Welcome to the X-Men - hope you survive

I can still remember my first issue of Uncanny X-Men, even though it was a UK reprint in the pages of the Marvel UK Secret Wars II weekly. It was Uncanny X-Men #196.

There was a guy who could read minds, although not very well; a blue guy who appeared to be having a crisis of faith; a short-tempered guy with claws who stabbed a teammate; said teammate who appeared to be from the future; and a young girl who, at the time, seemed quite appealing.

More UK reprints followed – the X-Men fought Sentinels, a depowered Spider-Woman turned up as a pal for no apparent reason, Phoenix tried to kill the Beyonder but didn’t – and as I struggled to make sense of it all (especially jarring was the tendency of the reprint comic to skip issues that it felt were irrelevant) I realized – I liked these guys.

When I finally became aware of US comics and started picking them up, a year or so of continuity had passed me by. The Marauders had struck. The team was split up. Dazzler – a character who I recalled that the omnipotent Beyonder had romanced – had been buried alive by the Juggernaut; an inexplicably purple-haired Brit had joined the team; there was a guy with too few fingers and too much hair that seemed perpetually jaunty; and somehow Rogue seemed to be in charge – but then the next issue, Havok was breaking into the mansion to join the team and, and, and….

…there was something about the X-Men. They seemed to be on the permanent back-foot, constantly reeling from attack to attack, whether it be from giant robots, evil mutants, or public opinion. Their entire story was a tapestry of never-ending, intertwining sub-plots.

Even now, looking back on Chris Claremont’s incredibly verbose run, despite of it’s faults, it holds together amazingly well. The X-Men’s persecution ending in their ‘deaths’ in Dallas lead to their outback years, which lead to their scattering at the hands of the Reavers, which lead to Forge and Banshee’s search for the team, which lead to the eventual banding back together of the team – all over the space of about seventy issues from the point where I started reading.

You may know that I am, on and off, a back issue fiend as well – and Uncanny X-Men is one iof those books that I’ve focused on from time to time. As a result I went backwards from where I started and over the years I’ve accumulated a nice solid run back to about #127 (before it was even Uncanny) and I’m always on the look out for earlier ones at a reasonable price.

My point is that I’ve been with the book – books, including adjectiveless, Astonishing, spin-off and solo titles – ever since, but recently during the purge I’ve been making, I’ve been slowly dropping titles, until only the core book remained.

But as of this week, I won’t be picking it up any more. In fact, I’m even going to go back a bit and stick some of the last few issues on ebay.

I still like the team and I think the central concept of a team fighting for a world that hates and fears them is as strong and as relevant now as it’s ever been – but that’s not what Uncanny X-Men is anymore. Now it’s about an entire people, and more often than not it’s…well…boring.

I’m not sure how Matt Fraction’s managed it, but these days the X-Men are just plain dull. They debate politics (I have the news for that), they have meetings (I have work for that), they worry about their island base sinking (I have Acts of Vengeance for that) and they posture or look at each other silently.

Sure, there’s an attack here or there – usually by a poorly defined group of characters for reasons which are never quite clearly explained – but it seems that the X-Men today are less about superheroics and more about nothing in particular.

Chances are I’ll still pick up the trades. After all, they’re cheaper than the original issues and easier to store and at the pacing that Fraction’s writing at, they just might be more readable too. But on a month-by-month basis…no, I think I’m done.

Matt Fraction has done for me what at one point I thought was impossible. What endless crossovers, mutant Skrulls, nonsensical betrayals, Claremont’s failed returns, Steven Seagle’s crow attack and even Chuck Austen’s origin of Nightcrawler couldn’t do. He’s made me drop the Uncanny X-Men from my monthly pull list.