How do you feel about the way X-books are written?

[nx01a]

Morrison was last X-writer who was effectively given carte blanche to do whatever he wanted with the X-Men, and the other X-writers had to follow his lead. Alas his freedom was finally curtailed when he wasn't allowed to resurrect Jean...

[Weather]

Bunn only got good at the end? Str8 up lie..ge had more continuity and more build than anything Morrison did in his gimmick run. His Emma worship story was boring..

Lie is a little too much, don't ya think? If you don't agree with someone's taste, that's ok, just tell why you feel different. I'm not lying, lol. I said that because:

His first arc felt too long for little to say, for my taste. And the Apocalipse Wars arc was a little messy with some mixed moments, like the "Angel and Archangel hug to become one unique new Archangel" thing. I think it got better after it, which was by the end of the book, since the first 2 arcs were half the run, which in my opinion, was the only one that I wanted to continue.

And about Morrison's run... It was a lot more than "Emma whorship story". He had a lot to say about all the characters he wrote. I'm not the biggest fan of Emma, but saying the run was boring because she was prominent on it feels excessive to me.

[Armageddon]

Generation X is the only good book.

I refuse to read anything with the O5 in it.
Kitty replacing Storm is stupid when she basically left.

[AbnormallyNormal]

It's impossible to compare Claremont's run. Because he took over when the X-Men were not being protected by a giant corporation which wanted to exploit their image for merchandise, movies, cartoons, and so on. He had far more creative freedom to develop and make changes. Plus he was allowed to keep going for so long and he has the confidence he would still be in control and writing in the future, to slowly develop things over time in a natural-feeling way. None of that is true anymore, and it is a big reason Claremont's later returns were not as successful. He was just another "rent a hour" type who had no real control and everything reverts back to an "iconic" status quo inevitably. Now we have the collapse of the entire comics industry , constant relaunching, PLUS the massive spiteful feud between Disney and Fox about movie rights. All these things contribute to making it basically impossible to have anywhere near that good of writing again. Not to mention for Claremont, the X-Men basically were his "creator owned" project. Not legally obviously but in every other sense conceivable, they were. So he felt attachment to them in a way other writers who are just doing this to grow their name/brand, simply don't.

[Maestroneto]

Morrison was last X-writer who was effectively given carte blanche to do whatever he wanted with the X-Men, and the other X-writers had to follow his lead. Alas his freedom was finally curtailed when he wasn't allowed to resurrect Jean...

Supposedly Lemire also had carte blanche aside from dealing with the terrigen mists. And Guggenheim is free to do whatever he wants too.

[AbnormallyNormal]

Supposedly Lemire also had carte blanche aside from dealing with the terrigen mists. And Guggenheim is free to do whatever he wants too.

The T-Mist B.S. absolutely ruined the first 12 or so issues of his run though. Just unreadable for me, I don't read "the flagship X-book" to be told mutants suck , are inferior to inhumans, are dying, were a mistake. In every single issue. Over and over.

[nx01a]

Supposedly Lemire also had carte blanche aside from dealing with the terrigen mists. And Guggenheim is free to do whatever he wants too.

According to whom?

[Weather]

I think the only freedom Lemire had was to choose the characters lol.

T-mists, Apocalypse Wars, even the use of the Weirdworld and IvX felt like something the editors decided. The only story he had total control, I suppose, was the Sapna one. He did what he could to fill the gaps, but the general events felt mandatory for me.

[ChildOfTheAtom]

I really enjoyed Bunn & Land alot

[Mia]

It's impossible to compare Claremont's run. Because he took over when the X-Men were not being protected by a giant corporation which wanted to exploit their image for merchandise, movies, cartoons, and so on. He had far more creative freedom to develop and make changes. Plus he was allowed to keep going for so long and he has the confidence he would still be in control and writing in the future, to slowly develop things over time in a natural-feeling way. None of that is true anymore, and it is a big reason Claremont's later returns were not as successful. He was just another "rent a hour" type who had no real control and everything reverts back to an "iconic" status quo inevitably. Now we have the collapse of the entire comics industry , constant relaunching, PLUS the massive spiteful feud between Disney and Fox about movie rights. All these things contribute to making it basically impossible to have anywhere near that good of writing again. Not to mention for Claremont, the X-Men basically were his "creator owned" project. Not legally obviously but in every other sense conceivable, they were. So he felt attachment to them in a way other writers who are just doing this to grow their name/brand, simply don't.

I have to respectfully disagree on this. I think that Claremont' quality of work had much more to do with the fact that he wasn't hampered by Disney. In fact, until recently(* see note below), I thought that the opposite was the case. I think that in the old days Claremont and everyone else had to turn in a good book or else readers would just drop the book and they’d be out of a job. They couldn’t just relly on the big INC. to take care of them. Further from reading a lot of the books at that period of time. I got the impression that many of these pros are educated men with graduate degrees. So they were going to do their darndest to put out material that is not just fit for 15 year old sub-literate boys. I was listening to an interview with Stan Lee and he said that in the 70’s they deliberately upped the writing to make it college level

**The reason I say this is due to a conversation I had with a retailer a few months ago, where he said Marvel is putting pressure on them (CB retailers) and blaming them for poor sales. Given the shoddy writing and the rude behaviour I’ve seen from certain pros from the big two. I was under the impression that the staff at Marvel were quite happy to just phone in any ‘fan-fiction’ level writing because, They had two corporate behemoths behind them, and licensing deals. So why bother stress themselves to put out quality work. As long as it sells that’s what counts.

[Maestroneto]

According to whom?

Bleeding Cool

[MYCMTSC]

Not sure if it's editorial or the creative teams, but the main books, while varying in quality, don't seem to either have a vision or the opportunity to see that vision through. Runs that are cut short for the sake of a shakeup tend to lose the intended effect of a story/character beat (Bunn's excellent Uncanny X-Men run is an example of a title that didn't really have a decent payoff in the end). I know that it's up to the writer to adapt to that given it is in a monthly format for a crossover/relaunch-happy business, but it's an unenviable task and I don't know how I'd do it.

A writer's best work will either be a mostly isolated book or an intentionally short run (G. Willow Wilson's Ms. Marvel, Bunn's Magneto, Tom King's The Vision) or will be at Image or a smaller publisher until Marvel moves away from this marketing strategy IMO.

[Weather]

Aaron is such a great writer. It would be awesome to have him on the franchise again. Duggan also showed in Uncanny Avengers that can work very well with mutants, but marvel decided to put him on Guardians (of course -.-). I have some hope for Soule on Astonishing, let's wait and see.

[Prons]

What I like most about older comics is that, when you picked one up, you'd be reading a more or less complete story that fed into overarching arcs, so issues felt very satisfying to read, but you were also rewarded for reading consecutive issues. What I disliked about the recent Uncanny was that I felt nothing ever got resolved, things would be picked up and dropped or, probably likely, completed in books I don't buy.

[Uncanny X-Man]

I think the X-books, and indeed a large number of Marvel comics, have almost completely abandoned long-form storytelling in favour of shorter-span stories, events, relaunches and rotating creative teams. I find it very hard nowadays to feel invested in whatever exciting new direction the books might get, because I know it's going to be ignored or retconned in a year's time by the next team.

I don't think it's a coincidence that Marvel's strongest ongoing series in terms of sales are Amazing Spider-Man and Thor: the characters' popularity obviously plays a big part but I also believe that having the same writer for a number of years brings a level of consistency that readers appreciate, especially with established characters. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea (nothing is anyway) but I can take Dan Slott's Spider-Man from Brand New Day up till to the current issue and see it as one giant ongoing story, even with the renaming/relaunches and multiple writers initially, with a fairly consistent tone, character evolution, sub-plots payoff, etc.

This is the kind of approach I'd love to see again on the X-Men. Amusingly enough, as licensing and brand recognition are not a priority for the X-books nowadays because of the movie rights, we would be in a position where a writer could really let loose creatively... But all we're getting is the main characters in the franchise being killed off followed by a nostalgia-filled run.