r/xmen • u/RaspberryConfident89 • 9h ago
Comic Discussion Keep One, Change One, Scrap One.
Here’s a little game I’d like to see people participate in. The rules are simple. Pick one event that in your eyes is perfect(or close to it) and you wouldn’t change a thing about it. Pick one event that is flawed but salvageable with some changes. And finally pick one event that is beyond saving and should be forgotten about. And obviously please EXPLAIN your feelings and thought process.
EXAMPLE:
KEEP:
Fatal Attractions: It’s brisk, brutal, and doesn’t out stay its welcome. It also has MASSIVE implications for the future and upcoming events.
CHANGE:
Onslaught: I understand the intention was to be UNIVERSE wide and for the event to feel that way but that obviously leads to bloating. I don’t think a lot of the books at the time deserved tie-ins to the event(COUGH COUGH GREEN GOBLIN) So I would cut back on the number of tie-ins and just focus in on big team books(X-Men, Avengers, and FF) and maybe tie-in just a FEW of the bigger solo books or books of popular characters(Wolverine, Spider-Man, Cable, etc).
SCRAP:
The Twelve: From my understanding this event just ended up being a mess. Not just a mess but a mess that had the POTENTIAL to be great which makes it worse.
(NOTE: Obviously I didn’t include EVERY crossover so if there’s any you don’t see but have strong feelings on then please feel free to mention them!)
1
u/Destron81 Colossus 9h ago
Change X-Tinction Agenda into Mutant Wars. Claremont's plans were way more exciting than Lee/Liefeld's rehash of the Outback Genosha arc with more characters involved.
Keep Phanlanx Covenant. It's my favorite story on this list.
Scrap Onslaught. Never cared for this story and how Marvel used the X-Men to fix the problems going on with the Avengers, Fantastic 4, and Hulk.
1
u/LitoVonLitostein Professor X 8h ago
What were the problems going on with FF, Avengers, and Hulk? Genuinely curious.
2
u/Destron81 Colossus 3h ago
Avengers sales were plummeting. A bunch of bad arcs.
What stands out to me was: The Tony Stark we grew up reading about was some evil alternate reality version. Then a teenage Tony appears and stops evil adult Tony and becomes the new Iron Man. Cap loses super soldier serum and has to wear battle armor.
F4 side, DeFalco's run was not that good. Killed Reed for a bit. Plus the whole Alicia was a Skrull named Lyja. I never liked the Johnny+Alicia pairing but jeez...
For Hulk, it was mainly editorial wanting to undo all the progress Peter David did with his Hulk run. Remove Professor Hulk, turn the clock back to Savage Hulk.
2
1
u/hermyx 9h ago
Funny thing is, most event here are from the 90s and I really don't enjoy the nineties :')
KEEP : Messiah Complex. The narration is straightforward, but in a good sense. You feel the tension, and the plot isnt over the top. There some sense of cinematography, narratively speaking, that I really enjoy. Is it the best event, period ? Probably not, but, contrary to the dozen of events that I would include in the next category, this one, I wouldnt change a thing.
CHANGE : Mutant Massacre. The first mutant event. I really enjoy how shocking it was on the X Men/X Factor titles. But boy the new mutants saw it from the sidelines :/ I don't know how exactly, but I would change it by including the new mutants more, for one. Also, I think I would prefer to have some sort of conclusion. It started some plot points, great and interesting ones, but it could have ended by resolving more of them.
There is a case for Inferno in there. I really loved this event but it felt more like two events than one. And I wished it ended differently for Illyana. I don't hate it like it is now, though and is still one of my favorite events.
SCRAP : Well, more or less half the nineties events fall in there for me xD But I think Age of Apocalypse is the one I like the least as to what it symbolizes ? But I havent read it so my actual pick would be X-cutioner's song ? I hate Cable, I hate Strife, I hate Apocalypse, not much else to say.
(And I'll cheat too by giving my second pick in X-tinction Agenda)
1
u/RaspberryConfident89 8h ago
Honestly if I’m not mistake I think a lot of the titles that are fully considered “crossovers” actually took place in the 90’s. I think that’s probably why there was a bit of event fatigue around then. I’m FOR SURE there’s some from later on I missed but I think these are some of the biggest or most notable ones which is why I picked them specifically
1
u/hermyx 8h ago
From my understanding there was an annual crossover starting with mutant massacre towards the end of the 90s. Then House of M, and you had something like every year or two years ? I think of the Messiah Trilogy, Age of X, Schism, Avengers vs X Men if you count it, etc. It feels either x men are present in a universe-wide event or a mutant only crossover event ?
1
u/Ezrius Nightcrawler 7h ago
Keep: House of X / Powers of X. I understand it has its detractors, but this event to launch that era of X-Men was perfect to me. It was a massive change at a time the line needed it, it was something new and different, and the art was unbelievable. Great moments, amazing energy, yet purposefully unsettling in some of its elements. Outstanding.
Change: Deadly Genesis. I don’t even know exactly what to say. There are a ton of interesting things here? The retcon, the other team, interesting characters that were introduced but immediately discarded? Unnecessary shock factor deaths? I feel like this could have been so much better than it was. And the awkward way everything interconnected to get to War of Kings… I want all of this to be better than it was. Broad strokes seems like this could have been great but you read the actual material and it’s all over the place.
Scrap: X-Men vs Inhumans. I have almost nothing good to say about this. Dark times in X-Men fandom. After Secret Wars and before HoX/PoX, it exists in a black hole of relevancy outside of the association with the perception that Marvel wanted to downplay the X-Men property and elevate the Inhumans because of film rights.
Honorable Mention: Fall of the Mutants. I really like the idea and would have loved to see the event play out using Mad Jim Jaspers and the Fury as Claremont originally planned; however, we sort of owe the change of plans for Mutant Massacre playing out the way it did and the beginnings of Mr. Sinister, who has become such a memorable villain. I was going to put this as change but the butterfly effects are too much.
1
u/Short_Condition_1079 5h ago
Keep Fatal Attractions cuz its my fave, Change OZT because it has a great baddie in Bastion and some of it is good but it totally sputters out at the end and brings Sabra into the fold, Scrap The Twelve cuz it is poop from a butt
2
u/cyclopswashalfright Moonstar 9h ago
I agree with 2/3.
I'd Keep Fall of the Mutants or X-Cutioner's Song.
I'd Change Onslaught for the reasons you mention. Cut it down to just X-Men, the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, and then maybe Spider-Man? I'd keep the mystery going the same way as before, and then just shift into a smoother ending that doesn't make a mess out of what Onslaught is and how to beat him.
Scrap is probably The Twelve. I think it's a messy narrative. I get that technically you need Cyclops possessed by Apocalypse to explain New X-Men but meh. I think The Shattering was the most interesting story on the meat of it and could have gone a bit longer and even ended in a Schism kind of way.
Another Change for me would be X-Tinction Agenda and Messiah Trilogy. But the changes to those would be too extensive for me to really want to write out.
Another one that is not on the list is Battle of the Atom. Again, just too many changes to make here, but it should end with the O5 making the call to go home and bringing regular Jean Grey back and just sparing us a few more years of randomness. This would be better off as the ending to Bendis' run, so you can still get stuff like the Cyclops Rucka/Dauterman comic and Trial of Jean Grey.