s cartoon? Wanna speculate wildly about Marvel Studios stuff? It’s all welcome here.

 

The 90s cartoon had the BEST theme song

 

Been reading Peter Milligan & Mike Allred’s X-Force/X-Statix run this week. Finished the volume where they rename the team “X-Statix.” Such fun comics; Allred is such a perfect fit for oddball mutants. Also glad some of the late Darwyn Cooke’s very little Marvel work ended up here.

Also making my way back through Grant Morrison’s New X-Men, which is my favorite X-Men run. For launching in 2001, it’s a better X-series for 2020 than most of what’s come out since it ended. I’m probably gonna be shouting my love of this series & era into the void a lot in the coming days, lol.

Just landed this morning on my favorite X-Men quote, written by Grant for Emma Frost:

“The whole world is watching us now. We must be nothing less than fabulous.”

 

Fun bit of trivia: The guy who composed that also composed the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers theme song.

 

Growing up I loved the X-Men more than anything and living in a small town we did not have a comic shop. So every couple of weeks we would go to a bigger town about an hour away to get groceries/go to movies or the mall or lunch or whatever, and stopping at the Waldenbooks in the mall and spending my allowance on X books was always top priority for me.

My one memory that sticks with me is trying to get all of the books in the Onslaught event and getting literally every single one, every tie in, except the last issue lol. It drove me insane that I never had a copy of that one. I finally got to read it a couple of years later when I found a collected paper back of the last issues in the event though and I remember freaking out when I saw it

I still have a near mint condition copy of Chris Clairemont’s X-Men #1 in my parents storage unit. I have three individual issues of that for some reason lol

 

Huge X-Men fan growing up too, animated series was so good I may pop this in the ole dvd player tonight

 

That series was my gateway into the series, & I still often imagine some of their voices when reading certain comics. Best theme song. Opening story with Jubilee & the Sentinels is a perfect introduction to the team.

But, honestly, my favorite X-Men cartoon is X-Men: Evolution. Loved it as a kid, & think it still holds up super well.

 

Evolution is definitely my favorite X-Men series (and not just because it's pretty much the only adaptation to give any kind of justice to Cyclops, though that is definitely a point in its favor). I kinda view it in the same way that I view Ultimate Spider-Man: a great entry-point into X-Men that gives you a solid grasp of the characters (albeit slightly changed) without any of the baggage of decades of continuity that comes with the main 616 line. Really wish there'd been another season to tell the Phoenix story they clearly wanted to tell but had to do in a quick wrap-up montage thing at the end of the last episode.

 

They really did nail the entire cast, even with the liberties taken as far as, like, character ages & dynamics. And, bonus points for introducing X-23, who’s become one of my favorites.

Since we’ve talked Cyclops in different threads in the past... Do you have particular favorite stories/runs for him in the comics?

 

Most of mine come from the 2000s since that was sort of my X-Men era (plus Scott wasn't THAT interesting of a character until the end of the 90s with The Twelve arc and his "death" IMO).

I think the big two that everyone talks about are Morrison's New X-Men and Whedon's Astonishing. I know everyone always looks at the "I want this thing off my lawn" panel as his big moment in Whedon's run, but I'm partial to the end of Astonishing #23 where it's revealed that Scott's had his powers all along, has complete control over them, and finally gets to drop the "To me, my X-Men" line. Messiah Complex and Second Coming are filled to the brim with great Cyclops moments too. Lesser known, but Curse of the Mutants has Scott in top form, and he essentially executes "the greatest slaughter of vampires ever known". And as frustrating as Bendis generally was on X-Men, his run on Uncanny following Cyclops, Emma, Magik, and Magneto had its moments.

Oh, and there's a one-shot "X-Men Origins" story about Cyclops that shows one of his first face-to-face encounters with Magneto that really plants the seeds for Scott becoming more of a middle-man between Xavier and Magneto's ideals.

 

Really wanna drop this quote on you out of context some time, lol.

You ever read the Brian K Vaughan “Icons” Cyclops miniseries from the Morrison era? Saw some issues of it in a dollar box the other week, but I didn’t see all 4 issues & wanted to limit my spending. Since I’m on a Morrison-era kick, though, kinda wanna buy ‘em when I next get the chance.

I feel like I’m the only person who mostly loved Bendis’ Uncanny. I found All-New & the Battle of the Atom or whatever both boring, but the main Uncanny run you’re describing was fun, imo. Bachalo & Anka art didn’t hurt!

I’ll have to find that Origins one-shot.

 

I think this is my favorite Cyclops look overall. That X-Factor suit in the 80s was sharp, & even more so when it occasionally was drawn with the hair out.

 

Working through @Tim's Batman comic rec list from some other thread but as soon as I wrap that up I'm going on a massive X-Men binge

 

Yeah I liked that mini. Nothing really happens in it that impacts the larger X-story, but it's a pretty fun story that kinda ties together Scott's arc from The Twelve/Search for Cyclops to New X-Men

For as bad as Avengers vs X-Men was, Phoenix Cyclops is probably always gonna be my favorite look for him. That or the Utopia version of his Astonishing costume

 

I'm home

 

Welcome to Krakoa! (Or, Xavier’s? ...Genosha!?)

 

All of the above!

 

Just wanna throw out there that I did generally like Bendis' run on Uncanny if only for the fact that it showed a solid reason for Cyclops being right. There were definitely some arcs that I wasn't all that into, but all-in-all it was pretty good (at least compared to where X-Men would go in the years following). All-New X-Men straight up shouldn't have happened and Beast was (rightfully) blasted for it in-canon, but it was nice for someone to meta-textually give Scott a chance to explain himself for what he did post-Schism/during AvX. Plus, anything that gives Magik a decent amount to do is gonna get a pass from me.

I'm also gonna throw out there that Scott and Emma is 100% a better couple than Scott and Jean

 

Don’t think I can quite agree with this part, lol. I absolutely adore Emma, & think she & Scott have a compelling dynamic, but when it comes to romantically “ending up together”... Scott & Jean just feels right.

Is that mostly just nostalgia talking? Maybe. Probably? But, as long as both characters are alive, I don’t like Emma or Logan or whoever getting “in the way” of that quintessential X-couple.

(But, yeah, Scott & Alex talking towards the end of Bendis’ Uncanny about Scott’s reasoning was really good, imo.)

 

I kind of equate Scott and Jean to high school sweethearts who managed to stick it out past high school. They were good for each other at the time and could definitely still make it work, but they just weren't quite the right match for who they each grew to become. Scott and Emma is nowhere near as iconic, yeah, but I just think that Emma was the person Scott needed after what happened with Apocalypse.

 

I miss my New X-Men/Academy X/Generation X kids, they've all kinda fallen off, even in the Hickman era where everyone's back lol

 

Weren’t some of those kids in Brisson’s New Mutants issues? As in, the issues I skipped ‘cause they didn’t have Karma & the other classic New Mutants I love, or Rod Reis art, lol.

It is funny that the Hickman era has so many freaking titles, & yet there are still fan favorites who are MIA. Really shows how deep the mutant bench is.

Also funny that, as much as I love young mutants, that particular wave of fan favorite kids mostly missed me. I love the kids in Morrison’s New X-Men, & I love X-23, but the Academy X, etc., era between Morrison & Bendis? Haven’t spent enough time with any of ‘em to really get attached. Wanna get the couple Wolverine & the X-Men trades I’m missing, & couple Generation Hope trades, so I can read those.

 

Can't remember all of the characters, but I love Surge. Hickman or someone definitely needs to write her back in

 

Yeah, I've always been a big DC fan, and the only Marvel titles I really ever kept up on were Spider-Man related, but when I was in college, Civil War came out, I got bigger into Marvel, and then fell into the whole Academy X generation and they've become *my* X-Men, y'know?

 

That must be a pretty common story ‘cause I see a lot of people around the Internet who stan those kids.

Honestly, surprised some of ‘em haven’t ended up on a Champions roster. Unless they have in one of the stories with a massive supporting cast? Feel like they’ve never been able to get that great team premise quite right. But, yeah, if they have trouble finding a place for all their younger mutants in X-books, that feels like a perfect vehicle for a few of ‘em, too.