X-Men '97

I think comics have largely gotten better with time.

Current Big Two books I like:
  • Absolute Batman
  • Absolute Wonder Woman
  • Batman and Robin: Year One
  • Captain America (admittedly very early)
  • Daredevil: Cold Day in Hell
  • Psylocke - this one is absolutely phenomenal
  • Ultimate Spider-Man
  • Uncanny X-Men
 
It's a very nebulous and subjective discussion obviously... rife with personal bias - I just can't recall a time where I was so generally disconnected to or uninterested in what was going on in the comics.
 
Enforcer said:
There is this uneasy truce between something being popular (aka selling) and subjectively being good quality.
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Oof. Agree to (strongly) disagree.
The lowest common denominator does not produce high quality.
 
Sales would seem to agree with you @Enforcer , but from a personal taste I can always find several Marvel and DC books I dig any given month. What isn't catering to my personal tastes right now is that Image and to an extent other indies have been leaning hard into horror for some time now and it's not really my bag.
 
It’s too bad the original Ultimate line dropped off so bad after the initial creative teams moved on. I buy the Omnibuses but they’ve pretty much run out of the good/necessary 1610 universe stuff to reprint at this point.

The new Ultimate line (except X-Men) is pretty good. Not really a modernization or anything of the sort, but it’s certainly just trying to be an alternate 616 than an alternate 1610. I was pretty confused since it started with The Maker inviting Miles to go back to their original universe rather than this totally new one (6160).
 
My LCS sells the reprints of FF and I have enjoyed grabbing them since I never read the Masterworks of that book. I also picked up the new issue 1 the day I saw the movie and......classics all the way is what I felt. And I can't tell the last time I was into X-Men. I basically think, and have for over a decade, that the Big 2 put books out to support the IPs. They're not interesting to me at all, it's all just either regurgitated or bastardized. Make new characters...said it for so long.

That's not to say I don't like new stuff at all - so many talented creators. I love the Hulk book and new Iron Man. Will be down for Ghost Rider series. But I can sit down to really read the classics and take my time while most modern Marvel is usually meh and has been. DC I think does a lot better.

That said, I will keep coming back (in my own good time) to check new creative teams and stories. And unlike a lot of people here I am all for cool toys, not just some character I want. If a current artist makes a cool new Iron Man armor or Wolverine look then I gotta have it on my shelf. Doesn't matter to me how good the story is when it comes to wanting figures.
 
Misfit said:
I don't think it's been announced, but once it has, someone will definitely post it here. Dan will likely share it on socials.

I dropped off X-Men with Onslaught. Mostly out of fatigue and just feeling like I needed to move on from comics, not because the story was bad (though it wasn't great). I did pick up Ultimate X-Men and enjoyed that for a time, but it felt like it ran out of steam. I think I dropped off of that when Sinister was introduced as just some guy with an Apocalypse effigy made out of trash in his bedroom that he thought was real.
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But then you missed out on the one true enemy of the Great Charles Xavier.

Stairs.
 
Enforcer said:
Same with this new Ultimate Spider-Man - I haven't read a single issue, but there seems to be a market for a new Ultimate Universe given the spin offs.
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The new ultimate line is great, and it helps that it's also part of a larger story with context for why it is what it is. All of those books are great, but the X-Men is... An acquired taste.
 
RichardSimmonsRobot said:
You quit around the same time I did. Cyclops killing Xavier was the "ok, that's enough for me," moment, Phoenix Force or not. Since then it's mostly been the X-Men fighting themselves and I've saved money ever since.
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I stopped getting X-Men regularly 15, maybe 20 years ago. I love X-men, so I would pop back in again in the hopes it was something I could stick with. No such luck. I gave the Krakoa era at least three tries. Couldn't do it. Now I am picking up Uncanny and the adjective-less X-Men and so far I am happy to report they are not unreadable, Uncanny has been pretty enjoyable so far with a group of interesting new mutants and a core team that I care about. We'll see how long this holds.

Ultimate Spider-Man, I love it. I said this in another thread: I can no longer relate to 20-something, "down on his luck" Peter trying to decide if he wants to date hot Gwen, hot Mary Jane, or hot Black Cat. I grew up and so did 90% of the audience that comics still has. This Peter, a family man trying to do the right thing by his loved ones, a supportive wife, kids that he has to take care of.....I can relate to that. He got powers in his 30's and his wife told him to go out and be a hero. That's cool to me, married guy, father of two, this is a more relatable Peter than the mainline Peter that Marvel refuses to allow to evolve. The story being laid out is interesting too, a few too many talking heads at times, but other than that, good stuff.
 
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Enforcer said:
I would argue, as someone who pages through the odd Marvel comic every week... that we are in the shittiest era for comics.
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Aside from what I posted above and a very, VERY select few others, I can't disagree. Just wait until the Big Two go full AI for their art and writing. Ten years, probably less.
 
I can't properly evaluate if comics today are on the whole much worse than they were when I was growing up, or any other era. The older comics I read growing up in the 90s benefited from survivor bias - nobody tells you to pick up all the forgettable stuff from 15 years ago. I was buying plenty of comics as they released throughout the 90s and early 2000s, and its the same - even then some of them were crap, and over time only so many stand out as exceptional.

I mean ok, yeah, the Claremont X-Men years are kind of unbeatable. I mean all the other stuff.
 
I think aspects of Marvel and DC are worse:

Editorial reins, writing for trade, events, reliance on a small circle of writers, variant covers and the comic store economy, cover prices and value.

I don't know that I'd say it's worse than the 90s (my era, even) or the Bendis Is Everywhere era.

But overall, never been better..so many creators, creator owned books, genres, it's mainstream and accepted now, we get more and more media and toys. Step outside the big two and there's too many books to even keep up with that are of great quality and speak to the strengths of the medium and and it's artistry.

There's great stuff. It's different. But there's good things out there.

And if you like X+Men at all and haven't read Krakoa era, at the very least House of and Powers of, I think you're just cheating yourself, as my old weight coach used to say. But honestly, after Hickman bailed and Marvel kept it trundling forward, you can drop that. I don't think it paid out. But that first intro? Quality.

I do love how cyclical and age gated comics can be. I love talking to older fans who found the stuff I loved and grew up with to be the "trash" that they ejected their pull lists over. Outback X-Men. 90s. Morrison X-Men. Etc. I do it myself while other people I know scramble the things I dropped.
 
As a small press creator, I just try to make the kinds of books I enjoyed, and hope some folks come along for the ride. I don’t claim to be reinventing the wheel or being some kind of innovator, I’m just trying to have fun.
 
That's really it. I tend to follow talent over characters and franchises anymore. Sometimes it lines up perfectly (Absolute Wonder Woman).

I love finding small press indie books. What was yours?
 
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