Things X-Men need to accomplish in 2019

The X-Men are probably at the best quality level they've had in some years and it's seemingly boosted the moral of the fandom.

In keeping with the upswing though what are some things you believe certain characters, concepts or the team as a whole need to do in order to have a good showing in 2019 and continue the positive path.


I'll start:
Emma Frost: She needs to find a supporting role in a X-book this year. I've accepted that she's no longer going to be affiliated with the X-Men as a member and that she's embraced a moral grey area that she's always had to hold onto to keep our good faith. But with arguably two very bad villain runs in IvX and X-Men Blue, I'd like to see more of what we saw in her X-Men Black issue, with her scheming and manipulating to accomplish her goals and the greater good. The thing is I'm not sure I want her taking any X-Men away from the current roster (since unity and coming together is a theme that were getting in alot of new X-Men promotions and we NEED IT). I think having a team encounter though and having to rely on her skills and resources to combat a common threat is just something that can't be missed even if it's just c-listers in an X-Factor book or something.

hmm this is a good one, and I got an odd one that I think is going to happen just from spoilers but you know

Cyclops & Wolverine: Ive been re reading some of the older stuff right around decimation and the utopia era, and the two had a real bro mance going. The two were shoulder and shoulder together in everything and really worked real on a team together, lets see it again. Make the bicker back and fourth like they always did, and then the occasional moment where Logan comments "its times like this I realize why your the leader"

The x men are good, when these two are both good its just a fact. Lets make it happen

Trim the fat, clear direction, coincise writing and leave the agendas out of the books. What has plagued the crap out of the X-books for the last couple of years, at least in my opinion, is the fact Marvel ignored their fans, the writers didn’t help, they pushed crap teams, forced agendas with the SJW crap, tried to put over fake versions of characters that didnt no one really cared for.

Extraordinary X-Men, solid line up, decent new designs but it forced the Inhuman agenda and Scott was bad, and they shoved the Scott hate hard down our throats and what happened? DoX has zero reason for the amount of shoehorning they put going before it.

Old Man Logan, Sabretooth, X-23, aside from OML, the books those characters tried to replace Wolverine in, didnt do well or weren’t that great. Laura being Logan was nice but it didn’t fit her.

The Teen versions were failed ideas with anyone that wasn’t Bendis, and even that failed to a degree. Iceman was turned gay. Magneto was all over the place. X-Men sufferered greatly. Alternate versions of characters sucked

Quit the bullshit, quit the agendas, make them a team, a freaking family again, and just get back to telling Superhero stories again. We’re on the right track with Jean and Logan both back and Scott eventually coming from the shadows soon. Respect the history.

Less Gimmicks, more stories. Im with it.

Kitty, Jean and Storm need to break away from eachother. I'm ok with Kitty being the overall leader of the team, but they need to sort of clearly define the power structure especially with Cyke and Logan possibly rejoining the fold. Running the team by Comittee was cool and worked well when it was just Storm and Jean but as Uncanny 8 showed, we had Kitty making a call getting into it with Jean and Storm and in the middle of the discussion Psylocke stabs Bishop in the head.

Kitty running the show from the mansion while the Jean, Storm and Cyke lead field teams would work cool. Sort of like the Post Morrison Era where there were 5 teams operating out of the School, but Cyke only directly oversaw one of them, despite being the overall leader of the team.

LONG TERM TEAMS!

For gods sake we dont need a new line up every freaking 6 months, give us a few titles the X men roster is big enough for it then keep the rosters the same, give them time to develop the characters pass the stuff we already know.

Last year was a year of re balancing in my opinion, a year to erase all the stupid stuff from before and I was ok with it. But things are back, all the characters are alive again the teen dupes are gone, lets delve into the X men and make real stories now.

Clear and Defined Leadership is good too, Rogue, Kitty, Storm, Cyclops, Jean, Logan, Cable, Havok, Psylocke, magneto, Emma or just a handful of "leaders" they have had in recent memory, thats uh way to much and that doesnt even get into the likes of Cannonball, or domino or Sabertooth or whatever who has lead teams in a pinch, (armor recently?) So yea lets define some rolls.

Uncanny, Astonishing, X Force, X Factor please? Long term team books, kind of goes back to my first point but lets not relaunch every time we have a new idea.

Oh and Less Cross overs please, i get we are starting with Age of X man but lets make that the last of the year and maybe even skip the idea entirely next year. Once again working off point A, we got to establish teams and interactions, agendas and missions but you cant do that if every few months they are getting interrupted with a cross over event.

Better developed villains. Simply put, a hero is only as good as those that oppose them.

Seriously, when was the last time we’ve seen a villain come along that had staying power? It’s been a long time.

Try something new and different with long standing characters. Going back to the status quo of things is seriously ruining the franchise. It is exhausting reading the same stories just with different villains. I mean the story is always about mutant hating which is stale and old. I know some older X-men fans might not like the idea of change for some of the more respected X-men but it is 100% the right decision if the X-men franchise hopes to survive in the long run. The only real memorable X-men storylines is the events which people claim to "Hate" but honestly it is one of the few times the X-men franchise is really buzzing is when it has big storylines like Phoenix returning, AVX, or AVI. Even sales boost from those events.

Overall 2019 needs to bring growth and change to the X-men characters and stories. We need real character development from the vet X-men. When characters like Emma, Jean, Rogue, Storm, Beast, etc get so much panel time and focus but barely develop as characters it says something about the quality of writers. They either aren't that good or more likely they are too afraid to be bold nad give development due to fear of fan backlash.

this is just a comic problem in general lol, I mean dat Batman growth, that spiderman growth, ironman has changed so much <.< only not, they change then go back its just he way of comics

@mcklayn: I know but that still doesn't make it good. However Iron Man, Spiderman and Bat makes sense as there is only so much progression one character can have before no more can be done and status quo has to be achieved again. The X-men however are a group of individuals. So if they focus 5 years progressing the O5 then another 5 years on another team and so forth and so on they could go a good 40 years without needing to go back to the status quo if not longer.

@mcklayn: @cosmiccelest: personally my issue is that there has been too much change from statquo. The last 6 years have had x-Men teams from the past in the present, A school run by Wolverine, Mutants on the verge of extinction, X-Men warring with Avengers, inhumans and other X-Men, the mansion in Limbo, the mansion in Central park, older versions of characters taking there place on the team, 3 different "mutant nations" and depowering and defeat of almost the entire X-Men rogues gallery while the team up until this last year has devolved into Storm, Rachel, Beast Iceman and 2 rotating spots for Kitty and Colossus....and the thing is all of that was pretty much the reason that X-Men brand became stale and stupid..and it was mostly original

The status quo for the X-Men hasn't been stat quo for so long and its hurt the franchise. Were seeing an actual team with a United front and a defined structure for the first time in years. No major infighting, progress being made in the series mission statement, and the team looking like heroes for the first time instead of a Junior avengers team or a group of ineffective misfits attempting moral highground.

Tell a new story sure. Be original and creative. But keep reminding us why we love the franchise and make sure the elements of the series we think of when we think of the X-Men are never too far from the forefront.

@koays: I think thats kind of what i was saying, you can shout we want change but honestly we dont. I like certain things to stay that way, new stories great, new villains awesome but Teen X men replacing old X men, the entire rogue gallery becoming good guys, i mean some of it is just too much. This year has been seemingly about resetting the whole status quo to something way more familiar and im really happy about that, sure we had some weird stories to bring back dead characters but I THANK YOU for that, I want Cyclops, i want Wolverine, I want Jean Grey, I DONT want Tyke or OML. Would I mind having more page time for Armor or Hellion or Cannonball, hell no but dont force Glob Herman in my face and say theres your future for hte X men, HIm and Eyeboy teaming up to save the world!

So yea, it is what comics do. And it does that because rather you want to admit it or not its what fans want, its best to admit it now and stop fooling yourself lol

LOL wut?? No. Just last year the line ups were literally the the golden age Claremont X-Men team, with OML instead of Wolverine and the alternative was the O5/X-Factor, albeit time displaced, with X23. And both titles consisted of characters battling the Morlocks, Mojo, Magneto, Sentinels, going on another "cross time caper" and pretty much everything else from the 80s/90s. Just because the X-Mansion was briefly located in place other than Westchester doesn't mean that this franchise actually did anything different.If this franchise ever did something that wasn't from the 80s/90s/Morrison era, I would die of shock.

@cattlebattle: Bah, I'm sure somewhere in there I excluded this year since the new Chief Editors entire focus has been on this whole return to form initiative for the entire line. Every 3-5 years or so in comics we go through a "try something new phase" before someone decides to put things back to how everyone else thinks the character originally was. It's like a rubberband of creativity, where they try new gimmicks and the X-Men aren't exceptions. After Morrison we snapped to a more classic feel of teams where the only major difference was the larger roster. Then we went to the decimation and Utopia Era, rubber band snapped again and we got the JGS.

The location of the X-men isnt important. But its telling that every time we close an era of radical differences we go back to the mansion to await the next change in stat quo.

@mcklayn you see my only thing with all of this is that I want the Journeys, suspense, small developments and a sense of community without reusing gimmicks and coming up plots like "Robot Wolverine". I mean seriously tell me the next great Nightcrawler story that I havent read yet, dont just give me AoA Nightcrawler and his antics. Show me a evolving story where the characters worry about what theyve become or are proud of how far theyve made it...dont just have them meet their future kid or past self and be annoyed at their behavior.

I get it, hindsight is a c you next Tuesday. But Consider this, Beast finds out hes dying. He wants to confront Scott on how far hes fallen. He kidnaps Cyclops to the past to see their past selves. They see a tragic moment they'd both forgotten and Scott interferes. They meet their past selves and Scott has to try to explain who hes become to who he was. They erase everyone's mind. They come back. And now Scott has a decision to make with memories of his own teenage horror at the man he is fresh in his mind. THAT IS A STORY. Yea you used time travel, but you told a story of a desperate man trying to save his friend and his friend having to justify himself to himself. And you can do that in 4-6 issues instead of 4-6 years. You can change a character and tell a story in a moment.

But no. Because then you cant keep putting BS covers out that hint at character growth or a resolution, or some type of acknowledgement on the ramifications of being in the present alongside your future self for 5 years straight without ever having a truly meaningful conversation on the state of the present.

Smh, In 2019 tell X-Men stories. Dont just give me X-Men gimmicks.

Alright. This I like. I won’t bring in specifics, but I will bring some wishes:

More Emma Frost Development: Get all the Scott crap out of Emma’s system, please. Put them together, break them apart. I don’t care, just keep Emma’s sanity in check. If she wants to take over Scott’s revolution ideas, do that! If she wants to take over the Hellfire Club, do that! If she is gonna be their villain, do that! If she is gonna be support, do that! But do it the way Emma would! Dont take away her power, Bendis! Don’t take away her sanity, Soule and Lemire! Bring character development like Bunn! Establish her like Williams! PROGRESS!!! NOT REGRESS!!!!!!

More villains: We need some legitimate threats. Nate Grey is a good start admittedly. Bring in Onslaught. Bring in Master Mold. Make some new threats. Turn old characters into terrors. (Some ideas I have: Turn Annalee into Mastermind 2.0 combined with Purple Man, turn Danger into a literal danger to their lives, make the Stepford Cuckoos whole again, or bring Malice a new body)

Bring balance to Scott: I don’t want Scott to lose his controversial ways. I want him to be the Scott he was before he died. Redeem him? Fine, whatever, but don’t make it an easy change. Don’t even make it a complete change. Make him a seargent instead of a soldier boy.

Bring more relevance to more X-characters: We seem to be on the right track with Hope Summers regaining relevancy, Scott coming back, Jean already back, Wolverine coming back, Jubilee back to normal, and Beast getting back to a lovable furball. (His polite attitude in Issue 3 of Uncanny is exactly what I expect from Beast. “What can I do for you, lovely Miss Grey?” ; “Pardon me uninformed citzens, coming through.”) No longer are they in limbo or just background. They have/ are gonna get their shining moments.

Some thoughts of mine.

@god_spawn: I think you might be in luck with the sjw crap. I think it’s starting to leave, at least with the x-men. From what I’ve read this year, I’ve only seen it in x men red and iceman. I think it’s an improvement from 2017 where it was everywhere.

1. Clean house: it's time to lose the fat... and we all know what I'm talking about. The bus needs to return, and I'd order even three of them.

2. A comprehensible status quo: everything looks like a disaster, it's just pages filled with wallpaper characters that say something idiotic about something idiotic pointing out how their idiocy makes no sense. It's like the evolution of Bendisism's worst. Who the frak wants to read that shit?

3. Good theme based costumes: Ok, this one is random, but it works for the X-pals. And leave the effing yellow for the children.

4. Defined character arcs: again, to not seem a wallpaper, there should be a direction for each and every character involved. It doesn't have to be groundbreaking, character changing moments, but there has to be some kind of evolution that hooks you to those chars involved in more way than "hey I always liked that one, let's see how s/he becomes a wallpaper shouting something basic in a battle that is so embarrassing and PISish I won't ever use it in the battle forum... even if I'd still have participated >_____>"

@adamtrmm: 1) Check. O5 are gone, no alternate versions being focused on so far. (Aside from Cable EX)

2) I kind of get this one, but I disagree in terms of the dialogue. The problem has been the action the X-Men take. It’s like when disaster strikes, nobody knows what to do, despite the fact that they do this crap as their job.

Jean, don’t tell the babbling doops to get off the Senator, get him off with your telekinesis! Hisako, don’t throw a tantrum at your mentors, they will not listen that way!

3) But I like Storm and Psylockes outfits. They look so sleek. :(

But you are right for the most part. I suppose Jean can change, but I still want her to use red. Polaris outfit is pretty classic, though am not opposed to change. I like Kurt’s hipster beard, but am not opposed to a costume change and a clean shave. Laura looks a lot better without the Wolverine head-wear. Angel is, well, Angel. Point taken nonetheless.

4) It seems like the only ones who have had character arcs are Jean (it’s good to be a Jean fan), Kitty (sadly by Guggenheim so it it hasn’t been great and I don’t qualify Colossus for regressing; though I don’t blame him for it), Havok (Not my favorite version of Havok), X (mildly interesting), Psylocke (I’m actually enjoying Betsy whether she is Asian or British physically), Rogue And Gambit (they come in a pair now), the O5 (they are gone and accept who they will be, hooray!) and the rest with solos.

So there record for good arcs in my opinion: 6

Record for bad: 3

X-Men that haven’t had any real development: Too large of a number for me to bother with.

Then there is the Storm category, in which defies the system in the worst way possible. I feel bad for Storm.

Put Emma back in the X Men. Show progress being made for mutant rights

yes

The important thing is the progress has to stick...we technically saw a HUGE amount of progress after AvX and the beginning of Scotts revolution with regular people protesting in favor of mutant rights and in support of Scott. Then that book got tied up in cross over after cross over, Secret wars happened, and suddenly we are back to square one

I'd like to add....avoid mutant extinction threats. We went from Decimation, to Terrigen death clouds. World ending threats...sure. Deep individual threats...sure. But lay off the "this is the darkest time in mutant history and our race is going to die out" for a bit.

Each book needs to have each team in different areas. What I mean is don't have all the teams on Earth because it basically hinders the story telling. Like have a team in space, have a team on Earth, have a team traveling the Multiverse, have a time traveling through time, etc. I feel like each book should have at least 3 consistent members on a team but outside of that every arc or so the rooster should change to give other non well known mutants time to shine. There is only like 15 max well known mutants.

Cyclops

Jean

Iceman

Angel

Beast(ugh despise him)

Xavier

Magneto

Rogue

Storm

Emma

Gambit

Psylocke

Rachel(Maybe)

Legion(Maybe)

Did I miss anyone? Wolverine and Cable not included because they should remain in their own solo series and do minimal crossovers with the team books. If they get split between 5 books than each team get a consistent 3 popular X-Men characters allowing others to rotate seeing as must teams are designed to be between 5-7.

Solos(Not Wolverine or Cable) need to be limited to limited series with no more than 12 issues because most solos while good for fans of said character doesn't really have many storylines to work with. So Solos like Iceman and Mr. and Mrs. X need to be brought to close before the end and those 3 characters need to be put into team books as consistent team members.

Overall I think the franchise need to have better structure.

Marvel, please end the idea of humans still hating mutants.

@cosmiccelest: Colossus, Shadowcat, Nightcrawler right off the top of my head is for sure left out. Also it kind of depends on what you mean by "well known", you mean to a general 80 year old granny who never picked up a comic, or some comic nerd who has a 30 book pull list, or some where in between because that varies the list completely

I like the idea of people hating mutants, it make sense to be even with the multitude of other super beings being around and I could go into a long explanation why but its basically people can familiarize themselves with one person and accept that they are good, while the idea that this mutant race could randomly shot out a baby that can explode minds is terrifying, its how many racist people can still have friends of a race they claim to hate, they know and respect / like the individual but for some underlying reason hate the race. You can accept the FF or Spiderman, or Cap because they get good press and you trust them, but you dont trust the genetic roulette not to shit out another magneto.

Still the whole, almost extinct thing is over done mainly due to the terrigen death cloud way too soon guys, way too soon

Having some freaking direction and communication. I'm so sick of everyone having different versions of characters and plots that don't align.

If people can love the Avengers and other superhuman heroes, then they can love the X-Men too.

I'm tired of these concept of humans still hating mutants.

This can't change, but by this point, mutants should feel safe enough to wander around without getting shanked in daylight with crowds cheering on with I hate mutie signs. That is played out by now.

I agree with this, it shouldnt be as extreme as they make it. But i dont think it needs to, or can even, go away for ever

Mutant hate should exist the way antisemitism exists. Conspiracy theories, ignorance, mystification and it's shaping into something that on paper looks different. That doesn't mean certain extremist groups will be gone, it's just the antimutant marchings have to stop.

@adamtrmm: idk about that. I'm for more isolated depictions of some of the hate and at least the appearance of a back and fourth battle for hearts and minds.

But again let's not forget the fact that racism and prejudice exist in the real world over as little as pressumed social status. While mutants have the fact that the little green boy in the classroom could develop a power that blows up his school and kills all his classmates and no one would see it coming and yet mutants are asking to not be treated differently.

So yea I'm all for the "let's not build a giant robot to kill them". But I'm completely with LOGICALLY opposing mutant equality.

Yeah. I mean if they love the Avengers, then why wouldn't they love the X-men especially when they're cooler, a lot of mutants look more strange though

@jhazzroucher: because in theory the Avengers are the only ones, they will not be more iron men or captian americas born, they see that the Avengers are trusted and see them as heroes. While the X men represent mutants which are a hot random mess, they are not a bunch of indiviuals but an entire race of people with in, it is easy for a person to look at a person on a one on one base and give them a pass on things that may scare them.

IE if you may trust a cop running around with a gun, but that doesnt mean you want to give every kid one when they turn 12. Ive never understood why people seem so strong against the idea of racism against mutatns and they always base it on "well they love the avengers" and one has nothing to do really with the other

Because, it makes absolutely no sense that civilians would see Thor, a gigantic Viking God man violently wielding a hammer and controlling the weather and be like "oh man, I'm glad Thor is here" and then see Storm, an exotic, beautiful, half naked woman doing the same thing and those same people would be like "yikes, a mutant, help!!"

BUt humans now there are good mutants and they know the X-men are superheroes.

@jhazzroucher: The public do not know anything about the X-Men.

The X-Men were mutant outlaws for years.

When Magneto was running Genosha they sent the Avengers to inspect the place.

Publicly the X-Men are known for being that mutant Superteam that shows up to fight other mutants.

Remember a big cause for the hatred and fear of mutants in the 616 is that Magneto is the one who made it publicly known what mutants are and what they can do.

The X-Men fought him but they didn't put out PR pieces about mutants and their benefits. The X-Factor2 theXSE and Astonishing teams were the most public factions of X-teams and X-Factor 2 was labeled as failed while the XSE and Astonishing teams were largely ineffective. In fact until Xavier went public, you can argue that the most publicly known X-Man was Storm who was likely introduced as the mutant woman who joined the FF who was previously known to have made people worship her in Africa. Which sounds crazy considering the world associates the word mutant with the guy who wants to kill us all Magneto.

Theres lots of reasons to dislke mutants but be ok with some of the other superheroes and teams. Especially when alot of the newer heroes are coming up under the umbrella of brands a norm would trust.

The Avengers are like Walmart. You assume the products are tested and safe BECAUSE its Walmart approved.

Mutants are like the neighborhood paint store of superheroes. You dont know what your going to get, if it's going to come out the way you want it or if it contains lead.

@mcklayn said:

hmm this is a good one, and I got an odd one that I think is going to happen just from spoilers but you know

Cyclops & Wolverine: Ive been re reading some of the older stuff right around decimation and the utopia era, and the two had a real bro mance going. The two were shoulder and shoulder together in everything and really worked real on a team together, lets see it again. Make the bicker back and fourth like they always did, and then the occasional moment where Logan comments "its times like this I realize why your the leader"

The x men are good, when these two are both good its just a fact. Lets make it happen

Decimation and Utopia were terrible. Wolverine and Cyclops have the worst friendship in the x-books.

@jota23: The opinion of one person does not make a fact, and thankfully I am rather good at disregarding most opinions

@mcklayn: Yeah, you seem to be pretty good about disregarding things, like how the rest of the X-Men were turned into a faceless mob that did nothing but follow Scott's orders. Or how all the villains were incompetent buffoons, to make him look good. Or the treatment of women in that run. Or how badly written Logan was during that run.

@jota23: Ok stopping here.

Treatment of women in what run? The Decimation is an Era spanning 6 years and something like 8 to 12 books. The only thing I can assume your talking about is Greg Lands art....which does no one favors considering its traced from porn....or from other comics he drew before....which were probably also traced from porn.

Fractions run was the faceless mob Era in alot of ways. It's also the book that had the majority of the X-Men from the other team books appearing.

If you wanted individual teams, you had New Mutants, X-Force, X-Factor, New X-Men, Young X-Men,X-Men, X-Men Legacy, and Astonishing all running for the most part alongside Uncanny telling different parts of the Uncanny story arc.

Scott (and really everyone from that Astonishing Era team) is the central character in the Uncanny book because it's about the X-Men and what's left of mutants adjusting to San Francisco. It's why you get one offs about Colossus grieving Kitty, Hellion protesting Hammer, and Pixie being Pixie. There are a SHIT TON of X-Men minis and Tieins in this Era about nothing but the X-Mens lives in San Fran an Utopia.

As for villains. WTF??? Selene had her biggest success ever in this Era.

Sinister and the Marauders basically decimated the X-Men in Messiah Complex. And he is sheer godly in every appearance after words from Legacy, to X-23 to AvX Consequnces.

This is THE best showing for Juggernaut.

Magneto joined the team instead of being impotent antagonist since their were no other mutants.

Maddie returns to life.

Mystique joined Hammer.

Shaw had 2 arcs about him.

Bastian and the purifiers nuked Utopia and killed Nightcrawler.

Even freaking Dracula got an appearance.

The only reason we lost a bunch of villains is because they decided to go with AvX instead of the Hope centered X-Story and followed it up with the Bendis Era. And that left WatX-Men as the only book focusing on the X-Men battling there rogues.

Which meant that Mystique got crippled even more as a character, the X-Men looked weak. The Hellfire Club were serious threats despite being 5 year olds. Sinister disappeared. There was no Juggernaut. Exodus went dark and X-Men books as a whole had no direction.

In real life though, I don't think men would be attracted to women who are telepaths.

I don't think the existence of the X-men and mutants in general would remain a secret. There are mutants who are being appreciated by human beings just like in Storm's ongoing solo and I'm pretty sure other mutants have been appreciated too.

They know the X-men are different. They know there will be some member who might become villains just like any other superhero group. The X-men shouldn't be an exemption.

@koays:

Treatment of women in what run? The Decimation is an Era spanning 6 years and something like 8 to 12 books. The only thing I can assume your talking about is Greg Lands art....which does no one favors considering its traced from porn....or from other comics he drew before....which were probably also traced from porn.

What I'm talking about is Emma being turned into a Stepford Wife that lived only for Scott. I'm talking about the many great female characters who were denied any leadership positions so they'd exist only to obey Cyclops. For Christ sakes, there was even a meme about how Psylocke's only lines in Uncanny were she saying "As you wish" to Cyclops when he gave her an order!

I'm talking about that pathetic Sisterhood.

Fractions run was the faceless mob Era in alot of ways. It's also the book that had the majority of the X-Men from the other team books appearing.

If you wanted individual teams, you had New Mutants, X-Force, X-Factor, New X-Men, Young X-Men,X-Men, X-Men Legacy, and Astonishing all running for the most part alongside Uncanny telling different parts of the Uncanny story arc.

Scott (and really everyone from that Astonishing Era team) is the central character in the Uncanny book because it's about the X-Men and what's left of mutants adjusting to San Francisco. It's why you get one offs about Colossus grieving Kitty, Hellion protesting Hammer, and Pixie being Pixie. There are a SHIT TON of X-Men minis and Tieins in this Era about nothing but the X-Mens lives in San Fran an Utopia.

Translation: If your favorite character was not Cyclops, you'd better pray they were sent to a secondary title because, under Matt Fraction, they'd be lucky if they got a single line of dialogue in the whole run.

As for villains. WTF??? Selene had her biggest success ever in this Era.

In X-Force. Villains only got to shine if they weren't facing Cyclops.

Sinister and the Marauders basically decimated the X-Men in Messiah Complex. And he is sheer godly in every appearance after words from Legacy, to X-23 to AvX Consequnces.

Sinister only got good when Kieron Gillen, the only good writer of the Utopia period, started writing him

This is THE best showing for Juggernaut.

Becoming Collossus?

Magneto joined the team instead of being impotent antagonist since their were no other mutants.

So Cyclops fanboys could jerk-off to him kneeling before Cyclops.

Maddie returns to life.

See the pathetic Sisterhood.

Shaw had 2 arcs about him.

Which sucked.

Bastian and the purifiers nuked Utopia and killed Nightcrawler.

Another X-Force villain. Apparently, that's the only way they'd get written as competent antagonists.

Also, any attempts at new villains were awful.

@jota23: Dear lord. Heres the thing, if you start off not liking a character then your going to find something wrong with everything they do. And if you make a blanket statement about what a character is doing then be familiar with everything they're doing in the era your talking about.

1- Emma Frost during the Decimation Era is a Stepford Wife. No. You just dont like Cyclops.

Assuming your just talking about Fraction(because if your not then this makes even less sense). Then you basically have Emma starting off costarring with Scott as they go off to fight Lady Mastermind. Then when the X-Men are in San Francisco Emma takes on the Skrulls hivemind by herself, she goes to help Colossus and then she basically stars as coantagonist with Osbourne before she returns to the X-Men by recruiting Namor and sealing the Void while freeing Sentry.

The sisterhood arc is completely terrible. But how is that not just terrible writing? Overall the Sisterhood werent even the major problem in that arc, everything that makes it godawful is to do with artwork and Wolverines creepiness.

If your talking about leadership roles in other books then your point is invalid.

Psylocke was coming off a starring role in Exiles.

Rogue was coming off a leading role in X-Men, Surge was coming off leading the New X-Men.

New Mutants had a primarily female cast.

This is just off the top of my head things that were going on right before or during the one run you apparently read at this point.

So yea all of this is sounding more regurgitated complaints from bomb pieces on the Era then any actual original thoughts on the characterization of the X-Men. And it's quite easy to tell, because you have a problem with one run and yet your calling out the entire Decimation Era.

2- So again, basically you dont like Cyclops. Because that seems to be your only qualifier here.

Your saying Gillen is the only good writer of the entire San Francisco Era meanwhile your ignoring facts about the Era.

Did you know New Mutants were in this Era fighting Legion? Did you know Warren Ellis was writing Astonishing? Did you read the X-Men event tie ins? Did you read Young X-Men? Did you read Manifest Destiny? Nation X? Pixie Strikes back? Warren's adjectiveless?

DID YOU READ ANYTHING EXCEPT THE BOOK ABOUT THE CHARACTER YOU DONT LIKE???

If not then please limit your criticism to Fraction and his writing and dont make blanket statements about the Era that you read online while contradicting your own points. Your having 2 different conversations.

3- Villains only got shine if they werent facing Cyclops. I dont even know what that means. Of the villains he took on personally, he outsmarted Maddie, Dracula and Osbourne. He also got stomped by Osbourne.

3- Sinister. If you think Sinister only got good in Gillen's run then I'm again convinced you have only been reading 1 run at a time and making blanket statements. If not then I just need an explanation for how stomping the X-Men at every turn in Messiah Complex isnt a good showing.

Juggernaut- He went out curbstomping every combination of the 198 X-Men left that they sent at him. Before having his powers taken from him in one of Colossus best character moments.

Magneto- He kneels before Cyclops. Yes. But what has Magneto been doing before this? He spent the 2000s being crippled by Wolverine, before Genosha was destroyed and he was impersonated. Then he starts rebuilding only for his daughter to go crazy and depower him and every mutant on earth to teach him a lesson. The Acolytes abandon him again, and he ends up as the Highier Evolutionaries whipping boy I order to get his powers back. Only then does the lonely old man who only wants to be with his people kneel to Cyclops. And when that doesnt work he proceeds to perform possibly the greatest feat he had at that point by reaching across the galaxy to save Kitty Pryde.

Shaw- Can you even name the two Shaw arcs? Because one of them was about him and Emma and the other about him , Sinister and Xavier. Their both two of the better arcs including him since the 80s.

Selene- Selene started off her path to Necrosha in New X-Men. She was about as successful as any villain that fought Cyclops team....but again you don't like Cyclops so it doesnt count.

Bastian- This is just ignorant. Nothing Bastian did in X-Force was really relevant to Second Coming.

Again, read comics. Dont read about them. If your gonna make a statement about Fractions run, then we can debate the good and bad of the run. But when you make blanket statements about an entire Era of books written by a diverse group of writers because you dont like one character it makes you sound like you shouldn't be reading these books at all because hes heavily featured in 3 books out of like 15.

Without even knowing you everything you say comes off like you read everything from a "catch up to X-Men list" which likely went New X-men > Astonishing > HoM > Messiah Complex> X-Force > Fraction > Second coming > Gillen > AvX. Because that's pretty much the only way you could associate not liking Decimation with not liking Cyclops even if he is the breakout of the Era.

@koays: Yes, I'm talking about the Fraction run. It's the only one that matters, when we're talking about the San Francisco years. Why the **** would I care if you liked some shitty book with d-list characters when nothing that happened there will matter, when they appear in the back of a group picture in Uncanny?

Also, those don't matter to the point I was making from the beginning, which is that stories were Wolverine and Cyclops are friends suck.

@jota23: lol your funny. I totally forgot this thread was even a thing, and then come back to read you totally get owned by koays then rebuttal with a "Im still right!,"

I enjoyed the interaction with Cyclops and Wolverine as friends, and we can totally disregard Factions run because that seems to be the only one you consider them being friends in. I will point you back to both Morrison, and Whedon. In those runs they were friends, I dont ever think they are buddy, buddy but there was mutal respect tot he point of friendship in those runs. Wolverine had no problem doing as asked because he trusted Cyke. He made a comment to Fantomex I believe it was (god i hat fantomex lol) about Scott being the best guy he had ever known, and was attempting to help Scott recover from the whole Apoc thing, during the weapon X story (its been a while so i forget names of certain arcs)

Also in Whedon's run they got along great, with Wolverine making several remarks about Cyclops and his abilities. Also the whole X Force run was based off the trust wolverine had for Cyclops and them aggreeing that bitches needed to die.

All these are pretty much the same "friendship" they had in the Faction run, so maybe friends isn't the best word maybe working partnership, something that didn't keep them constantly arguing with each other or wolverine refusing to listen to him due to lack of respect. This is what I was referring too and what I enjoy, so its more than factions run but if you want to bash it with ignorant remarks about stuff you must know very little of, then Ill let @koays continue to hand you your tale because he seems to be good at doing that.

Its also an opinion, i respect if you don't like it, but doesn't mean I can't or that anyone is wrong for it one way or another. Peace out broski

@jota23: Why would you care about a book with shitty D-Listers? Because as you pointed out Bastion starts in X-Force and the Human Council he forms their are the primary opposition for the crossover that Is the climax of Fractions run.

Also the entire time I've been asking you whether you meant Fractions run or Decimation because of how utterly stupid you sound saying you hate 5 years of comics while only talking about things happening in one run. E everyone basically agrees on what was done right and wrong in Fractions run. You not knowing what your talking about is what took this away from your original point.

And again just to sort of follow up the point that what you are saying is ignorant and contradictory. Your complaining that the X-Men were a faceless mob while at the same time ignoring the fact that Uncanny happened alongside 5 other titles that gave you larger appearances for alot of those "mob of X-Men" characters. Including Astonishing X-Men which feature Cyclops, Storm, Logan and Emma.

Which goes back to my original point, that Fractions run is basically the story of the X-Men moving to San Francisco and that if you want to know what happened to the characters, including that dastardly screen stealing Cyclops, youd have to find a book with a character you liked in it...AND READ A COMIC.

@mcklayn:

I loved Morrison's run but the Wolverine/Cyclops friendship is one of the worst things in it and the story that featured it, Assault on Weapon Plus, was one of its weakest stories. Except for the first issue in the Hellfire Club. That one is good.

Hell, given how random and out-of-the-blue their friendship is and how Cyclops seems to neither have any stakes in that story or help in any way, I suspect he was only included in the story so Morrison could say that Assault on Weapon Plus wasn't a Wolverine solo story in an X-Men book, since Cyclops was there too.

Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men is the most overrated run in the industry and he wrote one of the worst versions of Wolverine that ever appeared in a comic. He popularized that dynamic between the two characters that lasted until Schism and it was crap! It was crap when he did it and it was crap when other writers did it.

Maybe Cyclops fans liked that he "tamed" Logan, but if you have to put down other characters to build the character you like, you're doing it wrong.

@koays:

Why would you care about a book with shitty D-Listers? Because as you pointed out Bastion starts in X-Force and the Human Council he forms their are the primary opposition for the crossover that Is the climax of Fractions run.

Yes, 'cos when i mentioned books with d-listers, I meant the team led by Wolverine. Jesus!

Also the entire time I've been asking you whether you meant Fractions run or Decimation because of how utterly stupid you sound saying you hate 5 years of comics while only talking about things happening in one run. E everyone basically agrees on what was done right and wrong in Fractions run. You not knowing what your talking about is what took this away from your original point.

And again just to sort of follow up the point that what you are saying is ignorant and contradictory. Your complaining that the X-Men were a faceless mob while at the same time ignoring the fact that Uncanny happened alongside 5 other titles that gave you larger appearances for alot of those "mob of X-Men" characters.

First of all, many of those characters weren't in other books. Some just appeared in Uncanny.

Second, that doesn't excuse the lack of quality in Uncanny. It doesn't excuse the fact that a team book was written around a single character. It doesn't excuse the poor writing those characters got in the book. The fact that a character is written well in, say, X-Men Legacy doesn't excuse the fact that they are written badly in Uncanny. Ok, at least the fans have a version of the character they can enjoy, but the Uncanny version is still bad.

Including Astonishing X-Men which feature Cyclops, Storm, Logan and Emma.

Oh please, Astonishing X-Men became irrelevant after Whedon left. Well, that's actually not right: It became irrelevant when it got so late that other writers started using his characters, because the status quo of the x-books was about to change and they couldn't do it with many of the most important characters in the franchise farting around in an alien world for what felt like 15 years.

But, at least, during that period, the book had his name and his fanbase behind it.

In the San Fran years what did it had? First, we got Warren Ellis phoning it in. Sure, it was still better then most writers in the industry can do in their best day, but why read that when you could be reading a Warren Ellis book were he gives a damn?

Then it was given to Daniel Way, a clear indication that Marvel had given up on the book. Then, it got a new cast and lost all pretenses of being an important book in the franchise.

Which goes back to my original point, that Fractions run is basically the story of the X-Men moving to San Francisco and that if you want to know what happened to the characters, including that dastardly screen stealing Cyclops, youd have to find a book with a character you liked in it...AND READ A COMIC.

And I still maintain my point that, even if I could find another book with a character I liked, Uncanny X-Men was still crap. It was still dedicated solely to one character, to the detriment of everyone else (while he still had appearances in other books, including another book were he was the team leader, in Astonishing X-Men). It still had a bunch of characters with bad or no characterization. The fact that someone else wrote them better in other books doesn't erase the fact that Fraction didn't write them well. Look, if you think a character is having enough attention and characterization in other books and you don't need to do those things, that character shouldn't be in your book.

Most x-men shouldn't have appeared in Fraction's Uncanny X-Men, because he didn't want to write them.

@jota23: So all you've proven again is that you dont like Cyclops and havent read the runs your talking about.

Disliking Fraction isnt a bad thing, because your critique is shared by most anybody who objectively reviews the run.

No one cares that you dont like Fraction, because what works and doesn't work is obvious in his run.

But your contradicting yourself by saying you dont like an entire Era because characters were in the background of one book, and then saying that you dont want to read the other books that focus on it.

That's like living your whole life in doors and telling me you don't need to go outside because you check once and know the sky is black.

Nevermind that your telling me how you don't need to read all these other supposedly bad writers, while complaining that you for some reason HAD to read Fraction, who you think had a bad run. Like if Ellis is phoning it end but is better then Fraction....THEN READ THE BETTER BOOK.

Plus you refuse to acknowledge the context of the book, which is that the all of the X-Men and mutants left in the world are in one city so seeing them is an important part of that, the same way a major part of the Post Morrison Era was seeing half a dozen students and X-Men from other books at the school. And even then, name a relevant X-Man that doesnt at one point have a staring role in a title in this era?

I'm done here. You hate Cyclops. Ok. Fractions not good. Ok. Anything else you have to say about writers or characters in this era is meaningless until you've read the books.

@koays: Look, of course my opinion of the ere is going to be affected by its flagship book. That's obvious.

And yes, I've read other books in the era. It had a few good ones but, in general, I'm sorry if you feel the need to protect its honor, but it's not a very good era.

@jota23: Eh! I'm all tuckered out. You have a right to like or not like it.

I'm just particular about such a general statement on something so broad and complicated.