Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Marvel's X-verse

So, the "edgy" X-verse of the last few years has run its course. Predictably, a massive contrivance has restored the pre-Hickman status quo. And I think that's good, because all that Hickman and his successors really did was to emulate the two worst aspects of the 80s Claremont stories: the nihilism and the body-horror gore.

What I do find interesting is that Marvel is putting a huge amount of money and hype into the latest relaunch, to the extent of pulling senior editor Tom Brevoort off the Avengers (which he'd worked on since 1997) and placing him in charge of the X-verse. They convinced Gail Simone to return to comics to write the flagship series, Uncanny X-Men.

Reception so far has been mixed (though a lot of the negative is the usual misogynistic trolling by a very loud minority.) This must be making Marvel uneasy, because they seem to be hanging all their hopes for future multimedia synergy on the X-verse (there's already a new animated show, X-Men '97, which I haven't seen but appears to have been well-received; whether that will help the comics remains to be seen.)

I have read a couple of the new X titles. Not sure yet. Too early to tell. I guess that means they haven't nabbed me straight away but they also haven't put me off massively wither.

I have watched a few of the X-Men '97 episodes and really enjoyed them, in spite of the fact that I never watched the original series (I was busy with kids at the time). I think the praise its been getting is well deserved.

I just read the first Simone UXM issue, and I had a similar reaction to what you just described. I'm old enough to fully accept that long-running superhero series are inevitably going to go back to basics as part of their recursive cycle. Simone has shed a lot of the mannerisms and ego-flaunting that used to turn me off; she's still not great at dialogue, but her heart seems to be in the right place and her affection for the characters appears to be sincere. I'm still not sure if I'm going to read the next issue, but the fact that there's a possibility I will is a good sign.

So by this point, I've read 3 X-Men issues, 2 Uncanny X-Men issues, 1 Extraordinary X-Men issue, and a mutant partridge in a pear tree. (Just threw that last one in because I couldn't resist. )

Anyhow, the short version is that I didn't hate any of them, and I actually found Extraordinary to be, if not extraordinary, quite enjoyable and very promising (that's the one that stars Kitty and Emma.)

A question for the long-term X-Men fans who have stuck with the franchise through thick and thin:

There's a little indie bookstore just a few blocks from where I live. Now, I don't have much spending money at the moment, but they recently got in a huge stack of used X-Men comics, and I figure if I'm gonna splurge, this is the type of place where I should do it. Support local indie businesses, and all that.

Here's the rub: I looked through them, and they're all from 1996 through 2000.

For those not "in the know," this is not considered a good era. Fabian Nicieza had been fired in 1995, leaving the franchise so rudderless and so dominated by editorial that writers came and went through a revolving door. The only time I dabbled during these years was when Alan Davis was drawing one of the flagship series and scripting both of them. In the long term, I got rid of almost all those issues, except for a couple of the ones that Davis drew.

So my question is, if I do invest in this stack, would I be rewarded with some neglected treasures (one of the writers to pass through was Joe Kelly, who in my opinion can be very good sometimes?) Or would I be in for a big load of mediocrity?