The X-Men Don’t Need Another Krakoa, And The Current Era Is Finally Proving It

The X-Men have landed in the MCU, with Wolverine, Beast, Professor X, Deadpool, and Jean Grey appearing in various MCU films. The men and women of X were once the most popular superteam in comics and only lost that place thanks to the MCU. Most fans believe that Marvel Studios is going to focus on the mutants, which makes sense – they are the new hotness. When characters get pushed in the movies, they get pushed in the comics, but the X-Men don’t really need that. They’ve been pushed constantly for the last seven years, with 2019-2024’s Krakoa Era wowing fans and taking over the sales charts. The ending was somewhat disappointing, though, and X-Men ’97‘s success inspired Marvel to go old school with the team.

“From the Ashes” couldn’t maintain its momentum, although that’s something of a nice way of saying it. “From the Ashes” had multiple failures, including the abysmal “Age of Revelation”. The next status quo, “Shadows of Tomorrow”, didn’t exactly inspire confidence in fans at first, but things have finally started to even out for the X-books, with DNX, a new X-event, launching to some acclaim. While the X-books aren’t exactly where they once were, they’ve grown a lot over the last year. However, that hasn’t stopped fans from wanting the Krakoa Era – or something similar – back. While I personally have been very hard on the X-office since Tom Brevoort took over, it’s time to give him his flowers – the X-Men line is finally starting to come together and it’s honestly about time.

The Current X-Books Haven’t Reached the Heights of Krakoa but They Don’t Need to

So, to begin, I think I first have to say that despite things getting better, the current X-office has never even sniffed the heights of the best parts of the Krakoa Era. Books like X-Men (Vol. 5), Marauders (Vol. 1), Wolverine (Vol. 7), X-Factor (Vol. 4), Immortal X-Men, X-Men Red (Vol. 2), X-Terminators, House of X, Powers of X, Inferno, and stories like “Sins of Sinister” and AXE Judgment Day were all fantastic. However, it’s honestly kind of asinine to compare the two. Krakoa was all about changing the X-Men and getting as many eyes as possible on them. “From the Ashes” and “Shadows of Tomorrow” are going in a different direction – rebuilding the team into a more familiar group.

One of the problems with the current X-office is that there is no real direction other than making the team as MCU friendly as possible. “From the Ashes” was all about nostalgia, with many of the books of the line taking cues from the past. Uncanny X-Men was the Claremont soap opera, X-Men was trying to be New X-Men meets Bendis Uncanny, Exceptional X-Men was the school book, NYX was the teen book, X-Factor was trying to be the Peter David run, Wolverine was (and still is) doing a bad Larry Hama impersonation, and most of the books were dripping with ’90s-like costumes and ideas.

Storm started good but just became a power-scaling book, X-Force couldn’t interest anyone, Mystique and Phoenix never found their audiences, and Dazzler was widely panned. A lot of fans, especially older ones, weren’t happy with the books, and “Age of Revelation”, an alternate future story in the vein of “Age of Apocalypse”, failed completely. “Shadows of Tomorrow” began with a thud, with X-Men United teased as a big book without the stories to make it stick.

However, something funny has happened over “Shadows of Tomorrow”. To begin with, Marvel began putting out solo books starring characters like Magik and Moonstar, two heroes that everyone wants more of. These solo series aren’t the most amazing things in the world, but they are solid stories that not only appeal to X-fans, but also to newer fans who are just learning about the characters. They also show that Marvel is trying to build new stars, which is important. X-Men started building towards DNX, dropping a huge reveal on readers that has made the book exciting again. Uncanny X-Men has been awesome the whole time, with Gail Simone giving readers old school-style X-Men stories that go in new directions. Wolverine didn’t really get any better, but the perception of the X-line has changed completely.

I think one of the big reasons why is that the nostalgia has been dialed down. X-Men ’97 was a massive hit and it drove Marvel to change their plans completely. The House of Ideas cut six months off the end of Krakoa Era, forcing the creators to truncate their stories, and threw the line to Brevoort, their most trusted editor. However, Brevoort didn’t really seem to get the X-Men at first. The editor was upfront in saying that what he liked about the X-Men wasn’t the same thing that everyone else did and it felt like he was just going by what was popular before to find some kind of direction. It didn’t help that there were two major crossovers in the line in the first year and that fans didn’t like the idea of Graymalkin Prison, a mutant prison on the grounds of the Xavier Institute, or Doug Ramsey as Revelation or one of many other plotlines that were established at the beginning.

Most of the parts of the X-line that fans didn’t like are gone. The books are no longer trying for the nostalgia readers, but going in fun new directions. Graymalkin is gone, fans like DNX and its build-up way more than “Age of Revelation”, and the line finally has some kind of direction. The opening plots of “From the Ashes” – Graymalkin, Prisoner X, what Revelation’s plan was, all of the Professor X stuff – have given away to new plots, leading the books in new directions, which is what fans wanted from the start.

There’s a sense of excitement around the X-books that there weren’t before. Upcoming books like Maximum X-Men have fans excited for the future of the line and the return of Jean Grey to Earth, Storm coming back to the team, and the growth of budding stars like Magik (and writer Ashley Allen, who has been knocking it out of the park with the solo miniseries she’s been doing) are all pluses. I can understand writing off the X-Men line after “Age of Revelation” or wanting to skip DNX, but you’re missing out. These books have gotten so much better and we don’t need a widescale change. The Krakoa Era is gone and for now, it should stay gone.

This Era of the X-Men Isn’t Krakoa and That’s Okay

The Krakoa Era came on the tail end of the worst era in X-Men history. The team had been marginalized for years and Krakoa was the shot in the arm they needed. It’s not exactly the perfect saga that its most fervent fans want you to think, but it was fantastic and had loads of potential for the future. “From the Ashes” was disappointing at first, mostly because fans wanted so much from it. Krakoa had made fans happy and they wanted more of that. However, it didn’t give that to them. This has led to a lot of us – myself included – to complain a lot, but some fans have taken it too far.

While the current X-Men line isn’t perfect, it’s on the rise in a way that seemed impossible after “Age of Revelation” ended. The books have gotten way better and are taking readers on an enjoyable ride. Being a comic fan can be frustrating; a lot of the time, you aren’t getting what you want from the books you’re buying. X-Men fans are some of the loudest in the industry when this happens and Krakoa was a favorite of many of them. However, speaking as someone who was once on the other side of the glass and yelling about Brevoort-era X-Men, it’s time to admit that things are finally on the up and it’s honestly kind of awesome. Watching these books get better – and being excited for their future – is way more fun than complaining.

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