Your Unpopular/Controversial Opinions on the X-Universe

[Outburstz]

Sure, working alongside Apocalypse, Sinister and pals is totally heroic because Jonathan Hackman wrote it. The very reason Krakoan era is ending because the sales have been low and if it was a successful masterpiece it would have stuck around for more years. The upcoming relaunch is underwhelming, that's for sure but after how Cyclops was treated during the past five years I just can't wait for him to be a compelling character again.

The whole point of Krakoa starting was because the sales were down before Krakoa so your argument is silly.

[NK1988]

From what I can tell, post AvX X-Men will go down in history as a Dark Age for X-Men alongside the midto-late 90s.

I certainly hear less discussion and zero praise for it compared to Krakoa.

[Zero Hunter]

The whole point of Krakoa starting was because the sales were down before Krakoa so your argument is silly.

Sales have been slowly falling ever since M-Day when Marvel decided all the mutants had to be herded up and thrown in their own little ghetto corner of the Marvel Universe. This is also about the time the whole "if your a mutant it doesn't matter how evil you are or were we are all family" garbage started. Marvel then doubled down with the Utopia era then tripled downed with the Krakoa era. Working along side such totally evil bastards as Sinister, Apocalypse, Shaw, Mystique, and all the rest? That left such a sour taste in many long time fans mouths you are never going to get them back. About the only way to excuse that level of character assasination is if Marvel would reveal that Xavier has been influencing all the good mutants all along to keep them accepting living and working with the villains.

[Doom'nGloom]

People say X-Men has the best female characters at Marvel and in terms of diversity sure, but in terms of actual writing I just don't see it.

Jean spent a good chunk of her publication history dead and she has become the poster child of comic characters dying and coming back to life. Not to mention her most famous story basically being "woman going crazy with power".

Storm is said to be a goddess, an omega level mutant, a master thief and hand to hand combatant and a great leader yet aside from Claremont and Ewing most writers use her as the lightning lass in the background. It's hilarious that some of her most beloved moments in recent history came from Coates' BP run, a run that's beyond the direct influence of x-office and a run that's actively disliked by BP fans.

I'm not gonna touch the whole Kwannon/Betsy thing. All I'm gonna say is that I'm happy both have their distinct identity now though Betsy as Captain Britain was kinda boring. But Hellions was great.

Mystique, Selene etc. can be neatly summarized as bad *****es which some people love as a character archetype but gets boring in the long run. Emma Frost used to belong solely to this group before being allowed to grow.

Speaking of Emma, she is mostly fine aside from her time in IvX, now that was something.

Kitty/Kate and Rogue are written well for most of their history I'd say.

There are others like Polaris, Magik etc. but these are the ones I'd consider as A-list x-ladies. I honestly don't see what makes them above the likes of She-Hulk or Invisible Woman.

[Will Evans]

People say X-Men has the best female characters at Marvel and in terms of diversity sure, but in terms of actual writing I just don't see it.

Jean spent a good chunk of her publication history dead and she has become the poster child of comic characters dying and coming back to life. Not to mention her most famous story basically being "woman going crazy with power".

Storm is said to be a goddess, an omega level mutant, a master thief and hand to hand combatant and a great leader yet aside from Claremont and Ewing most writers use her as the lightning lass in the background. It's hilarious that some of her most beloved moments in recent history came from Coates' BP run, a run that's beyond the direct influence of x-office and a run that's actively disliked by BP fans.

I'm not gonna touch the whole Kwannon/Betsy thing. All I'm gonna say is that I'm happy both have their distinct identity now though Betsy as Captain Britain was kinda boring. But Hellions was great.

Emma Frost is mostly fine..... aside from her time in IvX. Now that was something.
Does Sue have a nemesis? Has she ever got credit for defeating a big threat like Galactus in a famous story.

Mystique, Selene etc. can be neatly summarized as bad *****es which some people love as a character archetype but gets boring in the long run. Emma Frost used to belong solely to this group before being allowed to grow.

Speaking of Emma, she is mostly fine aside from her time in IvX, now that was something.

Kitty/Kate and Rogue are written well for most of their history I'd say.

There are others like Polaris, Magik etc. but these are the ones I'd consider as A-list x-ladies. I honestly don't see what makes them above the likes of She-Hulk or Invisible Woman.

Because they drive the story and don’t depend on a male character for validation and comparisons: I. e. She-Hulk to Hulk.
Reed Richards driving the F4. Him beating Galactus or his feud with Doom driving the central point of the stories.

[NearlyEnough]

Some people equate "girlboss" moments with being a good character. You see many of their fans talk about how powerful they are or how they are "mother" because they barely have anything else in terms of depth.

[Doom'nGloom]

Because they drive the story and don’t depend on a male character for validation and comparisons: I. e. She-Hulk to Hulk.
Reed Richards driving the F4. Him beating Galactus or his feud with Doom driving the central point of the stories.

It's not like you can't have She-Hulk without the Hulk. Both John Byrne and Dan Slott's runs are beloved by the fans. While Reed usually dominates F4 stories, both John Byrne and especially Jonathan Hickman used Sue pretty well. By the way I didn't give Jen and Sue as specific examples. I'm asking what seperates the x-ladies from the many other heroines of marvel.

[Kingdom X]

People say X-Men has the best female characters at Marvel and in terms of diversity sure, but in terms of actual writing I just don't see it.

Jean spent a good chunk of her publication history dead and she has become the poster child of comic characters dying and coming back to life. Not to mention her most famous story basically being "woman going crazy with power".

Storm is said to be a goddess, an omega level mutant, a master thief and hand to hand combatant and a great leader yet aside from Claremont and Ewing most writers use her as the lightning lass in the background. It's hilarious that some of her most beloved moments in recent history came from Coates' BP run, a run that's beyond the direct influence of x-office and a run that's actively disliked by BP fans.

I'm not gonna touch the whole Kwannon/Betsy thing. All I'm gonna say is that I'm happy both have their distinct identity now though Betsy as Captain Britain was kinda boring. But Hellions was great.

Mystique, Selene etc. can be neatly summarized as bad *****es which some people love as a character archetype but gets boring in the long run. Emma Frost used to belong solely to this group before being allowed to grow.

Speaking of Emma, she is mostly fine aside from her time in IvX, now that was something.

Kitty/Kate and Rogue are written well for most of their history I'd say.

There are others like Polaris, Magik etc. but these are the ones I'd consider as A-list x-ladies. I honestly don't see what makes them above the likes of She-Hulk or Invisible Woman.

A) I don’t really see it as a competition.

B) I find it to the quantity of well-written female characters the franchise has produced. Most superhero teams struggle to have more than 2 female characters on the roster. The X-Men has a whole deck you can easily pull from.

C) Looking at your specific examples, I’ll agree that these characters haven’t all had consistently good writing, but I find that to be the case w/ most comic book characters with a 50-60 year history. It’s always important to view the overall comic book landscape in which some of these women were created/ came into prominence. Storm as both a powerhouse and leader of her team was unheard of and she explicitly wasn’t designed to be a love interest for any of her teammates. Jean getting to cosmic levels of power and having THE iconic self-sacrifice is comic book history. Betsy pre-ninja had such an interesting balance between not being the “strongest” character but still craving to be part of the action and hold her own. Rogue had complex moral and psychological struggles. The New Mutants alone introduced several 3 dimensional young women.

Again some writers are able to capture the brilliance of these characters and some aren’t. Some are able to bring new complexity and depth to them like Emma’s growth in the 90s and 2000s, or Kwannon in Hellions. I don’t think that’s a slight on great characters like Sue and Jen, it’s just that X-fans have a TON of female characters they can point to as their favorites.

[Anthony W]

Lol I stand corrected.

Nah, it's all good Lol.

[Doom'nGloom]

A) I don’t really see it as a competition.

B) I find it to the quantity of well-written female characters the franchise has produced. Most superhero teams struggle to have more than 2 female characters on the roster. The X-Men has a whole deck you can easily pull from.

C) Looking at your specific examples, I’ll agree that these characters haven’t all had consistently good writing, but I find that to be the case w/ most comic book characters with a 50-60 year history. It’s always important to view the overall comic book landscape in which some of these women were created/ came into prominence. Storm as both a powerhouse and leader of her team was unheard of and she explicitly wasn’t designed to be a love interest for any of her teammates. Jean getting to cosmic levels of power and having THE iconic self-sacrifice is comic book history. Betsy pre-ninja had such an interesting balance between not being the “strongest” character but still craving to be part of the action and hold her own. Rogue had complex moral and psychological struggles. The New Mutants alone introduced several 3 dimensional young women.

Again some writers are able to capture the brilliance of these characters and some aren’t. Some are able to bring new complexity and depth to them like Emma’s growth in the 90s and 2000s, or Kwannon in Hellions. I don’t think that’s a slight on great characters like Sue and Jen, it’s just that X-fans have a TON of female characters they can point to as their favorites.

I agree it's more of a matter of quantity. However I've seen many times people saying, both here and other places on the internet, that x-men has the best female characters of marvel and when I compare them with other prominent female characters of marvel I don't see much difference. Maybe because I'm young enough to miss the many Dark Phoenix Saga's or Lifedeath's and can only look back at them through modern filters. Speaking of today, X-men has more high profile female characters but that's to be expected in a franchise where characters struggle for appearances even in 5-6 different titles in a month.

[marhawkman]

I agree it's more of a matter of quantity. However I've seen many times people saying, both here and other places on the internet, that x-men has the best female characters of marvel and when I compare them with other prominent female characters of marvel I don't see much difference. Maybe because I'm young enough to miss the many Dark Phoenix Saga's or Lifedeath's and can only look back at them through modern filters. Speaking of today, X-men has more high profile female characters but that's to be expected in a franchise where characters struggle for appearances even in 5-6 different titles in a month.

And there's dozens, perhaps hundreds of characters that only have one appearance ever.

[EmeraldGladiator]

The converting of the best antagonist characters into allies has done more harm than good for the X-franchise because writers haven't been able to replace compelling A-list villains with comparable replacements. You can't lose Magneto, Apoc, Mr Sinister, Exodus, Sabretooth, Omega Red and replace them with what a robotic Miora. Now I know Sinister went Sinister so he is a baddy again as did Victor, Sabretooth, however most of the bad guys that went good stay good. However when heroes break bad they eventually return to the good guy ways. Scott whether as a terrorist or possessed by Apoc, Warren going from death back to archangel, Alex returns to the righteous ways after breaking bad, or Jean or Logan ect.... Fighting the good fight so well you convert your enemies into allies is a popular trope (ala Dragonball Z) but it hurts the quality of your ongoing franchise story opportunities. 99% of newly introduced Batman villains can compare to their classic rogues, the only new ones in the last 40 years of note are what Bane and the Court of Owls out of the dozens not hundreds of characters introduced since then? An X-team waring with Mag, Sinister or Apoc is way more entertaining than them going against some minor or new characters. Speaking of which I don't read X-Force did Omega Red survive the finale and any chance he could break bad in the new era or is he forever a good guy now?

[Nicoclaws]

The whole point of Krakoa was an exchange for the villains : stop acting like assholes and you can live in paradise with us.
Some were fine with that, because they were not the most psychopathic characters. The Blob, Pyro (who still could let loose some violent tendancies), etc. Some stayed a bit hostile, but behaved (like Emplate, that guy from the FLM, Cassandra Nova who was forced by Jean, KINDA Omega Red...). Some entered a "rehab" plan, like the Hellions, which worked in some cases but not all, or Malice who was given a body back. Some didn't care much, like Fenris or that guy in Legion of X.
But the biggest villains stayed mostly the same. Sinister, Shaw and Selene were just waiting for their opportunities. Mystique and Destiny are still mostly morally grey AT BEST.
Magneto has been on the X-men side for quite some time now. He has mostly always been an anti-hero/grey villain.
The biggest change was indeed Apocalypse. It will be interesting to see what they do with him now.

I think most of the "I'm happy to be on paradise" villains will go back to their own way of surviving and resisting. I can see the MLF getting more numbers.
I do hope some stay on the "good" side. Frenzy wanted to stay a hero after AoX, Blob after AoXM, I hope they do stay there.

[marhawkman]

Exodus was an antagonist... but not a true villain in general. He's the guy who as leader of the Acolytes... actually had Cyclops and Jean visit Avalon to have a chat about stuff. So I can kinda see having Exodus and Magneto... Apoccy... enh... iffy, but ok..... sinister and Sabertooth are just insane.

[Havok83]

Exodus was an antagonist... but not a true villain in general. He's the guy who as leader of the Acolytes... actually had Cyclops and Jean visit Avalon to have a chat about stuff. So I can kinda see having Exodus and Magneto... Apoccy... enh... iffy, but ok..... sinister and Sabertooth are just insane.

Exodus most definitely was a villian. With that said, I do agree with you in terms of people being able to ally themselves with him. He's not unreasonable. I dont think he's really changed much at all but they all had a common goal which has kept him in line