Legion World Forums LEGION OUTPOST Mission Monitor Board the all-new all-now permanent CALIENTE SHOWCASE thread!

Oh jeez. Eras. Don't make it too easy now, Stealth. (Kidding! Thanks for the help. )

Well, I grew up with the '90s X-Men and I really did love Lobdell/Nicieza stuff. (No, we're not counting X-Force and you can't make me.) Age of Apocalypse was really a high point for me, too. That began my long-running love of both the mega-crossover (yes, I'm one of those) and the alternate universe. So that's probably my favorite, though I do love the '80s New Mutants (God, so much love) and Claremont's original run. Days of Future Past, anyone? (There's a reason I love Kitty Pryde and it can be found in the '80s.)

Least favorite would probably be the Morrison/Austen/Claremont era in the late '90s/ early '00s. If my feelings on Morrison aren't clear, let me just say that anything I feel about that man is nothing compared to the complete and total loathing I have for everything Austen created on Uncanny. And Claremont's XXM? Just... stupid after a point. That was around my return to comics (pushed by X-Men: Evolution, actually) and it wasn't a pretty one. The other one I don't like is the original. Not anything against Stan-- he's a brilliant man, he is-- but that sort of stuff just isn't to my taste. And I really don't like Jean. A lot. So her as the only female was a major bummer.

And this is my 4000th post! Thanks, Legion World.

Congrats, Cali!

Congratulation Caliente. It seemed like only yesterday you were a newbie.

Cali! Cali! Cali!

Man, I didn't get any dancing numbers when I hit 3,000 recently! Perhaps, that's why Lardy had to die!

And shouldn't there be a dancing comma in there?

Aww, Lardy. I didn't get dancing numbers for my 3000, either. It's kinda hit or miss.

Thanks, Kent, Quis & HWW!
Also, Quis-- sometimes I still feel like a newbie. And I love your new icon!

But what about a dancing COMMA!!! It's a travesty of justice how the comma has been phased out of larger numbers in our time!!!

Cali, our X-Men tastes are very similar. Though I admit right off that I think Morrison is brillant...maybe the best writer working today in comics. But his X-Men run wasn't one of his strongest.

Still, agree about 90's X-Men. Not really a fan of the original line-up either, though I like all of them individually or elsewhere. Just not all together.

Do we have a BARF smiley? Yeah? If so, I'd use it to refer to the X-Men in the '90s post-Claremont! No offense, Cali and Des...but: ICK!

Well, 90's might be too broad a term where we're mistaking what we refer to (thanks to Reboot who finally got me to see that one day).

I like the 90's post-Claremont all the way up until the Onslaught mess. That's when it went through a bit of a 'bad' period.

The Alan Davis stories afterwards were NOT good, IMO. Even though they gave us Kurt, Kitty and Piotr back in the X-Men, they kind of ruined the really cool 'the 12' subplot that had been running for years.

Claremont's return was the worst of all. Well, except for Chuck Austen (I hate his Marvel work). IMO they only recently began to improve with the current set of writers and titles. Though even now they are flawed.

But 90's post-Claremont/pre-Onslaught was actaully pretty good IMO.

But Lardy--go ahead and give us your take on the X-Men history. We discussed this like seven years ago I recall! You do have a great pick for the 'turning point' of Claremont's run, where it began to get darker. But I'd say it stayed good all the way up until they went to Australia, then got real bad, then got good at the end again. But when he left, there was a sudden 'consolidation' feeling with the two books that in a way reinvigorated the titles in a positive way. I mean, that's where my crush on Rogue first began after all

Cobie-- Yeah, I just don't like Morrison's angle. Some of his ideas I like but the only run I've ever really enjoyed by him was his '90s JLA. Everything else oscillates between apathy and severe hatred.

I like almost all of the original X-Men (not Jean, most of the time, though I did enjoy even her during the '90s), too, just... yeah. Not together. Although, have you read X-Men: First Class? I'm surprised by how much I'm enjoying it.

Lardy-- I don't know about the comma! I guess it's just the least loved of the dancing punctuation.

As for the X-Men, I basically agree with what Cobie said. I mean, for me, the Age of Apocalypse was really the best the X-Titles ever were. Not to knock Claremont's New Mutants, which I also love despite a lot of the stupidness, or the cool dark stuff like Days of Future Past. That was just... it for me.

Stuff like the Trial of Gambit and Deathbird/Bishop's weird stuff... yeah, no. Not a fan. Never liked X-Force all that much, the Revolution stuff was garbage, and the Legacy Virus cure was just... senseless. I guess early '90s would be a more accurate description. Or maybe '91 - Onslaught? I dunno..

I read acouple of the Lobdell TPs... I came to the conclusion that the man could not write to save his life.

I remember that conversation, Des, butit's hard to pinpoint and recreate it anymore after so many years. I do remember the first period where X-Men began to take a "downer" turn was right around Secret Wars. It seemed like with Paul Smith leaving and John Romita Jr. coming on that Claremont's stories got a little flat. It's hard to explain really. I guess part of it, for me, was the rift between Peter and Kitty after he fell for the alien chick (who died) while he was offplanet.


It was far from all bad, but it kinda waxed and waned a bit until they got to the Mutant Massacre. In one fell swoop Claremont got rid of Peter, Kitty and Kurt (Cyclops had already moved to X-Factor), so three parts of the "Classic New X-Men" lineup (Cyke, Peter, Kitty, Kurt, Storm, Wolvie and later Rogue) were gone. And to this old fan at least, the X-Men have never been the same again.

I suppose the X-Men would've gone stagnant if they hadn't shaken things up, but the magic really started to be dispersed too much at that point. Around the Massacre, we now had 4 X-Titles: Uncanny, X-factor, New Mutants and Excalibur. To me, Excalibur was the only one of the 4 that was fun at the time--all the others just got darker and darker.

But with Uncanny particularly, this was when it sarted to be kind of a revolving door of characters. I believe X-men works best when there's a solid lineup. And Uncanny suffered with poorer characterization while X-factor gave us back a classic lineup that no one was actually clamoring for! (Dammit--Beast's an Avenger! Grrrr!)

But when Jim Lee came aboard near the end of Claremont's run, they had a special chemistry and put together a string of classic stories, culminating in the excellent launch of adjectiveless.

I stuck with all the X-Titles for about 2 years after Claremont left, but I got absolutely nothing out of it. It was even more event-oriented, there was even less character development and everything just had no life to it all. The bright spot was Peter David's X-Factor, but he left that title after a year or so. IMO, there were too many X-Titles. And after reading over a decade, I dropped the books and have rarely picked it up since.

I tried Claremont II, Morrison and other jumping points. The only take I've liked pretty well is Whedon's Astonishing X-men, as it seems he has a love for the era I loved the most while still being progressive. I love Ed Brubaker, and I got a great deal on his Sh'iar epic on eBay. I'm halway through it, but the character mix he's using is a turnoff.

In essence that's what I hate: with so many titles, it's now impossible to tell a story in an ongoing series using any X-character you want! If I were Quesada, I'd do with Uncanny what he will soon be doing with Amazing...publish only one X-Men title and do it three times a month. Rotate the writers if you must, but give them free reign over what charactersto use!

(This would not mean cancelling the great X-Factor, as its not the "X-Men" concept. I've only read a little of it (three hardcovers won on eBay on the way!), but X-Factor is clearly WHERE IT'S AT on the mutant scene!)

So in summary: Golden Age of X-Men stories (according to The Gospel of Lardy)=GS X-Men #1-Uncanny #175!

I agree with Lardy. I dropped the X books with Mutant Massacre, but tried to re-enter during the Jim Lee era. In my comic-shop-employee days, I read a few of the Lobdell trades and one-shots, but the true golden age ended in the mid-80s, IMHO.

And to clarify further, It was still readable at least from Uncanny #176-adjectiveless #5.

Afterwards:

Teehee, that would make the golden age basically over before I was born.

Congratulations, Cali. In honor of your 4000th post, I've booked the four-car garage band:



Re: the X-Men, here's my $0.02 -- I don't care for the early Silver Age stuff, except for the Steranko issues (which introduced Lorna Dane) and the Neal Adams issues. My golden age is GS X-Men # 1 through Uncanny # 137, then there's a big gap because unlike most people I don't like the whole vampires, demons, and ugly aliens trip that Claremont was on during the time that Louise Simonson was X-Editor, and that includes the Paul Smith issues; the only thing I like from this era is the X-Men/New Teen Titans special. When Ann Nocenti became X-Editor, shortly after Romita Jr. took over, I think the stories improved -- I like the Rachel, Selene, Lifedeath, Asgard, Mojoworld, Kulan Gath, Freedom Force etcetera stories (but I don't like the Nimrod stories -- I do have taste), and Nocenti also oversaw the brief but definitive Claremont/Sienkiwicz New Mutants run; I think the NM stories before and after Claremont/Sienkiwicz pale in comparison, especially the ones before, except for NM annual # 2, the NM vs. Mojo story drawn by Alan Davis, which is one of my favorite stories Claremont's ever written. X-Factor got started on the wrong foot, but got better when Louise Simonson took over the writing and even better when Walt Simonson took over the art; the Fall of the Mutants issues of X-Factor -- the battle against Apocalypse and his Horsemen -- are the peak of the Simonsons' run. The first Excalibur special, where the team first comes together as the active X-Men are presumed dead after Fall of the Mutants, is another of my favorite Claremont stories, and if he had stopped writing X-Men right then and there, he would have gone out on a high note. So I draw the line at Uncanny #227/Excalbur: The Sword Is Drawn (I don't like Claremont's Excalibur issues, but I love Alan Davis's writer/artist issues.) Around this time, Ann Nocenti quit editing, and Uncanny and NM were taken over by X-Factor editor Bob Harras, who is one of my favorite writers and one of my least favorite editors. I hate the Jim Lee and His Friends era, because those guys couldn't plot to save their lives (which became even more obvious when they left Marvel and founded Image.) The aforementioned Davis Excalibur run was in full swing at this time, as was the first Peter David X-Factor run, both of which I love. And when the X-Cutioner's Song crossover turned out to be a well-plotted, well-structured story (Fabian Nicieza, take a bow), there was a brief shining moment where all five books were good. It was all downhill from there IMO, and I think they've never quite recovered. Today, I only buy X-Factor and Cable/Deadpool, the latter of which is headed for its final issue. And I doubt Messiah CompleX is going to be the next X-Cutioner's Song.

I didn't start comics until mutant massacre.

But yeah the best era was lost forever at around the time the Brood was introduced.

The best era for me would be around Uncanny 150.

Hey--now, that was below the belt!

Des, does my account above match what you remember of our discussion years ago, or was it slightly different?

Ohmygod, Mr. Lardy, if you're supposed to be like dead, why haven't you like stopped posting?

Uh, think of me as another dimension's Lard Lad, EDG!