X-Men: From Kirby and Lee to Claremont and Lee.

Three years ago I set out on an X-citing journey to read X-Men from the very beginning up through the end of the Claremont run.  That adventure is complete as I have now read through all 280 issues of the series, not to mention all of its annuals, crossovers, and side stories that were released throughout the years.  From Kirby and Lee to Claremont and Lee, what started out as a rough, slow as molasses read eventually became one of the greatest comic books ever written, if not THE greatest.  Claremont taking over X-Men after its revivial with Giant Sized was the smartest decision ever made as the man turned copper into gold.  While the original team were an interesting quintet of characters, it was the second generation that became the definitive X-Men team with Storm being my personal favorite of them all, though, the roster of Storm, Wolverine, Phoenix, Nightcrawler, Banshee, Colossus, and Cyclops is tough to rank.  

Nevertheless, every character was fleshed out as they were written like real people rather than something you would see in a Saturday Morning cartoon.  Heroes lived, heroes died.  Villains reformed.  All that happened felt like a natural progression.  Not everything was always golden, as there were areas where the series slowed down, especially with the material that sat between the Brood saga and the arrival of Nimrod.  However, the series always bounced back to quality and story arcs were vastly diverse.  X-Men rarely stayed formulaic as just when things were starting to get stale, the status quo was shaken with a new twist or turn that shifted the storyline to a new setting.  The team roster was ever changing and while sometimes I wished a member would have stayed longer, it kept you on your toes because you now had a new character to learn about.  Granted, I will never say I liked everyone who joined the X-Men, as Longshot was not someone I found relatable while Jubilee always had to make some sort of snide comment and never shut up.  On the other, the villains tended to be fantastic with each threat being credible.  What started out over-using Magneto ended up leading into newer adversaries like Dark Phoenix, the Hellfire Club, Mr Sinister, and the Shadow King.  We even witnessed an evolution to the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and the Sentinels with a possible dark future ahead of them.  

All in all, this series was uncanny and can even rival those who say, "American comics are dumb compared to Japanese manga," as it can even give the best manga a run for its money.  It's quite apparent that the industry was not prepared for a comic that touched on social issues such as racism at the time due how much of a hit the series was in the 70s and 80s, creating its own spin-offs with New Mutants and X-Factor, that eventually lead into a multitude of others over the years.  Reading these stories in order, and many for the first time ever, has been a feat and a great one at that.  I don't think I will ever find a comic run that will ever match the magnitude of what Claremont accomplished ever again.