Final thoughts on "Year One" of X-Men (2021-22)?

[Krakoa]

One thing I think this book was missing was character relationships beyond the pre-established and Synch/Jean/Scott (I feel Marauders lacked this too). I want to see friendship develop between Sunfire and Polaris, or X-23 and Cyclops.

[BESTXMAN]

It was a waste. There was a lot of good stuff here that didn't get to flesh out. In comic time this team looks like it was together for 2 months at best. It just wasn't enough time. Rogue, Sunfire and Lorna were completely wasted.

[Saithor]

We did not get Headless Cyclops Horseman in the Nightmare issue. I remain disappointed.

Actually found that issue overall disappointing.

Overall it was okay.

Am kinda irritated Lorna got nabbed from X-factor to this although that is not in any way on Duggan.

[The BaRoN]

Larraz is also off the book.

A unique and interesting line up with marvels best artist has been completely wasted, now they reboot the team for a quick sales boost.

[Saithor]

Honestly the election idea does have merit, the main issue is the more decompressed nature comics have favored as of late, combined with writers having stories they want to tell and existing permanent cast members they want to focus on before also having a rotating supporting cast some of which they may not get to decide and might not even want.

As it becomes increasingly clear Firestar is the likely winner I become increasingly concerned Duggan might just make her a straw woman for every fan complaint about the Krakoa era and also every negative fan stereotype of non-mutant characters in Marvel.

[Thundershot]

I enjoyed it, for the most part. My beef is that I would prefer an X-men team formed organically. Someone joins out of the blue. Someone leaves out of the blue. Having a vote or a rigid roster works better with Avengers (in the good old days).

[andreikes]

Captain Krakoa started with no nexus and ended with nothing.

Fan service for Jean's fans but without any development.

Sync had a nice development.

The others: it was the others

Pepe's art is always impeccable

[Weather]

In the art department, the book was stellar. Pepe Larraz elevates any story he draws and the fill-in artists also did a great job. It's rare to have books that remain consistently good at art.

The story itself is fun to read, almost all the X-men have their personalities well defined (except Laura), the mysteries were nice and the new villains aren't bad. I don't think 12 issues is too little to develop a team of characters, as other runs have shown. A skilled writer does this without problems, so the rotational casting doesn't bother me in concept.

The big problem for me was the decompression of the story. Many issues could be read in 5 minutes, so little dialogue it had. Duggan clearly wanted to highlight the amazing artists he worked with, but it was in detriment to the story. Gillen, for example, is able to give artists chances to shine and he still writes a lot in a single issue.

It lacked good interactions between characters, some team members were practically elevated supporting characters in their own book. Rogue and Solaris mostly. Some issues like the one with Lady Deathstrike had little relevance, he could have continued with his main plots.

I believe as a TPB it will be a great read. As a monthly book, it often left something to be desired, despite the above-average quality. I think the biggest disappointment is that Duggan can clearly deliver more, as he shows time and time again, but he didn't want to go down that path.

[Milici]

They should keep Larraz and get rid of Duggan. The purpose of this team was to be the krakoan PR and helping normal humans, but the same writer gave us X-Men Green where the same X-Men let Nature Girl roam around killing people for shits and giggles which make them as incompetente, usuless and hypocritical as Percy's X-Force.

[Lukmendes]

Art was great, stories were forgettable.

As far as characters go, I think the one who benefitted the most from is Polaris, she constantly showed her personality even when she wasn't the focus by having small moments, no one else had that, or at least not to the same extent.

Everyone else except Laura and Rogue had cool moments and even got something interesting to do, but problem is it was generally particular instead of being in a team, issue#12 is where they look as a team and it's when a few characters are separated, the Synch/Laura shit was really whatever and bad for both of them, Laura had it worse since she did little else, Synch had other stuff going on, but I couldn't care at all about his feelings for Laura.

The comic is also in this weird state where it's both decompressed and rushed, it wastes way too much time in random, easy to solve adventures, but not as much on developing other stuff, including character interactions, Synch mostly interacts with Jean and thinks about Laura, then starts to talk with Cyke, Cyke only ever interacts with Jean and later on with Synch, I'm not sure if Sunfire talked much with anyone else, Rogue mostly interacts with Gambit... Stuff like that, and the comic struggling to make proper use of the characters as a team, made it not feel like a team.

Captain Krakoa shit also did little for the plot, Cyke even dropped it for no reason when facing Stasis/Sinister.

So yeah, it's just a serviceable comic, it's not terrible, or even bad, but it only ever shines in particular character moments, and in a team setting like this, and the random adventures, it makes it look like it lacks focus.

[Micabe]

Is X-men: Hellfire Gala #1 currently on sale?

[AJpyro]

C- to B-

Cyke had a plot I didn't care for. Sync had some good development but felt it was too quick.
Nothing for Rogue.
Jean just kept shining. Good for her.
No arc for Polaris
No arc for Laura.
Sunfire?

Its a standard Superhero book and thats fine but just fine is not good enough.

PS: I'm still annoyed about the headless horseman issue. Feel Blue balled.

[Saithor]

C- to B-

Cyke had a plot I didn't care for. Sync had some good development but felt it was too quick.
Nothing for Rogue.
Jean just kept shining. Good for her.
No arc for Polaris
No arc for Laura.
Sunfire?

Its a standard Superhero book and thats fine but just fine is not good enough.

PS: I'm still annoyed about the headless horseman issue. Feel Blue balled.

I know right? Seriously that entire issue felt like a bit of a waste, Nightmare showed up, popped in a few people’s heads, got whacked by Jean, end of comic. Felt like a very mediocre halloween issue.

[salarta]

I know right? Seriously that entire issue felt like a bit of a waste, Nightmare showed up, popped in a few people’s heads, got whacked by Jean, end of comic. Felt like a very mediocre halloween issue.

As a Lorna fan, that issue disappointed me because it would've been a perfect opportunity to acknowledge the Genoshan genocide for Lorna after over 15 years of ignoring it. I can tell you right now that if the issue had done that, and done it respectfully, I would've bought multiple physical copies and pushed hard for people to read and support the book. Not doing that is part of what led to me losing interest in reading the book as it went on.

[johnnysv75]

I loved the art and I liked the story. I really like how Duggan writes Jean.

But I don’t get the whole ”change the line-up after 12 issues”. What with solicitations being so early, we hardly get to read about the current team before we are teased about the next line-up. It makes it hard to care for the current team.

And the annual gala is so weird. So a year IRL is now a year in the X-Men world as well? So will the X-Men age? But will time in the rest of the Marvel Universe continue to be the vague weeks/months? So a year for the X-Men will be ”several weeks” for Spider-Man? Have they really considered what the annual gala, and a year actually being a year, would actually mean for the rest of the Marvel Universe?

I guess my main criticism about the book is that it didn’t feel like a year passed in the book. I didn’t really feel how the team grew closer. I wish they had continued with the current line-up for a while longer.

(And I wish they will stop with the ridiculous gala since it is a boring, pointless event, but that has nothing to do with the X-Men book, other than the gala being the starting point for every new line-up.)