shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Nov 26, 2014 15:11:46 GMT -5
When did the X-Men Jump the Shark? While the X-Men were one of the hottest properties in comicdom for nearly three decades, there's little doubt that they lack the presence in comicdom they once enjoyed, but where was the drop off point? I know some will point to Claremont's departure, some even further back to Fall of the Mutants, and some purists will even argue it ended with John Byrne's departure, but yet there are plenty of readers who will tell you there were still many great X-Men stories being produced as late as the mid 1990s, even in spite of the hologram covers and excessive hype. So the question isn't really where things started to go bad, but rather where that final point of no return exists, after which the franchise just utterly fails to recapture any of its former magic. I personally stopped reading right before the Fatal Attractions crossover, which, I heard, was actually pretty decent.
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Post by fanboystranger on Nov 26, 2014 15:30:01 GMT -5
The Siege Perilous. I guess the second time they went through it would be the consensus answer-- hey, meet Gambit the thief who wears pink battle armor-- but I'd actually put it at the first time at the end of the Adversary storyline. Some people love the Australia days, but I'm not one of them, although the Genosha storyline was pretty good. Also, Inferno fits right in there. Franchise-itis had turly taken hold.
I'd argue that there was generally one good X-book at any given time during the '90s, but it was rarely one of the core titles. You'd have stuff like David's X-Factor, Davis' and later Ellis' Excalibur, Casey's Cable, and JF Moore's X-Force, but the main titles would just tread water between events that never resolved anything. |
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Post by badwolf on Nov 26, 2014 15:37:06 GMT -5
I don't think there is a point of no return for any series. Any good writer can bring it back. I started reading the X-Men during Claremont & Byrne, and I think it started to go downhill after Paul Smith left. It was somewhat enjoyable for a while, but it got more and more miserable and ugly until I finally ditched it all around Fall of the Mutants, Inferno, Mutant Massacre... I can't even remember the sequence because they all blur together for me. X-Factor was a horrible idea as well. You know what, that's where it jumped: the resurrection of Jean Grey.
But there were good runs later on. I loved both Grant Morrison's and Mike Carey's runs. I liked what I read of Brubaker. And I liked Claremont & Alan Davis' return. (Davis' writing run on the book wasn't bad, either.)
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Post by Cei-U! on Nov 26, 2014 15:46:34 GMT -5
I'm with badwolf: the resurrection of Jean Grey and the subsequent creation of X-Factor was the turning point, for me anyway.
Cei-U!
I summon the end of my X infatuation!
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,816
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Post by shaxper on Nov 26, 2014 15:46:53 GMT -5
I'm re-reading X-Factor right now (which is what prompted this thread), and I'm actually really enjoying it. Bringing Jean back was a terrible idea, as was Madelyne Pryor, as was the Goblin Queen twist, but it's still good storytelling and character development, especially for Cyclops.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Nov 26, 2014 15:49:36 GMT -5
I think the the recent point was definitely the o5 coming back to the present.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 26, 2014 15:55:18 GMT -5
I think the the recent point was definitely the o5 coming back to the present. This. I haven't read everything X-Men related, but I've read a good chunk of various things, and I know that I enjoy things from just about every era. I dislike when they started making some iconic characters wallpaper (Nightcrawler comes to mind) from the ANAD. But I REALLY think that what Bendis is doing with his 85% of all-things-X-Men is horrible. It's just bad and boring. And geared towards a crowd or age group that I'm not a part of and couldn't care less about. It's bland as Hell, and I just want him to stop it. |
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Post by badwolf on Nov 26, 2014 15:57:08 GMT -5
Even putting aside the issue of Jean, I never understood how X-Factor could have worked in the Marvel Universe. There was some prejudice against mutants, but at that point they were still people with rights. How could this group function as a public entity, going around and "neutralizing" mutants? (That wasn't what they were actually doing, of course, but that was their cover.)
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Post by Deleted on Nov 26, 2014 15:58:47 GMT -5
I like X-Factor.
Especially PAD's.
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Post by badwolf on Nov 26, 2014 16:00:01 GMT -5
I read the first collection of PAD's X-Factor and really liked it, but that was a very different team and concept.
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Post by Nowhere Man on Nov 26, 2014 16:06:44 GMT -5
I'd say that 1985/86 was the artistic jumping of the shark for sure. There were some fine stories after this, but making Magneto an actual hero, and bringing back Jean Grey, caused a myriad of problems that probably won't ever be resolved. As hyped and overblown as the 1991 series was, I think they had the right idea trying to bring it back to basics and build from that point, but there was just too much accumulated baggage at that point.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 26, 2014 16:24:19 GMT -5
For me the moment the X-Men jumped the shark was the moment it went from being the X-Men to being the X-Universe, and that was 1982 with the dual publication of the New Mutants graphic novel and the Wolverine mini-series, which is ironic because they are both good stories in of themselves, the problem is they diluted the concept and the focus of the X-Men.
When X-Men was a single book (not the core of a franchise) there was a singular vision guiding it, a singular story being told, and an inherit limit to the size and scale of the storytelling that prevented it from becoming a bloated mess.It was the story of the X-Men, a small group of misfits fighting the good fight in a world that feared them. With those two publications it became the story of a group of misfits fighting the good fight in a world that feared them and the story of the next generation training to take their spots and the story of a noble savage-the berserker with the heart of gold, and from there it kept adding ands to the story as a splash effect form the shark jump. Once it jumped and made the big splash, the ripples kept going outwards and the focus, the purity of the concept and the quality became diluted, more so over time as the ripple effect got bigger and bigger. But the actual shark jump was when the book stopped being a book and tried to become something else-a line, a franchise, a cash cow, or whatever Marvel tried to make it. There was no going back. Part of what made it what it was, was the fact it was a book where anything and more importantly everything happened. After 1982, everything didn't happen there. It was no longer one story being told, one concept, etc., etc. It was something different. (Some may argue better, but that doesn't invalidate it being different).
-M
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,816
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Post by shaxper on Nov 26, 2014 16:30:24 GMT -5
For me the moment the X-Men jumped the shark was the moment it went from being the X-Men to being the X-Universe, and that was 1982 with the dual publication of the New Mutants graphic novel and the Wolverine mini-series, which is ironic because they are both good stories in of themselves, the problem is they diluted the concept and the focus of the X-Men. When X-Men was a single book (not the core of a franchise) there was a singular vision guiding it, a singular story being told, and an inherit limit to the size and scale of the storytelling that prevented it from becoming a bloated mess.It was the story of the X-Men, a small group of misfits fighting the good fight in a world that feared them. With those two publications it became the story of a group of misfits fighting the good fight in a world that feared them and the story of the next generation training to take their spots and the story of a noble savage-the berserker with the heart of gold, and from there it kept adding ands to the story as a splash effect form the shark jump. Once it jumped and made the big splash, the ripples kept going outwards and the focus, the purity of the concept and the quality became diluted, more so over time as the ripple effect got bigger and bigger. But the actual shark jump was when the book stopped being a book and tried to become something else-a line, a franchise, a cash cow, or whatever Marvel tried to make it. There was no going back. Part of what made it what it was, was the fact it was a book where anything and more importantly everything happened. After 1982, everything didn't happen there. It was no longer one story being told, one concept, etc., etc. It was something different. (Some may argue better, but that doesn't invalidate it being different). -M As much as I see your point, this was, for me, the X-Men Golden Age. While the core title weakened at this point, New Mutants had a brilliant early run, and X-factor and Excalibur would ultimately attain heights of their own. I think the X-Universe became a pretty interesting place at this point, and continuity was generally pretty well watched (though there were certainly snafoos). But again, I'm asking less when things started to go bad and more "where's the point where there's nothing more worth reading?" In my own mind, there were stories I enjoyed as late as 1993. |
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Post by Action Ace on Nov 26, 2014 16:33:06 GMT -5
I never even got to the point of putting on the water skis, much less jumping the shark, when it comes to the X-Men.
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Post by Nowhere Man on Nov 26, 2014 16:33:56 GMT -5
I will say that I end my own personal continuity with issue #11 of X-Men in 1992. I might amend this to Claremont's last issue with #3 when I go back and read it all again, but I like the finality of #11 being Lee's last issue and the nature of the story itself.*
*Corrected typo's. Sheesh.
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