Initial Thoughts On The X-Men’s Age Of X/Fall Of X Era

By Chad Burdette

 on May 31, 2024

As the Age of X/Fall of X era of the Marvel’s Mutants concludes and the From The Ashes begins, Comic Watch Member Ross Hutchinson shares his initial thoughts on this moment in X-History:

Look for a more fleshed-out update next week

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The Fall Of X has been a publishing and timing disaster; however, you cannot fault Gillen or Ewing for not doing their damndest to make sure the line still had the high-stakes appeal and emotional depth it had early on.

Gerry Dugan started strong but man did he finish badly. His Iron Man at the end was 10 times better than his X-Men tbh.

Percy’s X-Force and Wolverine perfectly solid but if you were into an immediate gratification arc wise I’m pretty sure you would of hated it. Still, Wolverine did a better job of reflecting the repercussions of Krakoa in the outside world than any of the other books did, especially early on. Sabretooth War was too long but not terrible and the second backup story in the last issue straight up proves Percy understood Wolverine perfectly.

Excalibur only got good like 9 issues in for me then I got it and I think X of Swords was genius and that’s largely Howard’s doing. X-men D&D: hells yes. It zigged where I expected it to zag.

New Mutants was up and down and quiet honestly except for some funny dialogue everyone else did a better job than Hickman on the book especially Ayala.

X-Corp was not great from Howard even though I liked the cast, it never got going for me.

Children Of The Atom was OK.

Inferno also OK.

X-Lives and X Deaths were a surprising Inferno follow-up from Percy.

X-Men Red,  Immortal X-Men are probably the two best titles in that part of the era.

Spurrier had great ideas but didn’t have a clue how to write Kurt in proper voice and his bumbling fumbling doubting Thomas Kurt just pissed everyone off even me eventually although I think it was probably his Sins Of Sinister arc that made me check out of Spurriers writing in the X office he was trying to do way too much all the time.

Then Gillen goes and does Nightcrawler perfect in a damn Eternals crossover. Sins was interesting but ultimately didn’t have the teeth although at least it pulled Rasputin IV into 616.

There are a ton of cool verticle comics on Unlimited that plug interesting gaps in the era, I’ve nearly got enough Marvel Insider points to get another month free and then I’ll catch up and basically have read the era in its entirety.

Overall it was a pretty damn good era that did things differently and probably the best X-Men we have had since Morrison, but it’ll be marred by a very rushed and badly paced drawn-out ending.

Tom Brevoort meh, but at least he hired some good talent for the new era.

It’s X-Men – I go where they go, for better or worse.