Talking about comic books, TV shows, movies, sports, and the numerous other pastimes that make us Gentlemen of Leisure.

Tuesday, January 28, 2020

X-amination in February & May 1995 Power Rankings


The anniversary of the All New, All Different X-Men continues, "Dream Nails" concludes, and X-Force & Wolverine catch-up!

On Sale August 1995

February 5: X-Men (vol. 2) #45
February 6: X-Force #46
February 7: Wolverine #93

February 12: Generation X #8
February 13: Excalibur #90
February 14: Cable #24

February 19: X-Force #47
February 20: Wolverine #94

February 26: X-Men Unlimited #8

May 1995 Power Rankings

This is kind of a weird month for issues, with X-Men Prime resolving most of the "series ending" cliffhangers from before "Age of Apocalypse", leaving each of the main books to focus (even more) on setting up new storylines (there is A LOT of setup happening in these books). Plus, nearly every issue is dealing with a guest artist of some sort (with most of the regular artists recovering from AoA), to varied results.

1. X-Men #42
2. Generation X #5
3. Uncanny X-Men #322

Paul Smith drawing a character check-in story that also kicks off the "Fall of Avalon" story puts Adjectiveless at the top of the heap. Generation X (bringing some narrative relevancy to the series by looping it into the Gene Nation plotline while continuing the strong showing from Lobdell & Bachalo) and Uncanny X-Men (kicking off "Onslaught" with some perfectly good Tom Grummett fill-in art) keep pace close behind.

4. X-Men Prime
5. X-Force #44
6. Cable #21
7. Wolverine #91

After the top three, things fall quickly into the "perfectly fine" average level, with a bunch of issues focused on the fallout from "Age of Apocalypse", introducing new characters, and setting up new status quos (if Adam Pollina's work isn't to your taste, feel free to knock it down a few places). 

8. Excalibur #87
9. X-Man #5
10. X-Factor #112

These issues do everything the previous four do, but do it worse. Excalibur deals with the mostly-pointless Genosha plot, X-Man kicks off the series' post-AoA meandering, and X-Factor returns from the event a little too deeply in media res.

1 comment:

  1. It suddenly came to my attention this past weekend that I own WOLVERINE EPIC COLLECTION: THE DYING GAME, which collects issues 87 - 100, so I'm going to try to start reading along with that series in addition to UNCANNY, X-MEN, GENERATION X, and EXCALIBUR.

    Funnily, this is almost exactly what I did back in 1995. I started picking up WOLVERINE somewhere around issue 95 or 96 for the build-up to #100. I read that and 101 (since it continued directly from an UNCANNY issue), then dropped it. And since issue 101 is in one of the ROAD TO ONSLAUGHT trades, I'll be able to read that one too when we get there. And then, just as I did 25 years ago, I'll drop the series yet again.

    It feels almost poetic somehow.

    ReplyDelete

Comment. Please. Love it? Hate it? Are mildly indifferent to it? Let us know!