Previous Post Quote: Did you collect X-men comics in the 80's and/or 90's? Quote: Why do you think there was an explosion of popularity and variety of X-related titles at this time? Quote: Looking back do you still love these issues or not so much? If not, what time period of X-men comics do you prefer? Quote: PPP I did not collect X-men in the 90's though I bought them every once in a while when there was some kind of event. I couldn't afford to buy every issue. My focus was on the FF which was a single book compared to X-men which seemed like countless books. I really don't know why X-men was so popular. It always seemed like it's own thing to me. Like there was Marvel and then there was X-men. It was like it's own club. I like the All New X-men Claremont and Byrne really knocked it out of the park and Claremont was still knocking it out of the park for a while even after Byrne and him parted. But somewhere along the line the wheels sort of came off the book. Not sure when it was though. Certainly by the time Magneto was a good guy it felt like a completely different book to me. PPP

The X-Men could do no wrong in my eyes until a few things started to bother me. The first was the Mutant Massacre. I had liked the Morlocks and thought they had an interesting place in mutant lore - and then Claremont inexplicably killed most of them. Why? You tell me. Whatever Sinister intended by killing off dozens of mutants, I'll never know. Does anyone know? Even the creators?

Worse than the slaughter of the Morlocks was that Claremont unceremoniously sidelined two of my favorite characters on the book (Kitty and Kurt). Sidelining Colossus was something I could deal with, but even he deserved better, in my opinion. They moved Kitty/Kurt/Rachel over to Excalibur, but it didn't feel like an X-book. I had no reason to care about Captain Britain or Meggan, before or after the Excalibur team came together.

Still, there were some good X-Men issues after the massacre. It was around Inferno when I realized Claremont didn't care anymore. That event also got rid of Illyana, who was a character I also loved. Somewhere around that issue, Claremont stopped writing New Mutants, and to say I didn't care for the next two creative teams is an understatement. After the Jim Lee explosion, I drifted away and stopped caring.