Originally Posted by
iacobusleo
- The X-Men as a franchise (both movies and comics) is best enjoyed by picking and choosing your own canon. For example, I completely ignore Origins: Wolverine, and I ignore the stuff that does not fit my concept of X-Men as a narrative in the comics. In my headcanon, Rogue's character arc was completed by Carey (she masters her powers and becomes a counselor for the next generation), and there is none of that Uncanny Avengers backtrack.
- The Decimation (spanning House of M to Avengers vs X-Men) was an interesting and worthwhile addition to the X-Men mythology. Intellectually I know it breaks the minority metaphor and throws away a lot of interesting potential set up by Morrison, but emotionally I bought the high stakes and I read it as the climax of the entire X-Men saga (the X-Men having to fight against extinction, and how that involves so many long running plot threads: The death of Jean/Phoenix which in my headcanon metaphysically led to the stagnation of mutantkind and how salvation can only come in the form of a reincarnated Phoenix in Hope Summers, Cable's true destiny in raising Hope, Bishop's true destiny in his plan to kill Hope, the resurrection of most of the major human villains in the Human Council, the very climactic 'final battle' feeling of Second Coming, the concept of the beloved Avengers who are typically backed by the government against the typically persecuted X-Men, an idea that is a long time coming, the rise and fall of Scott as leader of the mutant race etc). On paper it sounds amazing and though the execution is a little shaky at times if you pay close attention, I just bought it completely and used my own headcanon to make it work.
- Related to the above, because I feel like the X-Men has reached its natural conclusion, anything starting from Bendis's run is irrelevant. The X-Men for me, ended with Cyclops a disgraced and hated public figure who nevertheless continues fighting the good fight using shady tactics together with Magneto and Illyana (as per the conclusion of AvX: Consequences), while the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning is a thriving institute that continues to fulfill Xavier's dream under the guidance of Wolverine and Storm (helped enormously by Kitty, as per the end of Aaron's Wolverine and the X-Men run).
- UXM 600 would have been my perfect finale for the X-Men saga, but I cannot get past Bendis' dialogue and the overall feeling that nothing much happens in his run.
- Scott Lobdell is not that bad. His plots are terrible, but he does great character work, particularly with Iceman, and I actually really like his writing of many of the characters. He is best enjoyed by just zeroing in on the character moments and just disregarding everything else that is going on.
- This is heresy, but I think how I feel about Lobdell is similar to how I feel about Claremont. Claremont is the god at writing these characters, but to fully enjoy him I have to zero in on his character moments and disregard a lot of his plots as well (Arcade and Murderworld stuff, Mojoverse, his weird obsession with body transformations i.e. Storm turning into a space whale, Storm becoming a child). Thankfully, Claremont's plots are ALWAYS anchored in character, so even when things get ridiculous there is always something to emotionally connect with. This is why he still remains the best writer of X-Men.
- Early Claremont was painful to go through. He started showing potential with Proteus, Dark Phoenix and DOFP, dipped down for quite a while (not at all a fan of the Brood Saga), but hit his stride by From the Ashes. Things from then on become much more character-based and that was when I started truly enjoying his run, all the way till the end.
- Speaking of Brood, I'm not a fan of most of the alien stuff. Or the Savage Land. I've come around to appreciating these elements and think that an adaptation of the X-Men should include these things, but there needs to be some changes and efforts to modernize this stuff for me to take them seriously. As it is in the comics, I just see them merely as background noise for the truly interesting stuff going on, which is the characters.
- Because to truly enjoy the X-Men comics I need to use a lot of headcanon, I feel like there has not been a definitive version of the franchise. I'm still waiting for a HBO style TV series, combining the rich characters and serialised storytelling of the comics with the more grounded film universe and its usually stellar cast.
- I like JLaw's Mystique (largely First Class and DOFP).
- I don't care about the costumes at all and actually think the iconic 90s ones are umm, quite garish and ugly. In fact the best costumes for me were the Ultimate X-Men ones, which are very similar to the black leather of the movies.