At this point I have faith in him to deliver in the long run. Everytime I've thought he has lost it in these Essential Volumes, he turns around and knocks it out of the park.

Also I love it when the X-Men fight demons and aliens. Thats not to say you do not need the evil mutants or sentinels. But you need a healthy balance of both.

Its kinda like what somebody said about Thor. You can have them in space and fighting demons. But you always have to bring them back to earth to get beat up by the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.

Since I started reading comics bback in 1992. Ive made attempts to follow the X books. I've enjoyed some but never as much as Avengers and FF.

After I read the first two Essential X-Men and loved them to death. I wondered what the difference was. I mean besides the talent of the creators obviously. But I think it is that the books focused too much on the mutant rights stuff. Instead of them having all kinds of adventures like all the best runs had.

It seems to me the X-Men should be based on Earth, and the space/cosmic stuff should be left to Thor or the FF.

Having said that, from the Z'Nox to the Sentinels operating from a satellite to fighting the Imperial Guard, to the Dark Phoenix Saga, to The Brood - all that stuff completely works for me, een though I guess it shouldn't have.

Didn't really like it when they fought the Skrulls, but Deathbird was a part of that so it wasn't totally left field.

Larry I always took the roster changes as a means to keep the team fresh. Just like you cycle out Cap, Thor and Iron Man every once in awhile. That way they come back and things are recharged. I think the X-Men are the same.

I give Claremont strong points for writing so many X-Men issues and keeping the series popular.  When it was announced he was leaving in the early '90s, it was kind of sad because he had been on it for so long, but I wasn't sorry to see him go.  The last several years of the title (anything after the lame Inferno crossover) was simply awful except for the last few Jim Lee issues.  Although the "Australia team" era before Inferno had some good stories (the original Genosha story, the Brood story, and the addition of the Reavers as a villain group) it was just silly with them being "dead," no real supporting cast or anything else to ground them with the "normal" world, and them not being able to be photographed.

Furthermore, the team dynamics simply were not good for many years - the team was just bland.  There were no good rivalries or issues between members of the team, I found the identical personalities of the female members boring, and I have never understood why Psylocke or Longshot was on the team.  For both of them it was like *poof* they're X-Men now.

Previous to this era, Claremont had erred too much in making the world just too dark and hateful against mutants.  I'm a believer that some amount of anti-mutant hysteria is good for the comic, but the tension should come from what might happen in the future, not the dark clouds obviously looming overhead.

I also personally never liked the Shi'ar, but can accept a popular element that makes the book enjoyable for others.  I just think that space opera is taking the X-Men far too much away from their "specialty" and what distinguishes them from other teams.

Previous to this era, Claremont had erred too much in making the world just too dark and hateful against mutants.  I'm a believer that some amount of anti-mutant hysteria is good for the comic, but the tension should come from what might happen in the future, not the dark clouds obviously looming overhead.

****

One thing I noticed in the last two volumes is the anti mutant hysteria is more balanced. here are just as many humans who accept mutants as their are bigots.

Personally I love the Australian team (Except for Dazzler as I mentioned earlier.) I really like Longshot, both visually and as a character. Though Psylocke bugs me a little. She seems a bit too sadistic/cold hearted to be on the team.

Havok is one of my all time favorites. Plus you have your main stays of Collosus, Storm, Rogue and Wolverine.

I say all this knowing the original team had a book. Not to mention Kitty and Nightcrawler being in Excaliber. Though I do think they were burnt out.