When did you stop reading X-Men?

[Darth Phoenix]

I left before Xcorp, period but returned around Civil War.

[MyriVerse]

Well, I'm totally done with Bendis. But thankfully, there are options.

[donpricetag]

I would say that the success of character like Kamala Khan or Spider-Gwen or Miles Morales very well proves that their is a potential market of readers to be explored. A market that is not interest in reading the 1000th story about Steve Rogers or Thor Odinson saving the day. When they haven't liked the 999 stories before they surely won't like the 1000th one either. They want something different. Exactly that is what Marvel is currently exploring.
Readership is shrinking but that is because the old readers obviously grow older and older and simply move on with their lives and the new ones are not interested in the stuff that the "old farts" read about. You are basically trying to sell classical music from the 18th century to people who want pop music or hip-hop or techno. That simply doesn't work.
No industry on this planet can afford to stagnate or not go with the times. Music, television, video games, movies and so on all evolve. It's kinda silly to think that comics would somehow be exempt from that. Yes that means that if you are one of the "old farts" you will eventually be pushed out completely but tough luck that is simply how life works. You will be replaced by younger people who won't share your tastes, interests, mindset, beliefs or attitude in all facets of life. If you want a Ford Model T because you like the mechanics, look and history then good luck since they are not produced anymore. Either you buy the new models that are produced or you don't and move on.



Same here.

Oh so you believe the success of Ms Marvel means that they tapped the interests of a throng of new readers? I think the same people who read Avengers are just picking up a new book and continue to read it because its well written. I don't think Marvel bought the hearts of anyone that wasn't already visiting their LCB, of course there are exceptions, but enough to carry a book? I'm a black male (Jamaican-Bahamian American to precise) from Miami FL. The creation of Miles Morales didn't entice me or any of my non comic book reading friends to start collecting Ultimate Spiderman (Somone asked me about Black Panther once). I for one don't recall any new faces at my LCB. I also manage a community center. It's 80% visited by teens and young adults. Throughout my entire career, I've seen one kid with a comic book in hand, it wasn't even recent. Not saying your wrong but their by the numbers approach to selling product to a dwindling market but still expecting peak sales, might not work.

[Galerion]

Oh so you believe the success of Ms Marvel means that they tapped the interests of a throng of new readers? I think the same people who read Avengers are just picking up a new book and continue to read it because its well written. I don't think Marvel bought the hearts of anyone that wasn't already visiting their LCB, of course there are exceptions, but enough to carry a book? I'm a black male (Jamaican-Bahamian American to precise) from Miami FL. The creation of Miles Morales didn't entice me or any of my non comic book reading friends to start collecting Ultimate Spiderman (Somone asked me about Black Panther once). I for one don't recall any new faces at my LCB. I also manage a community center. It's 80% visited by teens and young adults. Throughout my entire career, I've seen one kid with a comic book in hand, it wasn't even recent. Not saying your wrong but their by the numbers approach to selling product to a dwindling market but still expecting peak sales, might not work.

And you are ignoring the elephant in the room. Again move with the times and not be stuck in the past. In front of what kind of device are you and me currently sitting? Right and you can read buy and read comics with that. PC games are almost entirely distributed digitally nowadays. Steam has become a giant in the industry. The days where hard copies dominated are dwindling.
Digital numbers are kept secret by everyone but sometimes there are exceptions and they speak clearly.

http://www.polygon.com/2015/4/14/841...ale-characters

[DebkoX]

All New X-Men, it was good but got boring months into the arc(s).

[protege]

Back in the 90's, when there was a glut of xmen books, and a lot of the teams were adding a lot of bizarre looking characters. generation X was when i got tired of the complicated plots and shock value characters. I've picked up titles here and there since then, but I've never really been able to get back into it fully.

[JustAnotherFan]

Well, first time I really started to miss out on issues of X-Men after years of keeping up with them was during the Fraction's UXM run when I felt that there was too much focus on Cyclops alone at the expense of X-Men as a team. After that I still read X-Men comics though. I was picking and choosing what I read until AvX when I took a break for the duration of that event and then I continued picking and choosing until the Bendis era. I was on bard for couple of issues of Bendis before I dropped those titles and mainly focused on the satellite titles. But as the satellite titles were cancelled or lost my interest one after the other I just sort of fell out. I've only bought couple books since and I haven't generally liked the direction Marvel is taking with X-Men ATM. That is, the direction of keeping them in place stagnant. And now with Secret Wars I have completely jumped off MU and I'm fine with that. SW for me came at the ideal time in that regard. Now I can just think that X-Men are just dead for good!

Couldnt relate to or have interest the stories, nor did the main characters of said stories keep my attention. Everything felt like a filler, or spot saver. Just spinning their wheels while the rest of the surrounding universe moved along. I guess started loosing interest around the time they ended Spurrier's Legacy, Hopeless' X-Force and Asmus' Gambit. I gave Bendis' X-titles a try but I found them flat and unreadable in some points. Like they were tapping on a demographic that imo doesnt exist. Started reading PAD's X-Factor... started out pretty good but its kind of obvious his work started to wain once he found out the book was being canceled (even though it was outselling many other still existing books).

Yeah, pretty much this for me as well.

Marvel's whole marketing strategy and sales projections need to be revamped. Readership shrinks as a whole every year. Constantly alienating your current readership to chase a group that doesnt (new readers!) exist is lunacy. They need to temper their sales expectations to whats more achievable, and not to yesteryear. When they return to making good stories and not constantly trying to hit old bench mark sales points by forcing us (or trying) to buy a dozen tie-ins or relaunches, I think they'll find their stride again.

I would say that the success of character like Kamala Khan or Spider-Gwen or Miles Morales very well proves that their is a potential market of readers to be explored. A market that is not interest in reading the 1000th story about Steve Rogers or Thor Odinson saving the day. When they haven't liked the 999 stories before they surely won't like the 1000th one either. They want something different. Exactly that is what Marvel is currently exploring.
Readership is shrinking but that is because the old readers obviously grow older and older and simply move on with their lives and the new ones are not interested in the stuff that the "old farts" read about. You are basically trying to sell classical music from the 18th century to people who want pop music or hip-hop or techno. That simply doesn't work.
No industry on this planet can afford to stagnate or not go with the times. Music, television, video games, movies and so on all evolve. It's kinda silly to think that comics would somehow be exempt from that. Yes that means that if you are one of the "old farts" you will eventually be pushed out completely but tough luck that is simply how life works. You will be replaced by younger people who won't share your tastes, interests, mindset, beliefs or attitude in all facets of life. If you want a Ford Model T because you like the mechanics, look and history then good luck since they are not produced anymore. Either you buy the new models that are produced or you don't and move on.

Oh so you believe the success of Ms Marvel means that they tapped the interests of a throng of new readers? I think the same people who read Avengers are just picking up a new book and continue to read it because its well written. I don't think Marvel bought the hearts of anyone that wasn't already visiting their LCB, of course there are exceptions, but enough to carry a book? I'm a black male (Jamaican-Bahamian American to precise) from Miami FL. The creation of Miles Morales didn't entice me or any of my non comic book reading friends to start collecting Ultimate Spiderman (Somone asked me about Black Panther once). I for one don't recall any new faces at my LCB. I also manage a community center. It's 80% visited by teens and young adults. Throughout my entire career, I've seen one kid with a comic book in hand, it wasn't even recent. Not saying your wrong but their by the numbers approach to selling product to a dwindling market but still expecting peak sales, might not work.

I think you both have a point. Yes, Marvel has apparently managed to tap into a new audience with books like Ms. Marvel (just like DC has done with Batgirl) which I believe is the young fan girl audience that reads manga too and likes to write fanfic and cosplay as their favorites and that's why Marvel is putting out more books like that with Squirrel Girl and Moon Girl & Devil Dino. I think that similarly Marvel has managed to tap into new modern audience with books like Deadpool & Howard the Duck which is why Deadpool hasn't been totally killed off despite the issues with Fox having the film license. However this modern audience is only interested in these books and other books like them so it won't be likely to affect sales of say Avengers or Spider-Man all that much so Marvel is kind of chasing unicorns with the amount of bending over they're doing for the film synergy because it's not the general movie audience that is picking up their books more and more as it is the audience of young fan girls who read Harry Potter, Twilight and other YA novels and write fanfics about Loki or Sam & Dean in Supernatural, etc.

[donpricetag]

And you are ignoring the elephant in the room. Again move with the times and not be stuck in the past. In front of what kind of device are you and me currently sitting? Right and you can read buy and read comics with that. PC games are almost entirely distributed digitally nowadays. Steam has become a giant in the industry. The days where hard copies dominated are dwindling.
Digital numbers are kept secret by everyone but sometimes there are exceptions and they speak clearly.

http://www.polygon.com/2015/4/14/841...ale-characters

100% understand the times. 90% of my comic book reading is digital now, but I can guarantee if you looked into the phones and tabs of the kids at my center, little to none (most likely none) will have any kind of comic book app on it. Maybe a little out west of me, another one of our centers, where the demographic changes I might come across a few, a handful at best (among hundreds). On the other hand I have several older friends and cousins (in their 40s) that I can have more luck with. Again, this is south Florida, maybe it's different where you are. In the past you could find several comic book stores within a couple miles or so. Now I know of 3 in surrounding cities of my home. None closer than 10 or so miles.

[DrMindbender122]

Called it quits after Secret Wars #4.

[Muffinman]

I left the main x-titles after schism. Tried bendis and it just couldn't happen with the 05 being the it thing and I hated what cyclops became. Briefly returned for crossover events and kept reading Legacy throughout the Rogue and Legeion runs as well as Amazing for north and fire star and nightcrawler return. The Marvel now x books were an eye roll for me which is a shame. I'll be jumping back into it with extraordinary if it keeps my interest.

[Mideon]

I guess at Black Vortex, and then again when it went on hiatus for months for whatever reason. Previous to that I'd been reading since Fraction, but before him I stopped in 1994 haha

[DDD]

Some time before CC quit, quality had already dropped a lot IMHO (now we know why).

Savage Land / Shiar arc is when I started getting annoyed. It was filled with Hollywood Action Movie Cliches.

[Gray Lensman]

I put most of them down after the Last Will and Testament of Charles Xavier, picking up an occasional issue here and there. I stopped completely during Secret Wars.

[sid vicious]

Some time before CC quit, quality had already dropped a lot IMHO (now we know why). When he was gone, I made an effort to keep on; at the time the title split into two, I just bought X-Men because the characters I like the best were in the Blue Team. So I held on with horrid Lee & Lobdell writing and plots, and with bombastic drawing, till X-Men v. 2 #12 --then I couldn't stand it anymore, and I wrote a very sad letter-manifesto to editors in which I explained why I didn't gonna buy X-titles anymore (summarizing: "I just didn't care already for what may happen to my old friends").

I quit The New Mutants, too, right when Liefeld came (the horror! the horror!). Till then, Blevins' good work had allowed me to read the so-so Weezie's stories with pleasure, but after him...

Excalibur ended for me when Davis was gone (writing & drawing). That's pretty clear, no?

Since then, I've been taking a stab here and there, but I think that the only title I've really enjoyed (a lot!) is PAD's X-Factor.

Too bad...

pretty much the same in my case !

As a regular Vertigo reader, I came back only for Milligan's X-Force/X-Statix and Morrison and Whedon's X-Men and then dropped again. Didn't try Mike Carey's X-men by the way.
I just kept reading New Mutants V2 & V3 (until DnA), PAD's excellent X-Factor and Spurrier's Legacy and X-Force.

Since then I'm done with the X-titles: bored to see the same monolithics characters (even the dead ones come back, WTF !!!), tired of the never ending relaunchs (All new all different, nothing will never be the same ... etc) and I don't trust mercenaries authors who stay just for 1-2 years runs max. Comics are too expensive now, I prefer to invest in quality stuff from DC and Image instead ...

[Striderblack01]

When did I stop reading X-men?

When I realized everything that happened in Uncanny #32 should've happened in Uncanny #02.


#thanksbendis