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Comics Should Be Good : 50 Best X-Men Stories, The Results!

Posted by John Klein III on August 2, 2013
Posted in: Lists. Tagged: , , . Leave a comment

Brian Cronin is a true gentleman for compiling this and I respect the heck out of that guy.

http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2013/07/21/50-greatest-x-men-stories-master-list/

Here is the list:

50.  Phalanx Covenant           Only read the Excalibur portion of this, Life Signs

49.  Trial of Magneto              Magneto in France, takes over the New Mutants and joins the X-Men

48.  Wounded Wolf                 Solo Wolverine tale

47.  Magik                               Where Illyanan becomes the character she is today

46.  I, Magneto                       Awesome Magneto battle, he believes he kills Kitty and realizes he is a monster

45.  In the Shadow of … Sauron         Classic X-Men

44.  Imperial                            Morrison

43.  World Tour                      Half of the X-Men believe the other half are dead, leads to Proteus Saga

42.  An Age Undreamed Of    Never quite “got” this story, a fun alternate history story, reminds me of Busiek/Perez’s first Avengers arc

41.  Rise and Fall of the Shi-Ar Empire          Skipped this, don’t care for the X-Men in space.  Shame we lost Nightcrawler and Rachel for a year for this

40.  Professor Xavier is a Jerk!           Classic Paul Smith!  Kitty earning her role on the X-Men.

39.  House of M                     Kitty doesn’t play a huge role but I like that in that timeline, she became a teacher.

38.  Earthfall                           Sequel to the Brood Saga

37.  From the Ashes               The two part Mastermind epic, by Paul Smith

36.  He’ll Never Make Me Cry           Colossus breaks up with Kitty and Wolverine gets Juggernaut to beat the crap out of him

35.  Blood Fued                      Dracula vs the X-Men!  Storm and Kitty in the Mutant X universe are based on if this went wrong

34.  The Rise of the Phoenix   The precursor of the Dark Phoenix Saga

33.  A Green and Pleasant Land

32.  Here Comes Tomorrow   Morrison

31.  Second Coming                Nightcrawler dies in this

30.  X-Tinction Agenda

29.  SuperNovas                     Mike Carey!

28.  Crossroads

27.  X-Cutioner’s Song

26.  Torn                                 Whedon’s best arc and can’t believe it’s the lowest of the ranked.  Danger did not make the list

25.  Mutant Genesis               Claremont’s farewell to the X-Men

24.  Dancin’ in the Dark          The Morlocks’ origins done by Paul Smith

23.  Demon                             John Bryne’s final issue of his legendary run.  Kitty Pryde is put to a test that she has to pass, such a great issue.  I own this as a novelized Marvel Chiller

22.  Magneto Triumphant

21.  LifeDeath                             Storm solo

20.  Planet X                               Morrison, probably my favorite until Marvel undid everything about it.  Magneto on a grand stage and this is the last time Jean died, and she remains dead to this day.  I’m sure that’s the only lasting effect to Morrison’s run now that I think of it.

19.  The Sentinel Live!            Classic X-Men

18.  Second Genesis                The All New All Different team, first apperances of Nightcrawler, Storm, Illyana – which is why I own it for her.  I really need to find that short box and see if I own a first edition or not, it was like $30 on eBay and in a “readable” condition, so I doubt its first edition but I am curious to figure it out

17.  Riot at Xavier’s                Morrison

16.  The Brood Saga                Starts with Cockrum and ends with Paul Smith, probably the only time I liked the X-Men in space.

15.  Fatal Attractions              Magneto rips out Wolverine’s adamantium

14.  Fall of the Mutants          So many characters are changed, Doug dies and Angel becomes Archangel

13.  Asgardian Wars                People usually just think about the Art Adams two parter but there is an X-Men/Alpha Flight mini that sets it up drawn by Paul Smith

12.  Messiah Complex            Kitty is barely in this but its Hope Summers’ first appearance

11.  Inferno                             The storyline that cost us both Maddie Pryor and Illyana Rasputin

10.  The Proteus Saga             The storyline that takes place right before Dark Phoenix Saga

9.  Unstoppable                      A decent story, X-Men in space, Cassaday gets to draw most people’s favorite Marvel characters.  The ending was rough for the three years she was stranded, until Matt Fraction corrected it

8.  To Have and Have Not      Paul Smith, Wolverine’s failed wedding, Storm gets 80s

7.  Mutant Massacre              Kitty and Kurt get so hurt they are sent to England, Excalibur is born later

6.  Gifted                              Whedon’s first arc, put Kitty Pryde back on the map.

5.  E is for Extinction           Morrison’s first arc, Emma joins the team proper

4.  God Loves, Man Kills       Amazing story, basis of X2, really wish they kept it religious instead of military for the movie.  Has more punch that way.

3.  Age of Apocalypse          This gave the world Kitty Pryde with an extreme edge that I really dug.  My disdain for Colossus starts with this

2.  Days of Future Past          Two part story that changed X-Men forever.  Time travel and alternate timelines, plus they come back to this so much.  Battle of the Atom future X-Men are from this, the next X-Men movie uses this as an inspiration

1.  Dark Phoenix Saga           Kitty’s first appearance and Emma Frost’s first appearance.  Kitty never meets the real Jean Grey until so many years later.

Comics Should Be Good: Top X-Men Stories

Posted by John Klein III on July 9, 2013
Posted in: Voting. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2013/07/05/vote-for-the-50-greatest-x-men-stories/comment-page-2/#comment-3838619

Brian Cronin, who is pretty awesome as I can only imagine that these events take like ten hours to complete, is requesting people sumbit their Top Ten X-Men stories.

What I like to do with Brian’s Lists is to imagine what the top ten are, and even if I agree with them, I like to make those the bottom of my list as I know for a fact the people are going to be giving those the top spots so I can play with my suggestions a little more.

Brian states that you can’t just consider collections as the full “story” such as Paul Smith’s run (Uncanny X-Men 165 through 175) as they are several stories and not one whole story.  Which I’m fine with as it made my creating a list easier.  What made it not easier was me deciding to only do issues from Uncanny as (I’ve already submitted my list like a fool) I thought it would be more of a challenge and it wasn’t until later that I thought about throwing a mini series or an Ultimate storyline into the mix.  I also kept it to just issues that I actually own as well.

My Submitted List is:

1.  The Mastermind/Phoenix story from Uncanny X-Men 175, I’m hoping Brian comes up with a better name for this, its officially titled “Phoenix!” but I wanted to be clear on which one it is.  That is one of the fun things about these is that you find out what other people refer to these titles as.  For me, Paul Smith’s nine issues (171 is drawn by Walt Simonson) is the be all of X-Men runs.

2.  Wolverine’s Failed Wedding, Uncanny 172-173, whenever you see Rogue/Wolverine as friends, its all based on these two issues where their friendship began.  It also gave us 80s Mohawk Storm.

3.  The First Appearance of the Morlocks, Uncanny 169-170, gave us the awesome Callisto/Storm battle and the Kitty/Caliban … let’s call it friendship, begins here.

4.  The Brood Saga, Uncanny 165-167, the ending of it, I guess, the beginning has the incredible Dave Cockrum pencils but I don’t recall those as well.  167 has the X-Men meeting the New Mutants for the very first time, and 166 gave us Lockheed!

5.  Days of Future Past, Uncanny 141 & 142, a story so amazing its going to be the basis of a feature film next year and a lousy two part episode back for the 90s X-Men cartoon.  Kate Pryde goes back in time and switches bodies with a young Kitty Pryde, who just successfully completed her first Danger Room session.  What I love about this story is that the characters in the past are so quick to go along with Kate Pryde’s story, they don’t waste a bunch of time making her prove herself.  A quick mind read and they are off to Washington DC.  Kate Pryde is going to be part of the Future X-Men in the upcoming 50th Anniversary story, Battle of the Atom, so I’m very excited about that.  This is also why Brian is doing the Top 50 X-Men Stories as CSBG is celebrating the 50th anniversary of both X-Men and Avengers this year.

6.  Dark Phoenix Saga, I noted Uncanny issues 129 through 131, though they really are just the Hellfire issues of the story, its mostly Hellfire Club then the Space Opera from Uncanny 132 to 137.  Kitty only shows up in the first half of the story and then at the end of 138 but people don’t usually include 138, which is odd as that’s the funeral issue and Cyclops leaving.

7.  Hunt for Xavier, Uncanny 362 to 364, to celebrate the X-Men’s 35th Anniversary, Marvel cancelled Excalibur and brought Kitty, Kurt and Colossus over to the main title.  Hunt for Xavier was the first storyline of that era.  The other members of the team were Storm, Wolverine, Gambit, Rogue and Marrow.  Which is not a bad classic team.  Seven to eight members makes for a good cast.  I would prefer one of the original five X-Men being on it  as well but that’s okay.

This is where I was just looking at what multi-part stories did I own from Uncanny X-Men.

8.  Quarantine, Uncanny X-Men 530-534, humans are trying to give themselves the X-Gene.  The mutants on Utopia are getting sick and must pull it together to attack the humans.  Not my strongest moment adding it.  If I was going to add it, should have made it number 10 and given it one vote.

9.  Breaking Point, Uncanny X-Men 535-538, now this story is the direct sequel to Unstoppable, Kitty becomes tangible again (which was silly in the first place as they already did that to her during the 80s) and The Dodsons did the artwork, which is never bad.

10.  Mutant Massacre, Uncanny X-Men 210 to 213, the original story where Kitty becomes intangible, Colossus kills for the second time (he killed Proteus much earlier) and falls into a coma, Kurt can’t teleport due to injuries, X-Men are beaten, the Morlocks are practically killed off, some intense moments here.

That was my submitted list, I should have swapped out Quarantine with Ultimate X-Men: Hellfire Club arc that gave us Ultimate Kitty Pryde.  That’s what I should have done.

Be curious to see which Paul Smith stories make the cut, hopefully at least two.