Too much X-Men wank. I love the Claremont/Byrne stuff as much as anybody, but all the X-fans make it sound like the greatest run of comics ever put to newsprint. I remember being about eleven when I encountered this run and it certainly hooked me in, particularly because Byrne-drawn Wolverine was such a massively cool character, like Jack Nicholson melded with Toshiro Mifune and topped off with Bogart in the very way in which Byrne presented him, but the world was also introduced to the whole "Mutie" mythos which was taken way too seriously and driven way too far into the ground, kicking off years of Claremont rehashing of these stilted themes. So I must say I'm resentful of how much the themes within the X-Men dominated a once-diverse Marvel and began the whole collector craze as we know it.

For me, Byrne's FF work, particularly the first year and a half, is the finest consistently excellent superhero comic ever produced. Everything about that chunk of the run displayed the raw creativity and professional knowledge of Byrne, coupled with his love of the characters. Add in his knowledge of comics history and his willingness to demand readers follow him even if they did not agree (changing Grimm to his original form I didn't like, and then later realized it was brilliant, as it turned Grimm back into what he was supposed to be, a monster rather than a "cute" idol of millions), and there's been nothing like it in the years since.

John Buscema drew the most iconic version of the Thing, in my view, in all three of his runs on the title, but particularly with Joe Sinnott.

Even if I love too the Dr Doom story that someone here found "out of character".

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The real Doom wouldn't let someone strike a match on him. It's too base an insult. The Red Skull, Magneto... they *might* ignore it if Arcade was critical to their plans, but Doom's ego wouldn't allow it and certainly wouldn't accept that Arcade was so important, he'd have to put up with such an indignity.

"Doom needs no one."

Of course, it was totally in character for Arcade.  But the consequences (nothing) were not.

Edit: did you know "totally" has two Ls?  Well, I thought I did, once.

Chad Carter said: "Too much X-Men wank. I love the Claremont/Byrne stuff as much as anybody, but all the X-fans make it sound like the greatest run of comics ever put to newsprint."

I don't know about the greatest, but, it's certainly one of the greatest runs ever done in comics.  You'd be hard pressed to find a run by any creative duo in the modern era  that did more to establish the characters and mythos of any comic book title than John Byrne and Chris Claremont did for the X-Men.

My introduction into Uncanny X-Men began with issue # 128, the conclusion of the Proteus storyline. I picked up this issue because the cover looked like the work of the same guy who drew "The Yesterday Quest" storyline in the Avengers, and I loved that guy's art because he was the best horror artist I'd ever seen (as I loved The House of Mystery, The House of Secrets, and Secrets of the Haunted House).

I missed a few issues (I don't remeber why), but came back for # 133. I remember being VERY disappointed with Cockrum's art, though I'm not sure that I disliked it because of the art itself, or mainly because it wasn't JB's art.  I remember loving Paul Smith's work, and liking JRjr's artwork, too. I quit Uncanny somewhere around 207/208, near the end of Romita Jr's tenure.

Can i ask JB a question ?

Do you think the friction with Chris was worth the stories you got from it ? Just curious.