Rank the Decades

[manymade1]

With the decade coming to an end, how were the stories in the 2010's compared to what's come before?

For me, from worst to best:

6. 60s - Not much to say, really. These stories were just bad, even for their time.

5. 10s - In all fairness, I was pretty off and on with this decade. I went through some long periods where I didn't read any stories, yet I still feel confident in saying that this was one of the worst decades. HoX/PoX was the one saving grace, and that didn't even come until the very end. it just seemed like none of the writers or editors really knew what to do. So many status quo changes that didn't stick. Overall, a terrible time for X-Men fans.

4. 90s - Noticeable jump in quality from the previous two. Admittedly, the 90's for the X-Men wasn't that bad compared to other Marvel heroes. There were definitely some good titles, but the biggest problem lied in the high expectations that writers had to face after Claremont left. All in all though, this era wasn't bad, and this was the team at their peak in popularity.

3. 70s - This would be higher but the first half of this decade consists of reprints. The second half, though, gave us Claremont/Cockrum/Byrne, which pretty much laid the foundation for everything that came afterwards. The X-Men pretty much started in the 70s.

2. 00s - After writers struggled to follow Claremont in the 90s, Morrison and Whedon would give us back-to-back definitive runs. It's actually really impressive that these two are considered the best X-Men writers, next to Claremont, considering they wrote flagship titles one after the other. In addition, we also had memorables runs like Yost/Kyle's New X-Men and Peter David's 2nd X-Factor.

1. 80s - Self-explanatory.

[mozzle]

60s
This era sucks...

90s
I got no love for the 90s. It's when we mistook cynism as maturity.

70s
Top tier X-Men stories in this decade, but not enough of them.

10s
Love Bendis, love Hickman

00s
Highest highs, lowest lows.

80s
The best by far.

[JTFSXX]

60s
This era sucks...

90s
I got no love for the 90s. It's when we mistook cynism as maturity.

70s
Top tier X-Men stories in this decade, but not enough of them.

10s
Love Bendis, love Hickman

00s
Highest highs, lowest lows.

80s
The best by far.

Yep. This.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

The X-Men had a single great decade (The Eighties), and then after that they had patches of good years. Like the 2000s was weak but it started out strong with Morrison's New X-Men followed by Whedon's Astonishing, and then there was House of M and Decimation...the 2010s was weak but it ended strong with Hickman. The 70s had the X-Men in reprints until Giant Size X-Men and the Claremont Revolution at the end of the decade.

Overall, I'd say the X-Men's best decades are: 80s > 70s > 90s > 2000s > 60s > 2010s.

However with the way Hickman's run started, the 2020s might shape up to be great too.

[Nopozyzy]

1. 90s
2. 00s
3. 10s
4. 80s
5. 70s
6. 60s

[CoCoBandz]

From worst to best

10s - What's understood ain't gotta be explained...

90s - Vapid and overgratuitous

60s - Hi boomers

70s early half - Meh

00s - My starting decade. Not the worst not the best, but some of the best and some of the worst.


80s and 70s later half - Made me really appreciate not just the X-Men, but comics in general and what a good pen can make you love.

[AbnormallyNormal]

It's hard to answer this, compress entire decade of comics into a single assessment

Even common formulations like "90s were cynical" are not true, because there is a huge variety of comics in the 90s many of which were very "wholesome" and innocent.

Hmm I guess if I had to do this, someone put a gun to my head and made me create a list (My criteria might be mainly how willing I am to re-read X-comics from each decade at this point in time):

6. 60s - In hindsight a lot of this is fascinating but only in hindsight because of what was done with it later. And there is far too much "filler"/Monster of the Month type schlock. And overly convoluted/nonsensical plots as well. But still, introductions of Xavier, O5, Magneto, Brotherhood, Juggernaut, concept of Sentinels, etc etc. Really important foundationally. Also late 60s started to improve, introduction of Polaris, Havok, and so on. Art got a bit more experimental.

5. 70s - Not enough content. What was there was explosive and interesting but to be honest the 70s era stuff was only very beginning, and it hadn't really hit its stride or fired on all cylinders as of yet. But it was getting there (still had some problems with "filler" and utterly forgettable adversaries)

4. 80s - Extremely good and classic stuff but idk if I find it as entertaining or worth reading now. It set the pace and laid the groundwork for so many later things though.

3. 10s - The Marvel being owned by Disney and the success of Iron Man movie is what really ruined this whole era. People called it a wild conspiracy at the time but it's been essentially proven to be the case by now. It wasn't that writers "had no good ideas" or anything like that at all. It was Disney didn't want X-Men to succeed plain and simple. Also there was far too much unwillingness to make real changes, which created a sense of stagnancy. But there were really good books "on the margins" like the satellite titles were extremely readable. And I loved a lot of what Bendis set up, but he failed badly in his final third execution.

2. 90s - An era mostly marked by being "spectacularly over the top" like the writers trying to follow up on Claremont as basically the single creative vision were scrambling to keep the mythos going, but it veered into so many different directions. Also marked by CROSSOVER and EVENT mania, which tied into basically the crash of the entire comic industry and Marvel having to sell off the rights to XMen, FF, and Spiderman. "Gritty antiheroes" became more of a thing and I'd be lying if I said those weren't essentially my introduction into the world of comics altogether, so my view is a lot more open and positive towards that. Lots of really readable stuff, but there was an increasing feeling of exhaustion by the end, that things were being done in "formulas" and it didn't feel like actual human beings were using their own creativity, also stopped feeling as meaningful or philosophical over time. By the end of the 90s, the comic code went away and the books started having writers names on their covers, and the cover art in general became much more experimental. These were signals of what was to come.

1. 00s - Wonderful! The best era and most readable precisely because this was when Marvel as a company was at its lowest point and basically got desperate enough to just allow highly creative artists to "take over" and do what they wanted. Like others said it leads to high highs AND low lows but at least it made things wild and interesting and feel new/relevant again. Lots of CHANGES to the X-mythos happened in the 00s. Very good runs, not just Morrison (who is way better than Whedon, Whedon's run is mega overrated), but the Peter David XFactor run and the Mike Carey XMen Legacy run. Even the "hated" runs like Austen's produced some valuable and intriguing content. Turning X-Force into "X-Statix" under Allred, turning Cable into "Soldier X". Amazing breaths of fresh air which Marvel has yet to really allow to happen again! (And yes including our current Dawn of X, which to me is still not even close to that level of creativity or experimentation as in the 00s)

[Electricmastro]

6. 60s - In hindsight a lot of this is fascinating but only in hindsight because of what was done with it later. And there is far too much "filler"/Monster of the Month type schlock. And overly convoluted/nonsensical plots as well. But still, introductions of Xavier, O5, Magneto, Brotherhood, Juggernaut, concept of Sentinels, etc etc. Really important foundationally. Also late 60s started to improve, introduction of Polaris, Havok, and so on. Art got a bit more experimental.

I definitely think Stan's run with those first 19 issues was a decent start, it's just that I get the feeling that Roy Thomas wasn't quite there yet in figuring out what to do with the X-Men until Neal Adams came along, and Gary Friedrich and Arnold Drake's runs before that didn't quite change matters either. Despite Roy and the others' best intentions, it probably meandered too much for too long from like mid-1966 to mid-1969. After Frankenstein robots, mutant pharaohs, and all those sorts of things, it's pretty evident that the conclusion Roy and Neal seem to come to was to go back to the drawing board and look at what I presume they thought were Stan's best X-Men issues, which were the ones with the Sentinels in #14-16. By #59, as great as it was, it was too little, too late, but like with Star Trek, I think it was mainly due to people revisiting the older material after cancellation, also encouraged by the reprints, that more people started looking at the Sentinel stories and Neal Adams' particularly compelling art and layout, earning it a sort of cult status that I think eventually justified a continuation by 1974 or so.

[Purplevit]

1. 90s
2. 00s
3. 10s
4. 80s
5. 70s
6. 60s

[MrSinister]

60s most of the decade boring as hell
10s Hickman saved it a little. 20s would be much better i think. Although i loooove uncanny x-force.
90s When i started reading the x-men as a kid because of TAS
00s Morisson, Whedon, Messiah complex, Mike Carey.
70s 75-80 for me is the best period of x-men.
80s love it. Everything.

[Shadowcat]

1. 80’s
2. 70’s
3. 90’s
4. 00’s
5. 60’s

[Alphaxman]

With the decade coming to an end, how were the stories in the 2010's compared to what's come before?

For me, from worst to best:

6. 60s - Not much to say, really. These stories were just bad, even for their time.

5. 10s - In all fairness, I was pretty off and on with this decade. I went through some long periods where I didn't read any stories, yet I still feel confident in saying that this was one of the worst decades. HoX/PoX was the one saving grace, and that didn't even come until the very end. it just seemed like none of the writers or editors really knew what to do. So many status quo changes that didn't stick. Overall, a terrible time for X-Men fans.

4. 90s - Noticeable jump in quality from the previous two. Admittedly, the 90's for the X-Men wasn't that bad compared to other Marvel heroes. There were definitely some good titles, but the biggest problem lied in the high expectations that writers had to face after Claremont left. All in all though, this era wasn't bad, and this was the team at their peak in popularity.

3. 70s - This would be higher but the first half of this decade consists of reprints. The second half, though, gave us Claremont/Cockrum/Byrne, which pretty much laid the foundation for everything that came afterwards. The X-Men pretty much started in the 70s.

2. 00s - After writers struggled to follow Claremont in the 90s, Morrison and Whedon would give us back-to-back definitive runs. It's actually really impressive that these two are considered the best X-Men writers, next to Claremont, considering they wrote flagship titles one after the other. In addition, we also had memorables runs like Yost/Kyle's New X-Men and Peter David's 2nd X-Factor.

1. 80s - Self-explanatory.

Agree with everything stated.