Did Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, and Bob Harris ruin the X-Men?

[BroHomo]

Magik's story at it's most basic level is that of an abuse victim attempting not to become the same as her abuser. Moving beyond that it is a story about whether good can come from evil, whether it is possible to use power that is inherently evil to do good. Beyond that it is the story of a person facing the same dilemma Jean did in the Dark Phoenix Saga and making the exact opposite choice - having to maintain total control at all times or risk destroying the world. Where Jean chose to end her life then and there Illyana chose to say 'someday I'll fall, but not today' and to keep living and fighting. One of the main appeals of her character in the 80s was that she was designed with an endpoint in mind which was unusual for for a superhero character and gave her a sense of inevitability and danger that was and still remains rare. It ultimately did not matter what she did, her ending was pre-ordained like a character from a Greek tragedy. That particular aspect no longer applies in quite the same way. She's still a character who is not going to get a happy ending, but her story is no longer building towards a single inevitable tragic conclusion in part because of how much she's grown since those days. But the other aspects still apply. She slips occasionally and becomes more like Belasco, having to then struggle even harder to stop being like him. The dark stain on her soul still taints every good thing she does. When she asks a child she finds stranded on an island 'How many sleeps' that child was there, that line comes from an understanding of the child's situation based on her being stranded in a frozen wilderness for a year. When she puts Doug through tough love training to get him ready for the tournament, that carries the background of her having not only seen many friends and loved ones die, but having had to mercy kill several of them and never wanting to have to go through that again. It also has a background of her going very easy on Doug compared to how tough her own sword training was. Her sword isn't just a flashy weapon, it's a piece of her soul and a reminder of what she had to sacrifice to end the years of abuse she suffered as a child.

You talk about Gambit and self-hate and trust issues. Magik was doing all of that years earlier. When she came back from Limbo the X-Men did not trust her because they couldn't be sure she wasn't brainwashed over the years and sent back as a trojan horse. The New Mutants didn't trust her because having spent half her life in Limbo she didn't understand normal human behavior and therefore acted strangely. Then when she revealed her sorceress powers they feared her even more and some of them outright hated her. As much as that hurt her, she felt they were right to fear and hate her and hated herself just as much. That self-hatred is what motivates her worst actions. When Belasco recreates her as a soulless beast, she steals a part of Pixie's soul to get revenge on him for giving her such a wretched existence. But knowing what she's done, she later asks Pixie to kill her as atonement for that act. Her abuse of Colossus under Gillen was a giant plea of 'look at me! can't you see I'm nothing but a monster?' Sometimes she earns the mistrust of others through her own actions and then has to work harder to earn it back even as she feels she doesn't deserve it. That's also the background for her conversation with Glob when he talks about his abuse and how angry he is at himself for being angry. Her advice about a little anger being ok and needing to look at the good as well as the bad is based on having gone through all of that herself.

All the aggressive attitude, one liners, and cool visuals are just the surface built on top of that deep edifice.

YAS!!!
let 'em Know Hunty!!

And what happened after the Raimi Spider-Man movies for one example? Peter gained organic webshooters. I would say that can be called "much".
Another are the X-Men adapting the movie uniforms or Wolverine suddenly getting taller and looking more like Jackman.

The Spiderman thing just seemed like it was an obvious update to the character.
The black costumes the XMen rocked for a while wasnt that big a deal IMHO. They definitely paired very well with the direction Morrison took the team. Eh Wolverine always looked like a white muscular brunette dude.

[lowfyr]

The Spiderman thing just seemed like it was an obvious update to the character.
The black costumes the XMen rocked for a while wasnt that big a deal IMHO. They definitely paired very well with the direction Morrison took the team. Eh Wolverine always looked like a white muscular brunette dude.

It happened after the first Raimi movie, so it counts.
The same for the costume change.
He was not tall and did certainly did not look like Jackman.

[Ricochet Rita]

Magik's story at it's most basic level is that of an abuse victim attempting not to become the same as her abuser. Moving beyond that it is a story about whether good can come from evil, whether it is possible to use power that is inherently evil to do good. Beyond that it is the story of a person facing the same dilemma Jean did in the Dark Phoenix Saga and making the exact opposite choice - having to maintain total control at all times or risk destroying the world. Where Jean chose to end her life then and there Illyana chose to say 'someday I'll fall, but not today' and to keep living and fighting. One of the main appeals of her character in the 80s was that she was designed with an endpoint in mind which was unusual for for a superhero character and gave her a sense of inevitability and danger that was and still remains rare. It ultimately did not matter what she did, her ending was pre-ordained like a character from a Greek tragedy. That particular aspect no longer applies in quite the same way. She's still a character who is not going to get a happy ending, but her story is no longer building towards a single inevitable tragic conclusion in part because of how much she's grown since those days. But the other aspects still apply. She slips occasionally and becomes more like Belasco, having to then struggle even harder to stop being like him. The dark stain on her soul still taints every good thing she does. When she asks a child she finds stranded on an island 'How many sleeps' that child was there, that line comes from an understanding of the child's situation based on her being stranded in a frozen wilderness for a year. When she puts Doug through tough love training to get him ready for the tournament, that carries the background of her having not only seen many friends and loved ones die, but having had to mercy kill several of them and never wanting to have to go through that again. It also has a background of her going very easy on Doug compared to how tough her own sword training was. Her sword isn't just a flashy weapon, it's a piece of her soul and a reminder of what she had to sacrifice to end the years of abuse she suffered as a child.

You talk about Gambit and self-hate and trust issues. Magik was doing all of that years earlier. When she came back from Limbo the X-Men did not trust her because they couldn't be sure she wasn't brainwashed over the years and sent back as a trojan horse. The New Mutants didn't trust her because having spent half her life in Limbo she didn't understand normal human behavior and therefore acted strangely. Then when she revealed her sorceress powers they feared her even more and some of them outright hated her. As much as that hurt her, she felt they were right to fear and hate her and hated herself just as much. That self-hatred is what motivates her worst actions. When Belasco recreates her as a soulless beast, she steals a part of Pixie's soul to get revenge on him for giving her such a wretched existence. But knowing what she's done, she later asks Pixie to kill her as atonement for that act. Her abuse of Colossus under Gillen was a giant plea of 'look at me! can't you see I'm nothing but a monster?' Sometimes she earns the mistrust of others through her own actions and then has to work harder to earn it back even as she feels she doesn't deserve it. That's also the background for her conversation with Glob when he talks about his abuse and how angry he is at himself for being angry. Her advice about a little anger being ok and needing to look at the good as well as the bad is based on having gone through all of that herself.

All the aggressive attitude, one liners, and cool visuals are just the surface built on top of that deep edifice.

Absolutely.

I personally believe that 'Magik' former Limited Series is Claremont's best job as a whole.

[AdamFTF]

Magik's story at it's most basic level is that of an abuse victim attempting not to become the same as her abuser. . .

Okay! Mea culpa!

But I still find I can get a hold of Gambit's story a bit easier than Magik's. Maybe because being raised a criminal is more human a thing than being raised a demon sorceress. Or maybe it's because I haven't been able to read many New Mutants stories and the ones I have were derailed by weird, problematic stuff (like, what's with the weird race-swapping in "Demon Bear"?). Or maybe it's because the story of little Illyana's death from the Legacy Virus was a major thing for my early comics reading days and it's weird to see her come back as some kind of magical warrior (Illyana's death for '90s fans=Jean's death for '80s fans).

But ultimately, does any of this conversation really matter. Back in the '90s, things happened and that's the way it is. Claremont was removed and other people were put on. Playing "What If?" with the past isn't going to help anything. I mean, I have similar feelings about them removing Lobdell from Generation X. The changes made afterward completely torpedoed the character Penance was supposed to be. But talking about it feels kind of pointless.

[sunofdarkchild]

Okay! Mea culpa!

But I still find I can get a hold of Gambit's story a bit easier than Magik's. Maybe because being raised a criminal is more human a thing than being raised a demon sorceress. Or maybe it's because I haven't been able to read many New Mutants stories and the ones I have were derailed by weird, problematic stuff (like, what's with the weird race-swapping in "Demon Bear"?). Or maybe it's because the story of little Illyana's death from the Legacy Virus was a major thing for my early comics reading days and it's weird to see her come back as some kind of magical warrior (Illyana's death for '90s fans=Jean's death for '80s fans).

But ultimately, does any of this conversation really matter. Back in the '90s, things happened and that's the way it is. Claremont was removed and other people were put on. Playing "What If?" with the past isn't going to help anything. I mean, I have similar feelings about them removing Lobdell from Generation X. The changes made afterward completely torpedoed the character Penance was supposed to be. But talking about it feels kind of pointless.

I hear you. Little Illyana's death is actually much more impactful if you're familiar with her past history when she was older. When she was a teenager she and Kitty were best friends and practically soulmates. She was also the student Magneto was the closest to during his stint as a good guy and headmaster of the school. She she sacrificed herself to end Inferno and was de-aged to before she was kidnapped to Limbo, and this was already hard for Kitty, Magneto, and the New Mutants to deal with. The only comfort was that it was the best ending Illyana could have hoped for. Jean explained a little bit of how she used to be older in the death issue and Storm talked about 'the defense of a dream in which she was engaged for almost half her life' and how she triumphed over her inner darkness at the funeral. People who were familiar with her history understood why Illyana's death would be a push for Magneto to return to villainy and why it would so devastating to the X-Men. They didn't just fail this child they loved. They failed her again and again. First they couldn't protect her from being abducted to Limbo. Then they weren't there for her when she needed them most which led to Inferno and her having to sacrifice herself, and now they had failed for the final time and squandered the second chance she had given up everything for.



More than the little innocent kid, Kitty is mourning the person who was willing to do that for her.

[yogaflame]

Illyana's story should have ended with that Legacy virus story. She's been a very thin character since they brought her back.

[sunofdarkchild]

A lot of things should have been different. If I could go back in time Claremont would never have left New Mutants to Simonsen and Belasco would have been the villain of Inferno instead of never-before-hear-of demon.

The 2 main reasons I support bringing her back are 1. Simonsen screwed up the New Mutants part of Inferno so badly and her return actually brought a certain sense of closure since she finally got to face Belasco again and then deal with the Elder Gods that were the source of everything. The other is that she came back as a fundamentally different character than either the old Magik or the little child and was even more broken than before. That's a very different way of bringing a character back than the usual 'oh, they're back' or 'lol, was never dead in the first place.'

As for the 'thin character,' let's agree to disagree very, very strongly. I could write much longer essays about her character depth.

[yogaflame]

Maybe you could, but the writers at Marvel haven't. All she does these days is swing a stupid anime sword around and be 'mean' or whatever. Gone is the depth of her struggles as in the 80s.

I agree Claremont 's NM run was epic, maybe even better than his Uncanny at times, and there was a huge drop in quality when Weezie took over. Inferno was anticlimactic for her arc, but the modern stuff has not been satisfying in this regard either. To me she's just hollow now.

[sunofdarkchild]

Maybe you could, but the writers at Marvel haven't. All she does these days is swing a stupid anime sword around and be 'mean' or whatever. Gone is the depth of her struggles as in the 80s.

I agree Claremont 's NM run was epic, maybe even better than his Uncanny at times, and there was a huge drop in quality when Weezie took over. Inferno was anticlimactic for her arc, but the modern stuff has not been satisfying in this regard either. To me she's just hollow now.

She does a lot more than be mean. In fact a lot of the time she's very empathetic to others. Bendis had her as the teacher the kids considered the 'nice one' and connecting to Bo. Lemire if anything went too far in making her nice with the whole Sapna plot. Dead Souls had her struggling with being a leader and breaking down in tears over losing a member of her team. Two issues ago she was comforting and hugging Glob. Even her training Doug isn't her being mean and he knows it. He's aware that she's holding back and trying to keep him alive because she cares about him.

Her struggle is also still there. The Darkchild persona can still take over if she loses control and has several times in the last few years, but it's less of an all-consuming danger because she's more mature, more comfortable with who she is, and more emotionally stable now than she was as a teen fresh from Limbo.

[Castle]

And what happened after the Raimi Spider-Man movies for one example? Peter gained organic webshooters. I would say that can be called "much".
Another are the X-Men adapting the movie uniforms or Wolverine suddenly getting taller and looking more like Jackman.
So it happened even before Disney buying Marvel.
So please do not use this for your vendetta against Disney.

And seeing that Spider-Man for example did not adapt to the last two movies version I would guess that the comics are a lot more safe from adapting to the movie version than before. But I am sure you will manage to "adapt" that to an Anti-Disney Rant.

Raimi favoured organic web shooters to make peter more relatable it was a good modern update of Spiderman's special powers.

X-Men characters go through different uniforms. Grant Morrison's uniform were the best but Morrison is also highly commended for introducing many new things in X-Men. If we are talking of movies, then that is different. uniforms does not have to look like the comics in movies many times it just looks plain silly. I am fine with unrealistic costumes as Easter eggs in movies.

And seeing that Spider-Man for example did not adapt to the last two movies version I would guess that the comics are a lot more safe from adapting to the movie version than before. But I am sure you will manage to "adapt" that to an Anti-Disney Rant.

The organic web spiderman movies are the greatest spiderman movies, they likely played the biggest part in keeping marvel (x-men comics) from going bankrupt, now that would have ruined the series.

YAS!!!
let 'em Know Hunty!!


The Spiderman thing just seemed like it was an obvious update to the character.
The black costumes the XMen rocked for a while wasnt that big a deal IMHO. They definitely paired very well with the direction Morrison took the team. Eh Wolverine always looked like a white muscular brunette dude.

Grant Morrsion and Joss Whedon were polar opposite to uniforms. When Whedon took over he put them in colorful costumes again. I don't know how this matters primary, both Whedon and Morrison wrote some of the better X-men stories that did make up for some of the wtf 90s stories some want to say ruined the series.

[AdamFTF]

I hear you. Little Illyana's death is actually much more impactful if you're familiar with her past history when she was older. When she was a teenager she and Kitty were best friends and practically soulmates. She was also the student Magneto was the closest to during his stint as a good guy and headmaster of the school. She she sacrificed herself to end Inferno and was de-aged to before she was kidnapped to Limbo, and this was already hard for Kitty, Magneto, and the New Mutants to deal with. The only comfort was that it was the best ending Illyana could have hoped for. Jean explained a little bit of how she used to be older in the death issue and Storm talked about 'the defense of a dream in which she was engaged for almost half her life' and how she triumphed over her inner darkness at the funeral. People who were familiar with her history understood why Illyana's death would be a push for Magneto to return to villainy and why it would so devastating to the X-Men. They didn't just fail this child they loved. They failed her again and again. First they couldn't protect her from being abducted to Limbo. Then they weren't there for her when she needed them most which led to Inferno and her having to sacrifice herself, and now they had failed for the final time and squandered the second chance she had given up everything for.



More than the little innocent kid, Kitty is mourning the person who was willing to do that for her.

This may be something that is perceived on a couple of decent levels. If you're viewing it through Kitty or Storm's eyes, then it's about them failing someone who they've failed repeatedly. If you view it through Jubilee's eyes (like I did), then it's about an innocent little girl who didn't deserve the situation she was in.

But looking at the other comments here, I may have opened Pandora's Box.

[sunofdarkchild]

This may be something that is perceived on a couple of decent levels. If you're viewing it through Kitty or Storm's eyes, then it's about them failing someone who they've failed repeatedly. If you view it through Jubilee's eyes (like I did), then it's about an innocent little girl who didn't deserve the situation she was in.

But looking at the other comments here, I may have opened Pandora's Box.

It's both. It's many things at once. That's how death works. To one person the deceased may be a father, to another a friend, to another he may be the guy he saved from drowning many years ago when they were both kids. It's complicated that way.

[AdamFTF]

It's both. It's many things at once. That's how death works. To one person the deceased may be a father, to another a friend, to another he may be the guy he saved from drowning many years ago when they were both kids. It's complicated that way.

Isn't that what I said?

[lowfyr]

Raimi favoured organic web shooters to make peter more relatable it was a good modern update of Spiderman's special powers.

X-Men characters go through different uniforms. Grant Morrison's uniform were the best but Morrison is also highly commended for introducing many new things in X-Men. If we are talking of movies, then that is different. uniforms does not have to look like the comics in movies many times it just looks plain silly. I am fine with unrealistic costumes as Easter eggs in movies.





The organic web spiderman movies are the greatest spiderman movies, they likely played the biggest part in keeping marvel (x-men comics) from going bankrupt, now that would have ruined the series.

Your point was "Cartoons and movies don't affect the comics much." moving the goalposts as usual again,hm?

"The organic web spiderman movies are the greatest spiderman movies, they likely played the biggest part in keeping marvel (x-men comics) from going bankrupt, now that would have ruined the series"
And that does make even less sense than your usual rants.

[AbnormallyNormal]

I'm gonna say that it was probably inevitable for CC's hold on XMen to go away eventually, just due to the nature of big business. Victim of own success and all that stuff. When Xmen were obscure it was possible to give them fully to a relatively unheard of author and that allowed for potential. In the 80s the business side of comics was still relatively lowish and the corporate pressure to manage and oversee not as much, much more freedom allotted. All this would have changed by the 90s just due to the expanded opportunities for animation, TV, film etc. Toys even. These more structural conditions would have stifled creative impulse regardless of specific individuals or their short-term approaches.

By 2020 we can say perhaps it is more allowed again for even mainstream comics to veer and diverge and there isn't as much expectation of them cohering with their vastly more popular and lucrative offsprings in the TV/Cinema worlds... but still, the fact Hickman is vehemently against permanent death? Says a lot about why he's favored by Marvel. They don't want real change.

The essence of the Claremont run was realism and evolution, characters were not made absolutist cartoons of NOBLE HERO and CACKLING EVILDOER. There was ambiguity, there was implicit social commentary, there was a lot of subversive provocative content that you could think about. And the team lineup itself varied * a lot *. The idea was older characters could fade into the background and let newer generations replace them. Has this been permitted to continue at any point since ...? Nope. Sadly