Most Disappointing Story Arcs

[Python]

Apocalypse: The Twelve.

The seeds for this storyline began way back in the mid 1980's when Master Mold referred to Cyclops as one of the “strong twelve,” who must be killed. When MM fused with Nimrod, again he refers to the Outback X-Men as the Twelve before he was sent through the Siege Perilous.

Who were the twelve, and why were they targeted for termination?

Quoted in Power Pack, MM said:

"The dozen mutant humans who will one day rise up and lead all of mutantkind in war against homo sapiens in the twilight of Earth."

There seemingly was going to be an apocalyptic battle leading to a Days of Future Past type of scenario where The Twelve were going to battle mankind and sentinels. Sounds pretty cool, right?

What did we get instead?

The prophecy of The Twelve was made up by Apocalypse so he could kidnap them and use them in a machine to grant himself omnipotent powers. Oh, and Wolvie was his new "Death" and Cyclops wound up possessed by Apocalypse.

[Goshin]

that was a MAJOR disappointment!! all we got out of that was wolverine getting his adamantium back but that was it

[Tragic Angelus]

I somewhat enjoyed the Twelve since it used tons of characters I loved, and I liked how Cyclops came out in the end of it overall

[Python]

I would have been okay with the storyline if they had not used the 12 Prophecy as the basis for it.

[Tragic Angelus]

I hadn't read most of the issues regarding the prophecy prior to this storyline, and only had a tiny grasp on it, so it didn't overhaul anything for me, tho I can see how it would for longer readers. Today yea I see how it totally changed from what it was, but for me at the time it was a good fun read that brought in characters from all over the X-Men universe and actually had cohesion between a number of X-books.

[MGM]

Also, Franklin Richards was supposed to be one of The Twelve.

[Mr Wallstreet]

I agree with Tragic, I rather liked The Twelve storyline as well as what happened to Cyclops afterwards. Chalk that up me not reading UXM at all during the 80s and sporadically during the 90s. As such I wasn't nearly as let down as others were when a years long storyline ended with a groan rather than a roar.

[Tragic Angelus]

I was ok with Richards not being one of the Twelve, though I knew he was supposed to be. Leaving him out kept the story to an X-Men only story, and at the time that's what I wanted. I'm fine with him coming to be an insanely powerful Mutant but really I was happy with how the selected and explained who the Twelve were. i really liked the idea of earth, elements, poles, space, family, time and mind to channel the energies.

Though I was disappointed with the aftermath of the Twelve, outside of Cyclops' changes. I liked the small team with Cable Phoenix Storm Gambit and Beast but the other one just wans't that great for me... It was supposed to be a huge come back and it let me down.

[MGM]

I think I'm with Python on this: I didn't dislike the storyline, but the premise should never have been The Twelve.

[Tragic Angelus]

Wait till Arn get's here.. then he can learn that for me I was utterly disappointed by the work Morisson did when it became New X-Men

[Mr Wallstreet]

Wait till Arn get's here.. then he can learn that for me I was utterly disappointed by the work Morisson did when it became New X-Men

Thems fightin' words :mad:

[Tragic Angelus]

I just didn't like it.. I didn't like any of the X-Books at that time, but I couldn't bring myself to drop them since it had high hopes and i had started with them. I really really would've dropped comics in general if I hadn't started to expand to other books at that time I think...

[Mr Wallstreet]

You're lucky were in the DCUnion or else I'd have to kill you. :D

So what exactly did you dislike about New X-Men?

[Tragic Angelus]

I'm lucky? We let you in bitch :D

I wasn't a fan of the team itself, the secondary mutation, and then just the overall 'Grant Morisson-ness' that the stories began to take on as he stayed on the book longer.. stuff just got out there and messed up for me.. though maybe if I go back and read them all collectively some day it'll be more cohesive. Cassandra Nova was a fun villain, but she got played out to me way too quickly.. I just wasn't a fan of it during it's initial run

[Fasheem]

I'm lucky? We let you in bitch :D

I wasn't a fan of the team itself, the secondary mutation, and then just the overall 'Grant Morisson-ness' that the stories began to take on as he stayed on the book longer.. stuff just got out there and messed up for me.. though maybe if I go back and read them all collectively some day it'll be more cohesive. Cassandra Nova was a fun villain, but she got played out to me way too quickly.. I just wasn't a fan of it during it's initial run

Oddly I was a big fan of it the first time, but when I reread it recently I wasn't that keen. It was ground-breaking and I love where it took the X-Men and I love the ideas, but the actual writing didn't do it for me. I think it's because I was reading Carey and Yost right before, and they are just better writers. Morrison is brilliant, his vision is amazing, but his writing... eh.

I'd like to nominate any story arc involving Nightcrawler in the last 15 years. :e2bummed: Except Ultimate, because I fucking loved that.

Also every story arc written by Austen. I can't pick just one! That Romeo and Juliet thing, the Draco, I can't remember any of the rest but I know they sucked too... you may make the case that you have to look forward to something to be disappointed so I have to admit that I did look forward to it. The Draco was supposed to be cool! Fuck it!

[Tragic Angelus]

Agreed. Anything by Austen on the X-Books was utterly just shit

[MGM]

But that wasn't disappointing, since everone expected it to be shit. :D

[Tragic Angelus]

I wasn't expecting it to be necessarily, but it did become that quickly.

[Fasheem]

But that wasn't disappointing, since everone expected it to be shit. :D

I addressed this in my post. :soapbox: No one expected it to be shit when he first started.

[XIII]

Fuck you all, the Morrison era was the best the X-Men had been in years.

[MGM]

I addressed this in my post. :soapbox: No one expected it to be shit when he first started.

I'm not reading all that! It's a Euro thing, didn't you know? :D

I'm so accustomed to Austen = HACK that I had no idea this fact wasn't around when he started on X-Men.

[Python]

Fuck you all, the Morrison era was the best the X-Men had been in years.

That's not saying much. Vomit may be better than crap, but it's still vomit. :monocle:

[Mr Wallstreet]

This wasn't vomit, this was Morrisson shitting gold :D

[wolf_2099]

This wasn't vomit, this was Morrisson shitting gold :D

Final Crisis was Morrision shitting shit, that was passed off as gold.

And it could have been oh so awesome.

The Clone Saga could have actually been an awesome storyline, with the Scarlet Spider and what not, and it bombed, terribly.

[Mr Wallstreet]

Powerless was a massive let down. It was a what-if story that had a great premise. What type of lives would Peter Parker, Matt Murdoch, & Logan have if they never became heroes. Instead being what could have been a great read, it was boring as all hell.

[Goshin]

Fuck you all, the Morrison era was the best the X-Men had been in years.
:smilielol5:

[Goshin]

spiderman clone was the worst comic plot ever


so was morisson killing jean just because of the movie

[Fasheem]

Fuck you all, the Morrison era was the best the X-Men had been in years.

I'm not disputing that. It was amazing. I found it didn't hold up to a second read though. Lots of cool moments still, but it didn't have the same punch to it.

[wolf_2099]

I'm not disputing that. It was amazing. I found it didn't hold up to a second read though. Lots of cool moments still, but it didn't have the same punch to it.

Shit. I'm about to re-read it, too.

[Fasheem]

Shit. I'm about to re-read it, too.

Be sure to report back to us on how it goes. Maybe it was just me.

[Goshin]

the morisson era was just as bad as the anime/nurse annie era

[Tragic Angelus]

oooooooooohhhh he just done said it son

[JediMindTrick]

Batman:RIP, Final Crisis, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaitaminute, wrong publisher.

[Tragic Angelus]

But still right idea

[Goshin]

HEROES REBORN


sorry, i hate Rob Liefeld no matter who he's drawing.

[IrishCream]

The thing with Chuck Austen was, I had some hope because the run before that (with Joe Casey) was complete dogshit. So my line of thinking was "It can't get any worse". Oh, but it could and did! It's sad, because the lineup he had was pretty original: Wolverine, Angel, Nightcrawler, Iceman, Juggernaut, Husk, and Northstar. Ohs wells.

I was disappointed with X-Men when Alan Davis took over the writing chores from the awesome combo of Joe Kelly and Steve T. Seagle. This was also back when editorial (Mark Powers and Bob Harris) pretty much told the writers what to write, which led to them leaving the books.

Say what you want about Joe Quesada, but I give him this: he let the writers take control again! I HATED the Bob Harris regime in that there was so much editorial control that it ruined the books. No high profile writer wanted to take on X-Men because it was such a fuckin' headache. Mark Waid ditched the gig after a handful of issues because of that and Scott Lobdell being a dick or something.

Operation Zero Tolerance was a letdown. The storyline running in Wolverine was crap and so was the one in the adjective less book. Spider-Man's Clone Saga and Wolverine losing his adamantium were cool stories that turned to shit because they were dragged out WAY too long. The Clone Saga should have ended when the Jackal died and Wolverine should have gotten the metal back in issue #100 (instead he lost his nose).