New X-Men Is the Greatest X-Men Run of the 21st Century

The X-Men have one of the most interesting histories of any superhero team. They started out in the Silver Age as Marvel’s civil rights allegory, but never really connected with readers. The 1974 X-Men reboot brought them back to the forefront of the comic industry and they stayed there for over twenty years, even putting out the bestselling comic ever.

The 21st century has rarely seen the X-Men reach the heights of their bestselling heyday, but there have been some of the best of all time X-Men stories in the last 25 years. While not every X-Men run of the 21st century has been as praised as the legendary 17 year run of Chris Claremont, many have become fan-favorites. And among those, one easily stands above the others — the 2001 to 2004 New X-Men run by writer Grant Morrison.



Morrison worked with multiple artists over their 40 issue run — Frank Quitely, Ethan Van Sciver, Igor Kordey, Phil Jimenez, Chris Bachalo, Marc Silvestri, and more — and created the best X-Men stories of the 21st century. The Krakoa Era gets all the credit for being inventive, but many of its blockbuster ideas have their origin in Morrison’s New X-Men. Morrison’s New X-Men took everything old and made it new again, setting the X-Men on a path that was unlike any they had been on before.

New X-Men Lived Up to Its NameOn the surface, New X-Men looks like any other major X-Men run. There’s several things that are always a part of X-Men stories — the Phoenix Force, the Shi’Ar Empire, the Xavier Institute, Sentinels, Weapon X, Magneto — and there are some people out there who will point this out when people call New X-Men revolutionary, all in order to say that it is more of the same. Morrison definitely plays with old standards during their run, but it’s how they use them that is different.

For example, the Phoenix Force. It’s been a pretty standard part of the X-Men, the fear of its return being the main character trait of Jean Grey for years. However, Morrison goes in a different direction.

They build up Jean Grey into the perfect host for the Phoenix Force, showing that as corrupting as its power can be, it’s not always going to destroy everything it touches.Look at Cassandra Nova’s Wild Sentinels, which takes the idea of adaptive technology and brings it to the Sentinels. Nova’s Wild Sentinels are the most dangerous versions of Sentinels ever, brought to life by Frank Quitely’s unconventional pencils.

Morrison takes the idea of Weapon X — a government program that made mutants into weapons — and not only linked it to characters like Captain America and Nuke, but also evolved it, bringing it to a new level of power. The Xavier Institute became an actual school, something that really hadn’t been done before. All of these little changes feel like they should be in an X-Men comics, yet it does them in ways that readers have never seen before.

Even the often maligned Xorn/Magneto story sees Morrison take the ideas of Magneto and focus on another aspect of the character.RELATED: Forget Cyclops and Jean Grey, This is the X-Men’s Greatest RomanceX-Men books are superhero soap operas, and Morrison is able to capture that brilliantly. The marriage of Cyclops and Jean Grey, and the inclusion of Emma Frost into the mix, is a major subject of the book.

The Beast is a constant source of drama in the comics, and characters like Beak and Angel Salvatore brought in the idea of young mutants having to deal with their terrible mutations. Morrison’s Cyclops is the best conception of the character, selling him as the perfect leader while also showing how bad he is at other parts of his life. Morrison’s Emma Frost is the version of the character that everyone who came after him tried to copy, combining her shallow mean girl persona with the deep character that Emma truly is.

On top of all of that, Morrison knew how to use Wolverine in an X-Men story. Wolverine is the most popular X-Man, which means that he’s either used way too much or they leave him out completely so he doesn’t overshadow any other character. Morrison was able to do so much with the other characters because they didn’t shove Wolverine down everyone’s throats, while also giving the character just the right amount of spotlight.

Morrison also introduced some of the best new X-characters of the 21st century. Cassandra Nova, Fantomex, the aforementioned Beak and Angel, and John Sublime are all brilliant creations that can be used in multiple ways. Morrison left X-creators that came after them with an embarrassment of riches.

Finally, the ideas at the center of Morrison’s run were very different from what came before. Mutants in the Marvel Universe were always called the next evolution of humanity, yet Morrison put it at the forefront. The first issue of New X-Men set up two things — a mutant boom which is partly what caused the X-Men to open up the school more than it ever had before and the extinction sequence being found in humans genetics.

Morrison’s New X-Men was actually making the X-Men into the future of the human race and they introduced the idea of mutants creating their own culture and places to life, like Mutant Town. There was mutant music, mutant fashion designers, and young humans copying mutants in order to be cool. All of these ideas would become a part of the Krakoa Era, which owed a lot to Morrison’s run.

Morrison was taking the ideas of the X-Men to their conclusion, which isn’t something that anyone ever tried before.New X-Men Stands Tall Above Everything That Came After ItThe above image was the first page of Morrison’s New X-Men, drawn by Frank Quitely. It’s exactly what one would expect from an X-Men comic, but the rest of New X-Men #114 is anything but.

This is the greatest strength of Morrison’s run, and it’s why no other X-Men run of the 21st century can compare to it. There have been some great X-Men runs in the 21st century — Whedon and Cassaday’s Astonishing X-Men, Warren Ellis’s Astonishing, Mike Carey’s X-Men/X-Men: Legacy, Kieron Gillen’s time writing Uncanny X-Men and later Immortal X-Men, and the Krakoa Era — but none of them were able to capture the feeling of newness that Morrison’s New X-Men did.The irony is that the current “From the Ashes” era proves why Morrison’s run is the best.

Much like Morrison, “From the Ashes” tries to recapture the past, but it brings nothing new to the table. It can be very hard to play the songs of the past in new ways, but “From the Ashes” doesn’t even try. It doesn’t work because there are no ideas behind it other than getting as many new readers as possible.

There’s nothing for new readers to dig into other than standard X-Men tropes. Morrison was able to not only hearken back to the past, but show new facets of it. This is why it’s such a masterwork and why it deserves its place as the best X-Men run of the 21st century.

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