Who's X-men run was the worst

There aren't words to describe Chuck Austens run.

^

Austen makes Bendis look like Claremont.

I don't think Lobdell deserves to be on this list but....Idk, depends whats worst to the reader-

Doing little to nothing to advance plot except circling the premise of the book for 40 issues, and covering it with dialogue, "shocking" revelations and event crossovers.

Or

Progressing the story and characters with pointless, insane and obscure story arcs with the only noteworthy arcs being things that were built on ground established by other writers and even then.....

Really for Bendis being bad is a lack of strong story telling and lazy writing, For Austen being bad is Iceman reforming his body from someones urine in the same issue Nightcrawler's father is revealed to be the Devil.

Never read any of the other runs, well, at least not at the time they came out, and after that only parts of them.

So I guess Bendis wins by default.

Read most of Austen's run actually, but then all at once, so I did not have to wait between issues, but could plow ahead and just ignore any minor annoyances. Reading it monthly would probably have been another experience, and especially if it was supposed to be the main X-Men title at the time, which it was not.

Bendis of course.

For those of us who don't know who Chuck Austen, enlighten us. I missed his entire run. Must have been in the early 2000s.

Yes please.

You're better off not knowing.

Stan Lee? Lobdell? Why are they here?

Anyway, I think Bendis gets the prize. While Austen at least failed with the ashes that Morrison left at his wake, Bendis has no excuses to so utterly fail with then the most controversial and talked about character who basically became a superstar. I mean, for goodness, he had a freaking dying universe to be absolutely free and CREATE and what did he do? Right, trolled and got trolled.

Chuck Austen's run was just awful, truly awful.

But Bendis' really isn't that much better. It's cheap. Cheap as, tacky and a waste of the potential left at the end of AvX.

Also, people love Peter Milligan for his X-Statix work, but his X-Men run was dire. Such shit.

Picture it- Early 2000's and Morrison is running the show, and for the first time Uncanny isnt the lead X-Men title....and all eyes are instead on the New X-Men book.

Sneaking into the X-Men offices in the darkness of night comes Chuck Austen to join the All Star team of X-writers at the time as the writer of the Uncanny book. Taking cues from Morrison's lead title he expanded the teams roster by adding another team to the mansion and focusing on them as a secondary X-team with stories focusing on these senior members personal lives within Morrison's expanded school setting.

Sounds good right? Well it was OK, a Militant Polaris and Havok got exposure as leads in a love square with Iceman and the school Nurse. Juggernaut joined the X-Men as a trusted teammate and Nightcrawler was in charge....you either loved or hated that stuff but it was passable.

THEN ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE. Archangel (late 20's early 30's) started dating Paige Gunthrie (18). Jubilee was crucified on the front lawn in the same issue that it was established that Mutants can't get AIDS because....X-gene. Nightcrawler tried to become a priest but it was a trap and he eventually found out his father was an immortal demon/mutant who (and try not to get lost here) " Comes to earth to get women pregnant so that he can use his children as portals to come to earth". During this journey Iceman was left as a talking head who couldn't be brought back because they were in hell and he had no access to water...except Havoks piss....luckily he uses demon blood or water to revive himself but is stuck in his Ice form. Polaris tells Jean and other female X-Men during her bachelorette party in no uncertain terms that she hasn't had sex with Bobby because he was a child...but did with Havok because Summers brothers aren't repressed in the bedroom (Lmao not important but funny). She then went crazy after Havok left her at the alter for the nurse who he fell in love with while he was in coma.

After Morrison was exiled Austen began writing X-Men"" which included the team facing a demonic space monster who caused a bunch of mutants to kill people because....because..in a arc that ended up leading to the X-Men going into space, Polaris going more crazy, Rogue making out with Wolverine (who has always had a thing for her) and the entire team being quarantined because of the mind controlling space monster being contagious. Also, Gambit went Blind.

His run ended with the decimation.

Austen was terrible.

Beata

@koays: My goodness that sounds awful! I was going to go with Bendis, but Austen now takes my vote.

@blacklegraph: Austen's run gave me PTSD. This thread should have a trigger warning ;)

@blacklegraph: Lol its all relative. I like Bendis' dialogue and the conversation scenes are better then any others in comics currently. But he was writing at the pace of a novel in one book and taking a long drive with no direction in the othother

Austen had alot more things happen and had established pacing and events that moved the plot...he was telling a clear story....its just that it was f**king insane More often then not.

@koays said:

I hated the weird obsession Austen had on the X-Men's sex lives. So unnecessary!

I liked Angel's healing factor - it was a nice addition (also like that he's no longer blue). I think he upped Iceman's powers too, though in AoA Bobby'd already done similar/more impressive things. I didn't mind Azrael being Nightcrawler's father, but the whole ancient race of mutants/Angel mutants vs Devil mutants was utter sh!t, like everything else on his god awful run.

@koays: Dude, as far as conversation scenes, Bendis doesn't have anything on Dysart's Harbinger/Imperium run. Not even a contest. Plus, have you read Magnus? Loads better dialog than Bendis. Not to mention Saga or Walking Dead.

Bendis' dialogue is good if you like characters talking cr@p for 20 pages.

@john_valentine: His dialog is good if you like adults talking like teenagers for 40 issues

Now... PAD, he does dialogue.

@john_valentine: or Yost. oh god, i would give Marvel all my money if Yost or PAD helmed the X-Men.

@dman1366 said:

TAKE MY MONEY, MARVEL, TAKE IT.

I dunno, I really like Yost but Amazing's not working for me.

Loved PAD's All-New X-Factor, though.

Angel's healing factor, Polaris' PTSD breakdown spiraling her into Magneto Jr., Juggernaut and the fishboy, some of the Gambit/Rogue stuff and just the addition of so many mainstream mutants to the school.. were all cool.

Its just that a lot of it was crazy for crazy's sake. I mean making a story arc where Nightcrawler meets his Father is one thing but having it devolve into some over the top conspiracy between heaven hell along with a insane motivation sort of seemed like he just wanted to much from our belief.

Which is really the problem with his run...he gives you something (like a psychic entity causing mutants to massacre each other) and then just when your on board with it (having the X-Men qurrantine themselves so they don't spread it) he drives the car off a cliff (Turning it into a space monster that wants to invade the planet for reasons not specified) and then locks the door (having Polaris spend the next 3 arcs terrified of something saw in space....which turned out to be Doop).

Again I'm not judging it for what it could be but for what it is. And on its on it does what many writers strive to do (at least in Uncanny) which is to be able to rewrite and restate the same things without It being repetitive. Which he not only does but also doesn't come to any conclusion or revelation. The conversations in Uncanny are just that " conversations" and they fulfill the role he wants them too. Not moving the plot is a problem with the story but the dialogue is done with this intent in mind and succeeds it.

Now all new attempts and fails do to do the same due to being out of character in its attempts.I wouldn't dare to compare his writing to Saga or Walking Dead but he's above most of the mainstream writers who only use dialogue to convey intent and lack personal investment.

How is any of this something positive?

Also, I personally think the "repeatedly saying things over again so that they can be said again so the characters can say the thing that they just said again" thing IS very noticeably repetitive.

Alright, would you agree that Bendis' goal with his story was to keep Scott's ultimate plan of the revolution as long term as possible? Because the fact is we may have hated it but consider that the conversation he had with Emma Frost, with the Avengers, and with Matthew Malloy all were more of a back and forth debate on the idea of Revolution without telling us exactly how far it was going.

The one with the Avengers, Malloy and Emma standout as being the most repetitive but each one was a huge impact moment for Scott in his plan without giving up any information. So despite a huge flaw of the story being pacing, the best moments in this series were always conversations and usually the same one.

What a lot of people don't realize is that in comics every conversation is usually vital because of the small space, so it creates this very unreal expectation that every time someone speaks it will lead to an action. In reality most conversations are had repeatedly before they lead to information being gained or something new happening. Scott was called out on killing Xavier no less then 5 times before he addressed it when speaking to Malloy and when he did he used it as a driving force for the ideal of controlling huge power and directing it toward something....and keep in mind he's been having that discussion since AvX Consequences, which makes some near 50 issues before we got around to addressing how Scott feels about it. That's a style used in writing long novels...so I see his conversations as a huge positive in terms of writing a drawn out story, and if anything the issue was with plot and the pacing.

I disagree that not having any idea where the story is going and repeating the same lines of dialogue ad infinitum is a "style". In fact, the writer in question is still delaying the story in order to do rewrites and cover ground that should have been covered back when he was cheating buyers by sending ostensibly pointless filler dialogue to print every month.

But people have different tastes so...whatever floats your boat.

I'm just glad he's leaving. Whatever bad things we might have to say about Austen, he probably wasn't actively trying to have "nothing actually happens" as a through-line and "style" of his work.

How Kitty's and Illyana's "conversation" from Uncanny X-Men #33 should have gone:

"You say there is a mutant here?"

"Yes. This is a Bendis comic, so I've said that three times already. How have you not understood yet? What the ****** is wrong with you, Kitty? Ask me that one more time and I'm going to teleport you into an active volcano."

"not having any idea where the story is going" and "cheating buyers" are opinions that aren't conducive to what i'm saying, which is that the dialogue and conversation are good on their own. Your saying the house is on fire, and i'm saying he painted the garage....we can both agree that the house is burning i'm just saying the garage looks nice.

I completely agree with it being obvious that he's now rushing to wrap up plot lines and stories and catch up to his own pacing now that he has a timetable that he can't ignore or escape.

But to me Bendis' problem was that he was attempting to have a "slow burn plot", and it failed in part do to spreading his attention way too thin by writing/managing several books. I won't agree that the entire "slow-burn" concept is bad just because people will complain about nothing happening, but it failed in this instance because nothing did happen in the end to reward patience.

Austen to me wasn't a bad writer, he had all the skills, abilities and knowledge that you want a writer to have, but he didn't have the ideas. No one is reading his "Nightcrawler is a hellspawn" story and saying "the pacing and dialogue is terrible".. their reading it and saying that they wish they hadn't read it.

I think it was clear that Uncanny 33 was filler, the same way Uncanny 17.Inh (the inhuman tie-in was filler). It's crap and its an A-hole tactic likely do to his schedule but by know means is that an example Bendis to use when were talking about his dialogue. Bring up his Xavier and Tempest conversation...but if were discussing dialogue being good or bad lets not bring in the issue before the rushed ending.

I believe that a slow burn pace that is built off character progress instead of plot can be amazing. Look at Harbinger/Imperium. I doubt anyone here reads Valiant since they aren't Marvel or DC, but those stories are only character progression and dialog. In order to do that, however, you need to be focused and flexible. Bendis has none is those qualities; he is hyper and impulsive. Which is great when he has his own universe and continuity, like the ultimate universe.

I guess I just don't think dialogue that neither conveys anything about the characters' individual personalities or the world around them nor advances the story can be considered good.

His X-Men is pretty much just in-jokes and trolling. Once you get beyond that, it becomes kinda obvious that there is very little character or plot work going on. That's what made stalling necessary. We've had a 45-issue run spread thin into 80 issues, with the premise of one series literally being that the story was never building to anything because the main character was just pretending to have some kind of action-plan.

I won't say that "hero has no idea what he wants and is in over his head" is a bad story premise. Far from it. But the writer has to actually put that story on paper and Bendis didn't even try to do that.

But I should probably just be happy that he at least told us what the story is supposed to be about.

You see, I just see the entirety of his Uncanny run as squandered potential. Cyclops SHOULD have had a plan. That's what he's all about.

Why is Scott Lobdell in this poll. He wrote Fatal Attractions, death of illyanna and partly wrote the Age of Apocalypse story arc.

Why isn't Matt Fraction, Kieron Gillen & Jason Aaron 'Wolverine and X-Men' in this poll.

@comicawesome can you give your reasons for these writers, being in this poll.

@time: Ok, i included Chuck Austen and Brian Michael Bendis because there runs are cosidered the worst by fans and critics a like. I included Stan Lee because his run on the x-men was never really popular (or that good) it only gained a small following. And if the x-men was not revived in giant sized x-men #1 the series would have sliped into obscurity.

Chuck Austen run is pretty terrible out of this group.

Bendis is the worst IMO, the dude wasted like 40 issues of uncanny, I stuck around for 35 of them bc I i love the x-men and just kept fooling myself that the next issue would finally make progress in the story..... But it never did! Instead every issue was lame new mutants who were always freaking out over really dumb stuff... And hearing how the revolution was coming, but never did... And then I got so sick of everyone calling Scott a murderer for killing Xavier, but these same people welcomed Jean when than chick destroyed entire star systems! But he kills one dude and he is the worst thing in history... The dialogue was so bad every issue.... The list goes on and on... I think Bendis should probably just come out and admit he had no story at all and he wasted everyone's time and money.

@havoc1201: I agree Bendis' run has been pretty frustrating. I actually really like his dialogue for the most part (Kitty's speech about being Jewish was one of the best moments she's had in all of X-Men), but ultimately reading his Uncanny and All New titles was a frustrating experience because nothing important ever really happened . . . it was all talk and no action, and the plot was never really coherent or compelling. I think his run had a lot of potential that he failed to realize. I still appreciate Bendis for his Daredevil run and for what he did with Miles Morales though. I hope the next X-Men writer does a better job than Bendis. I know Bendis says Marvel doesn't have a conspiracy against the X-Men but honestly I'm getting pretty nervous because they're my favorite comic book property other than Batman and Marvel isn't doing a good job with them currently. I'm enjoying the Fox movies though, and I'm excited for Age of Apocalypse! I just wish the movies didn't have the whole divided timelines thing going on. Bryan Singer's done well though.

@zdub327: I totally agree with you, from issue one of uncanny it was said Scott was going to protect mutants and start a revolution.... Neither of those things happened, in fact nothing happened, I really hope the new writer does better as well, bendis was great on daredevil and with miles, I really loved days of futures past it was one of my favorite movies in the last couple of years. Singer is great

Bump

None of the above?

Matt Fraction's X-Men is still by far the worst of the bunch. Austen's was terrible, but kind of fascinating because of how awful it was. Matt Fraction's run was a sexist experiment painted with vanilla. He has written other properties quite well, but his Uncanny run was filled with uninspired ideas, littered with subservient female ciphers, and iffy dialogue.

Chuck Austen's run on X-Men is the reason why I drink everyday........ How are you going to make Angel f*** Husk in front of her mom in the sky? How do you f*** up Nightcrawler? He made Mystique pose as a teenage girl to seduce Gambit so Rogue would brake up with him........ F***ing Squid-Boy!!! F***ing Squid-Boy!!! That dude brought back Xorn.... Didn't he crucified Jubilee? $#!%...........

@judasnixon: shhhhh, deep breaths, it's gonna be okay......everything will be okay.

@sprior93: DAVOS!!! HE MADE BLACK TOM A TREE!!! A F***ING TREE, AND THEN HE KILLS SQUID-B0Y, AND THEN JUGGERNAUT GETS BUMMED OUT, AND THEN XORN TWIN BROTHER SUCKS THEM ALL UP IN THE BLACK HOLE IN HIS HEAD!!! GAMBIT IS BLIND? I'm drunk.......

The worst runs on Xmen belong to Bendis, Aaron, Austen and Morrison. I know I'll get some push back on that but all were terrible as far I'm concerned

Bump