What did you think of John Byrne's Hidden Years?

[Uncanny X-Man]

I recently had a chance to re-read John Byrne's whole run on X-Men: The Hidden Years from the early 2000. I must admit I didn't exactly love it at the time - it came out during the Authority/Ultimates/"Nu-Marvel" era, where wide-screen action and minimal approach to dialogues, captions and continuity were all the rage, meaning it was the exact opposite of what was in vogue in comics at the time.

But what seemed hopelessly dated at the time feels delightfully nostalgic, but in an extremely solid kind of way, upon a second read now that I'm very tired of Marvel's decompressed approach to storytelling and lackluster character work. Every single character in the book gets a chance to shine, there's subplots and dense narration and the idea that it's all building up to something, which makes sense since this should have ideally taken readers to Giant-Sized X-Men #1. Byrne's approach to dialogues is quite retro and stiffed at times but works well within the context of the series.

The artwork is VERY strong: Palmer's inks complement Byrne's pencils wonderfully - the art is still very recognizable as Byrne but has a much stronger and firmer look: I find it light-years above much of what Byrne has produced around the same period, both when inking himself (like on Wonder Woman) or when inked by others (on Amazing Spider-Man)

Byrne's use of continuity in this series has been quite amusing. While in some instances it ends up contradicting stuff that's already been established, or sits in a very grey area (like Ororo meeting the original team prior to the Krakoa mission), other bits like the Phoenix Force making first contact with Jean are a nice bit of foreshadowing which can still work well within established continuity. I also really enjoyed how Byrne worked what was effectively Marvel/Timely's first-created mutant Tad Carter and The Promise into "modern" continuity.

So what did you all think? Did you enjoy The Hidden Years or did you consider it a pointless retcon exercise? Do you consider it canon or glorified Byrne-fiction?

[Phoenixx9]

I think I liked it more when I first read it than now.

I think it started off well, but for me, it lost that good start about half-way.

I was looking for better stories, a lot of "hidden" detail regarding Jean, Lorna and Alex. That did not happen with Lorna and Alex, and except for the PF story, it also did not happen with Jean. I did not like Candy wearing Jean's current uniform nor Jean wearing an older costume, because it was the only clean one! I wanted to see A lot of Lorna and Alex using their powers and working with the team--all of them together on missions, with Xavier guiding them from the Mansion. Also was looking for some Xavier reports on Alex and Lorna's powers, like what they can do, potential limits, how they have improved, etc.

[Snoop Dogg]

lol who lets byrne write comics

[Anduinel]

lol who lets byrne write comics

Ashida-san was apparently courting him to come back to Marvel a while back.

[Brian B]

Ashida-san was apparently courting him to come back to Marvel a while back.

I think the rumor was he was trying to put Byrne and Claremont back together. How much writing Byrne would do is probably the reason it hasn't happened, yet.

[Brian B]

Also, I thought Hidden Years was okay. Byrne doing out-of-continuity work, like those Batman/Superman specials and Hidden Years, seem like something he likes to do, but I never think it's his strongest work. Yes, I do think Hidden Years falls outside continuity. Has any X-comic referenced any of those stories? It was good to see Byrne drawing any regularly published X-title, but it wasn't his best work. The whole thing was a nostalgia trip. If what Byrne claims happened between him and Marvel regarding the cancellation of that title is true, then he was treated pretty poorly. I hope he could figure out a way to work for Marvel again. I'd buy any X-book John Byrne draws, even if I didn't think it was great. It would still be enjoyable, just like Hidden Years was.

[Mike]

Hidden Years was the last X-Book that I read and enjoyed.