Thoughts on Wolverine and the X-Men?

[Atomiq]

Idie would own them. She's a stone cold killer.

[magnuskn]

That's quite an exaggeration.

It's not. Comics are written to please the fans who read them. The real problem here is that many people use the word "fanservice" as a weapon to attack fans who like things they personally don't like. Like in the case to which I responded.

[Toto]

I am leaning more towards the camp who enjoy the book, but I admit too, that it is the most frustrating book when you look at the missed potential. Issues 1-8 are X-Bible to me, after that I cherry-pick my favs.

I thought it is worth looking at the sales, so I compiled them:
1 95 000
2 83 000
3 58 000
4 59 000
5 55 000
6 55 000
7 54 000
8 53 000
9 64 000
10 63 000
11 64 000
12 64 000
13 62 000
14 61 000
15 58 000
16 55 000
17 54 000
18 52 000
19 50 000
20 48 000
21 48 000
22 45 000
23 43 900
24 44 700
Apart from the last two months I rounded up the numbers.

It stabilized in the mid 50 range before AvX, then rose till #12, when, halfway thru the crossover started declining, and did not stop up until the very recent - and according to mine and most of our oppinions - one of the best issues, #24, where you can see a slight increase. We will see if the tide has turned or it was just this particular great issue.
What we learn from this is that if the tie-ins would only have lasted 4 issues, the book would have benefited more from it.

[Maestro]

My absolute favorite scene in the comic was when Beast heroically saved Abigail Brand from Sabretooth in issue #8. One of Beast's finest moments.

[passer-by]

It's not. Comics are written to please the fans who read them. The real problem here is that many people use the word "fanservice" as a weapon to attack fans who like things they personally don't like. Like in the case to which I responded.

I understand what you're saying in this specific case, but the bolded part in only true for some comics. Not all of them.

To use a Gaiman quote about George R.R. Martin - writers like Alan Moore, Warren Ellis, Garth Ennis, Neil Gaiman, Brian Vaughan, Peter David, Kurt Busiek, Mark Waid, Ed Brubaker, Greg Rucka, Brian Wood, Dave Sim, Bill Watterson, Chris Ware, Daniel Clowes, the Bros Hernandez and many others are not the fans' bitches. ;)

Your claim is more valid for mainstream Marvel/DC - and even there it's not entirely valid.

I'd rather say that comics are written to please the publisher, the editor and the writer. That order varies in different cases.

And to get back on topic, in this specific case I don't think that Jason Aaron particularly cares about the likes and dislikes of a few dozen people in fan forums - his book sells 1000 times that, he likes things like the Hellfire brats, BobKat and RoLo and writes them. (I can't stand the brats, but for me the good in this book outweighs the bad by far.)

[The Fury]

I am enjoying this book more than any other X-men book at the moment as it's light hearted and enjoyable. Aaron has done a great job with it. Serious when it needs to be, fun when it needs to be. And having Toad in it is fun, even if he's designed wrong and written wrong.