MY FAVORITE COMICS - X-Men by Chris Claremont, John Byrne and Terry Austin
The (Uncanny) X-Men by Chris Claremont, John Byrne and Terry Austin. THIS IS IT! The still-unsurpassed mold for the modern superhero team. No matter what the opinion makers might tell you, this is THE ONE every single creative team has been trying to mimick, beat down or surpass ever since it was first done. This is the one that jumpstarted the whole X-Men franchise into the moneymaker it became later on. This is the one that gave us the Wolverine we all love and hate and love to hate.
This one has it all: gorgeous artwork, memorable characters, action, grandeur, tragedy, humor, romance, friendship, betrayal, star wars, a secret society, brainswashing, the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it, an apocalyptic future, time travel, battling superteams, dinnossaurs, giant robots, shapeshifters, cyborgs, aliens, mutants, a demon... everything and the kitchen sink. A perfect recipe for failure, right? Yet, it works. And it works beautifully!
Labels: Chris Claremont, comics, John Byrne, Terry Austin, X-Men
posted by Pedro Cruz at 7:30 PM
This one was my gateway into the Marvel universe way back in the late 1970s and I must say I was scared. I still couldn't read but I was smart enough to follow the story though the drawings and they generated strong emotions in me. Nowadays I'd probably list this as horror fiction and like the best horror it made me feel simultaneously repulsed and attracted to this strange world. I already knew Spider-man from the animation tv series with the catchy intro song (Spider-man, Spider-man, does whatever a spider can ...) and all the related merchandise but seeing him on print felt different: I found him scary! The guest-heroes on this book (the original X-Men, the Werewolf, Ghost Rider, Iron Fist) seemed like monsters and the villains... well, if the heroes were scary, then the villains were the stuff of nightmares. To this day I can still remember the unmasking of The Orb, villain on the Ghost Rider adventure, and the strange fate of Drom, the Backwards Man, villain on the Iron Fist segment. There are so many images from this comic that I still find haunting like the covers by Bob Budiansky and Ernie Chan or the initial splash page of the X-Men crossover, pencilled by Gil Kane and featuring Peter Parker having a nightmare with Morbius the Living Vampire. Imagination unbound!
