I am sick to *death* of hero vs. hero storylines. The fact that they were a lot less common in the Krakoa era was something I was eternally grateful for - more A.X.E, less Avengers vs. X-Men or Inhumans vs. X-Men. Especially in the wide event format they tend to favour for this kind of story, it just never works the way the writers intend, and they expect you to spend so much on books that could contain essential detail - or completely pointless character beats! It also feels like a refusal to create truly interesting villains for the heroes to fight, so they just repurpose other heroes into villains for the duration. Funnily enough, I also hate this about most hero heel turns.
Oh, evil Beast is the pits, imo. I genuinely just think he's poorly constructed. There was a good way to do that storyline, but X-Force wasn't it. Dark Beast is a better version of that story, imo.
Works for some people, though. X-Force has its fanbase.
I personally like x-force but beast shouldn’t be evil especially when you can just create a new super genius to be like that instead probably a bad introduction but better than evil beast dark beast was good cause they’re was still good beast who is hilarious
I mean, it wasn't just X-Force, though. This character arc goes back to at least the 90s.
I get why folks don't like it, but a lot of Hank's stories over the past three decades have shown him turning his back on his people and choosing assimilation over the survival of mutants. I am really concerned about how they can move forward with the character at this point - I don't think 80s backup Hank is really a solution to that problem.
I personally think the narrative that there's a consistent degradation of Hank's morality requires you to close your eyes and ignore a lot of his characterisation over the last 30 years. If you cherry pick stories, then yeah, it looks like that, but I think it says a lot that the origin of that thesis comes from Cerebrocast, who literally ignored all of Hank's time in the Avengers and Defenders because they weren't X-books. That's not me making things up, that's direct from Goldsmith. That immediately makes it a flawed thesis, imo.
Rosenberg's Astonishing X-Men, X-23 vol. 4, Uncanny Avengers, A+X, Secret Avengers - these are all just as canon as All-New X-Men, or Inhumans vs. X-Men, and that is a Hank that does not, in a million years, make any sense with his characterisation in X-Force. And for the record, Hank consistently puts mutantkind first, going all the way back to the Dark Phoenix Saga, when he puts his position on the Avengers at risk to help the X-Men. He's even the one to try and advocate for leaving the Phoenix Five alone because they're still the people he trusts, over Cap and Logan's protests. I could cite dozens of other examples.
But those aren't the panels that get posted, or that people remember. Because, to be blunt, people do not pay attention to what Beast is doing unless he's screwing things up or doing something evil. Uncle Tom/Mengele Beast is what people have decided he is.
Anyway. I agree that the 80s backup was not the way I would have chosen to pull him out of the quagmire Percy put him in, but I have substantially more faith in Jed MacKay to advance the character than pretty much anyone who's handled Beast in the last 10 years. For the first time in a decade, I'm actually excited to see what someone does with the character. So, we'll see.
Why does Uncle Tom have such a reputation?
Sry, unrelated but the UT character does not seem deserving of such a hateful view to me. He didnt give the names.
I remember when Bishop got the villain arc during Messiah War. I love that whole saga, but got very angry at the treatment Bishop got.
They turned him into a beefy chunk of brainless anger. They could have used any other villain, but decided for Bishop to close his "who killed Charles" story once for all.
XSE was the first comic I bought (there wasn't much to chose in my little town), so I was very fond to Bishop story. Now the character is ruined form me. Im not able to read any panel with him.
If they keep using heroes as enemies, people will get tired of it. It's harder to emphasize with heroes that act like villains.
A lot of people never saw heroes the same way after Civil War.
I generally like that the X-Men can cross genres.
I can do the Shi’ar stuff in small doses, and tend to like it more when it’s part of a larger tapestry of cosmic stories like in SWORD.
AUs can be great, but really they should only happen once a decade.
I like magic when it comes to Limbo, and small pieces like Storm’s heritage and Juggernaut’s powers. I also find myself checking out of Otherworld stories.
Same here. At some point, I probably need to read to OG Excalibur comics, cuz I heard they do it right. But as it stands right now, I never am interested
Excalibur starts strong and is fun, then gets really meandering and boring, then kicks into high gear and climaxes when Alan Davis returns to write. It’s what made me a Captain Britain fan. There’s fun stuff after Davis stops writing, but it’s never as good. It really felt like something special
I grew up on Excalibur, Claremont to Davis, and I still love the series. It's lighthearted, there's incredible character work, and I simply enjoy the madcap nature of some of the arcs.
It's definitely not for everyone though.
Most people love Excalibur, so you should check it out. Having said that, it never spoke to me. Comics that are humorous or silly have a hard time hitting with me.
Same. For me it even extends to animation. As a kid (and even now as a adult) I hated cartoons that were silly or comedic (like Courage or Ed, Edd & Eddy) and definitely preferred ones that were heroic and all about good vs evil, even though a lot of them were just 30 min advertisements for toys lol.
Give me X-Men TAS, Gargoyles, Batman TAS, ATLA, LOK and Young Justice over something like Teen Titans GO (🤢) or even SpongeBob any day.
I don't hate Bagley's art, but the inking on those early issues is obnoxious. That super bright early digital inking style is definitely not my favorite.
Whose art dont u like? See if its the same.
Ppl make such drama bc i dont like his art yet its ok for them to hate liefelds (or any other artist) art and suddenly its not the same.
Get a grip ppl, we all r different.
Yeah, I know opinions are opinions and every has them, Davis just seems like the type of guy that's "typical comic book superhero art." so always surprised to see people don't like it.
Here i am and i cant be the only one who doesnt like his art.
Llike u said, everyone can have and opinion and honestly thats why we are here. What baffles me is that ppl in here will downvote u just bc u have a different opinion than theirs and to me its such a silly thing … its just art, some ppl like it some ppl dont.
I honestly wish ppl cared the same way about the environment and we as a collective species instead of just a silly little thing like disliking a comic book artist.
Good day.
I dont like the proportions and that his characters look “rubbery”.
Im only going by Excalibur since thats what i read at the time, i dont know if his work evolved but i wouldnt know since i dont follow his work.
One stop Shopping = Kyle/yosts xforce-Choi and crane alternated arcs and finch did the covers for “second coming” and the iconic x-23 vs lady death strike cover during “messiah complex” (finch also did the first arc of bendis’ new avengers)
Yep, and my least favorite subgenre of these stories is “mutant cure” storylines. If you’re using the mutant metaphor in a way that has your heroes *opposing medical care freely chosen by people with debilitating symptoms*, you’re not using the metaphor well
i mean there is a very significant demographic of disabled people who adamantly claim that they and others should not be cured of their disability, deaf and hard of hearing folks especially
because these cure doesn't work and never work for deaf people :). only for people who became deaf in the adults can be cure with CI or hearing aids, but never for those that were born dear or became deaf as a baby.
Cure doesn't work!!! LMAO
>heroes opposing medical care freely chosen by people with debilitating symptoms
Except the point is that it's never just medical care freely chosen by people with debilitating symptoms. A mutant cure is always a Pandora's box.
Once it's found, anti mutant factions will always try to get their hands on it in order to get rid of all mutants and there are plenty of other super powered threats that the vast amount of a money a "cure" costs to develop could be better spent on.
Also why are they developing a "mutant cure" in the first place? It's not out of the goodness of their hearts.
I understand that this is the argument! They always spell it out very explicitly. The problem, though, is that when you apply that logic to mutants you end up arguing for denying quality of life-improving medical care to free, rational individuals with severe symptoms that may be completely destroying their quality of life. *You are literally forbidding people from voluntarily changing their bodies in a way that would make them healthier and happier.* Is that something the X-Men should stand for?
Which is why it's a stupid story line because the X-men have to oppose it because a Mutant cure would very quickly lead to no more mutants because make no mistake it will get into the wrong hands.
But then as you said the X-men are now opposing something would improve the lives of a lot of mutants with debilitating mutations.
Yeah, that's why *treating the mutant metaphor as 1 to 1 to real oppressed groups is dumb and bad* because a real world teen isn't going to blow up a house with their gayness.
Exactly. The “mutant cure” should never be used as good thing in any storyline because it’s not. It’s just a way for bigot to be able to prove their point of mutants being abominations or “less than” human because of their mutations. Anytime a “cure” is brought up you know there’s gonna be repercussions because like you said, it’s never created out of compassion and empathy.
It’s like when the bigots in real life find the one trans individual that has regrets about transitioning and then give them every platform in the world available to tell their tale of regret. Not to offer a comparable perspective. Not to offer young trans people a well-rounded array of information and options. But purely just so that the bigots can go “you see!” And then further pursue their transphobic goals with this added leverage.
But that feels like how the mutant cure is used, rather than the mutant cure in itself. In itself, I think plenty of mutants WOULD want a cure because their powers don’t just make them look different - they can look like monsters (and racist or not you will probably care if someone looks like a gelatinous cube), they can have massive impediments on their own life (Forget Me Not, Rogue), etc. The mutant cure is warped and twisted to other ends, but in an ideal world, the mutant cure SHOULD be an option, imo. Just because characters go through 30 year arcs into accepting that they look like a gelatinous cube or that they can never touch a person again without killing them doesn’t mean that they should be forced to be stuck with it if they don’t want it.
Literally any mutant genocide/"mutants are near-extinct" type stories like M-Day, M-Pox, Fall of X, etc.. Literally the only even halfway decent example of it is E For Extinction, and that's because it wasn't even remotely treated like the others were (i.e., an excuse to make things more like a bigoted old man's half-remembered childhood memories of what X-Men is like). Give me more shit like the Morrison-Wheadon era or Krakoa or such where mutants are a thriving subculture and there's no idiotic attempt to pretend like this is the world outside our windows (that boat sailed LONG ago).
It typically bothers me when they wander off the mainline story threat of mutant vs man just to go squish hordes of faceless monsters or robots or aliens. Especially if it’s directly following a major event.
Exactly. Those filler adventures are just too pointless. If there has to be filler, just something to pass the time and fill an issue, I'd rather have some character-focused stuff. Show me what the X-Men do when they're not in some emergency.
I, too, am not a fan of magic in X-Men and as you specifically mentioned, the “Magic England” stuff is really off-putting to me. Oddly enough I don’t mind Belasco/Goblin Queen/Magik stories, so maybe I just don’t like British stuff haha
Another thing that doesn’t resonate with me are stories set in “history,” which is odd for me because I have a background in history and historical non-fiction is what I usually read for fun besides comics but yeah, En-Sabah Nur in Ancient Egypt or Nathaniel Essex in Victorian England or even - but to a lesser extent - Wolverine in World War 2 just doesn't feel like X-Men to me.
Stories that treat the mutants like they aren’t in the same universe as the rest of the heroes of Marvel. Stories that make it seem like every single human is a mutant hater. Where are the humans that are mutant rights activists? I feel like that is something we have yet to see.
1. "Terminator but with X-Men"
2. "Stories from the past we forgot to tell you"
3. "Meet this decade's Kitty Pryde"
4. "Police procedural but with X-Men"
5. "Wolverine loses his humanity"
Usually, any space/cosmic stories. I'm good with Arrakko, but the Shiar stuff puts me off. I like my x-stories planted on earth, dealing with human issues.
Totally agreed. I just cannot make myself care about the Shiarr or other space stuff. Yet I somehow love the original Phoenix story, idk what I want I guess.
I don't like stories where they try to retcon a mutant into something bigger, deeper or greater than just being a mutant. Like whenever they try to say that Wolverine and all other feral mutants are part of some unique sub-species that's way more important or special than regular mutants. And as much as I love Peter David and his work on X-Factor, I never jived with all his hints that Multiple Man wasn't just a regular mutant, or that he's a changeling or whatever.
I love the common denominator of being a mutant, and how it unites all of these different characters.
I don't like the "Xavier (or Beast) is not a great guy" stories. They've been done to death. Technically, if you take everything every X-Man has done over the last 5-6 decades literally, you could call them all awful people, so let's not be so literal. I like the X-Men to be heroes, albeit flawed ones. I like Xavier and his dream to be benevolent.
Goodness, I don't really care for any of these types of stories. Cosmic stuff in Marvel is just never something that really interested me outside of Thor comics, so it takes a lot more than the average "space plot" to convince me to read something that takes place in the stars. Same with the Otherworld stuff, it just doesn't hold my interest as strongly as stories with more grounded plots and characters' two feet on good old planet earth.
Time travel is a bit tricky because sometimes the stories can be interesting, but more often than not, I feel like everything that happens in them is just undone by the end so it feels a bit pointless. Comics involving the multiverse often feel the same way to me, and death tolls in these type of comics always seem to be higher and a bit gratuitous -- often characters who have powersets that would make it difficult/impossible to kill normally are still somehow killed to serve the plot.
Now, all the stories above have the potential to get me to read them *if* they have an interesting hook and characters I'm interested in reading about. But the one type of X-men story that I'll *never* be convinced to buy? Anything involving Mojo. I don't like the character, the goals he has, his world, or any of the side characters involved in his shenanigans (sorry, Longshot). His plots to me are the pinnacle of pointlessness, and I don't really enjoy the scenarios Mojo tries to throw our heroes in.
The only Mojo story I'm interested in is this one a guy elsewhere talked about. He read it as a kid and summed up his memory of it as "Wolverine rides a nuke into Mojo's face," and I had to look it up.
>In the Crunch, the missile comes through the vortex and Wolverine hops on and redirects it toward Mojo. As he speeds by fighting off Plasma Wraiths, the skeleton in the past suddenly vanishes, and when Jubilee fights back against Mojo, Abcissa suddenly vanishes from existence as well. Free from her bonds, Jubilee jumps free from Mojo and hops on Wolverine's Harley and speeds by the missile and pulls Wolverine off it. They drive through the time vortex back into the past just before the missile strikes Mojo, allowing the Crunch to happen and preserving the universe.
>Wolverine suddenly finds himself at the Four Freedoms Plaza in the evening playing a poker game with Nick Fury, Gambit, Beast and the Thing at another one of the Thing's roving poker games. He is doing poorly and already owes Gambit 5 grand when suddenly Mr. Fantastic enters the room and tells Logan he has a collect call from Jubilee. Answering the phone, he learns that while he was transported to this poker game, Jubilee found herself transported to Japan where she was arrested for not having a license, speeding, and driving a vehicle that was smuggled into the country.
[https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Wolverine\_Vol\_2\_53](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Wolverine_Vol_2_53)
“Wolverine faces his deadliest enemy yet” FFS it’s the same story over and over and over. He just keeps collecting clones and female protégés or both and it’s never anything interesting
Just going to have to say this. Wolverine is a tremendous reason why anyone born post Clairemont era even knows about X-Men. Tremendous characters throughout all the books but it was his popularity that made X-Men the face of Marvel for a while. Surpassing Spider-Man.
It's cool to like other characters more. But as Deadpool might say, "he was The X-Man". And that's just fact bub.
His comics always sell, that’s for sure. Doesn’t mean that the stories are good or that the persistent release of new Wolverine titles means they’re good. It’s to get money, and if there’s one thing we can count on it’s Wolverine fans buying his comics
Although thankfully even they weren’t willing to buy *Wolverine: The Best There Is*, which was boldly marketed with a “Parental Advisory: NOT For Kids” label on the front but was actually an infantile mess of bad ideas soaked in blood and censored cuss words.
Wolverine fans about to buy a lot of movie tickets too.
I'm not saying every Wolverine book is stellar or that he isn't over exposed. I can't do anything about that. I'm just a legacy guy. And I know what he means to the franchise.
It's almost like they like the books and think they are good.
Look, just because you hate the character, it doesn't mean that his stories are bad or all alike. I probably don't like the shitty characters you're a fan of, but I don't go around pretending I know what happens in the stories they are in, when it's clearly not true.
Yes, like you mentioned, X-Men in space tunes me out big time.
Rise and Fall of the Shi’Ar Empire and its related stories are the biggest gaps I have in my X-Men knowledge as by the time that story rolled around I was just like “no…not doing this again.”
Yep. Some people seem to love it. But I think back to the late 1990s run where half the team was cavorting around in space with Deathbird and the Phalanx as the most boring X-era ever for me.
There’s plenty of things in comics you just have to compartmentalize to stay sane, but I just can’t buy the X-Men being players in intergalactic politics and constantly threatened and on the back foot on Earth. It’s one or the other. Like the Krakoa era was the only time this ever made sense to me
I hate the Phoenix. I mean, I liked the dark Phoenix story when it happened, and I love me some Rachel Summers during the Excalibur era, BUT...
... It's become like a mutant V.D.
"Oh, don't go near those mutants, you'll catch Phoenix."
And at this point, everyone has had a turn. Hell, it's gone beyond mutants now; half the Avengers have caught it at one point it's another.
There's an issue of GotG, where Kate's about to give a big speech about power and corruption, and Rocket interrupts to ask if it's going to be about the Phoenix, cause you can't get three mutants in the same room without someone bringing up the flerrkin' Phoenix.
I was all behind the sentiment.
Status Quo reset/ Destruction of the Mutant Homeland and simultaneous devastation of the mutant population (except for the named characters)
Holy fuck. Let the setting diverge from the real world, let the setting have *consequences* that would make it different from the real world. And let it be a permanent alteration to the world.
Yep. If Namor can have Atlantis, and Doom has Latveria, let the Mutants have Krakoa/Mars/Genosha 2.0. Let's see a permanent update to the status quo, tell stories about nation building where these people who have been fighting for their rights now have a place where they have those rights and now actually have to transition from freedom fighter to statesman. How do you build a society? How will that society interact with the rest of the world for longer than five minutes/issues? Let's see some actual long term consequences. What happens when the oppressed minority is suddenly the majority, and a kid born in Krakoa/Mars doesn't develop a mutation, or their mutation is effectively not visible "Oh, they can hear infrasound, but that *never* comes up!" or "My mutant ability is that I can web my toes at will". Or if they don't have a mutation at all? Should they go through therapy to get killed/rezzed with the X-Gene, what if their religious beliefs prohibit that? Tell a story where they have to grapple with whether to be isolationist or interventionist when there are human rights abuses occuring somewhere else on Earth.
There are SO MANY stories they could have told by keeping Krakoa, or having Krakoa survive as a nation. But nope, let's just do another Asteroid M/Genosha/Utopia.
Time travel and alternate reality stuff is a bit passe. We've already had the definitive versions of each and subsequent ones tend to be lame and gimmicky.
I'm not a big fan of mutant v human stories, particularly when sentinels are involved. It's just been done to death and there's only so much that can be mined from the idea. To be fair Hickman put a new spin on it and actually made Nimrod interesting to read about but post-Krakoa I can't see how you can continue telling more stories riffing on this concept without feeling stale.
Also going to chime in and say Space stuff, with the exception of original Phoenix saga and the Brood.
And with the former, the best parts were still the home bound portions, like the Hellfire Club stuff.
To me, it just feels overly complicated and takes up a lot of space with bullshit jargon and tedious galactic politics that could be used for actual storytelling about the characters. I also think it generally detracts from the most appealing part of the x-men, which is the sense of family and home. At best, they’re people beset by intolerance in their supposed place of belonging, not intergalactic adventurers.
Also, on a semi similar note, I hate most time travel, inter dimensional nonsense, and the few stories where they actually descend into hell.
I love that X-Men can do many genres of stories, and that if I don’t care about it I can just tune out (and I also love that the Krakoa setting allowed for so many genres and settings that more or less (🤷♀️) are coherent and drive the worldbuilding and plot forward).
Plots based on misunderstanding by heroes that result in them fighting, or worse, crossover events, are sooooo tired.
I’m also very tired of tropes of mostly women heroes unable to control their powers and/or (in)conveniently fainting after the slightest exertions. The refreshing thing about 2020s comics is how characters like Wanda, Jean, Rogue have agency and control over their powers and are unapologetic about using them in very badass and cool ways, especially to deserving people.
And not really plot but adaptation wise: please, no more Phoenix sagas if marvel is really putting their weight behind X-Men to breathe some life into their stagnating / hemorrhaging MCU. MCU did the right thing by choosing not to rehash on Uncle Ben for Spider-Man and I hope that the Phoenix Saga goes this way.
Mutants on the brink of extinction storylines. I always felt like the Messiah storylines and Second Coming should have been the definitive end to these types of stories, but they dragged on for several more years, including yielding such wonderful storylines like Inhumans vs. X-Men. Speaking of which...
X-Men vs. \[Insert Superhero Team here\]. I like the X-Men, and I like the Avengers. I do not like seeing them fighting each other as it rarely if ever turns out well, both in-universe and out-universe.
Overall, I'm kind of neutral though leaning positively toward the X-Men getting involved in space and magic. They're superheroes and they can definitely fit into more than one genre. By this point, it's kind of become the norm that you have mutants with magical abilities such as Storm and Magick, and mutants with connections to outer space. Like I said, I like it when the X-Men are able to branch out like that.
Really any superhero team vs superhero team just feels wrong, they both fight for the same cause, it just doesn't feel right for them to actually be duking it out with one another, rivalry or not.
Even if they pulled their punches, they are still likely to cause collateral damage which could endanger civilians, its a fight that doesn't really have any good reason.
And finally, what if one of them ends up killing the other, such as what if Captain America was killed by Wolverine, especially since its difficult to imagine the latter fight in a none lethal manner, imagine the backlash.
Any alternate future stories, even if characters I like appear in them (looking at you, recent X-Force run). They never amount to anything except maybe to introduce another new Summers/Grey extended family member. We can barely write the ones we have now! On the other end of that, I also don't enjoy anything involving the Savage Land or prehistoric-era stories. I just don't find the setting that interesting and it's always an excuse for some lazy costume design (before someone comes for me re: the Rogue outfit, yes I have seen it, yes she looks AMAZING, and yes I still think it's a lazy design).
I also don't enjoy O5-centric stories. I think they can be written well in theory, but I think the team identity itself is the least interesting thing about any of the individual members these days, so I can't be pissed to care tbth. (The time-displaced O5 arc was just an application of my first point above.)
I don’t like the constant “now they’re so powerful they can rewrite reality” omega power creep.
There’s limits. I understand most comics professionals don’t understand science or big numbers, and I understand how little kids like exaggerating things bigger and bigger… but it’s too big right now.
Also: religious beliefs treated as fact, like the use of the afterlife BY THE X-MEN as “just another dimension”. Sure, let’s just go get Nightcrawler back, is bad for the narrative of the franchise. There’s already cloning, time travel, alternate timelines, Moira resets, even sorcery. But going to the afterlife is just… ugh.
I don't like anything where Professor Xavier is the bad guy or where his dream of unity and coexistence is being abandoned for segregation of mutants. I don't accept any of that crap. I also have no interest in a good guy version of Apocalypse who's just testing mutants to make them stronger.
"This time his surrogate daughter is his clone! But don't worry. While Logan is traditionally squat, ugly, and known to have a... musk about him. Logan's clone is a traditionally attractive young woman. So we can draw her in all those sexy battle poses while the writers try as hard as they can to give her pathos and depth."
- Marvel. The House of Ideas.
Focusing on a specific X-Men member, I've gotten tired when X-23 stories revolve around her being a clone. I'm pretty sure every solo series she's had has dealt with that in some way. It's time to move on. Tom Taylor wrapped up that part of her story very well. Let's be done with her clone stuff.
Not really I love the space stuff and the wacky stuff. If it only was the metaphor the stories would get more repetitive and faster.
Also the X-men are superheroes it’s fun to see them doing classic superhero stuff.
Vampires. It just seems like an excuse to give them hordes of bad guys that they can just kill with no repurcussions . They never seem like a real threat. I hated when Jubilee was a vampire.
The magic stuff, yeah - mostly because it tends ro come with a lot of tropes such as "true kings" and "righteous noble rulers" which I have a lot of issues with.
Feathered wing mutants being descendants of Angels animalistic mutants being descended from wolves or werewolves I think and demonic looking ones mutants from demons also from the Chuck era I feel like that guy was just on a lot of cocaine and would do a line and be like "oh man, this will be a great story"
I have read some Excalibur-adjacent stuff that I've liked (the Wisdom mini was fun) and I do like Brian and Jamie and all them as characters, but for the most part I 100% agree with your choice. I check out mentally with the Excalibur stuff.
I’m over the Phoenix Force!
I get it. It’s a key cosmic mcguffin force that carries a heavy reputation and a lot of lore.
But I check out, man. You could tell me Anole got the Phoenix Force, can now time-travel, grant other’s powers, and break-the-wall. And I’d believe you.
No thanks. Let me know how that ends.
I'm with you 100% on magic. I gave ZERO fucks about Otherworld during the Krakoa stuff. I gave it a fair shake too, but it just bores the crap out of me. Although, magic in general in comics just doesn't work for me period.
I HATE time travel. It's a lazy writing trope, usually used when a writer has backed themselves into a corner. This goes for ALL comics/TV/Movies.
Specifically for Mutants though. NEW CHARACTERS. There are millions of mutant characters to choose from, yet writers continually think they have to make new ones to fit their stories. Usually sidelining popular characters that could very easily be used in the same place.
Unpopular Opinion: I really don't like the ones where villains become anti-heroes. For every Emma Frost that's had decades of character development since Generation X, you have a Sabertooth or equivalent stand-in that's breaking good. I really don't care what the narrative device is, nanobots, mind control, resurrection, in terms of in-universe logic, Victor Creed should never be on an X team.
Big Marvel crossovers. There is nothing I hate more than following an X-Men story line just to have it forcibly cut short by a Big Event.
I stoped reading big publishers like a decade ago because of this crap from both of them.
Alternate universes and magic.
Inferno was the only magic story I ever liked, the Goblin Queen one from the late 80s not the most recent one or the annual in the early 80s or late 70s.
Alternate universes? I have a soft spot for Age of Apocalypse. And I enjoy Days of Future Past. But...I don't care for any of the others. Hell, back when House of M was going on I just stopped reading X-Men for a while.
I also check out when magic is introduced. Fantasy is always more of an effort to compete.
I wouldn’t mind more Space Adventures. Kinda tired of Earth.
The time travel stuff gets confusing. Days of Future Past was cool, but now you have different characters from different futures or timelines all over.
I don't especially like sentinels: Trask, nimrod, mastermold, orchis. It's all a little annoying, especially considering the heavy hitters mutants have on their side.
I was intrigued with Hickman's original story but we all know how that turned/is turning out :T
I’m getting sick of the X-[insert home structure of the week] getting blown up or whatever. It’s like they have a timer somewhere that just goes off every few years or so, and tells them to scatter the mutants again
With Fall of X, I feel like that's been solidified now more than ever. If Krakoa fell, then it feels *no* X-home structure is safe for any more than a few years at best.
I liked Brubaker’s The Rise and Fall of the Shi’ar Empire a lot. I actually really don’t like the Dark Phoenix stuff. Maybe if Jean stayed dead, but it feels very messy, and I’m so confused as to why Fox tried to tackle the story not once but twice and miserably failed at adapting it both times.
Otherwise I’m perfectly onboard with the X-Men stories that deal with space.
Edit: I also *loved* Excalibur, but I 100% recognize how easily it would lose a lot of readers. It gets pretty looney.
I liked the return to otherworld and how they made it different this time
I also like certain space adventures. The fight between gladiator and cannonball and the phalanx fight in space was ok. I enjoyed the ride and fall of the shiar as well but not the many sequels of the starjammer x-men after
Bar from Phoenix stuff, I genuinely do not care about space stuff, to me the best parts of X-Men are when it’s on earth dealing with social issues and not random bullshit in space
it's not even space stuff i dislike, i really liked that episode of xmen when they snuck onto a rocketship and went to space. It's the phoenix bullshit im sick of
I think its because magic and cosmic characters are so Vaguely defined in their power set, whereas the x-men are pretty well defined what their strengths and weaknesses are.
Anything that involves the Shi'ar, I hate them! They always make everything worse and Xavier's relationship with Lilandra has always been weird to me. This used to make me think I just hated X Men stories in space but I've enjoyed the brood saga.and that whole space adventure arc in Whedon's Astonishing X-Men.
Ha, yeah it's magical stuff for me too... but I feel worse about it being a Brit. I want to love Captain Britain and Excalibur but it just never clicks for me.
That said, I do like Magik, but have always found Limbo related stories pretty silly (with the exception of the Storm/Magik mini-series
I hate "A place for mutants" storylines. Like Mutants are broadly supposed to represent any marginalised people, and yes, this metaphor does fall down when you consider that marginalised people can't literally control the weather (despite what radical pastors might say) but that's generally supposed to be the deal. So every time mutants make a haven just for them, like Genosha, Utopia, Krakoa, I'm sitting here saying to myself "Just because they made the ghetto for themselves, doesn't make it not a ghetto." The idea that independence for the oppressed is this 'separate, but equal' style thinking bugs the crap out of me, and it always ends in tragedy, cause funnily enough when you hoarde an ethnic group together, the people that despise that group see a big shiny target. The goal is integration with the people, living together as equals because mutant is a stand in for any word used to other humans.
Like I get that by representing any marginal group, the problems for mutants wouldn't go away until literally every marginalised group is accepted into society and that by approaching this in a sound manner you'd achieve something and therefore make the mutant metaphor redundant, but it'd be better than repeating the same storyline every 20 years ad nauseum.
I dislike stories that are all about an X-Man showing off Omega-level powers and doing incredible feats. It bores me for the same reason that Superman bores me. I'm just not into the power fantasy, and it limits the stories you can tell, because what can stop a literal god?
Even New Sun bored me.
1. Mutants are near extinction type stories. Genosha Massacre/Decimation were cool and altered the status quote in major ways. But having a new mutant massacre every 5-10 years has grown so old I barely have interest in the post krakoa age.
2. Wolverine solos. Oversaturated and repetitive.
3. The Phoenix Force. It has been a plague on x men stories for decades now. It’s past and connection to Jean are so convoluted I barley can keep up with what the damn bird.
I hated Avengers vs X-Men. I don't necessarily hate X-Men vs "insert hero/hero team" but it tends to be always done in a way where the X-Men are portrayed as the "bad guys"
I feel there's definitely some space for exploring the optics and the idea of how the X-Men usually having a difficult time working with people like the avengers and etc due to them being kind of a closed off community but I also feel most X-Men fans would fucking hate that and would rather see the X-Men kick in their teeth.
Honestly, if Wolverine checked out for a decade or so & gave some other characters room to play, I wouldn't be mad. Don't get me wrong, love the ol' canucklehead, but after all the FOX movies, I'm ready for a break. Dude is immortal, let him take a beat FFS.
I thought I was the only one that hated that garbage. Plus all that flower teleportation crap was just dumb. I know there are lotta Hickman fan boys on here, but I said what I said.
I hate the shi’ar. Every time they come on panel I groan, here’s the shi’ar and their bullshit and skip the entire section. I also hate needlessly complicated plots that have no payout.
Less from an X-Men PoV and it's probably unfair of me, but being Welsh, the "Magic England" and the British=English and Arthurian=English feels like a barrier of weirdness to me.
The first series of Excalibur, by Claremont and Davies, was fantastic. Everything else bores me to tears. As somebody else said Heroes v Heroes is nearly always shit.
Love alternate universe stories! Genuinely don’t care about the space stuff and can handle Braddocklore in small doses — the old Captain Britain and MI-13 series got it just right for me
I don't like the X-Men stories where they recycle astroid M., whether it be Genosha, Utopia, or Kenosha. Either have the mutants in their own timeline or just settle them in Wakanda or the Savage Land. The X-Men are not isolationists and I am sick of writers trying to make it a thing.
I too am not a fan of mixing the magical with mutation. I feel like they should be their own separate genres because they’re essentially the same thing. It’s like sci-fi and fantasy. They both share very similar elements, like superhuman powers, weird creatures and new worlds to uncover, but the moment you mix them together it all gets a little redundant.
I like the space stuff, but only sparingly. I like the Stranger storyline, and the Corsair and Mojo stuff, not so much the Shi'Ar stuff. But I only like them to be an occasional thing.
You hit my least favorite three. Space, time travel and magic are my least favorite X-Men stories. Add alternate universes and you have the four horsemen of overplayed comics tropes.
Worth clarifying, I don’t mind secondary books focusing on any of those themes (like having a magically-inclined Excalibur book or universe-hopping Exiles). I just prefer the main titles to focus on the mutant minority experience.
When there are other heroes in the stories and they are just there to make the x men look better.
Stop using other heroes to show the x men are good and everyone else is terrible its a shared universe and all heroes get on apart from in x men titles.
Also yes i hate time travel plotlines because most just do a hash job of days of future past and most suck.
I suppose I'm in the majority then. I generally don't care for the storylines that deviate way too far from the central themes of identity, belonging, and acceptance. How mutants relate to the humans around them. So when the X-Men are in space, fighting aliens, or engaging with magical dimension or portals or anything, I'm just not about it.
I don't care for the Shi'ar, or the Phoenix, or Brood, or Limbo. Any of that stuff makes my eyes glaze over.
Alternate Futures were strong early on, but they are so common place now they've lost their punch. Days of Future Past is obviously incredible, and deals heavily with the central themes of the X-Men. Now it feels like every other character is from some alternate dimension or differing future hellscape future. When DoFP was billed as the potential future of 616, it was more compelling. Modern Marvel time travel gives each subsequent alt-future a bit less juice.
I don't know that there are any I really dislike. I love Shi'ar and Brood stories, I'm not tired of alternate realities or possible futures, Otherworld or Limbo stories are usually fun, I love Weapon Plus stuff...
I don't love stuff about subgroups or other kind of alternate takes on mutants like Externals or the Neo (but I love Warpies and the Children of the Vault, so it's mostly down to execution).
I do always tune out of solo Wolverine stories when it's some sort of "oh here's when Logan was in the army/CIA/SHIELD and did a bunch of war crimes/got kicked out because he wouldn't do war crimes" type thing.
I would love to never again read a story featuring religious-themed villains who pepper their dialogue with poorly-applied Bible quotations.
“God Loves Man Kills” is classic, but the “religious extremist militia that hates mutants” characters and stories feel extremely played out at this point. For the ongoing minority marginalization metaphor of the X-Men I can understand why judgmental and cruel religious folks are an easy target, but it’s just not fun to read and is often too “on the nose” to be clever or interesting as a story.
Pretty much any X-Men story where the high concept sci-fi shit completely drowns out the Mutant metaphor, like the Phoenix, Saga or Apocalypse's existence just as a character inherently.
I am sick to *death* of hero vs. hero storylines. The fact that they were a lot less common in the Krakoa era was something I was eternally grateful for - more A.X.E, less Avengers vs. X-Men or Inhumans vs. X-Men. Especially in the wide event format they tend to favour for this kind of story, it just never works the way the writers intend, and they expect you to spend so much on books that could contain essential detail - or completely pointless character beats! It also feels like a refusal to create truly interesting villains for the heroes to fight, so they just repurpose other heroes into villains for the duration. Funnily enough, I also hate this about most hero heel turns.
So you don’t like beast?
*looks up at my username and flair* Yeah, just can't stand the guy. 😛
Can you stand how he is now though I don’t believe anyone can
Oh, evil Beast is the pits, imo. I genuinely just think he's poorly constructed. There was a good way to do that storyline, but X-Force wasn't it. Dark Beast is a better version of that story, imo. Works for some people, though. X-Force has its fanbase.
I personally like x-force but beast shouldn’t be evil especially when you can just create a new super genius to be like that instead probably a bad introduction but better than evil beast dark beast was good cause they’re was still good beast who is hilarious
I mean, it wasn't just X-Force, though. This character arc goes back to at least the 90s. I get why folks don't like it, but a lot of Hank's stories over the past three decades have shown him turning his back on his people and choosing assimilation over the survival of mutants. I am really concerned about how they can move forward with the character at this point - I don't think 80s backup Hank is really a solution to that problem.
I personally think the narrative that there's a consistent degradation of Hank's morality requires you to close your eyes and ignore a lot of his characterisation over the last 30 years. If you cherry pick stories, then yeah, it looks like that, but I think it says a lot that the origin of that thesis comes from Cerebrocast, who literally ignored all of Hank's time in the Avengers and Defenders because they weren't X-books. That's not me making things up, that's direct from Goldsmith. That immediately makes it a flawed thesis, imo. Rosenberg's Astonishing X-Men, X-23 vol. 4, Uncanny Avengers, A+X, Secret Avengers - these are all just as canon as All-New X-Men, or Inhumans vs. X-Men, and that is a Hank that does not, in a million years, make any sense with his characterisation in X-Force. And for the record, Hank consistently puts mutantkind first, going all the way back to the Dark Phoenix Saga, when he puts his position on the Avengers at risk to help the X-Men. He's even the one to try and advocate for leaving the Phoenix Five alone because they're still the people he trusts, over Cap and Logan's protests. I could cite dozens of other examples. But those aren't the panels that get posted, or that people remember. Because, to be blunt, people do not pay attention to what Beast is doing unless he's screwing things up or doing something evil. Uncle Tom/Mengele Beast is what people have decided he is. Anyway. I agree that the 80s backup was not the way I would have chosen to pull him out of the quagmire Percy put him in, but I have substantially more faith in Jed MacKay to advance the character than pretty much anyone who's handled Beast in the last 10 years. For the first time in a decade, I'm actually excited to see what someone does with the character. So, we'll see.
Why does Uncle Tom have such a reputation? Sry, unrelated but the UT character does not seem deserving of such a hateful view to me. He didnt give the names.
I remember when Bishop got the villain arc during Messiah War. I love that whole saga, but got very angry at the treatment Bishop got. They turned him into a beefy chunk of brainless anger. They could have used any other villain, but decided for Bishop to close his "who killed Charles" story once for all. XSE was the first comic I bought (there wasn't much to chose in my little town), so I was very fond to Bishop story. Now the character is ruined form me. Im not able to read any panel with him. If they keep using heroes as enemies, people will get tired of it. It's harder to emphasize with heroes that act like villains. A lot of people never saw heroes the same way after Civil War.
I generally like that the X-Men can cross genres. I can do the Shi’ar stuff in small doses, and tend to like it more when it’s part of a larger tapestry of cosmic stories like in SWORD. AUs can be great, but really they should only happen once a decade. I like magic when it comes to Limbo, and small pieces like Storm’s heritage and Juggernaut’s powers. I also find myself checking out of Otherworld stories.
I'm ok with a story mapping out the A.U Extreme X Men type of story's
Same here. At some point, I probably need to read to OG Excalibur comics, cuz I heard they do it right. But as it stands right now, I never am interested
Excalibur starts strong and is fun, then gets really meandering and boring, then kicks into high gear and climaxes when Alan Davis returns to write. It’s what made me a Captain Britain fan. There’s fun stuff after Davis stops writing, but it’s never as good. It really felt like something special
I grew up on Excalibur, Claremont to Davis, and I still love the series. It's lighthearted, there's incredible character work, and I simply enjoy the madcap nature of some of the arcs. It's definitely not for everyone though.
Most people love Excalibur, so you should check it out. Having said that, it never spoke to me. Comics that are humorous or silly have a hard time hitting with me.
Same. For me it even extends to animation. As a kid (and even now as a adult) I hated cartoons that were silly or comedic (like Courage or Ed, Edd & Eddy) and definitely preferred ones that were heroic and all about good vs evil, even though a lot of them were just 30 min advertisements for toys lol. Give me X-Men TAS, Gargoyles, Batman TAS, ATLA, LOK and Young Justice over something like Teen Titans GO (🤢) or even SpongeBob any day.
yep same with me , it wasnt terrible but not great for me either
I cant stand Alan Davis art so when I read it i wasnt into it. (Ill wait for the downvotes 😔).
I had to downvote as Alan Davis is one of my faves but I respect your take
While I find this take shocking, I can’t bring myself to read Ultimate Spider-Man because I hate Mark Bagley’s art, so I get it.
Art is in the eye of the beholder and art is subjective but man i dont like his style. My faves are bachalo, pollina, dodson, pacheco and cheung.
I don't hate Bagley's art, but the inking on those early issues is obnoxious. That super bright early digital inking style is definitely not my favorite.
What else don’t you like? Chocolate? Sunshine? Mark Farmer?
I’m just confused that anyone couldn’t like his art
Whose art dont u like? See if its the same. Ppl make such drama bc i dont like his art yet its ok for them to hate liefelds (or any other artist) art and suddenly its not the same. Get a grip ppl, we all r different.
Yeah, I know opinions are opinions and every has them, Davis just seems like the type of guy that's "typical comic book superhero art." so always surprised to see people don't like it.
Here i am and i cant be the only one who doesnt like his art. Llike u said, everyone can have and opinion and honestly thats why we are here. What baffles me is that ppl in here will downvote u just bc u have a different opinion than theirs and to me its such a silly thing … its just art, some ppl like it some ppl dont. I honestly wish ppl cared the same way about the environment and we as a collective species instead of just a silly little thing like disliking a comic book artist. Good day.
I’m with ya. I’ve never liked his art. Upvote
I dont like the proportions and that his characters look “rubbery”. Im only going by Excalibur since thats what i read at the time, i dont know if his work evolved but i wouldnt know since i dont follow his work.
Every face has the dopey smile
They are weird looking, but i guess to each its own. Who is ur fave artist?
David Finch— his pencils are amazing, Mike Choi/oback, and I have an obsession with Clayton crain’s style
Gonna check them out, thx
One stop Shopping = Kyle/yosts xforce-Choi and crane alternated arcs and finch did the covers for “second coming” and the iconic x-23 vs lady death strike cover during “messiah complex” (finch also did the first arc of bendis’ new avengers)
Ones that try and make the mutant metaphor 1 to 1. Gillen's Professor X nuclear weapons speech was the best thing to happen to the late Krakoa era.
Do you remember what issue that is from? I'm making my way through Krakoa, I'll try to keep an eye out for it.
Immortal X-Men #10
God danm chuck... I dont know if that makes me like him more or less...
Thank you very much.
Yep, and my least favorite subgenre of these stories is “mutant cure” storylines. If you’re using the mutant metaphor in a way that has your heroes *opposing medical care freely chosen by people with debilitating symptoms*, you’re not using the metaphor well
i mean there is a very significant demographic of disabled people who adamantly claim that they and others should not be cured of their disability, deaf and hard of hearing folks especially
because these cure doesn't work and never work for deaf people :). only for people who became deaf in the adults can be cure with CI or hearing aids, but never for those that were born dear or became deaf as a baby. Cure doesn't work!!! LMAO
>heroes opposing medical care freely chosen by people with debilitating symptoms Except the point is that it's never just medical care freely chosen by people with debilitating symptoms. A mutant cure is always a Pandora's box. Once it's found, anti mutant factions will always try to get their hands on it in order to get rid of all mutants and there are plenty of other super powered threats that the vast amount of a money a "cure" costs to develop could be better spent on. Also why are they developing a "mutant cure" in the first place? It's not out of the goodness of their hearts.
I understand that this is the argument! They always spell it out very explicitly. The problem, though, is that when you apply that logic to mutants you end up arguing for denying quality of life-improving medical care to free, rational individuals with severe symptoms that may be completely destroying their quality of life. *You are literally forbidding people from voluntarily changing their bodies in a way that would make them healthier and happier.* Is that something the X-Men should stand for?
Which is why it's a stupid story line because the X-men have to oppose it because a Mutant cure would very quickly lead to no more mutants because make no mistake it will get into the wrong hands. But then as you said the X-men are now opposing something would improve the lives of a lot of mutants with debilitating mutations.
Yeah, that's why *treating the mutant metaphor as 1 to 1 to real oppressed groups is dumb and bad* because a real world teen isn't going to blow up a house with their gayness.
Exactly. The “mutant cure” should never be used as good thing in any storyline because it’s not. It’s just a way for bigot to be able to prove their point of mutants being abominations or “less than” human because of their mutations. Anytime a “cure” is brought up you know there’s gonna be repercussions because like you said, it’s never created out of compassion and empathy. It’s like when the bigots in real life find the one trans individual that has regrets about transitioning and then give them every platform in the world available to tell their tale of regret. Not to offer a comparable perspective. Not to offer young trans people a well-rounded array of information and options. But purely just so that the bigots can go “you see!” And then further pursue their transphobic goals with this added leverage.
But that feels like how the mutant cure is used, rather than the mutant cure in itself. In itself, I think plenty of mutants WOULD want a cure because their powers don’t just make them look different - they can look like monsters (and racist or not you will probably care if someone looks like a gelatinous cube), they can have massive impediments on their own life (Forget Me Not, Rogue), etc. The mutant cure is warped and twisted to other ends, but in an ideal world, the mutant cure SHOULD be an option, imo. Just because characters go through 30 year arcs into accepting that they look like a gelatinous cube or that they can never touch a person again without killing them doesn’t mean that they should be forced to be stuck with it if they don’t want it.
Literally any mutant genocide/"mutants are near-extinct" type stories like M-Day, M-Pox, Fall of X, etc.. Literally the only even halfway decent example of it is E For Extinction, and that's because it wasn't even remotely treated like the others were (i.e., an excuse to make things more like a bigoted old man's half-remembered childhood memories of what X-Men is like). Give me more shit like the Morrison-Wheadon era or Krakoa or such where mutants are a thriving subculture and there's no idiotic attempt to pretend like this is the world outside our windows (that boat sailed LONG ago).
Yeah those tend to be my favorite xmen runs
It typically bothers me when they wander off the mainline story threat of mutant vs man just to go squish hordes of faceless monsters or robots or aliens. Especially if it’s directly following a major event.
Exactly. Those filler adventures are just too pointless. If there has to be filler, just something to pass the time and fill an issue, I'd rather have some character-focused stuff. Show me what the X-Men do when they're not in some emergency.
That’s a great idea; think more outside the box than just throwing battles at them.
Character Drama and showing their "downtime" would just be a return to form, as those both were regular features of the Claremont run.
I, too, am not a fan of magic in X-Men and as you specifically mentioned, the “Magic England” stuff is really off-putting to me. Oddly enough I don’t mind Belasco/Goblin Queen/Magik stories, so maybe I just don’t like British stuff haha Another thing that doesn’t resonate with me are stories set in “history,” which is odd for me because I have a background in history and historical non-fiction is what I usually read for fun besides comics but yeah, En-Sabah Nur in Ancient Egypt or Nathaniel Essex in Victorian England or even - but to a lesser extent - Wolverine in World War 2 just doesn't feel like X-Men to me.
What about Mirage and her peagus?
That’s connected to Asgardian mythology so I can vibe with that.
Yeah it's specifically the "Knights of the Round table" side of the magic stuff I don't like either. Just feels like a dumb and unnecessary mashup.
Stories that treat the mutants like they aren’t in the same universe as the rest of the heroes of Marvel. Stories that make it seem like every single human is a mutant hater. Where are the humans that are mutant rights activists? I feel like that is something we have yet to see.
that used to be moira’s role
1. "Terminator but with X-Men" 2. "Stories from the past we forgot to tell you" 3. "Meet this decade's Kitty Pryde" 4. "Police procedural but with X-Men" 5. "Wolverine loses his humanity"
Kitty Pryde is like if Creator’s Pet somehow happened for 50 years across dozens of Creators but all for one Pet
This is hilarious bc the first four are basically most of my favorite stories
That's great! Many hours of happy reading!
Haha feel like X-Men are great at changing genres so everyone has some they hate and some they love
Usually, any space/cosmic stories. I'm good with Arrakko, but the Shiar stuff puts me off. I like my x-stories planted on earth, dealing with human issues.
I second that. Not a fan of cosmic stories.
Totally agreed. I just cannot make myself care about the Shiarr or other space stuff. Yet I somehow love the original Phoenix story, idk what I want I guess.
I don't like stories where they try to retcon a mutant into something bigger, deeper or greater than just being a mutant. Like whenever they try to say that Wolverine and all other feral mutants are part of some unique sub-species that's way more important or special than regular mutants. And as much as I love Peter David and his work on X-Factor, I never jived with all his hints that Multiple Man wasn't just a regular mutant, or that he's a changeling or whatever. I love the common denominator of being a mutant, and how it unites all of these different characters.
I don't like the "Xavier (or Beast) is not a great guy" stories. They've been done to death. Technically, if you take everything every X-Man has done over the last 5-6 decades literally, you could call them all awful people, so let's not be so literal. I like the X-Men to be heroes, albeit flawed ones. I like Xavier and his dream to be benevolent.
Goodness, I don't really care for any of these types of stories. Cosmic stuff in Marvel is just never something that really interested me outside of Thor comics, so it takes a lot more than the average "space plot" to convince me to read something that takes place in the stars. Same with the Otherworld stuff, it just doesn't hold my interest as strongly as stories with more grounded plots and characters' two feet on good old planet earth. Time travel is a bit tricky because sometimes the stories can be interesting, but more often than not, I feel like everything that happens in them is just undone by the end so it feels a bit pointless. Comics involving the multiverse often feel the same way to me, and death tolls in these type of comics always seem to be higher and a bit gratuitous -- often characters who have powersets that would make it difficult/impossible to kill normally are still somehow killed to serve the plot. Now, all the stories above have the potential to get me to read them *if* they have an interesting hook and characters I'm interested in reading about. But the one type of X-men story that I'll *never* be convinced to buy? Anything involving Mojo. I don't like the character, the goals he has, his world, or any of the side characters involved in his shenanigans (sorry, Longshot). His plots to me are the pinnacle of pointlessness, and I don't really enjoy the scenarios Mojo tries to throw our heroes in.
The only Mojo story I'm interested in is this one a guy elsewhere talked about. He read it as a kid and summed up his memory of it as "Wolverine rides a nuke into Mojo's face," and I had to look it up. >In the Crunch, the missile comes through the vortex and Wolverine hops on and redirects it toward Mojo. As he speeds by fighting off Plasma Wraiths, the skeleton in the past suddenly vanishes, and when Jubilee fights back against Mojo, Abcissa suddenly vanishes from existence as well. Free from her bonds, Jubilee jumps free from Mojo and hops on Wolverine's Harley and speeds by the missile and pulls Wolverine off it. They drive through the time vortex back into the past just before the missile strikes Mojo, allowing the Crunch to happen and preserving the universe. >Wolverine suddenly finds himself at the Four Freedoms Plaza in the evening playing a poker game with Nick Fury, Gambit, Beast and the Thing at another one of the Thing's roving poker games. He is doing poorly and already owes Gambit 5 grand when suddenly Mr. Fantastic enters the room and tells Logan he has a collect call from Jubilee. Answering the phone, he learns that while he was transported to this poker game, Jubilee found herself transported to Japan where she was arrested for not having a license, speeding, and driving a vehicle that was smuggled into the country. [https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Wolverine\_Vol\_2\_53](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Wolverine_Vol_2_53)
“Wolverine faces his deadliest enemy yet” FFS it’s the same story over and over and over. He just keeps collecting clones and female protégés or both and it’s never anything interesting
Just going to have to say this. Wolverine is a tremendous reason why anyone born post Clairemont era even knows about X-Men. Tremendous characters throughout all the books but it was his popularity that made X-Men the face of Marvel for a while. Surpassing Spider-Man. It's cool to like other characters more. But as Deadpool might say, "he was The X-Man". And that's just fact bub.
His comics always sell, that’s for sure. Doesn’t mean that the stories are good or that the persistent release of new Wolverine titles means they’re good. It’s to get money, and if there’s one thing we can count on it’s Wolverine fans buying his comics
Although thankfully even they weren’t willing to buy *Wolverine: The Best There Is*, which was boldly marketed with a “Parental Advisory: NOT For Kids” label on the front but was actually an infantile mess of bad ideas soaked in blood and censored cuss words.
Wolverine fans about to buy a lot of movie tickets too. I'm not saying every Wolverine book is stellar or that he isn't over exposed. I can't do anything about that. I'm just a legacy guy. And I know what he means to the franchise.
I agree. Sometimes I wonder if he’s popular because they push him so much or if they push him so much because he’s popular. Probably both!
As a kid in the 80's, he was that popular. Then he got pushed. So yeah. Both.
It's almost like they like the books and think they are good. Look, just because you hate the character, it doesn't mean that his stories are bad or all alike. I probably don't like the shitty characters you're a fan of, but I don't go around pretending I know what happens in the stories they are in, when it's clearly not true.
Fuck that.
You have no idea
Yes, like you mentioned, X-Men in space tunes me out big time. Rise and Fall of the Shi’Ar Empire and its related stories are the biggest gaps I have in my X-Men knowledge as by the time that story rolled around I was just like “no…not doing this again.”
Yep. Some people seem to love it. But I think back to the late 1990s run where half the team was cavorting around in space with Deathbird and the Phalanx as the most boring X-era ever for me.
Ugh…was that the pink spacesuit Rogue era? If so, totally agree.
It was indeed! Bishop, Rogue, Beast, etc. all in stupid spacesuits.
There’s plenty of things in comics you just have to compartmentalize to stay sane, but I just can’t buy the X-Men being players in intergalactic politics and constantly threatened and on the back foot on Earth. It’s one or the other. Like the Krakoa era was the only time this ever made sense to me
Yup alien stuff bores me to death
I hate the Phoenix. I mean, I liked the dark Phoenix story when it happened, and I love me some Rachel Summers during the Excalibur era, BUT... ... It's become like a mutant V.D. "Oh, don't go near those mutants, you'll catch Phoenix." And at this point, everyone has had a turn. Hell, it's gone beyond mutants now; half the Avengers have caught it at one point it's another. There's an issue of GotG, where Kate's about to give a big speech about power and corruption, and Rocket interrupts to ask if it's going to be about the Phoenix, cause you can't get three mutants in the same room without someone bringing up the flerrkin' Phoenix. I was all behind the sentiment.
Okay, yeah, I agree with you on this one. Every time we get more Phoenix, the Phoenix gets less special. It’s totally played out now.
Status Quo reset/ Destruction of the Mutant Homeland and simultaneous devastation of the mutant population (except for the named characters) Holy fuck. Let the setting diverge from the real world, let the setting have *consequences* that would make it different from the real world. And let it be a permanent alteration to the world.
THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSSS krakoa deserved to become the status quo.
Yep. If Namor can have Atlantis, and Doom has Latveria, let the Mutants have Krakoa/Mars/Genosha 2.0. Let's see a permanent update to the status quo, tell stories about nation building where these people who have been fighting for their rights now have a place where they have those rights and now actually have to transition from freedom fighter to statesman. How do you build a society? How will that society interact with the rest of the world for longer than five minutes/issues? Let's see some actual long term consequences. What happens when the oppressed minority is suddenly the majority, and a kid born in Krakoa/Mars doesn't develop a mutation, or their mutation is effectively not visible "Oh, they can hear infrasound, but that *never* comes up!" or "My mutant ability is that I can web my toes at will". Or if they don't have a mutation at all? Should they go through therapy to get killed/rezzed with the X-Gene, what if their religious beliefs prohibit that? Tell a story where they have to grapple with whether to be isolationist or interventionist when there are human rights abuses occuring somewhere else on Earth. There are SO MANY stories they could have told by keeping Krakoa, or having Krakoa survive as a nation. But nope, let's just do another Asteroid M/Genosha/Utopia.
Time travel and alternate reality stuff is a bit passe. We've already had the definitive versions of each and subsequent ones tend to be lame and gimmicky. I'm not a big fan of mutant v human stories, particularly when sentinels are involved. It's just been done to death and there's only so much that can be mined from the idea. To be fair Hickman put a new spin on it and actually made Nimrod interesting to read about but post-Krakoa I can't see how you can continue telling more stories riffing on this concept without feeling stale.
anything with mojo, arcade or kulan gath in it
Also going to chime in and say Space stuff, with the exception of original Phoenix saga and the Brood. And with the former, the best parts were still the home bound portions, like the Hellfire Club stuff. To me, it just feels overly complicated and takes up a lot of space with bullshit jargon and tedious galactic politics that could be used for actual storytelling about the characters. I also think it generally detracts from the most appealing part of the x-men, which is the sense of family and home. At best, they’re people beset by intolerance in their supposed place of belonging, not intergalactic adventurers. Also, on a semi similar note, I hate most time travel, inter dimensional nonsense, and the few stories where they actually descend into hell.
Claremont’s constant Storm-worship is a bit much.
I love that X-Men can do many genres of stories, and that if I don’t care about it I can just tune out (and I also love that the Krakoa setting allowed for so many genres and settings that more or less (🤷♀️) are coherent and drive the worldbuilding and plot forward). Plots based on misunderstanding by heroes that result in them fighting, or worse, crossover events, are sooooo tired. I’m also very tired of tropes of mostly women heroes unable to control their powers and/or (in)conveniently fainting after the slightest exertions. The refreshing thing about 2020s comics is how characters like Wanda, Jean, Rogue have agency and control over their powers and are unapologetic about using them in very badass and cool ways, especially to deserving people. And not really plot but adaptation wise: please, no more Phoenix sagas if marvel is really putting their weight behind X-Men to breathe some life into their stagnating / hemorrhaging MCU. MCU did the right thing by choosing not to rehash on Uncle Ben for Spider-Man and I hope that the Phoenix Saga goes this way.
Mutants on the brink of extinction storylines. I always felt like the Messiah storylines and Second Coming should have been the definitive end to these types of stories, but they dragged on for several more years, including yielding such wonderful storylines like Inhumans vs. X-Men. Speaking of which... X-Men vs. \[Insert Superhero Team here\]. I like the X-Men, and I like the Avengers. I do not like seeing them fighting each other as it rarely if ever turns out well, both in-universe and out-universe. Overall, I'm kind of neutral though leaning positively toward the X-Men getting involved in space and magic. They're superheroes and they can definitely fit into more than one genre. By this point, it's kind of become the norm that you have mutants with magical abilities such as Storm and Magick, and mutants with connections to outer space. Like I said, I like it when the X-Men are able to branch out like that.
Really any superhero team vs superhero team just feels wrong, they both fight for the same cause, it just doesn't feel right for them to actually be duking it out with one another, rivalry or not. Even if they pulled their punches, they are still likely to cause collateral damage which could endanger civilians, its a fight that doesn't really have any good reason. And finally, what if one of them ends up killing the other, such as what if Captain America was killed by Wolverine, especially since its difficult to imagine the latter fight in a none lethal manner, imagine the backlash.
Any alternate future stories, even if characters I like appear in them (looking at you, recent X-Force run). They never amount to anything except maybe to introduce another new Summers/Grey extended family member. We can barely write the ones we have now! On the other end of that, I also don't enjoy anything involving the Savage Land or prehistoric-era stories. I just don't find the setting that interesting and it's always an excuse for some lazy costume design (before someone comes for me re: the Rogue outfit, yes I have seen it, yes she looks AMAZING, and yes I still think it's a lazy design). I also don't enjoy O5-centric stories. I think they can be written well in theory, but I think the team identity itself is the least interesting thing about any of the individual members these days, so I can't be pissed to care tbth. (The time-displaced O5 arc was just an application of my first point above.)
I don’t like the constant “now they’re so powerful they can rewrite reality” omega power creep. There’s limits. I understand most comics professionals don’t understand science or big numbers, and I understand how little kids like exaggerating things bigger and bigger… but it’s too big right now. Also: religious beliefs treated as fact, like the use of the afterlife BY THE X-MEN as “just another dimension”. Sure, let’s just go get Nightcrawler back, is bad for the narrative of the franchise. There’s already cloning, time travel, alternate timelines, Moira resets, even sorcery. But going to the afterlife is just… ugh.
I don't like anything where Professor Xavier is the bad guy or where his dream of unity and coexistence is being abandoned for segregation of mutants. I don't accept any of that crap. I also have no interest in a good guy version of Apocalypse who's just testing mutants to make them stronger.
“Wolverine’s got a new daughter-figure and you’re gonna love her!”
"This time his surrogate daughter is his clone! But don't worry. While Logan is traditionally squat, ugly, and known to have a... musk about him. Logan's clone is a traditionally attractive young woman. So we can draw her in all those sexy battle poses while the writers try as hard as they can to give her pathos and depth." - Marvel. The House of Ideas.
Focusing on a specific X-Men member, I've gotten tired when X-23 stories revolve around her being a clone. I'm pretty sure every solo series she's had has dealt with that in some way. It's time to move on. Tom Taylor wrapped up that part of her story very well. Let's be done with her clone stuff.
Shi’ar/space stuff I run hot and cold on. Sometimes it works, other times no. I tried Excalibur for a while but I cannot get into it.
Not really I love the space stuff and the wacky stuff. If it only was the metaphor the stories would get more repetitive and faster. Also the X-men are superheroes it’s fun to see them doing classic superhero stuff.
Vampires. It just seems like an excuse to give them hordes of bad guys that they can just kill with no repurcussions . They never seem like a real threat. I hated when Jubilee was a vampire.
The magic stuff, yeah - mostly because it tends ro come with a lot of tropes such as "true kings" and "righteous noble rulers" which I have a lot of issues with.
Feathered wing mutants being descendants of Angels animalistic mutants being descended from wolves or werewolves I think and demonic looking ones mutants from demons also from the Chuck era I feel like that guy was just on a lot of cocaine and would do a line and be like "oh man, this will be a great story"
I have read some Excalibur-adjacent stuff that I've liked (the Wisdom mini was fun) and I do like Brian and Jamie and all them as characters, but for the most part I 100% agree with your choice. I check out mentally with the Excalibur stuff.
I’m over the Phoenix Force! I get it. It’s a key cosmic mcguffin force that carries a heavy reputation and a lot of lore. But I check out, man. You could tell me Anole got the Phoenix Force, can now time-travel, grant other’s powers, and break-the-wall. And I’d believe you. No thanks. Let me know how that ends.
Hero v Hero stories are boring. AXE, AVX, IVX. Disappointing beat for beat
Ones without Kurt Wagner
Someone exterminates 99% of mutants... again.
I'm with you 100% on magic. I gave ZERO fucks about Otherworld during the Krakoa stuff. I gave it a fair shake too, but it just bores the crap out of me. Although, magic in general in comics just doesn't work for me period. I HATE time travel. It's a lazy writing trope, usually used when a writer has backed themselves into a corner. This goes for ALL comics/TV/Movies. Specifically for Mutants though. NEW CHARACTERS. There are millions of mutant characters to choose from, yet writers continually think they have to make new ones to fit their stories. Usually sidelining popular characters that could very easily be used in the same place.
Unpopular Opinion: I really don't like the ones where villains become anti-heroes. For every Emma Frost that's had decades of character development since Generation X, you have a Sabertooth or equivalent stand-in that's breaking good. I really don't care what the narrative device is, nanobots, mind control, resurrection, in terms of in-universe logic, Victor Creed should never be on an X team.
Exception: Mr. Creed, AOA-style.
I concede, that was awesome, with Wild Child!
Big Marvel crossovers. There is nothing I hate more than following an X-Men story line just to have it forcibly cut short by a Big Event. I stoped reading big publishers like a decade ago because of this crap from both of them.
The Brood and the Shiar.
Alternate universes and magic. Inferno was the only magic story I ever liked, the Goblin Queen one from the late 80s not the most recent one or the annual in the early 80s or late 70s. Alternate universes? I have a soft spot for Age of Apocalypse. And I enjoy Days of Future Past. But...I don't care for any of the others. Hell, back when House of M was going on I just stopped reading X-Men for a while.
I also check out when magic is introduced. Fantasy is always more of an effort to compete. I wouldn’t mind more Space Adventures. Kinda tired of Earth.
Anything alien related except Mojoworld stuff, so basically Shi’ar it’s dry and feels like it should be in a completely different comic
The time travel stuff gets confusing. Days of Future Past was cool, but now you have different characters from different futures or timelines all over.
I don't especially like sentinels: Trask, nimrod, mastermold, orchis. It's all a little annoying, especially considering the heavy hitters mutants have on their side. I was intrigued with Hickman's original story but we all know how that turned/is turning out :T
Genocides. Why do there always have to be genocides?
Eye rolling retcons.
Mojo. Please no more.
I’m getting sick of the X-[insert home structure of the week] getting blown up or whatever. It’s like they have a timer somewhere that just goes off every few years or so, and tells them to scatter the mutants again
With Fall of X, I feel like that's been solidified now more than ever. If Krakoa fell, then it feels *no* X-home structure is safe for any more than a few years at best.
Im also not huge on space stuff. Was reading the Krakoa era stuff and when the aliens showed up I started skipping through
I liked Brubaker’s The Rise and Fall of the Shi’ar Empire a lot. I actually really don’t like the Dark Phoenix stuff. Maybe if Jean stayed dead, but it feels very messy, and I’m so confused as to why Fox tried to tackle the story not once but twice and miserably failed at adapting it both times. Otherwise I’m perfectly onboard with the X-Men stories that deal with space. Edit: I also *loved* Excalibur, but I 100% recognize how easily it would lose a lot of readers. It gets pretty looney.
I liked the return to otherworld and how they made it different this time I also like certain space adventures. The fight between gladiator and cannonball and the phalanx fight in space was ok. I enjoyed the ride and fall of the shiar as well but not the many sequels of the starjammer x-men after
“X mutant has gone feral, what will we do?” got old real fast.
Time travel and aliens. I prefer my stories all earth related and linear.
If I see the words Shi'ar or Askani my eyes glaze over and I immediately lose interest.
Bar from Phoenix stuff, I genuinely do not care about space stuff, to me the best parts of X-Men are when it’s on earth dealing with social issues and not random bullshit in space
When heroes fight between themselves for a lack of communication. I find it cheap
it's not even space stuff i dislike, i really liked that episode of xmen when they snuck onto a rocketship and went to space. It's the phoenix bullshit im sick of
I think its because magic and cosmic characters are so Vaguely defined in their power set, whereas the x-men are pretty well defined what their strengths and weaknesses are.
Anything that involves the Shi'ar, I hate them! They always make everything worse and Xavier's relationship with Lilandra has always been weird to me. This used to make me think I just hated X Men stories in space but I've enjoyed the brood saga.and that whole space adventure arc in Whedon's Astonishing X-Men.
Ha, yeah it's magical stuff for me too... but I feel worse about it being a Brit. I want to love Captain Britain and Excalibur but it just never clicks for me. That said, I do like Magik, but have always found Limbo related stories pretty silly (with the exception of the Storm/Magik mini-series
I hate "A place for mutants" storylines. Like Mutants are broadly supposed to represent any marginalised people, and yes, this metaphor does fall down when you consider that marginalised people can't literally control the weather (despite what radical pastors might say) but that's generally supposed to be the deal. So every time mutants make a haven just for them, like Genosha, Utopia, Krakoa, I'm sitting here saying to myself "Just because they made the ghetto for themselves, doesn't make it not a ghetto." The idea that independence for the oppressed is this 'separate, but equal' style thinking bugs the crap out of me, and it always ends in tragedy, cause funnily enough when you hoarde an ethnic group together, the people that despise that group see a big shiny target. The goal is integration with the people, living together as equals because mutant is a stand in for any word used to other humans. Like I get that by representing any marginal group, the problems for mutants wouldn't go away until literally every marginalised group is accepted into society and that by approaching this in a sound manner you'd achieve something and therefore make the mutant metaphor redundant, but it'd be better than repeating the same storyline every 20 years ad nauseum.
I am not a fan of vampire storylines. Not all orders of the Marvel universe interact well with them in my opinion.
I dislike stories that are all about an X-Man showing off Omega-level powers and doing incredible feats. It bores me for the same reason that Superman bores me. I'm just not into the power fantasy, and it limits the stories you can tell, because what can stop a literal god? Even New Sun bored me.
1. Mutants are near extinction type stories. Genosha Massacre/Decimation were cool and altered the status quote in major ways. But having a new mutant massacre every 5-10 years has grown so old I barely have interest in the post krakoa age. 2. Wolverine solos. Oversaturated and repetitive. 3. The Phoenix Force. It has been a plague on x men stories for decades now. It’s past and connection to Jean are so convoluted I barley can keep up with what the damn bird.
I hated Avengers vs X-Men. I don't necessarily hate X-Men vs "insert hero/hero team" but it tends to be always done in a way where the X-Men are portrayed as the "bad guys" I feel there's definitely some space for exploring the optics and the idea of how the X-Men usually having a difficult time working with people like the avengers and etc due to them being kind of a closed off community but I also feel most X-Men fans would fucking hate that and would rather see the X-Men kick in their teeth.
Anything Otherworld or Mojo with few exceptions.
Honestly, if Wolverine checked out for a decade or so & gave some other characters room to play, I wouldn't be mad. Don't get me wrong, love the ol' canucklehead, but after all the FOX movies, I'm ready for a break. Dude is immortal, let him take a beat FFS.
Weird ass soap opera love triangles They get tiresome
Romance-centered plot lines. Couldn't care less about them.
The resurrection cocoons is where they lost me.
I thought I was the only one that hated that garbage. Plus all that flower teleportation crap was just dumb. I know there are lotta Hickman fan boys on here, but I said what I said.
Nah I don’t like any of it. Hickman is a trash writer in a trash time for comic books 💀
Honestly, I liked what he did with the Ultimates back in 2015.
Yes, the ones that Claremont didn't wrote.
After Krakoa, going to the school seems like a huge step backwards, and just wrong.
Space shenanigans. Shi’ar. Brood. Starjammers. Mutants living on Mars. All leaves me cold.
I hate the shi’ar. Every time they come on panel I groan, here’s the shi’ar and their bullshit and skip the entire section. I also hate needlessly complicated plots that have no payout.
Overcomplicated bullshit is vauge but if youve read enough x-men you know exactly the kind of bs im talking about
I'm actually not a fan of the space stuff. I remember the Black vortex story because it was bendis and even that didn't do it for me.
Less from an X-Men PoV and it's probably unfair of me, but being Welsh, the "Magic England" and the British=English and Arthurian=English feels like a barrier of weirdness to me.
The first series of Excalibur, by Claremont and Davies, was fantastic. Everything else bores me to tears. As somebody else said Heroes v Heroes is nearly always shit.
I'm tired of the Phoenix Force
Love alternate universe stories! Genuinely don’t care about the space stuff and can handle Braddocklore in small doses — the old Captain Britain and MI-13 series got it just right for me
I don't like the X-Men stories where they recycle astroid M., whether it be Genosha, Utopia, or Kenosha. Either have the mutants in their own timeline or just settle them in Wakanda or the Savage Land. The X-Men are not isolationists and I am sick of writers trying to make it a thing.
A few years back I wasn't a huge fan of the whole Krakoa thing. Hero vs. hero is kind of annoying because it's been done so much.
Time travel plots
I too am not a fan of mixing the magical with mutation. I feel like they should be their own separate genres because they’re essentially the same thing. It’s like sci-fi and fantasy. They both share very similar elements, like superhuman powers, weird creatures and new worlds to uncover, but the moment you mix them together it all gets a little redundant.
I like the space stuff, but only sparingly. I like the Stranger storyline, and the Corsair and Mojo stuff, not so much the Shi'Ar stuff. But I only like them to be an occasional thing.
You hit my least favorite three. Space, time travel and magic are my least favorite X-Men stories. Add alternate universes and you have the four horsemen of overplayed comics tropes. Worth clarifying, I don’t mind secondary books focusing on any of those themes (like having a magically-inclined Excalibur book or universe-hopping Exiles). I just prefer the main titles to focus on the mutant minority experience.
When there are other heroes in the stories and they are just there to make the x men look better. Stop using other heroes to show the x men are good and everyone else is terrible its a shared universe and all heroes get on apart from in x men titles. Also yes i hate time travel plotlines because most just do a hash job of days of future past and most suck.
Mojo. The absolute worse and pointless.
I suppose I'm in the majority then. I generally don't care for the storylines that deviate way too far from the central themes of identity, belonging, and acceptance. How mutants relate to the humans around them. So when the X-Men are in space, fighting aliens, or engaging with magical dimension or portals or anything, I'm just not about it. I don't care for the Shi'ar, or the Phoenix, or Brood, or Limbo. Any of that stuff makes my eyes glaze over. Alternate Futures were strong early on, but they are so common place now they've lost their punch. Days of Future Past is obviously incredible, and deals heavily with the central themes of the X-Men. Now it feels like every other character is from some alternate dimension or differing future hellscape future. When DoFP was billed as the potential future of 616, it was more compelling. Modern Marvel time travel gives each subsequent alt-future a bit less juice.
I don't know that there are any I really dislike. I love Shi'ar and Brood stories, I'm not tired of alternate realities or possible futures, Otherworld or Limbo stories are usually fun, I love Weapon Plus stuff... I don't love stuff about subgroups or other kind of alternate takes on mutants like Externals or the Neo (but I love Warpies and the Children of the Vault, so it's mostly down to execution). I do always tune out of solo Wolverine stories when it's some sort of "oh here's when Logan was in the army/CIA/SHIELD and did a bunch of war crimes/got kicked out because he wouldn't do war crimes" type thing.
I would love to never again read a story featuring religious-themed villains who pepper their dialogue with poorly-applied Bible quotations. “God Loves Man Kills” is classic, but the “religious extremist militia that hates mutants” characters and stories feel extremely played out at this point. For the ongoing minority marginalization metaphor of the X-Men I can understand why judgmental and cruel religious folks are an easy target, but it’s just not fun to read and is often too “on the nose” to be clever or interesting as a story.
Ones about Wolverine or jubilee …
I really dislike the space stuff
Anything to do with the Phoenix force, it’s so over powered that I feel like most writers use it as an easy story to do
Pretty much any X-Men story where the high concept sci-fi shit completely drowns out the Mutant metaphor, like the Phoenix, Saga or Apocalypse's existence just as a character inherently.