Best X-Men run ever?

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I thought Bill and Ben would especially enjoy this article. Tim Callahan of CBR makes the case that the Morrison New X-Men issues are the best run in the series ever.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=23729

I am not much of an X-reader, but I find that hard to believe. Plus, I'm not a Quietly fan, so I don't agree his art is a big asset to the story. Just my humble opinion.

Comments

  1. pghheadNovember 17, 2009 at 10:29 PM

    If he's saying the Morrison run is the best run of the current decade 2000-2010 then I think he's right. But BEST RUN EVER? Like him or not, I think it was Claremont who made this book and this franchise what it is and helped draw attention to the title for the movies, etc. No wonder he sounded so bitter and cynical (although he tried to hide it) at Baltimore Comic Con. And who can forget Stan with Jack, and the Roy Thomas run. It was also Len Wein who got them started up again with the re-boot at Giant Size-X-Men and Uncanny X-Men #94, etc before Claremont took over.
    Hey, it's just one guys opinion. If the Morrison run is the one that excites him the most and he feels important, let the guy have it. I can live with that.

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  2. ShaneNovember 17, 2009 at 11:10 PM

    Callahan did say that the Claremont run was the one that really defined the franchise and definitely gives him props for that--but I agree with him in the notion that, while the Claremont run holds up fairly well, the Morrison run gains more success by today's storytelling standards at least.

    Personally, I agree with most things Callahan said there. I certainly haven't read every X-Men run ever, but I've read a fair amount and sampled most of what I haven't read. With the exception of the first half of the Claremont run and a few of the auxiliary books, the X-Men have mostly thrived on simple momentum, without many real merits to the books themselves. Sure, they were okay, but rarely spectacular.

    The Grant Morrison run pulled me back into Marvel comics, but this isn't simply nostalgia that's making me agree with Callahan. Grant Morrison's run on New X-Men is one of the very, very few comics--from any company--that I can sit down and reread, over and over again, and still want to go back to. Other titles that I feel that way about? The Warren Ellis Stormwatch/Authority run, the Dan Abnett/Andy Lanning Legion run, Phonogram, and maybe Strangers in Paradise. That's really it. Other comics I'll gladly reread, sure, but I get bored with them eventually. Not so with any of these comics.

    I do disagree with the your assessment of Frank Quitely, Brian--his style takes some getting used to, but he's a top-notch storyteller through and through. You may not like the way his faces look, but he's a master at his craft, and rarely has a writer-artist pair achieved such acclaim the way that Morrison and Quitely do. Even without Quitely, though, there was no shortage of top artists on Morrison's run--Ethan Van Sciver, Phil Jiminez, Chris Bachalo, Marc Silvestri and more, each bringing their own unique perspective to the book.

    Grant Morrison redefined the franchise, and while many of his changes were later ignored or done away with, he opened the doors to many intriguing concepts that other writers toyed with (even if the execution was not always there). An international mutant police force, Xavier and Magneto attempting to rebuild the former mutant stronghold of Genosha, and a new generation of mutants that didn't want to be X-Men--they just wanted to grow up. There was a lot there.

    Just one more note I want to make, and this one is to Mike:

    And who can forget Stan with Jack

    I don't know if you've read their original run, but I found it thoroughly unremarkable in almost every way. They achieved such success on other books, but with the X-Men--well, there was a reason their run on that title was basically canceled. They get props for starting it, sure, and for introducing a few notable characters--but aside from that, I would forget about them gladly.

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