The X that ended it all

There were several periods of intense obsession with all things X-Men in my life, when I was younger and dorkier and all I cared about were the misadventures of Marvel's merry mutants.

I got a dose of pure Claremont/Byrne as a kid, but I was a young teenager in the period between Fall of the Mutants and Inferno, and that was all the things I needed. The scratchy dynamics of Marc Silvestri, with the X-men hunkering down in the Australian outbreak, the completely unpredictable storytelling of Chris Claremont.  The sublime thrills of the X-Terminators and the first few months of Excalibur. The fucking sexiness of it all.

I fell off the x-wagon for a little while, but a couple of years later, when Jim Lee became the regular artist, I was definitely back on board with all things X. Just as the titles exploded in popularity, I was getting all the main X-titles, and that lasted for a few more years.

But I can pinpoint the exact moment they lost me, and it was X-Men #27. I can still remember reading it at the time, and the deep disappointment that it had all lead to this. There had been a significant drop in quality after all the Image boys fucked off, and not just because so much of the art was trying to ape those who had fled. Theplots and characters were circling the drain, instead of bursting out in brave new directions.

And #27 was it. Just such a nothing comic, with deeply unpleasant art and design, and a plot that was instantly forgotten. I didn't care about any of it, and didn't want to buy any more X-comics.

I still lasted a couple more months on the Uncanny title, because it had Romita Jr in his absolute prime, but that was soon over too. While these was a lingering fondness for the Madiera and Bachalo art that were coming, they were otherwise actively repulsive as comics.

I haven't bought a brand new X-Men comic in the years since then. I went all in on the Morrison/Quitely stuff ,but only in the collected editions, and there was a weird affection for the Bendis era (I just thought it was the strongest art line-up in many, many years). I also recently bought almost all the original Claremont comics in Essential form, and they're taunting me to get stuck into them.

But back in the 90s, it was so easy to let go. It was almost some kind of hushed disappointment, that the comics I loved had swiftly become something that was so easy to give up. But that freedom not to bother with this anymore, and the opening to new possibilities, that was the real thing

This is all well and good, and this is where I jumped off, but I have still read every issue of the X-Men ever published, because my mate Kyle never stopped getting it. Some of it was all right, but so little of it was very cool. And I'm just never going to buy something so ugly ever again.