The X-Men have long been wildly popular. Their dominance of Marvel and the sales charts began in the ’80s and only started to flag in later years due to Marvel mishandling the property. X-Men comics fill many best of Marvel lists and have massive fan followings, with many of them being considered among the best comics ever made.
Popularity isn’t always a good thing, though. Sometimes, when things get too popular, it adversely affects how they’re perceived. This has happened to the X-Men many times over the years. Too much attention has hurt the stories and the X-Men, changing the way fans look at them and the team.
10/10 Astonishing X-Men Destroyed All The Revolutionary Morrison Concepts
Grant Morrison’s Marvel run introduced many revolutionary concepts, especially to the X-Men. However, when they left and went back to DC, Marvel basically destroyed all of them, seemingly out of a fit of pique. Several comics spearheaded this, like House Of M and Excalibur, but the main one was Astonishing X-Men, by writer Joss Whedon and artist John Cassaday.
Astonishing X-Men was a retro Claremont take on the modern X-Men, and its first story was wildly popular. However, the next few stories were all diminishing returns with fans. They didn’t bring anything new to the table, and fans quickly got tired of reading stories they had basically read before. Whedon and Cassaday’s last story was pretty good, but by that time, it was too little, too late.
9/10 The Success Of All-New X-Men And X-Men Blue Kept The O5 Around Way Too Long
After Avengers Vs. X-Men, writer Brian Michael Bendis moved over to the X-office. He relaunched Uncanny X-Men and started All-New X-Men, a book that revolved around the original five X-Men brought into the present. The O5 became a part of the X-Men, learning their future fates and working with their eventual teammates. It started out well enough, and the books sold well, but that was the problem.
Instead of finding a way to intelligently end the story, the O5 just stayed around, eventually being put into X-Men Blue. The whole idea got played out, and it ended with Extermination. Marvel decided to milk a concept that was selling and it backfired on them.
8/10 Uncanny X-Men: The Rise And Fall Of The Shi’Ar Empire Set The Bar Too High For Brubaker’s Run
Writer Ed Brubaker got a run on Uncanny X-Men, but it’s not talked about very much. The reason why is that nothing could stand up to his opening story: “The Rise And Fall Of The Shi’Ar Empire,” with artists Billy Tan and Clayton Henry. The book followed a team of X-Men — Havok, Polaris, Marvel Girl, Warpath, Nightcrawler, and Darwin — as they took to the stars to stop Vulcan.
The story was a twelve-part epic, chock-full of great action, characterization, and plot. It was a blockbuster, but the problem was that nothing Brubaker did afterward came close to being as good. He seemingly used up everything he had on that story, and what came next just couldn’t compare.
7/10 The Success Of The Early ’90s Artist-Driven X-Men Books Led To Some Mediocre Places
The ’90s were an X-Men boom time, with books like Uncanny X-Men, X-Men, New Mutants, and X-Force burning up the sales charts thanks to artists Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee. Marvel gave them power over the line, with Lee taking over as a plotter of Uncanny X-Men and X-Men and Liefeld doing the same with X-Force. Neither of them were great writers, specifically Liefeld, and the books suffered.
Writers like Scott Lobdell and Fabian Nicieza were in the mix as well, scripting the books, but those early ’90s X-books aren’t the best written. X-Force is especially bad, as Liefeld basically took over the book completely. Lee and Liefeld would leave both books to go to Image and Lobdell and Nicieza would take over full writing duties.
6/10 Most Of Reign Of X Was A Rather Mediocre Victory Lap
X-Men history is full of missteps, and it’s looking like Reign Of X was one of them. Dawn Of X introduced the Krakoa Era to readers, relaunching the X-Men line to wide acclaim. Reign Of X was the victory lap, taking place after The Hellfire Gala. Beyond several really good books like Planet-Size X-Men #1, Inferno, and a few others, most of the line was mediocre.
X-Men (Vol. 6) was a massive disappointment, X-Corp is the worst Krakoa Era book, Marauders’ ending was widely panned, and X-Men: The Trial Of Magneto didn’t make anyone happy. The line’s popularity flagged a bit, with its status as a sales juggernaut ending with a few exceptions.
5/10 “The Dark Phoenix Saga” Has Led To Several Bad Adaptations
There are some brilliant X-Men stories, with “The Dark Phoenix Saga” by writer Chris Claremont and artist/co-plotter John Byrne standing tall among them. The story of the X-Men’s battle against the Dark Phoenix is iconic. It’s widely considered to be the best X-Men story ever and among the best Marvel comics of all time. It’s a nearly flawless story.
The problem is that “The Dark Phoenix Saga” is too good. Its fan perception is such that many have tried to adapt it to live action, and both times have been failures. On top of that, it’s also inspired many stories that just couldn’t compete with it. It’s an amazing story, but it’s led to some bad things.
4/10 Marvel Learned The Wrong Lessons From The Age Of Apocalypse
’90s Marvel has some gems, with The Age Of Apocalypse a great example of the best of the decade. Spread across two bookend issues and nine miniseries, this alternate universe tale was an undisputed blockbuster. However, Marvel learned the wrong lesson from it. While the tenth-anniversary sequels were pretty good, one of them was written by Akira Yashida, aka the current controversial Marvel Editor-In-Chief C.B. Cebulski.
The Age Of Apocalypse also inspired Age Of X, which has its fans but is mostly lackluster, and Age Of X-Man, which no one likes and only served as a placeholder event before Hickman took over. Marvel has tried to capitalize on its success many times and never succeeded.
3/10 Uncanny X-Men’s High Sales Meant Chuck Austen Was Never Kicked Off The Book
Writer Chuck Austen is generally considered the worst comic writer of the 21st century. He wrote Avengers and Action Comics, but his runs on both weren’t very long. However, he spent several years on Uncanny X-Men and X-Men. It’s always been mystifying why he was able to stay on the books so long.
Austen’s stories didn’t have many fans, but he stayed on the Uncanny X-Men and was put on X-Men after Morrison left. The only reason for this was the sales power of the books. No one stopped buying the X-Men books while Austen wrote them, and so he got a terrible multi-year run.
2/10 “Days Of Future Past” Lead To Every Cliché Dystopian Future Story
The X-Men and time travel go hand in hand, with plenty of stories that take them to the past and future. The most notable one was “Days Of Future Past,” by writer Chris Claremont and artist/co-plotter John Byrne, from Uncanny X-Men #141-142. This story was the first to show a terrible future where Sentinels destroyed mutantkind.
“Days Of Future Past” is an amazing story, but soon every X-Men future became a blasted dystopia ruled by an all-powerful force that slaughtered humans and mutants. Everyone tried to do their version of the story or a sequel, and few of them landed.
1/10 House Of X/Powers Of X Set Up Something That Was Too Good
X-Men status quo changes have run the gamut from simple to fully changing everything. The current Krakoa Era is an example of the latter. House Of X/Powers Of X, by writer Jonathan Hickman and artists Pepe Larraz and R.B. Silva, completely changed the game and made the X-Men books the most popular in the land.
The problem is that Marvel and the writers of the X-Men books liked the Krakoa status quo so much that they asked Hickman to step down. They wanted to continue playing in the sandbox instead of moving forward. This has hurt the legacy of the two books.
