X-Men Forever - what's your opinion?

[Osvaldoeaf]

I just read X-men Forever, the entire run, for the first time and I'm just really curious to know what is the general opinion on it.

To me, it had a few good moments and a lot of potential, some issues had great art, but what bugged me the most was Claremont's need to constantly tear the team apart...killing several characters, making some leave (most without any explanation), or changing them beyond recognition.

Overall, a disappointment and a wasted opportunity...it's even making me have second thoughts about my long time desire to have CC back in the main books.

[Havok83]

The only good thing it accomplished was keeping Claremont off the main books

[cranger]

His Uncanny run was full of that stuff, which is what let him make it a real soap opera. It is also why I probably preferred X-Factor, New Mutants and Excalibur and it took a while before I really was willing to give Uncanny a chance.

Even knowing that, I do find X-Men Forever to come off a bit too radical. It is hard to take it as "if Claremont would have kept writing" when it feels like it was trying to veer from the actual continuity for the sake of it. Maybe that is why I also like X-Factor Forever better as well, it really felt like more of Simonson's run.

[Silver Fang]

It had a better written Sabretooth than 98% of the last 16 years. So I give it an A for that alone. Wish it would've gone longer.

[phoenixzero23]

I did not like it. Why even pair Logan and Jean just kill Logan so fast? Claremont was the father of that ship. he should have explored it
Creed being Logan's dad, Rogue and Nightcrawler switching, Storm going bad were terrible ideas.
It was what made me dislike Claremont a bit. i respect his work but he shouldn't come back

[Filthy Mutie]

It was completely mis-marketed - to the point of just being dishonest with customers.

It was very clearly not the story he planned to tell if his original run continued.

[Askani's Flame]

It was completely mis-marketed - to the point of just being dishonest with customers.

It was very clearly not the story he planned to tell if his original run continued.

I totally agree with this. There might have been some elements of things he would have like to have done, but this became a very clear AU or a "What If" series out the gate.

[Havok83]

I did not like it. Why even pair Logan and Jean just kill Logan so fast? Claremont was the father of that ship. he should have explored it
Creed being Logan's dad, Rogue and Nightcrawler switching, Storm going bad were terrible ideas.
It was what made me dislike Claremont a bit. i respect his work but he shouldn't come back

bc its what he intended to do in 1991. Forever was used as an avenue to explore dropped plotlines and do stuff that Marvel never would have allowed under editorial constraints. I questioned whether Claremont truly was for Logan and Jean anyway as it always seemed more as a bitter reaction to how Scott and Maddie ended rather then genuine love of that couple

[ShepardOakenshieldPrime]

I thought the first volume was okay but fell off, the second I loved, Ghost Panther was so cool I don't know what I'd give for it to be canon.

[Filthy Mutie]

I totally agree with this. There might have been some elements of things he would have like to have done, but this became a very clear AU or a "What If" series out the gate.

bc its what he intended to do in 1991. Forever was used as an avenue to explore dropped plotlines and do stuff that Marvel never would have allowed under editorial constraints. I questioned whether Claremont truly was for Logan and Jean anyway as it always seemed more as a bitter reaction to how Scott and Maddie ended rather then genuine love of that couple

Years before this book was made, he was on the record about his various plans for the books - up to #300. it involved things like:

• Lots of Upstarts stuff, but they were called the Wild Boys instead
• Wolverine being killed and resurrected by the Hand, appearing in all books for the duration as a villain
• Marvel Girl also going bad for Wolverine and the Hand, but it's revealed she was faking it to penetrate the Hand's hold on Wolverine
• Wolverine losing his Adamantium implants and Colossus ripping his claws out of his arms
• A continued build-up of the Wolverine/Marvel Girl/Cyclops love triangle, even while Wolverine is the villain, with a resolution "no one would expect"
• Gambit actually being the traitor - a tool (or form?) of Mr. Sinister
• Lots of "mutants being used as weapons" as evidenced by Omega Red, Gambit-as-traitor, Wolverine in the Hand, etc.
• Everything culminating in a final battle with the Shadow King - who has been pulling everyone's strings and igniting the mutant/human war that leads to DoFP - around #300
• Professor X dying in or right after the final battle to both win the battle and save Magneto
• Magneto finally becomes the true headmaster of the school and leader of the X-Men

There's probably more to chew on, but that's all I can remember off the top of my head.

Since this was pretty widely known, there was a lot of excitement to see all of this stuff put together and play out. Understandably so! It's why marketing leaned so heavily onto the hooks of "the story CC intended to tell if he didn't get pushed out by the artists and editors bullpen at the time."

As you can see, a lot of that got picked up by other writers later on, and also doesn't resemble X-Men Forever.

[Luckystar.]

It was completely mis-marketed - to the point of just being dishonest with customers.

It was very clearly not the story he planned to tell if his original run continued.

Agreed. Corrections tried too hard to twist things to the point it became a random world in an Exiles book rather than a proper continuation.

[Triniking1234]

Even if Claremont stayed on till #300 he'd have to be editing the line himself to get away with most of that.

[Filthy Mutie]

Even if Claremont stayed on till #300 he'd have to be editing the line himself to get away with most of that.

Nah, he would be writing both Uncanny and vol. 2, and all of those characters would be cast members in both books.

The only problem was Wolverine being in too many books - Marvel already had their foot on the Wolverine over-saturation gas-pedal by that point, in addition to not wanting to disrupt Marvel Comics Presents. Hama was on-board for the Wolverine solo book - which would've featured Wolverine (as agent of the Hand) taking on the likes of the Fantastic Four, Avengers, Secret Defenders, and so on - not unlike the version of that story that Millar took up years later.

As I recall, they reached some kind of compromise.

[Anduinel]

It was completely mis-marketed - to the point of just being dishonest with customers.

It was very clearly not the story he planned to tell if his original run continued.

Absolutely this. But I still enjoyed it for being completely inconsequential crack.

[jpmst17]

i think it's fine. nothing ground breaking or anything, but a fun non-cannon read