Welcome!

[sheliak]

Welcome to X-Men Classic!

This is a community dedicated to the classic Claremont-era X-Men! Related titles very much included. If you want to talk about New Mutants, X-Factor, Excalibur, the Magik miniseries, the Fallen Angels or anything else X-related from this time period—go right ahead! We hope you’ll have fun here.

To get the discussion rolling, tell us about the comic or arc that got you hooked on the era, or X-Men comics in general!

Comments

[nyctanthes]

(Using one of sheliak's fabulous X-Men icons...)

Very excited to participate in this comm.

I came to X-Men in a roundabout way. I watched the cartoon back in the '90s (and hence became quite the Rogue-Gambit 'shipper), saw the first two X-Men movies, then read a few of the later runs (Whedon, Morrison). At some point I drifted away from X-Men fannishness. I came back into the fold a few years ago, when I started listening to the Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men podcast.

I recently got a Marvel Unlimited subscription, in part so I can read the classics as well as keep up with some of the current storylines. I have a good friend who's going to lend me his Excalibur back issues, which I'm excited about.

In terms of older material, I might start with New Mutants because of the Bill Sienkiewicz art and I love Ilyana. But I enjoy almost all the original characters, as well as the new ones who have been introduced over the years. What makes me happiest is when there's a good story arc with lots of team interaction.

[rachelmanija]

I love Illyana so much. Have you read her Magik miniseries?

I recently listened to a ton of Jay and Miles episodes, which introduced me to the wonders of Frog Thor.

[nyctanthes]

the wonders of Frog Thor.

Yes! Miles has a great, limited edition (13 eps?) podcast (not with Jay, with his friend Elizabeth) of Walter Simonson's run on Thor. If you're new to them, both the run and the podcast are lots of fun.

Have you read her Magik miniseries?

Downloaded and ready to read! Hope to get to it between Christmas and New Year's. I'm spoiled for all of it, obviously, and it sounds like a gut punch.

[rachelmanija]

Yes, I now really want to check out Simonson's Thor - they sold me on it.

I look forward to your thoughts on Magik. Even if you've been spoiled, I think it's still really intense.

[sheliak]

The Sienkiewicz-drawn arcs are really fantastic! And Illyana definitely takes center stage in New Mutants for a long while; it's great.

I'm also fond of Bob MacLeod, the original artist--he's doing house style and can be unexciting next to the later artists, but he's doing it well, and I like the care he put into the characters' designs. He made all of the characters very visually distinct from each other (important given the matching uniforms!), and I think he's the one who came up with the visual effects for Sunspot and Magma's powers, which I love.

I've been really enjoying Jay & Miles too; their reactions to the stories are great fun, and they've made me feel rather more kindly to some of the arcs I used to dislike.

[nyctanthes]

It'll be interesting to read more of the classics and see how my reaction compares to Jay & Miles. I'm not, for example, as enthusiastic about God Loves, Man Kills as they are. In large part because the art was a little "meh" for me (and I read Marvel/Claremont were hoping to use someone else.) Perhaps because I came to comics from the non-superhero end of the spectrum, I've got expectations for art that are not realistic for a long-running, consistently crank 'em out mega-franchise. Your point about the house style and working within that to create something of quality that lasts over time is well taken.

On the plus side, Jay & Miles have got me super excited to check out the Gambit and Wolverine story with yet another redhead and spectacular, painterly art.

I found this PopMatters piece on the 15 best Claremont X stories. (Here Be Spoilers!) I'm going to use it as a place to start on X-Men (as opposed to New Mutants) stories.

[sheliak]

I think part of my fondness for MacLeod is that his strengths are things that are common weaknesses in superhero comics art--his teenagers look look like real people, everyone has a different build, things like that. I don't know that he would have impressed me at all if I weren't resigned to artists failing at the things he does well. (Although I think I would still have thought Sunspot's powers looked neat!)

The first time I read God Loves, Man Kills it was in grayscale (they reprinted it in the Essentials), and it looked dreadful. So the color version worked better for me just because it didn't look like mud.