[Dr Kain]

I finished The X-Men today. I'm a little mixed on how I feel about the direction the series took. Like Neal Adams artwork was absolutely amazing and put a breath of life into the run that was starting to look a bit stale. Roy Thomas managed to right some truly amazing stories, but they seemed hindered at times for one reason or another. For example, after Professor X dies some random FBI dude shows up and tells the team they need to split apart. That all lasted 2 issues and the FBI dude was never heard from again, making that whole plot seem pointless. It was also weird for Mesmero to show up, worshipping Magneto, but then have it turn out he was using a robot imitation to trick the X-Men.

A lot of the stories had interesting back-up ones on the origins of our team, but they were disjointed. Cyclops got like 5 issues, Ice-Man had 4-5, Beast had I think 3, while Angel was relegated to 3 and Jean didn't get anything. I get we saw her arrival in the premier, but still, she deserved something. It also made no sense when they were advertise Angel as being after Ice-Man, but then we get Beast's story and Angel was already part of the team. I thought I had missed something at first and then it happened again when they said the next issue was going to be about Cyclops being a wanted man, only for it to be some filler story with Blastaar.

Anyway, I highly enjoyed the Havok and Living Pharaoh story, on top of the return of the Sentinels. The Sauron story was good while the Savage Land tale felt a bit rushed. Then we get a stand alone issue that introduces Sunfire, which seemed to end prematurely. Next issue brings back Professor X without any rhyme or reason under the pretense that it was Changeling pretending to be Professor X who died, even though none of that gels with what was established previously. Like why would Charles leave them a farewell letter saying he had cancer if he was using a kagemusha? Just more proof that Xavier is a complete asshole who only cares about his own ambitions. The rest of the issue was mediocre while the finale revolving around the Hulk of all people was equally disappointing. Neal Adams didn't even get the pleasure of drawing the finale, which was super lame.

With that said, I did enjoy the series as a whole even with its mediocrity. Yes, it is by far the weakest of the Silver Age runs I have read so far, but I am glad to have gone through it. There were a lot of brilliant stories and concepts. I just wish there was more of a focus on what they wanted to do with it as it was all over the place from a writing point of view. The separation plot should have been at least a year long venture to make the reunion feel special. I can't lie though, I am glad to be through these issues so I can start rereading the Claremont run and get to do it all in order.