Also, while I understand the frustration of certain fan favorites not being made, a franchise as big as X-Men is inevitable going to leave someone pissed off because there are literally dozens of members and maybe hundreds of potential costumes to choose from when all is said and done. When you factor in that we get like maybe two non-MCU (I’m counting the 97 figures as MCU for sake of simplicity) X-waves a year, I can see how there are still fan favorites missing.
X-Men 97 finally gave me a Wolverine I was supremely happy with. If they use it as the vehicle to give as an even better brown & tan version (since I never got the retro one or Juggernaut BAF one) I'll take whatever I can get. And perhaps a better Morph head to go on the AOA version.
I'd take Morrison's team in a heartbeat, though I wouldn't like them to look like they did under Quitely. Churchill or Raney's spin on those same costumes and designs would be a lot better imo, even if they're less well-known.
Or a happy medium, even.
Really enjoying the back and forth because it's making me realize how unbiased an X-Men fan I am. I do have eras I love more, but I generally am just happy to get some version of the team on a regular basis in Legends. If we got Morrison's version or Ultimate (although like a lot of folks, Ultimate turned sour at Ultimatum... but I liked the early run) I'd be happy. Heck, I'd buy three waves of the Hellfire Gala costumes. (That being said, a green Banshee I'd be pushing people out of line to get.) I've even picked up figures from runs I hadn't read yet that made me go look up those runs. (I DETESTED Quentin for a while, gave me school shooter vibes, but really love the figure they made last year.)
I know the team does have favorites, but as an overall collector I think they do a magnificent job covering a variety of eras. There's a few blind spots (I was one of those guys who put Banshee as my #1 for every survey on Fwoosh until we got one... still waiting on a good Rachel of course) but I've got a really nice range off X-figures. Although honestly there's always going to be someone missing.
New X-Men is arguably the most important X-Men story since Giant-Size.
The word "arguably" doing so much heavy lifting in that sentence it's gonna get a hernia. If you think Morrison's New X-Men is more important than the Dark Phoenix Saga you are certifiably INSANE.
I get that there are different strokes for different folks. And Morrison's run was certainly different. And clearly it appealed to you. But MOST important? Come on man.
I probably could've phrased it differently. Maybe not the most important, but I think Morrison is the most significant X-Men writer after Claremont.
1. Claremont
2. Morrison
3. Hickman
I wouldn't call Morrison's run more important than Claremont's objectively, but it's more important to me personally. Morrison > Claremont > Ewing/Hickman > Remender/Gillen would be my personal stack rank of X-Writers.
That's fair - there's no accounting for taste after all 😉
I really didn't much enjoy Morrison's run on the book. I recognize that the writing and ideas were miles better than stuff that guys like Lobdell or Chuck Austen or even late stage Claremont were churning out. But I didn't enjoy the direction he took the characters particularly much - I preferred Whedon's Astonishing stretch for sure. And I'm not sure how much of a lasting impact it's really had - Cassandra Nova has stuck around I suppose and there are a few things that linger but important...
Marvel editorial turning its back on a run is usually an indication of good writing. Aside from Claremont, Morrison's run informs how we view the X-Men more than any other. They changed interpersonal relationships (particularly Scott/Jean/Emma), who matters (Emma is at least a B-list X-Character now), and set characters on new trajectories (Beast's villainous side). As a Magneto defender, their Magneto storylines never worked for me, but everything else is exceptional.
Scott cheating on Jean never felt that credible to me beyond the "oh no, look what happened" aspect to it. To me it just undermined what I enjoyed in the 90s, particularly Scott and Jean finally getting married in the first place. Adjectiveless X-Men #24 and #30 were great covers and the X-Men were still a family. It wasn't continually "Just when you thought Xavier couldn't get any worse, here comes..."
The Scott and Jean stuff was what worked the best for me. To me, they've always read like high school sweethearts who stayed together for the wrong reasons.
Grant Morrison also nailed the fact that Xavier sucks.
(I DETESTED Quentin for a while, gave me school shooter vibes, but really love the figure they made last year.)
I could go on a 25,000-word rant about this, but I think was Morrison's exact intention. They clearly viewed Magneto as an irredeemable terrorist. If you analyze Magneto's actions from the '60s, Morrison is right.
Ironically, I think public perception of Quire changed as the audience began sympathizing more with Magneto than Xavier. Quire was originally designed as an ill-informed punk wearing Che Guevara shirts. That image is completely recontextualized when you see Magneto as the story's tragic hero.
I don't know how Scott cheating on Jean defies credibility when he cheated on Madelyne. And almost cheated on Jean with Betsy. Scott is a shitty husband. It doesn't make him less of a hero. There are no sacred cows, which Morrison understood (hell, he killed my favorite character and Marvel kept her dead for like 15 years afterward), and made the characters feel like actual people instead of just character archetypes. He treated mutant culture as it should be treated: subversive, weird, making the normies uncomfortable, with its own norms and values and celebrities. Arguably, without Morrison we don't get anything that came afterward because of how important he made Emma Frost to the franchise.
That said, there are very few X-figures I would not buy. I want the entire Ultimate X-Men team even though those comics ended up being awful towards the end. I want the FOX-Men even though I hate those movies. I want them all!
Very much agreed about Morrison making the characters seem “real” and creating a believable mutant culture. I’m admittedly a lifelong Morrison fan, but I do think they did more than anyone else to explore what it might mean to be a mutant among mutants. Also I definitely agree with their take on Magneto, as far as him ultimately being a “bad guy” who internalized the methods and methodology of his own oppressors and became what he beheld. I get the pull to make him a Byronic antihero, but like Dracula, I feel he is diluted when it isn’t acknowledged that he crossed the moral event horizon long ago and there’s no coming back.
I could go on a 25,000-word rant about this, but I think was Morrison's exact intention. They clearly viewed Magneto as an irredeemable terrorist. If you analyze Magneto's actions from the '60s, Morrison is right.
Ironically, I think public perception of Quire changed as the audience began sympathizing more with Magneto than Xavier. Quire was originally designed as an ill-informed punk wearing Che Guevara shirts. That image is completely recontextualized when you see Magneto as the story's tragic hero.
It's been so long since I read their original run, but man, you are right. Morrison's intent for Quentin is very different from where the character went afterward. When one of the Cuckoos in those early stories I had total "YOU IN DANGER, GIRL!" vibes from him. And Morrison is the type of clever and insightful writer who would do that intentionally. Quire was definitely meant to be an ill-informed teenage edgelord, wasn't he. I took a few years off from keeping up with modern stories and when he was still around I'm like--this kid? Really? Shows how who's writing the character and how each character is contextualized changes how readers feel about them.
Trying to think of an era of X-Men I wouldn't buy as Legends and even though I've really soured on Millar's nastiness, I don't remember the early years of UXM being particularly, well, Millarlike. And Kubert's costume designs were fun.
For how important it is, Morrison era New X-Men is definitely *the* most overlooked piece of the X-Men mythos in ML. I'd buy the whole lineup in a heartbeat - and I'd take some of the younger mutant students from around that same time too.
Were Armor, Glob and Rockslide a part of this era basically??? Because I find it insane we never got them. Some artist did a digital render of Armor that was incredible in my opinion. The entire character fits in the torso and it's just a big armored toy. Might be a tad bigger and more detailed than some comic fans would like, but that figure has to be made. I have no love for Morrison's X-Men and can rattle off an unhealthy number of 90s X-Force, Generation X, 2099 and X-Men adversaries I want, but I would find room for some of those New X-Men characters.
Glob Herman was part of Quentin's Omega Gang, so definitely part of Morrison's invention. Rockslide wasn't part of the New X-Men books proper, but he was introduced during that time frame as one of many young mutants who joined Xavier's when Morrison fully committed to the idea that it was a school for mutants. I would *love* to get as many of those young mutants as possible - Glob Herman, Rockslide, Dust, Prodigy, Elixir, Surge, Anole, etc etc etc.
Armor was introduced in Astonishing X-Men, which immediately followed Morrison's run and carried through a lot of the story elements. Also a huge want.
@jtmarsh I admit I don't see the connection....
Savage Land characters?
Maybe you quoted me when you meant someone else? Beamish posted the leaked list with ones that have been confirmed/revealed/released and the MCU Sam Wilson was crossed off, but I know he'd done that before and it was just a mistake because of the comic style figure, so I was playfully responding with Brody complaining about the kid on the escalator again. No mention of the Savage Land though.
Fixed
Latest Post: McFarlane Toys DC Multiverse Our newest member: JohnSaws Recent Posts Unread Posts
