"Why Are Marvel's X-Men Comics So Terrible Right Now?"

[Carbon Based Stickler]

I hope for better things to come out of inhumans vs x-men but except them to get shelved like Fantastic Four.

We've already covered this. All 3 X-titles have solid sales. They're not going to drop a comic franchise that sells. The biggest difference the conspiracy theorists don't like to recognize is the Fantastic Four DIDN'T SELL. I wish I knew why this is so hard for some to understand. And it's all contrived. It's comic books. They're not documentaries.

[Carbon Based Stickler]

And to add, i think Death of X should havr come first before civil war xmen.

Hell, I would've preferred DOX right from the post-SW launch. Now, it's like they have to live up to their hype. It seems like a recipe for disappointment but we'll see. I haven't read CW X-Men yet though.

[ByPrimus]

coz... marvel storyline now its like bitting its own tail.

[Purplevit]

No Gambit. That's enough to leave me out of it.

The same reason for me, bro!

[Master of Sound]

Hurrah, another negative about the current status of the X-books thread is launched.

[Supernature]

Or a good portion of X-Fans are exceedingly loyal.

Which I was, until very recently. Barring any shake-ups, I'll just be picking up Uncanny starting this month. And mostly just one for character.

Yes. I was as well but Lemire's EXM is the straw that broke the camel's back for me.

I think blindly buying a product you don't like out of fan loyalty essentially tells Marvel that they don't have to try since the fanbase will be buying anyway. It gives them zero incentive to find high-caliber talent and figure out premises that will help the franchise thrive long term.

[Carbon Based Stickler]

Yes. I was as well but Lemire's EXM is the straw that broke the camel's back for me.

I think blindly buying a product you don't like out of fan loyalty essentially tells Marvel that they don't have to try since the fanbase will be buying anyway. It gives them zero incentive to find high-caliber talent and figure out premises that will help the franchise thrive long term.

Nobody should blindly buy anything. Too many of you seem to confuse loyalty with stupidity. EXM didn't do it for me either but that doesn't mean Lemire isn't "high-caliber talent". Old Man Logan & Moon Knight beg to differ (and every other title he's writing at other publishers).

[Supernature]

Nobody should blindly buy anything. Too many of you seem to confuse loyalty with stupidity. EXM didn't do it for me either but that doesn't mean Lemire isn't "high-caliber talent". Old Man Logan & Moon Knight beg to differ (and every other title he's writing at other publishers).

That part was more directed at the whole line tbh.

I agree that Lemire can be good at other stuff. However he, of his own admission, doesn't know much about the X-Men and doesn't think he's good with team books. So it kind of boggles the mind that Marvel would put him on the X-Men flagship imo... There's something in the stewardship of the franchise that just doesn't make sense (and hasn't for quite some time).

[The Negative Zone]

I've read the first 12 issues of EXM and it was pretty bland. The only characters I really cared about were Cerebra and Old Man Logan.

Apocalypse Wars is pretty boring. It doesn't feel like each part of the story fits in. I feel nothing reading it. Marvel should put X-Men on hiatus for a while and give them a less bleak status quo, but with X-Men Vs Inhumans it seems this isn't going to happen.

[MarvelMaster616]

Good article. I think it nicely highlights all the current flaws with the X-books and Marvel's approach to X-men in general. However, I wouldn't go so far as to say that the X-men comics are terrible right now. Are they as good as they have been in recent years? No. Is there room for improvement? Of course. It's not like this current crop of X-men comics is on the same level as the Chuck Austin run. I'd say it's largely a byproduct of Marvel's efforts to prop up other properties, namely the Inhumans. The X-men are just getting neglected because of it.

The article brings up one key component, which is the hopelessness and lack of direction in this series. The X-men have basically abandoned their most core concept. They're no longer helping young mutants or trying to carve their place in the world. They're just trying to survive and apparently, survival means having to live in Limbo of all places. It's a mixed message to say the least. On top of that, nobody in the Marvel universe really seems to care. They'll show only faint concern about mutants suffering a terrible plague, but do absolutely nothing about it. Never mind that the X-men do stand by the Avengers when the world is threatened, as they did in Civil War II. They still can't be bothered to lift a finger to help them. That gives me little hope that the outcome of IvX will turn out in the X-men's favor.

Also, I think the article is spot on about the O5 X-men. They have kind of overstayed their welcome. The relaunch really abandoned everything that made the O5 X-men's presence so meaningful. I think they should go back at some point and Alonso did say at SDCC that there is a long-term plan. I just don't think we'll see it play out for another couple years or so. IvX will likely be the first step in that plan.

One flaw in the article, though, has to do with the reason why the O5 X-men are trapped. He claims that plot has been abandoned. It hasn't. It was actually a major plot point in All-New X-men recently. It's what O5 Beast is now obsessed with. So no, that plot hasn't been dropped and that's another indication that Marvel does have a plan for the O5.

Right now, I think the X-men need, more than anything else, a Messiah Complex type event to unite the team again. And I think that's what they're building towards. Perhaps in a couple years, we'll get an event like that to help streamline things for the X-men, much like we saw after the events of Messiah Complex. For the moment, I have a feeling we can expect a lot more doom and gloom so that the X-men have a bigger hole to dig out of. It'll start with Death of X. I doubt anyone on this board is going to be really upbeat after that issue, but I have a feeling that's exactly what Marvel wants.

[Dthirds123]

I think that the reason the main X books are so meh is because of marvels focus on the m-pox, and inhumans mutant conflict ,look at all new wolverine and old man Logan have noting to do with that and there the two best received X books, you can tell that the witiers don't like or want the mist and its hurting there work. Take apocalypse wars I guaranty Lemire wanted to have it differently but was forced to make the mist causing the whole extinction of mutants a main part of the story so he put in less effort, and extraordinary was the weakes part of apocalypse wars because of this. The inhuman mutant conflict marvel is pushing is stupid and unwanted the writers know this don't like it and are forced to us it and the review show its hurting the franchise.

[Uncanny Madman]

I don't even think EXM is that bad, and UXM is pretty great. They're far preferable to me than the Utopia / Schism era which made me quit comics altogether until just this year.

I've seen many people complain about how UXM is a cast of non-X-Men...as if the painfully long run of Cyclops and his Uncanny friends Namor, Danger, Magneto, Demon Magik and Juggolossus, Emma Frost and the bloody dull as dishwater science club was some dream team of classic X-Men. And Bendis' Uncanny cast wasn't much better with his pitiful new recruits tacked on for extra offence.

I'd take another five years of mediocre adventures with the Extraordinary X-Men than suffer through that era again.

[Master of Sound]

I just remember the Uncanny period with Kurt, Husk, Warren, Bobby etc. THAT were terrible times, remember? That brought nothing at all. There were much worse times.

[BlitheringToot]

The current "Uncanny X-Men" is really good, but it should be called "X-Force." "All-New Wolverine" has been consistently great, but it's not really an X-book. Can't stand the rest, and that's sad, because the X-Men have always been my favorites.

[DDM]

We've already covered this. All 3 X-titles have solid sales. They're not going to drop a comic franchise that sells. The biggest difference the conspiracy theorists don't like to recognize is the Fantastic Four DIDN'T SELL. I wish I knew why this is so hard for some to understand. And it's all contrived. It's comic books. They're not documentaries.

That still didn't stop them from pruning the line down to 1987 levels. There's a definite conscious restriction and deemphasis at work here and one that's not being applied even handedly to other far less successful franchises like Inhumans or GOTG.

On the other hand the reduction in books seems to have also raised baseline sales. A smaller number of books featuring unique casts is keeping everything in the 40-60k sales range whereas before we had core books selling as low as 30k and splinter teams/solos regularly in the dreaded 20ks.