X-Men Comics, Idk About All That

Various Sexy Cyclops, Me, Digital, 2026

    In elementary school my uncles from the US gifted me the complete X-Men: The Animated Series DVD sets. Ever since then the X-Men have always been my favourite superheroes. Recently, this age-old passion was once again ignited by my watching of the hit show X-Men '97 (Season 1 was really cool; season 2 was alright). I made several pieces of fan art and erotica, I entered into a fanzine, and I filled all of my social media feed with X-Men related stuff.

    Because of this, I thought perhaps it's finally time for me to get into the X-Men comics. It used to be that it was difficult for me to get my hands on the comics in Taiwan, but now I am in Canada I can easily access them from my beloved institution, the Toronto Public Library. There is really no good reason that, as someone who claims to be an X-Men fan, I have not read any X-Men comics. 

    With that, I embarked on a journey to read some X-Men comics. I must say that I am really not enjoying the reading so far. If the X-Men fandom would forgive the negative opinions of an X-Men larper, I want to get into what I think about each thing I read. That's what this blog post is about. 

*Spoilers for X-Men: Grand Design (2018), House of M (2005), Uncanny X-Men (1963) #94-110

 

✷✷✷

  

     The first thing I read is the three-volume X-Men Grand Design, written and illustrated by Ed Piskor, who was accused by two women of sexual misconduct in 2024 and subsequently committed suicide. The books are an abridged and highly condensed version of classic Stan Lee and Chis Claremont stories from the series' beginning in the 60s all the way to the 80s. 

    I picked this book as my first X-Men book because I do not want to read the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby run, and want to be able to skip certain parts of the Claremont run if I'm not interested. For this purpose, I think X-Men: Grand Design is a fantastic read. It is no small feet to cram two decades worth of comics story line into three small-ish books. I walked away with a grasp of the X-Men world and feel much more equipped to tackle the actual story. I think the art in these books is also quite interesting. It has a very rough, ugly, vintage indie comic look that reminds me of the work by renowned Canadian cartoonists Joe Matt and Chester Brown. It's a style that I do not personally like but have a great amount of respect for nonetheless. 

    That said, I think X-Men Grand Design is written in a very unengaging fashion. The story-telling, if you can call it that, consists of a textbook-like chronology of events. There is very little space for the characters to react to the crazy and relentless set-pieces that are inflicted upon them, resulting in flat characters and a tedious reading experience. This is of course almost unavoidable for a project like this, and I am glad that these books exist, but I would not say it is a fun read. 3/5

 

✷✷✷ 

 

     The next thing I read is the hit story by Brian Michael Bendis and Olivier Coipel, House of M. The story takes place after the event of Wanda (the Scarlet Witch) losing her children, having a mental breakdown, and killing a few Avengers with her reality-warping powers. The X-Men and the Avengers come together and discuss how to solve the Wanda problem permanently. Wanda's twin brother Pietro (Quicksilver), thinking that the X-Men and the Avengers are coming to kill Wanda, manipulates Wanda into creating a new reality where everyone is living the life they most desire, without realizing that they're living in a new reality. The rest of the story consist of Wolverine (who inexplicably remembers his former life) making the rest of the heroes remember the old reality. They then regroup to stop Wanda once and for all. The story culminated in Wanda once again losing her shit and using her reality-warping powers to de-power 90% of the mutant population, effectively committing a genocide. 

    I really really do not like this story and my objection is mainly that the "powerful hysterical women needs to be put down" trope is very tired and old. "Oh nooooo this women lost her kids and went ape shit oh no we cannot control her there's no other solutions we must kill her." Get better materials man. 

    You might object that women do actually suffer mentally after traumatic experiences with giving birth, and is it not cool and important that we have a story exploring that? This sentiment is expressed by Reddit User Kali-of-Amino, who relates to Wanda's struggle with mental illness and lost of a child. They wrote

Wanda's ability to control her powers has always fluctuated with the state of her mental health. Thanks to a tremendous amount of hard work on her part, her mental health and her powers are typically stable. This is standard for people with mental illness. 

BUT a severe emotional trauma will psychologically knock her back on her ass. This is ALSO standard for people with mental illness.

You don't CURE a trauma-based mental illness, you MANAGE it. Some days you manage it better than others.

The worst trauma an ordinary person can experience is to lose a child, let alone two. A normal, healthy person goes through absolute hell for two years, and is a mess for the next 10. After 20 years you start to get back to normal.

And that's a psychologically healthy person. Then there's the rest of us.

I never found Wanda's rather easy acceptance of the loss of the twins realistic or believable. It was one of the worst pieces of Marvel writing of the 1990s, and that's saying something. Avengers Disassembled and House of M felt right for a misunderstood, traumatized woman who wasn't getting the help she needed.

So no, I DON'T agree that Wanda was portrayed as a "powerful woman who needs to be controlled". What I saw was a "strong, emotionally traumatized woman at the end of her rope who isn't getting the help she needs". The message I took from the story was "take better care of people".  [emphasis mine]

Pretty moving moment between Wanda and Pietro

     I am happy that Kali-of-Amino is able to see their own struggles represented in Wanda's story, but I think this reading is perhaps too charitable. The X-Men and the Avengers, said Kali-of-Amino, are really the villains of House of M. It is their unwillingness to help Wanda through her crisis, their haste to "put Wanda down" that caused the events to transpire in such a catastrophic way. I believe this reading is incorrect. Yes, Emma Frost and Wolverine are adamant from the outset that killing Wanda is the right thing to do, but they were unable to act on their opinions as most of the heroes wish to, in Kali-of-Amino's words, "take better care" of Wanda. It is not so that the heroes, dead set on murdering their mentally ill friend the moment she acts out, are punished by the narrative for their cruelty. On the contrary, the heroes who are too sympathetic to the hysterical witch are forced by the narrative to realize that their sympathy hindered their ability to take decisive action. They allowed Wanda to commit a mutant genocide precisely because they refuse to "take her out".

    At the root of the problem is that while Wanda's mental illness is the driver of the events of House of M, the story is totally uninterested in Wanda's experience. Wanda only appeared at the beginning of the book, acting insane, and at the end of the book, acting insane. She has no motivation and is driven instead by the men around her. The story is not about Wanda. Rather, it is about Wolverine's matrix-like awakening from a comfortable falsity to the uncomfortable truth. Wanda is merely the backdrop of this individualist story, the cause of both the desert of the Real and it's simulated appearance –– In short, Wanda is a stand-in for Nature. Nature in its maternal, unchanging, cruel, and unstable essence; Nature in opposition to man, passively awaiting his conquest, taming, and subjugation. Wanda's mental illness, then, is present in the story not to be contextualized and understood, it is the truth of Wanda as the eternally feminine Nature. Not a sympathetic feminist account of mental illness, imo. 

    This said, barring the odd themes in this book, House of M is quite an enjoyable read. Olivier Coipel is one of the most interesting character artist working today, I love the unique way he stylize faces and his frantic panelling. The book is chock full of beautiful art and at times very moving character moments. All in all a solid 2/5.

 

✷✷✷

 

I'm not going to address the fucking elephant

     After reading House of M, I started reading the Chris Claremont run of The Uncanny X-Men, illustrated by Dave Cockrum. The collection I read is the Marvel Masterworks published in 2018, the first volume of which includes the Giant-Size X-Men one-shot as well as the Claremont run from issue #94-100 that follows the events of giant-size X-Men.

    These stories see the debut of many iconic X-Men such as Storm, Colossus, and my beloved Nightcrawler. It follows the team's encounters with unserious Saturday morning villains like Count Nafaria and Kierrok the Damned. It culminates in a two issue event where some of the X-Men are captured by the Sentinels to a human supremacist space station. The remaining X-Men travel to the space station to rescue their friends, and as they escape, Jean Grey sacrifices herself so the X-Men may return to Earth safely. 

my love why are you chopped

    Now while I get that these stories are the foundation of all of the stories to come, (it’s why I’m still reading them) I find them to be an absolute chore to get through. For one, it seems to inherit the episodic and lighthearted style of story telling form the Stan Lee era, yet I cannot for the life of me bring myself to give a shit about Count Nafaria. Furthermore, I found the way Claremont writes to be so wordy. Every panel, however small, has a full block of text, and when you get into it it's mostly a bunch of nothing. On top of that, I just really dislike Dave Cockrum's art. He made every X-Man (who are for the most part in their early to mid twenties) look like they are in their fifties. The posing and composition is also stiff and flat, making the comic quite boring visually. Now none of these "flaws" are present due to the faults of the creators (except Cockrum's ugly faces I guess.) Instead, they are simply the convention of superheroes comics at the time. But knowing this fact did not make the experience of reading this book anymore engaging. 

    The last two issues about the Sentinels are alright. I think they're more interesting than the rest of the book. But idk...it's just not something I would read if not out of a sense of obligation you know? 2/5

 

✷✷✷

  

     After reading the first Marvel Masterwork collection, I immediately followed up with the second volume. This volume includes issues #101-110, which covers Jean's rebirth as the Phoenix, the X-Men's encounter with Lilandra and their confrontation with the Shi'ar empire. 

    I like this one a bit more than the last one! While the writing is still quite wordy, this volume has a much clearer story line than the last, and in the issues unrelated to main plot there is a bigger focus on the character relationships than the boring villain of the week. I love seeing the X-Men hanging out and being friends. I like the part where Nightcrawler tries to get someone to go see Star Wars with him, that's the type of cute slice of life stuff I love. This volume also sees departure of Dave Cockrum and the introduction of a new artist –– John Byrne. I think Byrne's art is much more appealing than Cockrum. The poses are in general more fluid and dynamic, and their faces are more beautiful. 

    It is still a bit of a drag sometimes imo, but it's an improvement from before! 3/5. 

 

✷✷✷

  

    I think I might being a bit uncharitable with these books, especially for the Claremont run, it's probably  something I can get used to and learn to enjoy. I am just a little sad that it's not as exciting and fun as I expect. Is that a normal Claremont reading experience? 

    My X-Men comics reading plans following this is roughly as follow:

- continue reading the Claremont run up to Inferno.

- God Loves, Man Kills 

- a little bit of Jim Lee books (idk how much to read. I'll read until I get bored ig)

- Some Nightcrawler books (perhaps the pirate one) 

- Morrison's New X-Men

- Astonishing X-Men 

- Maybe a bit of the Bendis books because I like Chris Bachalo 

- X-Men Red (heard this one is good and I like Jean!) 

- House of X/Power of X 

    I am personally very excited to reach Morrison and beyond. It's very interesting to me that a mutant homeland has repeatedly been presented as the only solution to the anti-mutant problem. I'm intrigued by what that's trying to say and how they say it. I hope I have a much better time when I get there.

    If you're a big X-Men reader I am curious to know: what was your experience reading the Claremont books for the first time? Is there any recommendations of X books that I should read?