When did X-Men get too dark?

[Marvelgirl]

What is with all the recent complaining in the last five-seven years that X-Men is too dark. X-Men is too depressing. X-Men needs to have a playful tone. My awareness comes from people who watch the current comic movies, mostly the MCU films. This assumption is further gotten from X-Men movies being a sharp contrast to the MCU movies in tone and story.

X-Men was always dark, depressing often open to interpretation, many times playful but not turning into a spoof. I would go as far as to say the comics are darker than the movies people watch more than read to get the perception of a fraudulent dark X-Men.

How long has X-Men been around? The comics do have some reputations. Darkness was a big part of it. Some now want X-Men to be GOTG, Captain Marvel and Avengers. They tell me Days future past or Logan was more of a Fox thing. They have zero clue those movies are heavily linked to a precise X-Men comic that were much darker than what we even watched. They want something more playful. Not only do I find this intellectually offensive as a 36 year old comic fan girl, I am stunned by the zero tolerance thoughts of millennials. Millennial comic fans should stop saying X-Men is dark.

[Snoop Dogg]

when professor x got the hots for a student and sent five kids to fight a terrorist capable of mass murder

[Marvelgirl]

when professor x got the hots for a student and sent five kids to fight a terrorist capable of mass murder

It was when Claremont rebooted the books in the 1970s. Not much has really changed. Goodluck Millennial marvel with trying to do what cannot be undone.

[Triniking1234]

When giant robots killed a guy with lasers in the Saturday morning cartoon.

[gurkle]

IMO while X-Men was never light and fluffy, it became much darker in the '80s, especially after Ann Nocenti took over as editor. Her most famous act was replacing Sal Buscema with Bill Sienkiewicz on "New Mutants" but she also edited some stories like "Mutant Massacre" that were darker than what had come before, and the tone of the book became much more like it was in a one-off like "God Loves, Man Kills," where the mutants are rarely really happy or safe.

Compare that to the Claremont/Byrne run, where persecution of mutants was only rarely mentioned and even something like "Days of Future Past" turned into a standard X-Men vs. Brotherhood of Evil Mutants fight near the end (probably because Byrne preferred the X-Men to be closer to a standard superhero comic). I could certainly see someone who fell in love with those comics finding the later '80s and '90s stuff to be too gloomy. I'm sure there were people who felt that way at the time.

[Nigel909]

What is with all the recent complaining in the last five-seven years that X-Men is too dark. X-Men is too depressing. X-Men needs to have a playful tone. My awareness comes from people who watch the current comic movies, mostly the MCU films. This assumption is further gotten from X-Men movies being a sharp contrast to the MCU movies in tone and story.

X-Men was always dark, depressing often open to interpretation, many times playful but not turning into a spoof. I would go as far as to say the comics are darker than the movies people watch more than read to get the perception of a fraudulent dark X-Men.

How long has X-Men been around? The comics do have some reputations. Darkness was a big part of it. Some now want X-Men to be GOTG, Captain Marvel and Avengers. They tell me Days future past or Logan was more of a Fox thing. They have zero clue those movies are heavily linked to a precise X-Men comic that were much darker than what we even watched. They want something more playful. Not only do I find this intellectually offensive as a 36 year old comic fan girl, I am stunned by the zero tolerance thoughts of millennials. Millennial comic fans should stop saying X-Men is dark.

Strongly disagree . The x men were not always dark and depressing . When I started reading they were very optimistic . Who could forget celebrations at the Cafe a go -go ?

[Phoenixx9]

I think it started 1985-1986.

[Devaishwarya]

Since GSXM? The X-Men always had their "too-dark" elements/moments throughout their decades-long existence.

[Huntsman Spider]

When state-sponsored genocides and pogroms of mutants started becoming a recurring feature of the setting and went unpunished and unavenged.

[Captain Nash]

Edit never mind- I misread the question! SIGH.

[From The Shadows]

I wouldn't say its just the millennials fault here as people of many ages enjoy those MCU movies. Millenials also love dark stuff like Game of Thrones, Dexter and Breaking Bad but it sounds like they weren't prepared for the doom and gloom of the Marvels X-Brand since most of the MCU output has been classic heroey stuff. Funny thing is comics used to get laughed at for being too lame with all the supposed wholesome heroes. Actually, I'm surprised to hear anyone say that somethings too dark these days. When it started getting too dark for me was "Outback Era" and though I loved the team and the era I was glad to have something like Excalibur to balance it out because X-Factor and NM's weren't going to do anything because they were just as dark but not enough to pass up where unlike now it just seems like the constantly dark tone is just a ploy to prove comics aren't just for kids and it really hasn't been already especially starting in the 80s. The 90s X-Books seemed to have become more of the Byrne era where they were more superheroey again and there was a balance between light/dark. The cartoon may have inspired this.

[Oheao]

It was when Claremont rebooted the books in the 1970s. Not much has really changed. Goodluck Millennial marvel with trying to do what cannot be undone.

Claremont didn't even reboot it though, that was Cockrum and Wein. Honestly, I was pretty shocked when I found out he didn't do Giant Size X-Men because I associate that era of X-Men with him.

Personally, I'd say God Loves, Man Kills in 1982 was pretty dark, it was essentially Dark Knight Returns before Dark Knight Returns.

[From The Shadows]

Claremont didn't even reboot it though, that was Cockrum and Wein. Honestly, I was pretty shocked when I found out he didn't do Giant Size X-Men because I associate that era of X-Men with him.

Wein gets left out a lot because he wrote only one issue but that's understandable. He helped set the stage though, so he should get props for that.

[Killerbee911]

The X-men is not one thing or other. The most annoying about these discussion is people acting like X-men is nothing but mutant persecution book with grimdark stories. X-men is also action adventure story where they fight aliens,robots and supervillians. X-men is just as much adventures to Mojoworld,The Savage land, In space with the Starjammers, fighting Dracula and oh yeah occasionally they fight large mutant island name Krakoa as it is dark storylines. It is balance of being a great able to tell fantastic adventures stories and serious meaningful social stories with comic book twist is what makes X-men great.

[Bunch of Coconuts]

This notion that something can’t handle dark themes without also having levity (and dare I say “fun”?) to it is a really weird one.