Let's Talk About Why The X-Men Books Are In Serious Trouble

Hi, I'm David Harth, and we're going to talk about one of my favorite subjects. Well, two of them, actually. That's right, it's time to talk about the X-Men books again. Also, I'll probably complain about Marvel because I love to complain about Marvel.

So, yeah, we've heard this song before, but there's some new verses that we all haven't heard yet.

As a preface, I just want to say that I don't hate Marvel. For constant readers, it may seem that way because most of these columns have me talking badly about Marvel at some point, and it's usually in a negative sense. There's a reason for this- first of all, Marvel is a shitshow right now, and it kind of always has been behind the scenes and we should call them out. Secondly, Marvel is my first comics love and they've spent most of the last two decades pissing me off over and over again. I love them and they hate me and the things I like. Which, at this point, is the X-Men books because very little else they put out actually interests me. At this point, it's Eternals and Dark Ages. I'm going to give Cates and Ottley's Hulk a go, but that's mostly because Cates is slaying on Crossover.

Seriously, read Crossover. It's one of the best books on the comic shelves every month, and I will fight anyone who doesn't think so.

So, sure, I bitch about Marvel, but I do it because they definitely deserve it. Now, next week, I'm going to go way harder on Marvel than I am this week, but you'll have to wait till the end of this one to find out why. For now, we're just going to talk about the X-Men and the massive fucking problem they have. That's my first f-bomb I've written in a publication that I'm paid to write for, so you know it's serious. Let's do this.

I don't know if you're reading my reviews, but I praised Inferno #2 because it is amazing. If you did read the review, you'll also know I called out Duggan. A lot. Ergo, if you've been reading my reviews of Duggan's X-Men, you know that even when I'm happy with issues, I'm damning them with faint praise. And if you read my review of X-Men #4, you know I hated that comic. I even went on Twitter and asked him if he ignored the fact that Jean was never actually the Dark Phoenix for the story or if he just didn't know and he did this smug sort of answer, like, "Well, of course, she wasn't but nightmares, blah blah blah," and I'm restraining myself from dropping a lot more f-bombs when I'm talking about this because he's basically saying, yes, he totally did ignore that for this shitty issue of X-Men.

Look, Jean Grey was only Phoenix once. She has the memories of the Dark Phoenix times because she got them during Inferno in the '80s, but the only actual time she was Phoenix, with the actual full-blown Phoenix Force? Morrison's New X-Men. And do you remember what happened in it? She mastered its powers. She didn't fall to darkness. She controlled it. Even in "Here Comes Tomorrow", she was in control but being manipulated by Sublime as Beast. Later, during her resurrection, she rejected the Phoenix completely. She's not afraid of the Phoenix. She's its master, and Nightmare using that against her is dumb because she'd say, "Hey, wait, this is wrong. I'm not afraid of this."

This is one of many reasons X-Men #4 is bad.

Okay, anyway, back to Inferno #2. It's a masterwork. I've had my problems with Hickman during his X-Men run, but you can tell when he's on and he has a plan, and this book so far is one of those times. God, every page is just chock full of story and plot in the best possible way. The first half, the resurrection of Destiny parts, are just beautiful. Those moments between her and Raven are amazing, and I love them. I fucking cried a little. It was amazing. And that's what I want. I want moments like that, and Hickman may not have always been giving me them during X-Men, but he did give them. He dropped realness on us enough to keep us going. Beyond that, there's so much going on in that comic that I care about. The plot is amazing. I want to know what's going to happen next.

Let's compare that to Duggan's X-Men. I literally do not care what happens next in that book. It's probably going to be another soulless fight that looks pretty because Pepe Larraz and Marte Gracia are amazing. There will probably be a part where the X-Men get fed by the people they save because Duggan likes his dumb little jokes. God, I hate that book. We got one little moment between Synch and Wolverine in the third issue, and that's the only great thing that's happened. Dude peaked on Planet-Size X-Men. Four issues into Hickman's X-Men, we got four great stories. Hell, the fourth issue was that baller one where Xavier, Magneto, and Apocalypse talked smack to world leaders while Gorgon and Cyclops beat up assassins. I'm saying these are two different levels of quality. That's a massive problem because Duggan's shoddy writing and plotting are moving throughout other parts of the line.

Let's talk about SWORD for a second (I decided not to put the periods in; we all know it's an abbreviation). That book has an amazing cast and a great premise, and it's been completely wasted by Al "I knowingly worked with an anti-Semite for years but I totally tried to get him kicked off the book you guys, I promise, and I'm apologizing now that it's all over and I'm getting praise for how great the book was" Ewing. The book's second, third, and fourth issues were crossover tie-ins. The first one was done in the aftermath of an event. Two more issues were event tie-ins. Of nine issues, only four told stories that were special to that book, and I'm not even sure we can count the first one, since it's partly an X Of Swords epilogue.

This last issue is the worst one yet. Sure, Gyrich is cool, and the art is great, which saves it from being Duggan X-Men level bad, but Ewing punking out the Shi'Ar Imperial Guard so his factory-created mercs can look tough so it'll be cooler when Storm kills them is just so bad. I say that as somebody who loves Storm and wants to read a Storm on Arakko book, where she fights all of those mutants all the time. Like, the whole comic is hacky AF. Ewing just wrote one of the best Hulk stories in years, and this is what he follows it up with? SWORD was a book I was excited for, and now I'm just not into it at all. The whole approach to the book has been so bad. This is supposedly the X-Men sci-fi book, and it's a complete failure. An X-Men sci-fi book. Failure. How does someone like Ewing do that? He's better than this.

By now, everyone knows how I feel about Tini Howard. X-Corp is the worst comic of the Krakoa era, and Excalibur is a nothing-burger with a side of nothing. When I saw that she was going to work at DC, I literally got scared because I love DC and don't want her anywhere near any book I actually want to read.

Hickman leaving is the worst thing that can happen right now because we have three writers- Duggan, Ewing, and Howard- who are doing bad work. There's no other word for it. Yes, I'm writing off Duggan's X-Men. It's dead in the water, even if the part with people finding out about Krakoan resurrection has a lot of potential. I do not trust Duggan to pull it out and make it into something interesting. Howard has done nothing I can enjoy, and her books just aren't very good. Ewing on SWORD has completely lost my faith. That's half of the main writers of the X-Men books and they are not doing anything worthwhile.

Now, here's the other thing. We do have three writers doing great work. Percy is killing it on Wolverine and X-Force. Completely and totally. Both books are great and I trust him completely with the upcoming Wolverine weekly. Vita Ayala is doing amazing work on New Mutants. I wasn't on board with their story right away, but they won me over and it's now one of the best, if not the best, X-Men book most months. Williams is amazing and while I feel like issue three of The Trial Of Magneto wasn't as great, it's still a great book, and I loved X-Factor. So much. Wells is on his way to The Amazing Spider-Man and that’s sad because Hellions is great and the X-Men office needs him.

We have Spurrier, who killed it on Way Of X, hopefully coming back for that Legionairres book or whatever it's going to be called. Steve Orlando is doing Marauders, and that's great because Orlando is amazing. I've never read anything by Victor LaValle, but I love Sabretooth. Also, there are rumors that Gillen is coming back to the X-Men offices and if those are true, then I'm so down. The problem is none of those books are the big books. They aren't the name books, and while Marvel would be stupid not to put Gillen on a big name book, like an Uncanny X-Men reboot, Marvel is dumb.

So, right now, with Hickman leaving and things bad in literally half of the big X-Men books, this is bad. The Krakoa era was exciting at first. Now? Well, we all know why Hickman is leaving. The other writers wanted to play in the sandbox longer. That's cool because it's a great sandbox, but when half of the ongoing writers aren't doing good work or, at the least exciting work, that's not a good thing. Putting what Hickman built on hold is a good idea if everyone is working well. That's not what's happening right now.

And let's be real, beyond The Immortal Hulk and Cates' Venom, the only books Marvel has that's getting them any kind of positive attention are the X-Men books (Eternals should definitely be one of those books because it's amazing). Hickman's story has a built-in ending. Marvel needs the X-Men books to keep going because they sell, and people love them. So, yeah, they're totally going to be okay with Hickman's story being put on hold so they can get more sales. And, again, being real, X-Men fans have gotten beaten on by Marvel for so long that they'll take anything as long as they're getting a lot of books with Xs on them and they seem important. I know that because I was one of those fans for a long time. Probably until X Of Swords broke me.

The X-Men subreddit is full of bootlickers who will jump on anyone who says anything bad about the books right now, but even they are kind of turning when it comes to a good amount of those comics. That's not a good thing. Inferno is amazing so far, and I love what Hickman is building in it, but when he leaves, whatever he's setting up is going to be left in the hands of some writers who definitely aren't going to do anything good with it, some who are, and some new writers who we can't really speculate on right now. This is a problem. The X-Men books started off so strong but where we're at right now isn't good. Not even a little bit.

And while this may seem like me saying that Hickman was the only thing that made these books good, he actually started the downward decline in X-Men. He was spinning his wheels, doing set up, and it wasn't always good. X Of Swords was not good, in that even though the back half was better than the first half, it was still a lot of bad comics for a story that isn't very good. He put that terrible Kevin Feige moment in X-Men #20, one of the most shallow and honestly offensive moments of ass kissing the new boss I've ever seen in my life. This downward spiral of the X-Men started before we even knew Hickman was leaving.

Hickman leaving, though, takes away the guiding light of the whole thing. Even with the kind of blah stories of the last half of his X-Men, it was all supposed to be going somewhere. Now? Well, he's out. He's not in charge, and we have to trust people like Duggan, Howard, and Ewing. That's not a trustworthy crew, even if some of the other writers are.

We don't know where these books are going anymore. We were sold a bill of goods by House Of X/Powers Of X, and now, mostly because Marvel doesn't want to lose their cash cow so quickly, even if it is a few years away. This is not the way to make story decisions. Am I going to keep reading? Sure, but I don't pay for most of these books. I'm also invested, but I'm not happy, and I don't think I'm the only one. The X-Men books are not in a good place.

So, that's all I have to say about that. Come back next week, when we talk about '90s Vertigo and how it was woke before woke was a thing. Oh, and how Marvel ruined it and the new path it was blazing for the comic industry.

Annnnd we're full circle.

Follow me on Twitter, come back next week, all of that good stuff.