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Right. When I say that the events of some of these ancillary X-Men series aren't of any particular consequence or relevance, it should not be read as a dismissal of those series. My aim in giving the synopsis above was to cover the major events of the series, the ones that have some sort of lasting effect on the characters. I skimmed over a lot of things, but I feel that most of those things are ultimately just footnotes and would just make things more confusing. It's a question of emphasis, really - I could give a very detailed summary of the New Mutants, but a lot of it would just take away from the focus of where the overall X-Men franchise was at any given time.
Can I just ask you – you (rightly, I’m sure) say certain storylines and the like were irrelevant overall – did you have any kind of feeling that that was the case when you were reading them ?
Well, it depends. Through the 90s I definitely had a feeling of "oh, what now..." when I followed the series - I had lost a significant chunk of interest in the series following the departure of Chris Claremont, and grew very pessimistic about the series though I kept following it out of equal measures of loyalty and morbid curiousity. In a way, I guess I didn't think things like X-Ecutioner's Song very seriously mostly because of how awful it was. At that time, I was pretty heavy into Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol, Shade The Changing Man, Keith Giffen's Legion of Super Heroes and Justice League, so my heart was in that stuff.
The horrible period of the 90s came at a good time for me, I guess - most of it happened during a period during which I was becoming less invested in comics as a whole, so I didn't care too much. I did buy and/or read it all, but with almost nonexistant expectations. Once Lobdell started showing some glimmer of talent towards the end of his run and Joe Kelly took over, I started getting back into the X-Men again - this was in my first year of college, I think. At that time, Uncanny X-Men and X-Men were the only comics I was bothering with, mostly because I was spending most of my spending money on music at the time. Then it all went bad again, and I just kinda kept tabs on the series by reading it at newstands and comics shops up until Grant Morrison took over.
I guess I can say that I'm happy with the X-line right now, it's definitely the best it has been since 1988 or so. That long period of time between Chris Claremont's departure and Grant Morrison's arrival is funny, cos as much as what has happened, not all that much of it really added to the franchise at all and any continuity that must be observed by current writers from that time can be easily swept under the rug.
I obviously really love New X-Men and X-Statix, and I approve of (but don't really enjoy) X-Treme X-Men. I think Uncanny X-Men is a mess under both Joe Casey and Chuck Austen, but I suppose they haven't done too much to muck things up. It seems like Uncanny X-Men is like the backseat of the X-Men franchise now, all of the major characters and plot developments are in the hands of Claremont and Morrison. I think that Claremont has improved greatly after his nearly unreadable first year back on the X-Men and the first year or so of X-Treme. He seems to have taken a hint and cut down on the text he's been putting on page, he's playing nice with Morrison, and he's come up with a coherant and logical reason for the X-treme group to exist, so that's great. It seems like X-Treme may be getting somewhat interesting now that Igor Kordey has taken over the art, I'm definitely going to keep my eye on it. I think I'm going to check out the upcoming revival of the New Mutants, but mostly because I really loved the New Mutants as a little kid.
As for the non-core series - I've never really read Wolverine's solo stuff. I can't think of a single thing that's ever been particularly relevant that ever happened in that title. Same goes for Cable, Gambit, etc - solo series are almost invariably worthless. |
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That took place in one of John Byrne's later issue of FANTASTIC FOUR #286
