Xcutioners song

[SolidusSnakeX]

everytime i go to teh comic store i see alot of this book in trade paperback format. i skim through it and it looks interesting enough but i was an xmen fan way back when the original books caem out. without ruining it for me, can anyone tell me what its about and if i should buy it or skip it :) thank you

[Alan2099]

Sryfe posses as Cable and attempts to assassinate Xavier. He then turns on Cyclops and Jean for adandoning him and Cable for being his inferior.

The X-men go after X-force because of the Cable link and they end up having to trust Apocalypse to cure Xavier.

The contrast between X-force, X-men, and X-factor is really pl;ayed up here, and Sinister, Stryfe, and Apocalypse all get into the mix.

[riftt]

I re-read xcutioner's song and xtinction agenda very recently. Xtinction Agenda is godawful and is basically a good summary of everything wrong with comics during that time period.

I was actually surprised that Xcutioners Song held up quite well. Maybe it was because I read it right after the xtinction crapfest but the pacing was very good, the art was great, and there were a lot of fun light moments to go with the action set pieces. The negative of the series is that it falls victim to the whole "1000 unresolved plot threads" device that they seemed so keen on at that time. This kinda sabotauges(sp) the series and makes you come away with not much more than a good character study.

[DDM]

Apocalypse helps the X-Men in an unexpected manner by helping Xavier. The Legacy Virus is introduced as the maximum plot device to get rid of several good characters such as Pyro, Illyana Rasputin, & Moira MacTaggert.

Stryfe is reduced to incessant whining with Jean Grey & Scott Summers as his audience on the Blue Area of the Moon.

[DDM]

I re-read xcutioner's song and xtinction agenda very recently. Xtinction Agenda is godawful and is basically a good summary of everything wrong with comics during that time period.

I was actually surprised that Xcutioners Song held up quite well. Maybe it was because I read it right after the xtinction crapfest but the pacing was very good, the art was great, and there were a lot of fun light moments to go with the action set pieces. The negative of the series is that it falls victim to the whole "1000 unresolved plot threads" device that they seemed so keen on at that time. This kinda sabotauges(sp) the series and makes you come away with not much more than a good character study.

The X-Tinction Agenda did several important things:


The X-Men were reunited & revealed to all the world that they are not dead.
Genosha's mutate program is dismantled.
Havok is revealed to be a Genoshan Magistrate.
Warlock is killed.
Wolfsbane is changed as a result of the genesmode process.


The X-Men are reformed in the aftermath as Storm, Gambit, Psylocke, Banshee, Forge, Jubilee, & Wolverine. Rogue had not rejoined the X-Men at this time. X-Factor continues to exist status quo. The New Mutants were slowly becoming X-Force.

Personally, I prefer The X-Tinction Agenda over X-cutioner's Song. Stryfe is just being a whiny brat because he's a clone of Cable & did not get the loving from his biological parents. So what does he do? Styfe creates the Legacy Virus. Brilliant for a spoiled bratty clone with too many psychological problems to be taken seriously as a comic book villain.

[Sanagi]

My biggest complaint about X-tinction Agenda is the awful art in the X-Factor issues. Though killing off Warlock certainly comes close.

[TheWolfOfAsgard]

Personally, I prefer The X-Tinction Agenda over X-cutioner's Song. Stryfe is just being a whiny brat because he's a clone of Cable & did not get the loving from his biological parents. So what does he do? Styfe creates the Legacy Virus. Brilliant for a spoiled bratty clone with too many psychological problems to be taken seriously as a comic book villain.


I agree with that. Agenda was better in the long run because it actually accomplished things that mattered over time.

[Gingold]

Both X-Tinction and X-Cutioner's Song are pretty bad. X-Tinction Agenda has nice art by Jim Lee in the X-Men issues, but it's otherwise pretty missable. X-Cutioner's Song has pretty good art, but nothing else that redeeming. And those have gotta be the worst titles for crossover events ever. (X-Cutioner? Isn't there a syllable missing?)

[nubly]

i liked x-tinction agenda. though i think that is because it came out around the time i started to get into marvel comics. x-cutioners song, to me, sucked bad. frm what i remember, it was very hyped and it let me so down

[JolieBrunette]

The arc was worth reading for the epilogue, which is one of the best issues of Uncanny X-Men ever written. Xavier and Jubilee go inline skating. It's funny and sad and just wonderful.

That said, the TPB doesn't include the epilogue, so it's very skippable. All I remember of it is Stryfe whines a lot in various exotic locations and the Legacy Virus gets released to start the most pointless plotline ever. Spend the money on UXM #297 instead. :D

[marshal99]

I enjoyed X-cutioner song , u get the obligatory group fight and a catfight between the 2 catlike ladies of the groups - feral vs wolfsbane , a whole lot of big x-villains appearances - sinister , Stryfe , Apocalypse all played major roles , u get the start of the legacy virus which held its hold on the x-universe for 2 years after.

[fishtaco]

Personally, I prefer The X-Tinction Agenda over X-cutioner's Song. Stryfe is just being a whiny brat because he's a clone of Cable & did not get the loving from his biological parents. So what does he do? Styfe creates the Legacy Virus. Brilliant for a spoiled bratty clone with too many psychological problems to be taken seriously as a comic book villain.I totally agree. Stryfe became such a boring villain with that crossover, in my opinion. I didn't even like him that much in his first apperances in New Mutants and the first issue of X-Force.

I absolutely loved X-Tinction Agenda. Great art (except for New Mutants), and a storyline that was really well put together that effected not only Genosha, but X-Factor, Uncanny X-Men, and New Mutants. Warlock died (and the plot that would have come out of that would have been so cool). Genosha was left in ruins and was vulnerable to a later attack led by Fabian Cortez that cost the Genoshans dearly. Wolfsbane was running on the edge with no margins left. Genosha launched an attack against all of the X-Men across the entire planet. The world is stunned to see them back alive. Havok returns, finally in control of his powers. Cameron Hodge is killed. Very militaristic, very interesting set-up.

[Dizzy D]

I disagree. Of course, Stryfe's hatred for Scott and Jean is based off ignorance (a common theme in X-men books, right?), in which he thinks that he is the original that Scott "abandoned" in X-Factor 68. He wouldn't listen to reasoning if Scott told him that he sent him to the future to save his life and that he loved him (because at the time Cyclops believed that Stryfe was the the one he actually sent to the future). He released the Legacy Virus in an attempt to destroy mutants, and thus, Xavier's dream that Scott and Jean devote their lives to. It reminds me a lot of Cassandra Nova. She tried to destroy Xavier's Dream because she has personal issues with one of the X-Men (in this case, Xavier). I find it intriguing for such a powerful mutant, leader of a team of mutant terrorists, and an adult is really nothing more than a "spoiled bratty clone". Despite the fact that he is an adult, he is immature, and there is still the child within him. His motives are based off of pure hatred, and lust for revenge.

I like his outfit, too. I want that helmet. :D

But hey, even Claremont liked Stryfe enough to use him in X-Men Annual 2000, X-Men: The End (sorta), and Uncanny X-Men 384 (even though he never got to revealing that Stryfe attacked Jean and Logan on the astral plane.


Also keep in mind that at the time of X-cutioner's song Stryfe was not intended to be a clone. Yes, he is immature and spoilt and wants the whole world to pay for what he thinks is injustice done to him. He doesn't differ that much from most villains in that regard.

I don't think that Stryfe's motivation is any worse than Hodge's "I worshipped Warren Worthington and then he turned out to be a mutant."

Neither of the two stories was as good as the earlier crossovers Inferno and Mutant Massacre, but they were better than Evolutionary War (though I liked the X-factor issue for the Apocalypse/High Evolutionary fight and the X-men issue for the great art.) and Atlantis Attacks (though I liked the X-men issue for Longshot finding that stone). I liked X-cutioner a bit better because X-tinction had
a) really bad art in the X-factor and New Mutant issues
b) they killed Warlock for a stupid reason, in a stupid way and with hardly any follow-up.
c) Hodge's head without a body. You wonder how it got to Genosha and came into a position of power so quickly. I think Hodge's presence hurts the Genosha/X-men conflict more than it helped plotwise.
d) Psylocke using big Jim Lee guns. Lee will do the same thing a couple of issues with Lila Cheney and Deathbird.

[fishtaco]

delete post

[newscott]

Aside from the plots...

Can't one get the original poly-bagged with trading card Song x-over in the quarter bins for cheaper than the TPB?

Plus, you know, trading cards.

[SolidusSnakeX]

i dont like xmen much. i never had teh chance to buy it growing it because it was always sold out. the only complete sagas i bought were the OPeration Zero tolerance saga, Onslaught (ENTIRELY!) The Ages Of Apocalypse (what a waste of my time) and every book between 2001 (the relaunch that started with grant morrisen and that other guy) and ended with reload and so far the only thing ive liked was Grants run on Xmen.
I looked at Xcutioners song and thought it looked like something i would want to read but im not sure i should. i havent seen xtinction agenda by the way so i cant even compare :'( what should i do?

[DDM]

i dont like xmen much. i never had teh chance to buy it growing it because it was always sold out. the only complete sagas i bought were the OPeration Zero tolerance saga, Onslaught (ENTIRELY!) The Ages Of Apocalypse (what a waste of my time) and every book between 2001 (the relaunch that started with grant morrisen and that other guy) and ended with reload and so far the only thing ive liked was Grants run on Xmen.
I looked at Xcutioners song and thought it looked like something i would want to read but im not sure i should. i havent seen xtinction agenda by the way so i cant even compare :'( what should i do?

The X-Tinction Agenda TPB is still in print. You can order the book at your bookstore.

[TheWolfOfAsgard]

Aside from the plots...

Can't one get the original poly-bagged with trading card Song x-over in the quarter bins for cheaper than the TPB?

Plus, you know, trading cards.

I can get you some of them for a quarter....no lie.

[streator]

Aside from the plots...

Can't one get the original poly-bagged with trading card Song x-over in the quarter bins for cheaper than the TPB?

Plus, you know, trading cards.
i recently bought the x-force and x-men issues i was missing off of www.mycomicshop.com for maybe $0.80 each issue, poly-bagged and card included. i don't know what local shops sell them for, but 80 cents or so is definitely reasonable.

[Keith_Martineau]

Reading the disparate pieces of X-Tinction Agenda is what got me into comics and X-Men in the first place. You wanna talk about comics being continuity heavy and hard to get in to? Try this on for size. I got my first comics in a giant 20-pack at like Costco that had all the major marvel issues for that month in them, so I had like, the middle of X-Tinction Agenda. The crossover itself is HEAVILY drenched in continuity and plots that were tons of issues old across many comics, and I got in at the MIDDLE of the crossover! And I was 12.
And I still freaking got in to it. S'why I don't fully buy the "inaccessible" arguments about comics these days. Good comics drenched in continuity make you horribly curious as to what happened before and whats gonna happen next. Bad comics drenched in continuity, it ain't the continuity, it's that they're just bad.
Finding all the issues of X-Tinction Agenda was like the holy grail for me in my early comic collecting days. The issue where Warlock died was THE single hardest one to find. Took me 3 years. But god I loved that crossover. There WAS some truly terrible art in some of those issues, but I got hooked anyway.

By the time X-Cutioner's Song came around, I was already collecting all those comics and well familiar with them...and truth be told, I loved the whole thing. To this day I love that crossover. The fact that Stryfe, Apocalypse, and Mr. Sinister were all used, and used WELL, is to me the number one reason why so many successive x-crossovers were so bad, because in many cases they kept trying to do the big multiple villain multiple threat thing, usually with poor results. They did it well once and kept trying to repeat.
The whole series was about conflicts between kids and adults, fighting family. Stryfe wanted to take out Apocalpse, Scott, Jean and Cable. In so doing he pitted the X-Men, and X-Factor against X-Force. I know a lot of people are miffed and point to this crossover as the first real official F-U to Chris Claremont and the plots he was building before being thrown off the X-titles, and because plots that were dealt with here were revisited ad-nauseum, but this story itself was very good, and very well done. The art was pretty dang good throughout as well. A young Brandon Peterson, Andy Kubert, Jae Lee and Greg Capulo. Just good stuff.