Diving into X-Men comics

[JewishHobbit]

I definitely liked that run with Cheung on art. I somehow managed to miss some of the road trip time period. I don't remember much about it.

 

[Jordacar]

I felt that X-Force excelled post-Liefeld. Basically from X-Cutioner's Song through the Age of Apocalypse was good, and then I REALLY liked post-Age of Apocalypse through about Onslaught.

One of the reasons I wanted to check it out is because I collected all the action figures, but I never read any comics where all those obscure one-off characters actually appeared.

The most significant find for me was reading New Mutants. So many of the heavies from that comic had been shuffled off by the time I started reading, so it was great to finally get a close look at folks like Mirage, Magma, Illyana, and Warlock back when they weren't supporting players and their stories actually mattered.

 

[JewishHobbit]

One of the reasons I wanted to check it out is because I collected all the action figures, but I never read any comics where all those obscure one-off characters actually appeared.

The most significant find for me was reading New Mutants. So many of the heavies from that comic had been shuffled off by the time I started reading, so it was great to finally get a close look at folks like Mirage, Magma, Illyana, and Warlock back when they weren't supporting players and their stories actually mattered.

As big a fan of X-Men as I am and for as long as I've been reading them... I am yet to read a significant portion of New Mutants. In fact, I don't think I've read any of it prior to around Fall of the Mutants. I need to do that. I've read Uncanny all the way back to Giant-Sized X-Men and the majority of X-Factor and Wolverine's books. It would take much for me to finish those early issues up, but New Mutants is a huge gap. Someday.

 

[Jordacar]

One interesting tidbit I realized: Professor X got new legs at the end of the Brood saga, which was right when New Mutants started. When the Shadow King re-broke his back, that was right as NM was ending. So Xavier was on his feet for the entire run of New Mutants.

 

[Havok83]

Im going through the X-line now and made my way to the Mutant Massacre. Its quite a thing to read this era of X-men now having gone through the SF era of X-men in recent years. For all the crap got for becoming more militant as a leader, Storm wasnt much better then. She got especially hard after returning following the loss of her powers

Mid 80s, mutant relations were at an all time low with the X-men being seen as terrorists with their backs to the walls. Late 2000s things are at an all time low for mutants as they were mainly erradicated following M-day and the X-men were labeled as terrorists by Norman Osborn with their backs to the walls. The X-men killed their enemies when they deemed it necessary and Storm even sanctioned Wolverine killing during the Mutant Massacre bc their enemies had no problem slaughtering helpless mutants. Scott assembled X-force and sanctioned them to kill their enemies if necessary bc they were targeting helpless mutants as well. Wolverine seemed to get a pass when he stabbed Rachel with the intent on killing her and popped his claws at several members, including Storm when she thought she was posessed by Malice (and this wasnt long after doing the same to Psylocke)

The X-men also start allying themselves with their former enemies. First Magneto, just before this and then the Hellfire Club, which Storm does to ensure their survival bc they have mutual interests. Kind of similar to Scott working with former enemies bc of mutual interests.

The group during this time also dont seem like much of a family, especially after losing Kurt, Piotr and Kitty and gaining 3 new members they barely know and dont fully trust. This era is really dark. I know the Australia era that comes soon has them acting more proactive, almost like a precursor to X-force (albeit with much less murder)

Scott got alot of crap for his leadership in the 00s but there's a bit of revisinist history when it comes to the X-men's past. The parallels are glaring and I wish the writers at the time had referenced Claremont's work more bc there's precedence

 

[Mike Murdock]

I disagree with the Australia era being less murdery. If you read it again, you'll see the X-Men kill a lot of people.

 

[Havok83]

I disagree with the Australia era being less murdery. If you read it again, you'll see the X-Men kill a lot of people.

well I havent gotten up to that yet so my memory is hazy on it. I dont recall the body count being nearly as bad as X-force though

 

[Jordacar]

The Austrailia era was another chapter that I was happy to finally get around to, because jumping on in the early 90s I was still hearing about that one time everyone thought the X-Men were dead, and that Gateway dude, and who or what is a Siege Perilous.

Come to think of it there was a lot of cleaning house around the time they split into Gold and Blue teams, particularly in Uncanny when the Helions and the Reavers were wiped out.

 

[KevanG]

For anyone interested in the Australia arc in X-Men, Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men (Look it up) just finished the whole thing except for the Wolverine being crucified bit near the end. They do an amazing job going through it all.

Really worth listening to as they love it themselves and do into a lot of details and character depth.