The X-Men have had a pretty awesome story arc in general. They started off as one of the weaker books of Marvel’s Silver Age boom, with sales bad enough to become a reprint book but not bad enough to cancel. Giant-Size X-Men #1 changed all of that, introducing a whole new roster of the team that immediately connected with fans. Writer Chris Claremont came onboard the book, X-Men became Uncanny X-Men, and the rest is history. The X-Men vaulted over every other Marvel book to become the king of the sales charts, a position they would keep throughout the ’80s and ’90s, and only ended in the ’00s, overtaken by the original Ultimate books and New Avengers. The X-Men started from the bottom, and became superstars, giving Marvel some of the greatest stories and characters ever.
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The X-Men have a lot of great books, but often times, nostalgia has given fans rose-colored glasses. There are a lot of X-Men stories out there that are pretty good, but for some reason fans think they’re the best thing ever. An overrated story doesn’t always mean a bad story, but the X-Men have a lot of storylines that aren’t nearly as great as the perception of them have become. These seven X-Men stories are extremely overrated, and it’s about time we admitted that.
7) X-Men (Vol. 2) #1-3
Chris Claremont changed the X-Men forever. Claremont started writing the X-Men in the mid ’70s, and his first run on Uncanny X-Men lasted until 1991. The last X-Men story of Claremont’s first run came in X-Men (Vol. 2) #1-3, pitting the new X-Men Blue Team against Magneto and his Acolytes. X-Men (Vol. 2) #1 is the bestselling comic of all time, selling over eight million copies, and has some beautiful art from Jim Lee. These three issues are honestly one of the coolest X-Men vs. Magneto stories of all time, but it’s gotten over-praised over the years. Claremont had made Magneto into an ally of the X-Men, but Marvel wanted him as a villain again, so Claremont had to hit the reset button. The Acolytes look cool, but we get very little information about them as characters, other than Fabian Cortez. The second issue has an info dump that shows why Magneto is back to being a straight-up villain, and the third issue teases a fight between the Blue and Gold Teams of the X-Men that never actually happens. This is definitely a good story, with seriously gorgeous art, but its beloved more for its legendary status than for the story. I’d still recommend it to new X-Men fans, but it’s not as awesome as its reputation.
6) Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 4) #1-12
Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 4) #1-12 is two six issue stories that are related, so I’m counting them as one. This volume of Astonishing X-Men came at a very dark time for X-Men fans; the late ’10s is full of mediocre X-Men stories. However, there’s something about this story that I’ve always found to be especially bad. This is a Shadow King story: Psylocke gets a vision of a future where Shadow King commits an act of ultra-violence, one that is corroborated by Bishop, the future X-Man who knows the basics of what happened in the present. This leads to a new team of X-Men coming together to stop the Shadow King, going into the Astral Realm and learning that Professor X is his prisoner. This leads to Xavier being resurrected, and the X-Men going up against Proteus, before realizing that the Shadow King has been behind everything. This book was written by Charles Soule and each different issue had a different artist, with big name artists like Jim Cheung, Ed McGuinnss, Mike Deodato, ACO, and eight other artists handling art duties. While this isn’t an overly beloved series, it’s still overrated. It’s one of the worst moments of a pretty mediocre period in the X-Men’s history, and it doesn’t get enough scorn. At the very least, the art is really good.
5) “Fatal Attractions”
“Fatal Attractions” is one of the most important X-Men stories of the ’90s. Magneto was believed dead after the events of X-Men (Vol. 2) #3, but fans knew it was only a matter of time before the mutant master of magnetism came back. “Fatal Attractions” ran through every X-Men book of 1993 — X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, X-Factor, X-Force, Excalibur, and Wolverine — and contains two of the biggest moments in X-Men history: Magneto pulling out Wolverine’s adamantium and Xavier mindwiping Magneto. However, if we’re being honest, there are really only three good parts of “Fatal Attractions” — Uncanny X-Men #304, X-Men #25, and Wolverine #75. The rest of the chapters are basically just cash-ins for those books, pitting Magneto or the Acolytes against the other mutant teams. Half of the story is fantastic, but the other half is mediocre at best. That’s not what makes a great story. I’ll stand by Wolverine #75 as one of the best issues of any X-Men comic in the ’90s, but that doesn’t change just how overrated “Fatal Attractions” has become in the years since it was released.
4) The Age of Apocalypse
The Age of Apocalypse is one of the most beloved X-Men stories of all time. It’s gone down as one of the greatest alternate universes ever, and an entire generation of fans grew up loving it. The Age of Apocalypse is very, very cool. However, it’s not as amazing as its reputation. There are some excellent miniseries in The Age of Apocalypse, but the problem is that a good portion of it isn’t as great. Basically, it’s not the sum of its parts. Astonishing X-Men, Amazing X-Men, Generation Next, and Weapon X are all fantastic, and X-Universe was a great look at what the rest of the Marvel Universe did in a world where Apocalypse’s rise stopped a lot of them from getting their powers, but a lot of the other series just can’t really stand with the better chapters. Most of them are just edgy alternate universe stories that aren’t really all that special. The Age of Apocalypse is a legendary story, but the uneven nature of it is a problem that a lot of the biggest fans of the storyline ignore. It’s one of the most ’90s X-Men stories you can imagine — edgy, complicated, and containing great art — but anyone who thinks that it isn’t overrated by the fandom needs to go back and read the whole thing again. You’ll see some awesome moments, but you’ll also see a lot of filler.
3) House of M
House of M, by Brian Michael Bendis and Olivier Coipel, is often thought of as a Marvel event story, and not an X-Men story. However, for those of us who were around back then, we remember that Marvel advertised the book as a crossover between Astonishing X-Men and New Avengers, the hottest books at the publisher. Wolverine is the main character of the book, along with the mutant Layla Miller. All of that makes it an X-Men story, and it is vastly overrated. There are a lot of reasons why but first and foremost, it’s boring. Bendis was never known for writing good action, and most of this book consists of his patented talking heads style of writing. What little action there is looks good — Coipel is a great artist — but it’s not enough to make the book actually exciting. The world building of the House of M world, where mutants are ascendant, is bare bones in the main series. Scarlet Witch’s utterance of “no more mutants” basically destroyed the X-Men for years to come, relegating them to depressing stories where the mutant race was always in danger of extinction. House of M has an overall positive reputation, but I’m convinced that most of the people who feel that way haven’t read it in a long time.
2) “Gifted”
Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 3) took the spot of X-Men flagship title after writer Grant Morrison left New X-Men and Marvel over editorial interference. Written by Joss Whedon with art by the late great John Cassaday, it immediately jumped to the top of the sales carts. The book’s first story arc, “Gifted”, brought the X-Men back to their superhero roots as they have to deal with a new alien threat, the warrior known as Ord, and a mutant cure. This story is often recommended to new X-Men readers, and there’s good reason for that — it’s a fairly simple X-Men story with good characterization and some brilliant art. However, it often gets lumped in with the best X-Men stories of all time, and it just doesn’t deserve that. While it helped remind everyone of why they loved Kitty Pryde so much, it’s merely a good story that often reads like Claremont-lite, and not among the best of all time X-Men comics. This is basically baby’s first X-Men, and it’s fine for that, but it’s gotten glazed to a ridiculous extent. In fact, there’s honestly better stories that you can recommend to new readers rather than this one.
1) The Krakoa Era
The Krakoa Era began with 2019’s House of X/Powers of X, and ran until 2024’s X-Men #35/Uncanny X-Men #700 (they were the same issue; the numbering is confusing and actually doesn’t make any sense, but Marvel is always trying to to match DC when it comes to big issue numbers). The Krakoa Era was the most inventive era of the X-Men since Morrison’s New X-Men, taking the X-Men and the mutant race to the mutant island of Krakoa to create a nation for their people. The hype that the Krakoa Era had in its first two years is frankly insane; the X-Men books were selling so well they basically kept Marvel afloat throughout the COVID pandemic. However, once Krakoa Era mastermind Jonathan Hickman left the X-office, the Krakoa Era lost a lot of its luster. While it had excellent books like Immortal X-Men and X-Men Red in the post Hickman years, too many of the other books, including the flagship book X-Men, were fair to middling. The Krakoa Era is one of the most contentious eras in X-Men history; some fans love it and some fans don’t. However, any one who tries to defend it as a perfect X-Men storyline is completely and totally wrong. There are a lot of great stories in the Krakoa Era, but there’s also a lot of really terrible stories (looking at you, X-Corp.) It’s extremely uneven, but because it was the first time in years that the X-Men weren’t on the verge of extinction, X-Men fans love it.
What X-Men stories do you think are underrated? Sound off in the comments below.
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(Photo by Bruce Glikas/Bruce Glikas/FilmMagic)
