Good to see the *most* important lesson is being passed on to young X-men fans.

I don’t remember who was doing what when I quit. All I remember is when Claremont was ousted, I said to myself, “Self, these books will now be crap.” (Seeing as how bad New Mutants and X-Factor had been without Claremont, I saw no reason to believe anything was going to improve with Claremont being out of the loop entirely.) And then they got John Byrne for .02 seconds, and even his stuff wasn’t up to snuff, and so I had like, a year before UNCANNY #300 and I just bought them, cringing through the issues, and then jumped up and down like a maniac when UXM #300 came out in the store. “YES! YES! IT’S FINALLY HERE! I NEVER HAVE TO LOOK AT ANOTHER DAMNED X-BOOK AGAIN!” And that was pretty much my attitude, though I did get occasional things like the Gene Ha drawn ADVENTURES OF CYCLOPS & PHOENIX and ASKANI’SON miniseries (bad stories, but I was buying those for Gene’s art I’ll freely own up to that).

And every time I’ve picked up the monthlies since, I’ve pretty much wanted to burn the entire stock in the store. Even when Chris Claremont returned, it just didn’t work. Too much had gone on in the interim, and the characters just didn’t suit him anymore, IMO.

Morrison’s run (that which I read, anyway) didn’t quite make me reviled with things, I’ll admit, but I was still shaking my head with sorrow and dissatisfaction.

And yeah, the Magneto Vs. the World Court story in UXM #200 and the X-MEN Vs. AVENGERS miniseries wasn’t bad.

I’m thinking my favorite Magneto X-Men story was probably the Claremont / Byrne story where he had captured the X-Men and entrapped them in chairs that nullified their powers and nervous system, and had a robot nanny to feed them. IIRC, after they escape that, the entire base in engulfed in lava. I’m thinking that’s around Uncanny #111-114.

My favorite “non X-Men” Magneto story was probably when he and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants faced off against the Defenders in DEFENDERS #15-17 roughly, where he created a mutant named Alpha, who evolved beyond his control and turned him and the rest of the Brotherhood into infants. I remember getting the original issues for a quarter each when I first started collecting in the mid 1980s as reader copies (i.,e. they were in shabby condition), and I just recently borrowed the first three volumes of the DEFENDERS Essentials to re-read those and many other DEFENDERS I used to own that I apparently sold at some point for college bills. (Though for the life of me I cannot remember when! Gah!)

My most recent attempt was the Grant Morrison stuff, which I borrowed the equivalent of New X-Men #114-145 via trades through my local library, since Greg made note of liking that run here.

It wasn’t as bad as Lobdell and Nicieza’s stuff (which was roughly the time I quit), but by no means did I find it to be particularly enjoyable, either. Oh, I *wanted* to like it. I could see what Morrison was trying to do, and I appreciate the effort, even though it fell way, way short of what I was looking for. There was so much untapped POTENTIAL in what he offered, that I was quite sad to see it go for naught (at least through the run I read).

And no, I haven’t tried the Whedon X-Men. Maybe I will borrow them out of the library some day, but honestly I’d as soon kick Whedon out of comics entirely and send him back to what he does best- screenwriting and directing.

The supporting cast was just amazing, too. Moira MacTaggert, Thomas and his wife, Kitty’s ballet teacher, Cameron Hodge, Mariko Yashida, Yukio, the Morlocks… heck, it feels like half the X-Men started as supporting characters first before moving up (Jubilee, Psylocke, Havok, and Dazzler are the only ones who come to mind right now) or were mainly supporting characters with big roles at times (Forge, Banshee). Characters grew and changed. Writers and creators always experimented and tried new, untested things and took their characters down routes you’d never thought they’d go down (Storm in particular). The status quo was ever-changing, but unlike today, remained constant in character and story progression (today it just seems to change for the sake of change). It was wonderful.

This is coming from a guy whose most fervent collection period was in the late nineties after Operation Zero Tolerance and the rejoining of Shadowcat, Nightcrawler, and Colossus (as well as Mutant X). I dearly miss Cece Reyes and Marrow being used.

I also third the Wolverine/Kitty Pryde mini-series.

Yeah, but that had nothing to do with the Reavers per se. The team was dis-integrating by that point, and technically, never fought the Reavers. They fled to the Siege Perilous because Psylocke had a premonition that they would die, and even had to manipulate Havok into going in…

The Reavers did end up kicking the crap out of the Muir Island team and Freedom Force a while back, but that was just a horribly-written story that didn’t make the Reavers look cool or intimidating, it just made the X-men and FF look really lame.

“but if there are some good Rogue stories before then that you want to recommend, let’s hear about them.”

She also had a good story arcs during the Claremont/JRJ era (incidentally, my favorite X-men run, even more than the Claremont/Byrne run). Issue 182 of Uncanny is a good ‘spotlight’ style issue, 185 is a good story also (which is really the pay-off for stuff that was established in # 182), while issues 178, 192, and 203 also have some great moments for the character.

“Anything Chris Claremont did prior to Fall of the Mutants was golden. Anything after you really have to cherry pick.”

Amen to that. From the first Cockrum run to the end for FOTM is one of my favorite runs of any comic title ever. After that, it’s hit and miss till Claremont leaves the title, though there are more hits than misses.

I’m very glad you told her “The Golden Age of Comics is Twelve.” That explains a lot about the industry, the internet, everything.

Last Question : What is it about giving girls comics that’s so much fun? Every girl I’ve dated has at some point read something and liked it. (One bought the entire Lone Wolf and Cub!) And I know (or at least assume) you’re not dating this girl but … aw, you know what I mean.

Smashing good article, btw.

Off the top of my head, I think he last appeared right after the X-Cutioner’s Song crossover, when he lead a group of government agents to kidnap Colossus’s sister, killing their parents in the process.