Comic Book Resources

My, that’s a lot of characters I’ve never heard of.

But no Beak, meaning he either did too poorly or too well, I think.

Are there really only 27 ‘A-list’ X-men, then? I’d have thought there were more…

What’s the matter, Brian? You haven’t been loving NEW WARRIORS? Isn’t it just the BESTest book ever?

I gave up on the X-Men around the time Psychlocke turned Japanese. Reading those character histories makes me wonder how even someone who has read every X comic ever could keep up with the continuity.

Joins team. Turns evil. Dies. Comes back. Turns evil. Turns out to be somebody else. Dies. Comes back evil. Joins team. Turns Japanese. Dies. Comes back….

We drink and we die and continue to drink.

The M write-up was hilarious! I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t want to give a fully-detailed write-up about that character. Heck, do one for Donna Troy while you’re at it…

I didn’t know Cecelia Reyes was dead. That’s just lame.

Jubilee appears regularly in New Mutants as the anti-Night Stalker rebel.

Minor quibble, but Pixie’s teleportation was never one of her mutant powers, it was a spell taught to her by Doctor Strange shortly after Belasco attacked the mansion.

Otherwise, good job on putting this list together. I always enjoy the insights into the more obscure corners of X-Men fandom that these things allow the CBR X-Forum provide.

How was this voted on? Seriously? Is it based on current relevancy, powers, likability. Because if you factor any of those in, the order of this list makes little sense. How do ham n’ eggers get over on bigger names? Even if you’re nostalgic for old characters, some of them don’t get a higher ranking than some newer characters.

I don’t get it.

Favorite X-Men. It’s all there in the description at the beginning of the list!

This list must be some trick orchestrated by Mr. Sinister.

Jubilee, then, realized she wanted to have sex with Skin’s corpse.

I’m so sorry you had to type that.

I’m happy that you guys didn’t wikipedia these entries. Makes for some interesting reading. “Blah, blah, blah, she’s dead.” If they were real, their feelings would be hurt.

X-Men? So 90s…

“We drink and we die and continue to drink.”

Oh we have no heads, yes we have no heads…

colossus BETTER be high up there!

Wow, I haven’t followed the X-Men since Onslaught started. Some messed up stuff has happened since then. Your write ups were hilarious. One questions though, who is the second dughter of Mastermind you mentioned? Was she on the list, or just a different daughter that also went by the same name or something?

In a Loeb/Sale Wolverine/Gambit mini-series during the mid-90s, Loeb introduced the new Mastermind, Martinique Wyngarde.

She’s popped up a few times since, most recently in the last storyline before Uncanny X-Men #500.

She will be appearing in Uncanny as a member of the Sisterhood of Mutants.

I’m one of those oddballs who only reads Comics Should Be Good, and almost never ventures out into the rest of CBR. I say this to indicate that I’ve only read your writing here on CSBG, Brian, and not elsewhere, which may be why I was taken aback at the level of snark showing in this list. It didn’t seem like your normal even-handed treatment of comics and characters.

Then again, I get the sense that you’ve been an X-fan for a long time, so perhaps it’s a “I must laugh or I will cry” sort of thing. As a fan going back to the mid-80s, I’m with you, brother.

If you can’t snark at X-Men, what can you snark at?

That’s funny, I have that mini-series, and actually just ran across it last week while sorting through some comics and said “Loeb/Sale did a Wolverine and Gambit mini? That’s weird.” Maybe I’ll have to give it a read.

I’m one of those oddballs who only reads Comics Should Be Good, and almost never ventures out into the rest of CBR. I say this to indicate that I’ve only read your writing here on CSBG, Brian, and not elsewhere, which may be why I was taken aback at the level of snark showing in this list. It didn’t seem like your normal even-handed treatment of comics and characters.

Then again, I get the sense that you’ve been an X-fan for a long time, so perhaps it’s a “I must laugh or I will cry” sort of thing. As a fan going back to the mid-80s, I’m with you, brother.

I appreciate the kind assessment of my writing here, but I think I’ve been snarky many a time here, as well.

But as for the style of writing on the list, mostly it is because if you don’t snark something like this up, it can get sooooooooo boring, and since almost all the people who are reading the list get all the in-jokes and sarcastic jokes, I felt free to cut loose a bit.

You’ll find that the Top 20 is played a lot straighter!

Are these people’s favorite X-Men or favorite characters as X-Men? Because I love Mystique, but her time as an X-Man was painful (the X-Men romance alone).
Also, Frenzy made the list? Seriously? There weren’t any other New X-Men that could knock her off the list?

Favorite characters who were X-Men, so no, not just judging by their time as X-Men (in some cases, it was, like, one issue!).

Who voted some of these for #1? I can see putting them in a top 10 if you really liked that story and think they should have been on more, but how could someone like Mystique or Frenzy reach #1?

Wow. Reading those character synopses made me sad that I was ever a hardcore X-Fan. It seemed so cool at the time. Now it seems so… dumb. I’d hate to evaluate any of the other things I enjoyed in my discretionless youth.

Please please please don’t let shitty old Gambit show up in the top 20.

I think this conclusively proves that there haven’t really been fifty or even thirty (or maybe, you know, even ten) good X-men.

I am stunned that Dani Moonstar made the list. Pleased, but still stunned.

“I appreciate the kind assessment of my writing here, but I think I’ve been snarky many a time here, as well.”
not as much as most blogger, who seem to be auditioning for a capote impersonating gig at vanity fair.

Top FIFTY X-Men?

OK, so Prof. X is not only the founder of the X-men, but also one of the most powerful mutants ever and he can’t crack the top 10? So i’m getting the joke now: you hate the x-men and you just wanted hard evidence of it?

If you read the introduction to the list, it’s pretty clear that this list is the result of online poll voting (I think Brian mentioned there were 210 votes). If Professor X didn’t crack the list, it’s because the fans who voted in the book didn’t like him. And why not? Modern stories inevitably depict him as a total creep.

I’m surprised Magneto wasn’t higher. I guess just cause people don’t think of him as an X-Man.

Wow. I never realised how many X-Men there are that I don’t really care about.

With such crappy quality in the Top 50, can we please see the Top 100? Please? I only to get snarky recaps of their history.

I like that you’re becoming more and more disparaging as the rankings get closer and closer to number one. That’s why you’re cool, Brian Cronin.

Ah, Cargill and Moonstar. Two more X-Women unceremoniously stripped of their codenames.

(One minor nitpick – Mojo didn’t exactly replace Psylocke’s eyes with cameras; in the Captain Britain story that laid the groundwork for the whole Slaymaster/Psylocke enmity that Claremont’s inexplicable obsessed with in Exiles these days, Slaymaster gouged her eyes out (and if you think he’s less-cool-than-Vargas now, you should see his original costume). She was blind for a while, and Mojo eventually gave her new bionic camera eyes. I suppose technically he “replaced” them in the sense of “gave her new ones to take the place of her missing ones” but not in the “took her old ones out and put new ones in” sense that seems to be implied in the character bio)