Cable's motives are unrevealed so far. In the leadup to Messiah Complex, the Marauders were trying to wipe out all knowledge of the future by destroying Destiny's Diaries and stuff like that. Killing Cable was their first objective along those lines, so presumedly it has something to do with that.
I like the crossover so far, and have actually really liked Carey's run as a whole. I'm kinda bummed that Ellis is taking over in a few months.
-Mark
"You don't look too bad, here's another."
Messiah Complex started off okay, but then it sort of all fell apart for me.
For starters, I don't understand why Forge sent Madrox into the future - two new timelines have opened up and we have to explore them! Whatever. How about Forge just invent a better Cerebra for finding the missing kid? Wouldn't that do the trick? And I dislike the idea of Forge being able to invent absolutely anything - he isn't a god. Also, as far as the future stuff goes, Days of Future Past has already been done.
I like that Sinister and Deathstrike are back, but do they have to be so useless? X-23 takes down Deathstrike? I don't fucking think so. And there's already way too much Wolverine in the MU. It certainly doesn't need a female clone of him.
Cable - I really don't understand the motivation surrounding Cable. It is absolutely retarded that Scott and the X-Men automatically turn on Cable because he has the kid. Umm, I haven't read Cable in about 12 years, but isn't he on the X-Men's side? Isn't he an unofficial X-man and Scott's son? Does NO ONE remember the Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix, or the X-Cutioners Song? Christ he's your fucking son Cyclops! Maybe try talking to him first! But Scott doesn't do that and instead re-forms X-Force to take out Cable, because we need ANOTHER X-book. Nice one, Marvel.
Last thing I heard about Astonishing Ellis is him talking about how everyone assumes there's only 198 mutants left in the world, but actually nobody ever thinks about Africa you shallow cunts.
Which kind of doesn't work when you consider that Professor X has a machine specifically designed for finding mutants anywhere in the world and a driving urge to bring them together no matter where they're from, and has in fact recruited two X-Men from African countries, and has been instrumental in combating at least two massively powerful evil African mutants.
But I'm sure this will be handled, if he writes the end of the arc.
They had a list of them in one issue, and the vast majority were in America.
But, you know, American comics. I've had lots of people in America think my comic is set there because I don't draw Big Ben at the start of every issue.
Also, Warren Ellis has written X-books before and he's never to my knowledge created an African mutant before, the racist shit. Scott Lobdell created African mutants!
"When I am Overlord of the Universe, no one can make me take hula dancing lessons."
—Jessica Zafra, "Tales of the Humuhumunukunukuwakawaka"
I just remember it being a big mystery back in the 90s.
Alfonso C.
Alfonso C.
Ah, Scott Lobdell. He actually told some good stories. For about 20 issues. Unfortunately, he wrote much, much more than that...
--Dan
Alfonso C.
Plus, they thought Cable was dead, so him showing up alive has thrown everyone for a loop, and on top of everything else they know Cable is being hunted by Reavers, Marauders, and the Human Church or whatever it is.
Forge sent Maddrox to the future because they need info about what's coming down the pipe because they are shit-scared of making the wrong call.
They know that there was a reason that Sinister and company went to lengths to kill every precog and mutant or individual with knowledge of the immediate future, but no one seems to know why.
Sending Maddrox on ahead to find out and putting a kind of leash on him that will allow his future knowledge to snap back when he dies was actually a pretty good idea.
As to Forge, his power has ALWAYS been sorta wonky. This is just how his power works. One day he might not be able to build a toaster, the next he can build a time machine because that's the nature of his ability (heavily plot specific, but the character has had this for 20 years now, so it's not as if it's a blindside).
I actually have come to like X-23, although her new costume is shit. I was prepared to absolutely hate her, as her description sounds shit, but all in all I think they've done a better than average job with her.
She's able to take Deathstrike down only because Deathstrike underestimates her, and Deathstrike has always kinda been overstated as a Wolverine villain. She's powerful, but her healing isn't a patch on Wolverine's, and if she has a squad of Reavers with her she has a chance, but on her own she's not enough to be a threat to the claw clan.
And X-23 has been trained since birth to be nothing more than a weapon, and lands a lucky shot because Deathstrike doesn't know about her foot claw, that's the opening that allows her to drop Deathstrike.
All in all, I've been enjoying the story, and it is still holding up, although I think Predator X may be a bit on the silly side.
It was nice to see the New X-Men team get decimated trying to step up against the big bads too.
Milligan and Larroca's first two trades.
X-Men: First Class- Tomorrow's Brightest- just finished this trade and it was a lot of fun. Just nicely told one-offs, like Dini's Batman run.
The Paul Smith stuff is very pretty but reading the dialogue will make your mind melt.
--Dan
Kinda hard, the runs from Claremont that really stick out are often the result of long-running plot elements that get sprung, so you're dealing with bits out of a long soap opera.
Morrison's New X-Men run is pretty much the top.
The Asgard Saga that crossed over with New Mutants was pretty decent.
It's not so much the trade runs that are the best as much as blocks of Claremont's run that don't often fit easily into trades. Also, I'm not sure if you'd like the soap opera nature of much of Claremont's era, and that sorta continues well after he left.
Days of Future Past is a good trade.
The annuals often had really nice one-off stories in them.
It's almost easier to give you chunks of issue numbers, but then it'd be almost easier to tell you to read the whole of Claremont and pick the gold out of the shit.
PAD's X-Factor has been good, both the new version and his old revamp with Larry Stroman.
I thought Brian K Vaughn's Ult X-Men run was pretty damn good. Just solid super-hero work all the way.
There's a block of Uncanny from issue #248 into the #260's that's great, even though some fill-in art sorta kills it, and I've always loved the Outback issues, although I may be in the minority.
In many ways, issues 200-end of Claremont forms a great arc, but there are a lot of duds in there, but when it's on target it's great. The Jim Lee space arc, the Psylocke vs Wolverine issues, the Reaver storyline, the X-Men vs Marauder war...there's some stuff I remember fondly from being a kid, but I'll be honest in that I don't know how well much of it holds up.
I have really enjoyed Mike Carey's recent run on X-Men, but Brubaker's initial run on Uncanny left me completely cold until Messiah Complex started.
And,uh, does Deadpool count? If so, that too.
Alfonso C.
Alfonso C.
The Brood turn up and start taking on host humans, and you know what that means? Wolverine can carve them the fuck up.
Uncanny X-Men #235-238
The Genosha storyline. Wolverine and Rogue get kidnapped, get their powers wiped and get chucked in a Genoshan prison. Luckily Wolverine has still got claws and is having none of it.
A lot of the Claremont stuff has aged a lot and been ripped off, so Days of Future Past, Dark Phoenix etc are all a bit dull now.
Age of Apocalypse is a lot of fun and fairly self contained. The writers go wild with the alternate universe stuff, so things actually happen for once. They recently released it in phonebook trades, which should be easily grabbed from favourite store. Though half of the first phonebook is shite prequel nonsense from later.
The early Lobdell Generation X, and Brian Wood's Gen X are both pretty good.
If you've never read it, Mark Miller's Wolverine Versus the Holocaust is my vote for worst X-Comic ever. And i own a lot of Terry Kavanagh, Ben Raab, and Joe Hackworthy x-comics.
Eoin
I'd second Eoin's recommendation of early Generation X - Bachalo's best art was there - and Age of Apocalypse.
I also have a soft spot for when Adam Pollina was the penciller on X-Force. It was before the Ellis revamp and it had a really fun road movie vibe to it. Could have aged horribly mind you.