Niciezia's X-Men

[Panthergod]

Is the a chronological list somewhere of all of his x-verse and mutant related books?

What do people think of his stuff?

From what ive read its hamfisted but he had a good grasp of team books likely from his new warriors rUn.

[Whiskeyclone]

He definitely has a good handle on team books, but I don't remember it being anything special - I feel like the x-books around that time produced a lot of ho-hum work from people who did better elsewhere. He also did a lackuluster, as I recall, Alpha FLight run around then, too.

That said, I'd be willing to re-evaluate it all, as I don't remember exactly what it consisted of, either.

[Jabroniville]

It was a solid run, especially considering he was filling CLAREMONT'S shoes at the time. It really doesn't hold up in a major level, in the sense that you're never wowed by anything that really went on. There's some neat character moments, the events are at least tolerable (I loved X-Cutioner's Song, especially the issues that are like 100% teams beating the shit out of each other), and there's some good bits. It just... never gets over that cusp of greatness. It makes re-reading his stuff years later not a giant waste of time, but rather humdrum.

I think it never really got BAD, which makes him a B+ as an X-Men writer given how fucking shitty Scott "Franchise Destroyer" Lobdell was on "Uncanny", and how bad OTHER good writers have done on the books. He really had a thankless job (going on after a 20-year run by one writer), and really did solid with it.

[Panthergod]

I love x-Cutioners Song. His X-Force run with Capullo was good too. I associate this run with the cartoon so its "my" generations definitive x-men.

[Bueno Excellente]

Probably his best X-Men work was:

X-Men #25
Probably the most intense X-Men vs Magneto battle ever, where Wolvie loses his adamantium and Mags gets his mind wiped by Xavier.  First time I read this, I was absolutely stunned and speechless.  The best stories should have that effect on you.

X-Men #30
Jean & Scott wedding issue.  No fisticuffs, no villains (apart from a one-page appearance by Sabretooth), no powers (apart from Gambit using his to win the garter toss)...just a wedding of two founding members shared with teammates, family, friends and big daddy Professor X.  My one complaint, there were no heroes from outside the X-verse at the wedding, save for Quicksilver and Crystal.  Mind you this was back when Marvel was working in 5 silos under 5 different EICs.

As for Lobdell...I didn't mind him for the first 2 - 3 years because he (and Nicieza) continued where Claremont left off - my main gripes being that he sometimes had an annoying habit of writing the X-Men like it was Star Trek: Next Generation: The Comic Book, and for displaying his obvious dislike for the Rasputin family.  But the X-books jumped the shark after AOA and Lobdell was a big reason for that.  I dropped the X-books sometime after Onslaught.  Today, Lobdell is demonstrating at DC that he is in the same boat as Claremont - washed up, burnt out.

[Whiskeyclone]

The wedding issue was nice, I wasn't sure if that was him or Lobdell.

I also liked some Lobdell stuff, too - AoA must have been largely his, right? And that was one of my favorite events of the '90s hands down. He had some good chill-out issues, too, and introduced Gen X. But yeah there was also a lot not to like, and he's definitely burnt out these days.

[Bueno Excellente]

Wedding issue was written by Nicieza.

[Jabroniville]

Yeah, the Wedding Issue & X-Men #25 are great books. Just plain good storytelling and character writitng, and yeah- that whole Wolvie/Magneto thing was fucking intense for the time. As a kid, I was like "HOLY SHIT!"

Nicieza also deserves credit for making Cable a real character. Under Liefeld, he was just a grouch and a bad-ass, nothing more. Nicieza basically made him a father figure and gave him real depth. He did some great stuff under Cannonball too, even if he DID continue to fuck up Moonstar with her retarded storyline (why would a minor-league team like the Mutant Liberation Front need a "mole" that would actively commit horrible crimes?).

He also did the same to Shatterstar, and made both him & Rictor interesting characters (giving Peter David the idea to make them butt-buddies, which fits PERFECTLY with their X-Force characterization).

The X-Force run often gets forgotten these days, because it doesn't really "matter" in the long run (most of the characters were minor, Sam got a personality/experience revamp the SECOND he joined Lobdell's Uncanny group, Cable did more stuff in his solo book), but I actually like it more than the X-Men books at the time.

Did Lobdell really hate the Rasputins? Nicieza's the guy who offed Piotr's parents in Russia, and Lobdell DID write that cool scene where Colossus went berserk and fucked up that bitch of a villain Fitzroy because his sister was dying and Fitzroy just got in his way. It wouldn't surprise me, though- FUCK LOBDELL. I can't think of a single person who did more damage to the X-Men.

[BigJayHam]

More damage to the X-Men? What the hell are you talking about?

[TNC]

More damage to the X-Men? What the hell are you talking about?

I'm curious too.



In all honestly, it would be hard for ANYONE to follow someone's 20 year run on a book, but I think Niciezia and Lobdell had a great era considering what they were following. Part of the reason is that I grew up on the tail end of Claremont's run and with the entirety of Niciezia and Lobdell but I can't see how anyone would say it was anything below an above average run on the title. I mean, what else was really going on great in comics during this time? It certainly wasn't the Avengers or Spider-Man titles.

Also keep in mind, this run helped kick off X-Men being the dominant title in comics as far as sales go, from the 90s to the 2000s, half of each year an X-Book was the top selling book. I sort of get the vibe when some people talk about this run of the X-Men being bad or them being minor league is that they were resistant to the X-Men taking over as the dominant franchise in comics over longer establish books that fell off in quality and appeal. I think this run did great things as far as establishing the characters and voices of each of the X-Men and helped to give them all defining traits.

[Panthergod]

I think the point is that the book was mostly mediocre on its own merits until the Seagle/Kelly run.

[BigJayHam]

When it became much worse?

[TNC]

I think the point is that the book was mostly mediocre on its own merits until the Seagle/Kelly run.

I don't know what to tell ya. I know I enjoyed the book and it sold extremely well.

I don't see how it can be mediocre if the majority of readers enjoyed it and supported it. I've said this before, but I think the only people who didn't enjoy the bulk of the run were just not X-Men fans.

[Panthergod]

I don't know what to tell ya. I know I enjoyed the book and it sold extremely well.

I don't see how it can be mediocre if the majority of readers enjoyed it and supported it. I've said this before, but I think the only people who didn't enjoy the bulk of the run were just not X-Men fans.

I didn't get into X-men seriously until afterwards but reading Lobdell's run compared to what came before and after it was a low point. but yeah, I can see how a 12 year old would think it was the shit with Madureira's art.

[TNC]

I didn't get into X-men seriously until afterwards but reading Lobdell's run compared to what came before and after it was a low point. but yeah, I can see how a 12 year old would think it was the shit with Madureira's art.

Its all about what you like, bruh. Everyone has different tastes. I enjoyed it growing up and it kept me coming back and I grew an appreciation to the characters. I think it did great for the company long term because the X-Men Characters grew to be the most popular characters in comics.


I just don't see how anyone can call the run bad or mediocre, that contridicts the massive numbers the book sold on top of just about everything else in the industry

[Whiskeyclone]

I liked the Phalanx stuff well enough, and as I said, AoA was a blast the first time out. So going by events Lobdell's era could have been worse.

[Bueno Excellente]

As I said, I liked Lobdell's run up until after AoA.  The retconning of AoA characters into the main continuity was pretty much the start of the shark jump.  But the origin of Onslaught...some mental worm from Magneto infecting Xavier's mind during the mindwipe...pretty much made me decide to drop the X-books for a long while.  I've picked them up here and there since then, but I ceased to be a hardcore X-fan.  The dozens of spinoff titles and miniseries didn't help matters either.

As for Lobdell's Colossus hate...killed his parents (I know Nicieza wrote that but I think Lobdell was co-plotting), killed his sister, turned him into an Acolyte, then exiled him off to Excalibur. Then when Lobdell came back before Morrison's run?  Killed him in order to resolve the decade-long Legacy Virus subplot.

[Jabroniville]

Lobdell "damaged" the X-Men because his run sucked, he was a sucky writer, and he wrote for a really long time while it was sucking. He was the main writer using the Acolytes, and pretty much used them as a revolving-door of sucky no-name characters instead of something cool. He wrote most of the characters poorly, failed to make Bishop interesting, etc. Operation: Zero Tolerance was one of the worst pseudo-events ever, and The Phalanx Covenant was embarassingly-bad adn hard to read. I never equated The X-Men with "Suck" until he started writing. Lobdell is the pits.

[Whiskeyclone]

I don't remember the Phalanx business being so bad.

[Bueno Excellente]

To be fair, the first group of Acolytes by Claremont were also sucky no-name characters. But I agree with them being mostly lame.  

For example, one Acolyte whom Lobdell really dropped the ball: Amelia Voght.  He originally hinted at her being an estranged and long-lost 6th member of the first X-Men team, which would have been kinda cool.  But for some inexplicable reason he decided to turn her into another one of Charlie's ex-girlfriends.

[Whiskeyclone]

The Acolytes definitely sucked, that's for sure. And they kicked around for ages, too.

[Jabroniville]

Yeah, the first group of Acolytes were just disposable baddies of no concern. But they were only in one short story-arc and were meant to be minor (they never even gave Anne-Marie POWERS, or explained if Delgado was the same as the SHIELD guy at the story's beginning). But Lobdell's Acolytes just stayed around in the background CONSTANTLY, with new members showing up all the time with bad, generic names (either their last names or something that was dumb... Vindaloo? REALLY?). There ended up being like TWENTY of the fuckers, almost none with any personality. Voght was one of the biggest ball-drops, as mentioned, as they barely even played up her relationship with Charles have the time either.

[Ares]

Yeah, the first group of Acolytes were just disposable baddies of no concern. But they were only in one short story-arc and were meant to be minor (they never even gave Anne-Marie POWERS, or explained if Delgado was the same as the SHIELD guy at the story's beginning). But Lobdell's Acolytes just stayed around in the background CONSTANTLY, with new members showing up all the time with bad, generic names (either their last names or something that was dumb... Vindaloo? REALLY?). There ended up being like TWENTY of the fuckers, almost none with any personality. Voght was one of the biggest ball-drops, as mentioned, as they barely even played up her relationship with Charles have the time either.

And lets not forget, they had a guy whose name means "Poo".

[Bueno Excellente]

I looked through the list of Acolytes on wikipedia.  I had no idea Unus the Untouchable had a daughter on that team.

[Master]

Yeah, one of the few cool things about the Acoloytes.

[BigJayHam]

And lets not forget, they had a guy whose name means "Poo".

You mean bone claw Wolverine?

[Wyntyr is gone, Spryng is here]

[Red Exodus]

Who wrote the Uncanny X-Men issue where the X-Men stormed this castle base the Acolytes
had kept Moira in? Was an overall solid issue, and the little tidbit with Gamesmaster revoking
Fabian's points because Magneto was still alive (unbeknowst to him) was pretty cool.

[Jabroniville]

I think that was Uncanny #300, which was a Lobdell issue. It was an okay issue, but they were still a paltry team.