@thunderscream: Personally, X-Force has been the best book. It’s been consistent, it’s had great character moments, the characters sound like how they should, it’s felt the most important, the plot is moving forward. Percy has done a good job for giving reasons for all of his plot points so far. I think by far it’s felt like this should have been the flagship book.
Second Best I feel New Mutants. My only gripe is a lot of the characters almost sound the same, it’s just a little wordy. But that’s Hickman. It’s been a fun book, the cast has been done well, and X-Men in space. It’s a fun book.
I’d rather put X-Men over New Mutants, but overall it has been a 2 for 4 book. I thought the first issue was really good. Great character issue. 2nd issue was not good. The characters didn’t sound right. They seemed off. 3rd issue was slightly better, but them getting punked by some old lady scientists and such, while funny, was meh. The dialogue was funny in it and the characters sounded right, but that was about it. Issue 4 was fantastic. I think my issue with the book is just the lack consistency? We had to really meh issues sandwiches between really good ones. And Hickman still seems like he’s world building but each issue feels very episodic with the only relation between them is Cyclops is there. Humans hate mutants, they’re attacking them, new organizations. I get it, but none of the issues feel like they’re progressing towards anything at the moment. So for consistency sake with my bias aside for characters, New Mutants has been overall better.
Excalibur I’ll say is the 4th best. Because the lineup and characters have been written pretty well. They have a mission, they’re going towards it, they’re throwing in a bunch of magic stuff. Every one is getting screen time. It has its issues, it’s been choppy, but it’s far from a bad title and it’s far from the worst things we’ve seen written.
Marauders: I’ll say this could’ve been a 4th place book and it could trade spots with Excalibur, but I like the island adventure pirate feel. I’m not against Kitty being in a leadership role, she’s been on the team for 10+ years timewise, they’re having her pull some cool stuff off, but unlike some exaggerations I’ve seen, she hasn’t been super Kate. I think when the writing has been on, it’s on. Emma and Shaw are handled well. Storm just got a really cool moment in the last issue. My gripes have been the writing at points. I know Kitty and Emma have put away some differences since Whedon’s run, and Emma even sent Kitty a gift for her birthday like 2-3 years ago. But then you get something like kitty saying she would’ve wondered what it would’ve been like if she had Emma first before Xavier and I’m like “whaaaat?”. Iceman is just useless in this book, and he’s the strongest one on the team.
But this is another book I’ve seen nitpicks for. “Kitty’s leading the team! Not Storm! They should be in a plane, it will be quicker.” Aside from that, it’s been ok. It’s a book you can get away with that kind of episodic feel because it’s not a main book. It’s random missions saving mutants until Shaw’s plot unfolds. So we have an idea where things are going, it’s just waiting until we get there and seeing if they can keep us interested enough to stay there.
Fallen Angels is the worst by far. The plot is so convoluted it makes no sense. I hate this Kwannon Psylocke arc. Kid Cable is still a terrible character, and no one has written him competently since his debut when he killed actual Cable for being sloppy and here is doing the same shit in two books. This mentorship between Psylocke and Laura is forced. Laura doesn’t need any help. This weird budding relationship with her and Cable when Laura was 21 in her last solo is just regression. They’re regressing the best character on the book and putting her in situations that don’t need to happen. The art was ok it was different at first but by far this is the worst X-book atm. I see almost nothing redeeming about it. Get Laura out of there.
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