Finally finished reading Morrison's run on New X Men...

[Bishblast]

After dipping out from comics for a decade or so, I finally got around to getting all of Grant Morrison's run on New X Men, largely with the assistance of 50 cent back issues on Free Comic Book Day. Just finished reading the entire run an hour or so ago...and I have to say, top to bottom, one of the strongest runs I've read in an X-book, since Claremont's early prime work at least it has to be the best, up until it was released. There are things about the run that I don't really dig too much (Xorn being Magneto, first and foremost), but by and large, I love what he did with Emma Frost and Beast... Beak even turned out to be a pretty interesting character, and Fantomex is one of the cooler new-ish X Men I've seen in a while. But really, the greatest thing about the run was the slow burn of the Jean/Scott/Emma and to some extent Wolverine deal. I came out of this run with a new view on Emma Frost, as I now think she's got to be one of the most absolutely intriguing women in the X-books, ever.

I've seen some people who really didn't care for the run, but I loved it. I am currently following the modern Bendis work on Uncanny and All New (having jumped on at issues 3 and 9, respectively), and the confusion about the state of things is more or less what drew me to go back and read this run. I also have acquired the first 13 issues of Whedon's Astonishing run, and I intend to go into it next as it seems to be a successor of sorts to Morrison's run, and it also has one of the better reputations as a quality run for an X Men book. Also, I'm working on getting the issues to the second volume of Uncanny X Men that started in late 2011.

The whole X Men vs. Avengers thing just sounds like a complete mess which I may try to avoid, but aside from Morrison's New and Whedon's Astonishing, are there any runs or stories (or even solo books) that I should read, and that are supposed to be of higher quality? I read the first two issues of Chuck Austen's run of New X Men, only because it's in between Morrison and Whedon's run... I've heard some really, really bad stuff about his work.

[Baldobomb-22-OH-MAN!!!]

if it's written by Chuck Austen you're best off running screaming into the hills. it's no accident that he's simultaneously considered the worst X-men, Avengers and Superman writer of all time.

I'm glad to see you liked it. i think a lot of people get hung up on the Xorn/Magneto thing and the Scott/Emma thing (which wasn't even his idea) and hate the whole run for the wrong reasons. IMO the Xorn/Magneto thing made perfect sense and as for people complaining about Magneto being evil, it's not the first or last time he did something like that, and the book even explains that he's acting more insane than usual because of Sublime. the only deserved thing about hating Xorn is the ridiculous things Marvel did afterwards to say "well Chris Claremont's a whiny old bitch so that wasn't Magneto and we came up with the single most convoluted and idiotic explanation of all time for why he wasn't". if they wanted to bring Magneto back and wipe the slate clean about his actions they could've easily just brought him back and said "yeah he did that because Sublime was controlling his mind". aside from that I really dig how Morrison was trying to make mutants have their own culture and actually allowed the Mutant cause to advance beyond the tired/somewhat nonsensical racism/homophobia allegory. he really was taking them into the 21st century, and it was great that he ignored a lot of the detritus and half-baked/half-finished ideas introduced during the 90s. but no, the book had to go back to being a confusing quagmire because that's what the suits wanted (I guess they're afraid of getting new fans).

[Dat Dude]

I had read that it was more the higher up editors who were the ones who had problems with the Xorn/Magneto thing than Claremont. The only thing that he did that affected Morrion's plans was the Cat-Beast thing, and the fact he wanted Storm for his Xtreme X-Men run (fun fact: Morrison had originally planned for Cyclops to have the affair with Storm). But count me amoung those who didn't care for the Xorn/Magneto thing. My biggest issue was Morrsion's reasoning: that he was to finally taking Magneto out of the equation and for the X-Men to move past him. Well the problem was prior to his run they already did. The dude was sitting crippled in Genosha no longer a threat to them (despite being a ruler of an all-mutant country).

After Eve of Destruction, there a was a ton of storyline potential with Genosha that writers could've worked with for years that I was so looking forward to and Magneto's new role in that would have been an interesting to read about. But nope, first storyline in, Morrison wipes that all away to prop up a cliche' evil twin villain who's only been used once since (briefly) during Joss Whedon run on Astonishing. I had let that slide, but then he brought back Magneto only to turn him practically Nazi (yeah, yeah, Sublime influence *rolls eyes*), all that character progression, all those years of stories, ignored for a storyline. He couldn't just leave the character dead to accomplish ultimately the same damn thing. 

I had no problem with the Cyclops/Emma affair myself, it makes sense when you think about all the times Jean was borderline cheating on Scott for years. And I enjoyed most of Morrsion's run. It's only E Is for Extinction, Planet X, and Here Comes Tomorrow are what I didn't care for. 

[Bishblast]

Aside from the original X Men in the All New series, Jean Grey hasn't come back from her death in New X Men 150, has she?

[Baldobomb-22-OH-MAN!!!]

May 11, 2013 12:02:44 GMT -5 Bishblast said:

Aside from the original X Men in the All New series, Jean Grey hasn't come back from her death in New X Men 150, has she?

nope. y'see, she was dead when Joe Quesada was a teenager so in his opinion that made every story she was in since then invalid. smeg-head.