morrisons new x-men?

[Ullar]

Is this run good? I was thinking of getting the omnibus and wanted some oppions on the run before I buy it.

[Hi-Fi]

It's one of the best and most inventive X-Men runs ever. Higly recommended.

[rwsmith]

Couldn't agree more. It definitely redefined the X-men (at least until Marvel undid most of what Grant did over the course of the next couple of years). I would definitely recommend the omnibus.

[thew40]

Among the best X-Men runs ever.

~W~

[Maestro]

The Omnibus is a fantastic book if you actually find it. It's been out of print for a while.

[DarthCyclopsRLZ]

Morrison's run ruled. Simple as that.

[The Lucky One]

You'll hardly find a more divisive question than that, but... to me, it was a very inventive run, it just wasn't the X-Men. Probably would've loved it if it were a bunch of new characters, like X-Statix. As it was, to me it was a bunch of new characters with the names of X-Men, which wasn't quite my cup of tea.

But like I said, that's me, and it IS very inventive. The art varies wildly, but if you love creativity, this is your run. If you're a traditionalist, maybe not so much.

-D

[kate-pryde]

It depends on what you like. Personality, I absolutely abhored it.

[rwsmith]

Big shocker there.

[Hi-Fi]

LOL! LOL LOL!

[rwsmith]

Didn't mean for it to come out rude. Just saying, there is a certain type of fan who abhors Morrison's New X-men run, and anyone who is a huge fan of the complex continuity that surrounds Rachel Summers/Grey probably fits that bill.

[ZNOP]

Didn't mean for it to come out rude. Just saying, there is a certain type of fan who abhors Morrison's New X-men run, and anyone who is a huge fan of the complex continuity that surrounds Rachel Summers/Grey probably fits that bill.

Hey:D I resemble that. I wouldn't buy his work again but, honestly I would not mind reading some spoilers about his latest X-Run. If anyone can PM me with details and pics I would appreciate it. Thanks.

[Jake V]

The best X-Men run I've ever read.

And I've read most of them.

[Deus ex Chris]

It's absolutely fantastic.

[We R. Venom]

Yes, Morrison's is a good read.

[Omega Alpha]

If you're a fan of Lobdell, 90's X-men as a whole and/or Claremont since his return, you're probably not going to enjoy it, since the majority of those don't seem to like Morrison's run, or at least nearly all the haters of his work fit into these groups.

However, if you're not, I would definitively recommend it. After Claremont's first run, it's the best the X-men have ever been, and in many aspects is superior to even CC when he was good. It's a highly bold, innovative and unique work which develops some old concepts, creates several new ones and changes X-men, mutantkind and even mankind as a whole and gives the team a new meaning and purpose. And at the same time giving great development to all the team members. It was a radical change to the old Lobdell, Harras and Claremont stagnation from the 90's, so, like i said, it may not be for you, but in anyway, to understand the X-men as they are now, it's a must read.

[Joe Franklin]

All of the new X-characters that Morrison created suck. However, his dialog on his X-Men run was the best the X-Men have ever spoken. Half of his plots and stories sucked, as did half of the art. I am a huge fan of Morrison's dialog in most of the stuff I have read from him, but not so much his story ideas.

[skylight]

which story arcs are the best? i'm considering getting the trades. i'm thinking of getting the one with the "weapons X" story arc just because Chris Bachalo was the artist.

[Joe Franklin]

which story arcs are the best? i'm considering getting the trades. i'm thinking of getting the one with the "weapons X" story arc just because Chris Bachalo was the artist.

This story arc had the best dialog and art. The conversation between Wolverine and Sabretooth in the Hellfire strip club bathroom is the coolest interaction I have ever read between the 2 characters.

[Jake V]

which story arcs are the best? i'm considering getting the trades. i'm thinking of getting the one with the "weapons X" story arc just because Chris Bachalo was the artist.

Start with E is for Extinction and go from there.

[Omega Alpha]

which story arcs are the best? i'm considering getting the trades. i'm thinking of getting the one with the "weapons X" story arc just because Chris Bachalo was the artist.

Begin at the beginning, with E for Extinction and Imperial. The latter one is the best.

[DarthCyclopsRLZ]

Oh, and Planet X if you wanna piss off Mags fans.

[Will.S]

Oh, and Planet X if you wanna piss off Mags fans.
To like, the max.

And yeah it's really good stuff, buy it.

[DarthCyclopsRLZ]

Should've throw in Jean fans too with that Planet X comment. :D

But as was said, Extinction and Imperial are rock solid.

Morrison just had some great ideas, really.

[Slung]

Should've throw in Jean fans too with that Planet X comment. :D

But as was said, Extinction and Imperial are rock solid.

Morrison just had some great ideas, really.

Well, the story wasn't bad, but it ended horribly (and had the worst characterization for Magneto EVER). Morrison almost made up for his Jean murdering with Here Comes Tomorrow, but then got a big fat "F" for not having her fix the timestream to BEFORE she died at the end. LAME-O.

[skylight]

i guess the only thing that's keeping me from buying new x-men trades is frank quitely's art. igor kordey was one of the artists too right? how's his art?

[Deep_Sleeper]

I'd have liked it a bit more if it had consistent art. Man, sometimes it just got downright awful. If Quitely wasn't there, I had to really drag myself through some of the issues.

Morrison + Quitely = Magic.

[Will.S]

i guess the only thing that's keeping me from buying new x-men trades is frank quitely's art. igor kordey was one of the artists too right? how's his art?
Igor's art is noticeably rushed in Imperial but is much better and more polished in the Fantomex arc. When Kordey is on he's really good although sometimes I hate the way he inks his own work.

[DarthCyclopsRLZ]

Well, the story wasn't bad, but it ended horribly (and had the worst characterization for Magneto EVER). Morrison almost made up for his Jean murdering with Here Comes Tomorrow, but then got a big fat "F" for not having her fix the timestream to BEFORE she died at the end. LAME-O.

Eh. sort of liked this Mags cause he was the most insane he's ever been. Beats neutered in my book.

Also freakin loved how Jean got owned. But it's not so much about her (I swear, lol) as about the notion of an Omega going on a long-winded stiff upper lip speech and getting murdered on the spot.

Well, if it's any consolation, her not coming back was an act of, hum, selflessness? :confused:

Okay, forget that last bit, I got nothing.

[Slung]

i guess the only thing that's keeping me from buying new x-men trades is frank quitely's art. igor kordey was one of the artists too right? how's his art?

Kordey's art is hideous on New X-Men. I mean really. He makes Quitely's characters look beautiful. I was going to post an image of his work on X-Men - but NO one seems to want to keep his stuff around.

Ethan Van Sciver did a decent job on his New X-Men stuff. Phil Jimenez and Silvestri's work was really great too.

[DarthCyclopsRLZ]

Liked the art during the first 5-6 (??) issues and Planet X.

That's about it. Seriously.

[Will.S]

Kordey is a VERY aquired taste but speaking of the other artists I think Frank Quitely, Phil Jimenez, and Marc Silvestri's were the closest to Morrison's intention in the scripts. They were his favorite artists on the book despite the inconsistent teams.

Ethan was good too but I think his current DC art is much better.

[The Lucky One]

Morrison just had some great ideas, really.

He did, at that. He always does. It's the execution that I'm usually about 50/50 on. (As in, JLA, Animal Man, and Arkham Asylum = yes, current Batman and most of NXM = not so much.)

I'd recommend Here Comes Tomorrow -- Silvestri's art is the best of Morrison's run, and it was probably the most enjoyable story -- but you won't understand any of it if you haven't read the previous 40 or so issues. Real catch-22. I'd love to join the crowd and recommend E is for Extinction, but I seem to be the 1% who just didn't like it at all.

The good news, of course, is that that still leaves 99% for you to fall into. ;)

-D

[DarthCyclopsRLZ]

Now that you mention, yes, the art was good in that last arc.

[Ullar]

Thanks for all the feedback. I never read x-men so I think I'll like NXM. What goes after NXM?

[Will.S]

Thanks for all the feedback. I never read x-men so I think I'll like NXM. What goes after NXM?
Bad Chuck Austen filler, then the X-Men Reload stuff with Claremont coming onto Uncanny and Austen continuing some mediocre X-Men work.

[DeniseXfrost]

What goes after NXM?
Astnoshing Xmen is the sequal.

[The Lucky One]

Astnoshing Xmen is the sequal.

Enh... sort of. Stylistically, Whedon's writing is a lot closer to old-school Claremont, and most of the themes, tone, and villains are different. However, it is the same cast of characters (plus Kitty) that Morrison used.

-D

[CmX]

I liked it, it's definitely something very different as far as XMen stories are concerned. He did some interesting things and was inventive with a lot of characters i.e., Emma Frost. IMHO

[skylight]

Chris Bachalo's art is still the best for me even though he was only for 3 issues on New X-Men. I can't wait for his return on X-Men during MC.

[DeniseXfrost]

Enh... sort of. Stylistically, Whedon's writing is a lot closer to old-school Claremont, and most of the themes, tone, and villains are different. However, it is the same cast of characters (plus Kitty) that Morrison used.

Alot of things were referenced back to Morrison's run esp in Torn.

[The Sword Is Drawn]

It's a real 'Marmite' run.

You'll find plenty who love it, just as many who hate it, but there are very few people who actually sit in between those two poles. It's usually one or the other. :D

Personally, I kinda do sit in the middle, but leaning towards the hate camp. Which is a bit of a surprise to me. I'm a long time Morrison fan, and appreciate what Morrison was trying to do. It's just that I feel the way in which he actually executed it was not so well thought through, and actually very damaging to the X-Men brand.

The ideas he brought to the franchise would have been absolutely great if they were being brought to a self-enclosed book, which was not part of the rest of the MU. Heck if his run had been an Ultimate title it would have been heralded as genius. Concepts such as taking the school (And the X-Men) Public, raising the number of mutants active in the world by a couple of hundred percent, breaking up the longest standing X-Relationship are all interesting ones. But the problem is that - how should if best put this - they're 'End Game' concepts. All three of those ideas trace directly back to the very earliest issues of X-Men (Back before the Uncanny tag was added to the series). The fears over Mutants literally outnumbering humans suddenly starts to seem like a much more realistic possibility.

The problem is that after to you make these kind of changes where can you actually go afterwards? To put this into TV terms these are the kind of concepts you bring in for your final season - once you have decided to either end it or once you know the network isn't going to give you another series - so you up the ante, hoping to grab people's attention and go out with a bang.

What I don't think Morrison really grasped was that X-Men is not a self-contained, finite length-ed, title. It's an ongoing. And after making sweeping changes he didn't even bring his concepts to a conclusion, because he knew he was already jumping ship to DC. Make the X-Men public and in the short term you create an interesting situation, whereby all the X-Men's adversaries now know their home address. But in the long term you remove a lot of the mystique, a lot of the iconic nature of the team. Once you reveal all the secrets to the world what makes the book quite so interesting anymore?

If you hike those mutant numbers, and create waves of more freaky-looking and bizarre mutants, in the short term you have a shock value, a demonstration of those fears which humanity has always had towards mutants are being realised. But in the long term? Well, there's only a certain length you can go to before all those people get used to the situation, even if they don't entirely accept it. Then why is it interesting? Where can you go? Well, other than a mass culling or depowering, there isn't really a lot.

And of course when you alter the number of mutants on earth you're not just doing it for the X-Titles, but for the entire Marvel Universe. The numbers Morrison upped, by rights, should have resulted in freaky mutant faces in the crowd shots of almost every Marvel title. But most of those titles don't have a want or need to refer to mutants unless they absolutely have to. It began to become a problem on a much greater scale...

Yes, it's true to say that the X-Books certainly did need a shake up before Morrison came along. But the chances are that if you loved the basic concepts and status quo of the X-Men then you will hate this run with a fiery passion.

[Karl H]

I loved it.

But, it has its floors as other, more verbose posters have so eloquently stated.

It ends with a bit of a whimper too unfortunately.

[The Lucky One]

Alot of things were referenced back to Morrison's run esp in Torn.

That's true, but so did the other arcs- the Danger Room coming to life directly mirrors Cerebro coming to life back in the late 90s, and the "cure" for mutancy references the couple of other times that's been done in the past too, notably the late 90s story with Rogue. Stylistically it's still a closer match to Claremont than Morrison (which makes sense, given how much Whedon, and Buffy by extension, were influenced by him).

-D

[Pro]

And of course when you alter the number of mutants on earth you're not just doing it for the X-Titles, but for the entire Marvel Universe. The numbers Morrison upped, by rights, should have resulted in freaky mutant faces in the crowd shots of almost every Marvel title.

The majority of mutants can pass for human and wouldn't be noticed in a crowd. The freakier ones tended to stay away from humans anyway, either concentrating in locales like superhero groups, weapon x, living in Genosha, mutant ghettoes or hiding in the sewers below human feet so no need for freaky faces everywhere and no need for mutants to randomly cross paths with other superhero books. 32 million mutants globally among 6 billion humans, really not that much. 16 million after Genosha was destroyed.

For other marvel books 16 million mutants were neglible but for the x-setting the numbers swelled to a point where mutants had an effect on human culture and mankind had a genuine reason to fear mutants taking over the world. That was so exciting about Morrison's run. For the first time ever the mutant race became a culture, a society, a political and social force that couldn't be wiped under the carpet or exterminated without the world knowing about it. There was never a time in x-men history that Xavier's dream was tested more. It was like the x-men setting grew up.
And that was a whole lot cooler than reading about a handfull of freaks who happen to have a gene in common and won't be around one generation from now.

It wasn't a big deal when it came to other books up until Marvel decided to use a plot that had defined the x-men for 3 decades: superhuman registration. Really a surprise M-day happened just before Civil War, i think not. Can't do a registration plot without the x-men unless of course you wipe out the mutant race first.