"How Bad"? He is great!

lil bit

No.

His first ten issues were okay, but as soon as his collaboration with Ed Brubaker ended, his run became the epitome of shit. He is one of the worst character writers in the history of X-Men. Emma Frost was a slut, Magneto was Cyclops' lacky, and Wolverine came off as a creepy stalker.

Even his Cyclops, which seems to be the only thing from his run that's universally praised, wasn't anything special. It was Ed Brubaker that first made Cyke man up as a leader in the aftermath of House of M. All Fraction did was continue that characterization, and make other characters look bad in trying to make Cyclops look good. Like when Magneto first showed up at Utopia and Fraction made Xavier act out of character, coming off as a hot head, and even had him attack Magneto, with Scott being the voice of peace. The last thirty years of continuity dictates that the roles should of been reversed in that situation, but Fraction probably never read that.

Some of his ideas may sound good on paper, but his execution was so bad that it made it hard for me to become invested in his stories.

I didn't know he was hated, lol. I still like his run with Hawkeye.

@peterparkerjr: Generally I don't think he is, but he seems to be on X-Men. I edited that into the OP.

I like Matt Fraction. I give him a B+

Fraction's a good writer, but I don't think his X-Men was good at all. He has some nice ideas but awful characterisation.

He's great on Iron Fist and Hawkeye.

I didn't even know Fraction is hated. If he is I'll say he is overhated because I don't see any reason why you should hate him. Either you should like his comics or you should not care.

I thought he was OK as an X-men writer. He had a huge cast to juggle for sure

@invain: Eh...again it is a lil bit too much hate considering.

He had 2 very shit story arcs...the most obvious being the sisterhood arc (which is also where 70% of Gregland's worst X-Men work is brought up) but his Dark Reign/Utopia transition is one of the most creative periods from the early 2000s and his other event tie ins and 2nd Coming were also some of the best X-Men/Marvel events and tie ins X-Men had since the early 90s.

He was a crappy team writer, but even the characters he only used sporadically like Kitty and Colossus managed to have strong moments even if it was followed by issues of being in the background. And alot of his OOC moments especially with regards to Cyke and Magneto is protected by the uniqueness of the situation he crafted.

I can see the reasons people dont like him...but people seemingly hate him more then they hate the pure shit shit writers we've had an abundance of over the years when really he just has really obvious flaws.

@koays: It's an opinionated question.

He had 2 very shit story arcs...the most obvious being the sisterhood arc

I didn't think that the sisterhood story arc was the worst. It may have been his worst plot idea, but with the exception of Wolverine acting like a creepy stalker, he wrote the team well in that one. Since so much worse has been done to Wolverine in recent years, I think we've all learned to take his mischaracterizations with a grain of salt. So generally the team seemed to be written well in that one. At least as far as I can remember, I haven't read this stuff in a while.

which is also where 70% of Gregland's worst X-Men work is brought up

Speaking of over hated. Land wasn't even the worst artist during Fraction's run. I would easily take Land over which ever artist was paired with Fraction during Second Coming. That might just be me, though.

but his Dark Reign/Utopia transition is one of the most creative periods from the early 2000s and his other event tie ins and 2nd Coming were also some of the best X-Men/Marvel events and tie ins X-Men had since the early 90s.

It seemed like Kyle and Yost were the ones in charge of Second Coming, and the strongest issues of that crossover were written by Kyle and Yost, and Zeb Wells. Fraction had the weakest issues. This was especially evident to me during the way that he handled Nightcrawler's death. It was set up perfectly by Kyle & Yost, in a way that you could see the emotion in the pages, but as soon as Fraction's Uncanny issue followed it up, that emotion was gone. You can blame some of this on the artist, which as I said earlier, I didn't like.

Personally, I didn't care for a lot of his plots. The Dark Avengers thing and Utopia was boring. I also didn't like how he turned Cyclops into a Captain America fanboy, buy Marvel has been doing that with everyone during the last decade. Even Wolverine, who more than any other, should see Steve Rogers as a peer, was turned into one. Australian girls, too, apparently.

He was a crappy team writer, but even the characters he only used sporadically like Kitty and Colossus managed to have strong moments even if it was followed by issues of being in the background.

Yeah, he had his moments, but so did Alan Davis and Chuck Austin. ?

And alot of his OOC moments especially with regards to Cyke and Magneto is protected by the uniqueness of the situation he crafted.

Care to clarify?

Professor Xavier going out of his way to attack Eric seemed like one of the most out of character things that he has ever done. Even if you can justify Xavier being upset at Magneto's presence, and Scott being okay with it, the attack definitely seemed to cross a line.

I can see the reasons people dont like him...but people seemingly hate him more then they hate the pure shit shit writers we've had an abundance of over the years when really he just has really obvious flaws.

What is this? You still taking shots at me giving Bendis a honorable mention? House of M and Ultimate X-Men were good, in my opinion. If he just did the Marvel Now series, then he probably wouldn't of made it.

For me the worst X-Men writers were easily from the late 90's. Alan Davis and Steve Seagle. They left the book in such a mess that even a returning Chris Claremont and Scott Lobdell couldn't fix it. It took a soft reboot and Grant Morrison to do that.

@invain: Lol wasnt talking about you and Bendis(though im still salty at the thought)...but about how everytime theres a thread of 5 worst X-Writers Fraction somehow makes that cut repeatedly despite there being writers who literally wrote issues without a plot.

As far as Xavier and Magneto go. I always felt that this was more the culmintation of Scott having just had his big idea of the worlds last mutants coexisting in San Francisco spit back at him and having to rebound that to Utopia because of the surge of a surge of hatred. It felt like in that moment Scott had resolved that the only safe place left for mutants was this island protecting eachother and in the early stages of this thought the most powerful mutant in the world has shown up lonely and defeated. Xaviers attack seemed more like Xavier taking out frustrations of everything theyd just been through on someone who he feels will take advantage of them... the only thing out of character in the whole situation to me was that before Magneto got his powers back he made a random appearance (that is more in line with Xorneto or Eve of Destruction Mags) just to screw things up for the mutants who lived in San Fran.

I really only remember one thing involving Cap and Cyke and that was about the period when Fraction was setting up his exit for Gillen.

My thing with Kyle and Yost was that they had the better and smaller book at the time. And considering the overall strength of the duo and their books when it comes to tragic subject matter it was almost guranteed that theyd have the better issue dealing with Nightcrawler. Those New Mutant issues to me stood out far better then the X-Force ones since the X-Force issues almost seemed to have a completely different feel from the rest of the event.

My opinion has always been that if passing was a 65 then Fraction got his 65, but hes always picked on for being the one of the other dumbkids in class.

Yeah, but most people don't read as much X-Men as we do. If I wouldn't of read all of that shit from the 90s, I would probably put Fraction in top five worst, but Liefield, Seagle, and Davis keeps him out. Those three with Austin and Aaron would probably be my top five worst X writers.

As far as Xavier and Magneto go. I always felt that this was more the culmintation of Scott having just had his big idea of the worlds last mutants coexisting in San Francisco spit back at him and having to rebound that to Utopia because of the surge of a surge of hatred. It felt like in that moment Scott had resolved that the only safe place left for mutants was this island protecting eachother and in the early stages of this thought the most powerful mutant in the world has shown up lonely and defeated. Xaviers attack seemed more like Xavier taking out frustrations of everything theyd just been through on someone who he feels will take advantage of them... the only thing out of character in the whole situation to me was that before Magneto got his powers back he made a random appearance (that is more in line with Xorneto or Eve of Destruction Mags) just to screw things up for the mutants who lived in San Fran.

We have had reluctant team ups with Magneto before, like in "God Loves, Man Kills" and in the late 90's where Xavier was always willing to welcome him with open arms. Sure, the stakes are higher, but it still seemed out of character to me.

The early issues of Fraction's run where we saw "evil" Magneto attacking them also seemed out of character, since we had Magneto written properly in X-Men Legacy during that time period.

I really only remember one thing involving Cap and Cyke and that was about the period when Fraction was setting up his exit for Gillen.

It was directly after Second comming, in a one shot issue called X-Men The Heroic Age.

My thing with Kyle and Yost was that they had the better and smaller book at the time. And considering the overall strength of the duo and their books when it comes to tragic subject matter it was almost guranteed that theyd have the better issue dealing with Nightcrawler. Those New Mutant issues to me stood out far better then the X-Force ones since the X-Force issues almost seemed to have a completely different feel from the rest of the event.

New Mutants and X-Force equally stood out to me, and they had the best art. Carey and Fraction both seemed off and had weak art. Land was paired with Carey there.

My opinion has always been that if passing was a 65 then Fraction got his 65, but hes always picked on for being the one of the other dumbkids in class.

Lol, I like the metaphor. I don't know if I agree with it, because I just found his writing to be too boring.

I dont think so. I didnt finish his run because it was so bad.

His run is perhaps my least favorite of the franchise. With Cyclops' bloated ego headlining the run (and I like Cyclops!) and a supporting cast of minions and stepford women drawn by fap artists Greg Land and Terry Dodson, the book became an overly glossy, superficial tale without sufficient humor, intelligence, or self-awareness.

I think Fraction, like a lot of writers, creates books in different settings with a similar cast of characters. However, unlike his great Hawkeye run, there wasn't a whole lot to keep the "Clint" of the comic in check to endear us to the main protagonist. Cyclops' position in Utopia could've created an interesting psychoanalysis via 'with great power comes great responsibility' on a pretty large and relevant scale, but that was once again a missed opportunity.

The book had the shallowness of a 90's comic without the fun, the pretentiousness of an indie comic without the off-the-wall ideas or wit, and an all-star cast without the chemistry.

Would re-read Austen's run five times over than revisit this era.

Fraction has one of my least favorite runs. I dont know how hated he is on X-Men, but I wouldn't call him over hated.