I blame Werner Roth for causing the series to go downhill after the King left....
I blame Werner Roth for causing the series to go downhill after the King left....
Yeah, you're showing your bias here, since:
a) The "hot new things" all left within a year;
b) The sales nosedived under Harras, particularly in the mid-late 90's;
c) Every single creator that worked in the X-men books when he was in charge left complaining about editorial interference and changing plans on a whim;
d) Morrison saw a rise in both sales and interest in the X-men books bigger than since AoA at least, and Whedon that outsold him (and everyone else) wouldn't have come without his run, not to mention actually building things and leaving more possibilities for the future;
e) Not that it didn't had any problems, but Bendis' run outsold Aaron's and the Terrigen era comfortably, plus he brought all the toys back in the box to allow anyone that came next to build something up.
Once upon a time Chris Claremont was the man behind the X-Men. His ideas were revolutionary and his work supremely important in establishing them as the best book in comics... However, he gets far too much credit and no where near enough criticism for his work. Most importantly, I don't think that he was all that good on his own, he needed strong collaborators to make him great, Byrne, Cockrum, and most importantly Louise Simonson.
I also wasn't a huge fan of his work in the late 80's. I remember liking Mutant Massacre, but in my opinion, the quality of the main book started to drop after that. In fact and I know that some may find this sacrilegious but I was a much bigger fan of X-Factor (after Louise Simonson took over) in the late 80's than I was of the main X-Men. I actually found the "new" start for the X-Men in the 90's refreshing and enjoyed the early 90's X-Men much more than I did the late 80's until around Age of Apocalypse when I lost interest in comics for a while.
Last edited by Kisinith; 10-29-2020 at 09:47 PM.
Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld didn't ruin the X-men. At all.
X-men were already top sellers but they reached new heights under Lee and Liefeld. I would argue they were very instrumental (alongside the likes of Cockrum Claremont and Byrne) in the X-men becoming what they are now.
I loved and still love Lee's art, Liefeld's not so much.
I think they were decent plotters and generally had good grasp of characters, but I didn't like their actual writing - particularly Lobdell. It was so overwrought, everything was spelled out. There was not much subtlety.
As someone who started at Byrne/Claremont era, I thought Lobdell/Nicieza step down, although it is certainly true Claremont wasn't so great towards the end and he probably should have quit when he was still ahead, so to speak. Anyway I wouldn't say they 'ruined it', certainly there have been worse stuff.
I agree with the notion that Jim Lee did much to this era's popularity although personally I think his art maybe hasn't aged so well. Also in his time X-women were very much sexed up which probably explains much of the popularity.
Talking just on my behalf, I quit 'Blue' X-Men at #12 (I wasn't even buying 'Gold' UXM by then). I think that says it all. In fact, I think X-Men #10-11 is one of the clunkiest arcs (words and art) I've ever read.
And quitting was a hard decision for me, indeed.
The truest words ever said.
Simonsen and Liefeld ruined New Mutants and Harris was just bad for Marvel overall. But the X-Men I think were relatively unscathed in the early 90s compared to the rest of Marvel. Even the regressing to the status quo was a phenomenon that started in the mid-80s when they brought Jean back over Claremont's objections and the efforts to undo Magneto's becoming a good guy started before Harris if I remember correctly. For the most part the X-Men were in a holding pattern where they were based out of the school, led by a re-crippled Xavier, and fighting against prejudice. Things under Lobdel weren't moving forward in any meaningful way and were largely unremarkable, but never terrible. They played it safe for the most part. I think the animated series may have had a bad long-term affect by freezing a specific moment in time as THE X-MEN especially when some of its elements became extremely dated. That became the team people thought of not because that's when the writing or the characters were necessarily the best, but because that happened to be the team makeup when they finally got a cartoon off the ground.
Yes, I agree that those people ruined the X-Men for decades before Hickman picked it up. There were just no quality or consistency to the stories after that.
Jim Lee's art is great but he shouldn't have meddled in Chris Claremont's writing and think he could do a better job in story-telling than CC.
Jim Lee and Rob Liefield stories were more military and more violence oriented unlike Chris Claremont stories which were more family oriented and character based.
I can't find any story that matches Chris Claremont's stories before Hickman except maybe UXM 392.
Last edited by ericng; 10-30-2020 at 04:22 AM.
Liefeld is hated because of the way he drew his characters and him and Michael Bay shared the same mind in doing action scenes.
But No Liefeld, No X-Force. That to me is a win not a ruin.
A Claremont's run is always a comfort food read but Claremont set his bar so high that when he wrote an average story, Fans will call it the worst thing ever.
Claremont did great things for the X-Men early in his run but towards the end, I couldn't stomach his writing. It was unbearable.
I wouldn't say those three ruined X-Men because we did some good stories out of them. But comparing their heyday to Claremont's, Claremont wins.
I agree. His best work from around 86 or so is all crossovers- Mutant Massacre, Fall of the Mutants, Inferno, etc, where he was working with other writers. He seems to have a hard time letting go of some ideas, and at the same time after the X-men went through the Siege Perilous, the book just became directionless.
Exactly.