5 Best & Worst Things About X-Men Comics
4. Best - Classic Stories
Look on any list of the best comic stories ever and you're guaranteed to find at least one X-Men story and for good reason; no other group can so expertly juggle intense and action-packed adventure with the soap-opera drama of the X-Men's home life.
A gigantic part of this success is due to the work of Chris Claremont and John Byrne, who pretty much defined the team. They started their run with the idea that a team who are an allegory for the fight against racism maybe shouldn't be full of white Americans and introduced now classic characters like Storm, Wolverine, Colossus and Nightcrawler (who is again, the best X-Man).
Their legendary run included some of the best comics ever written, The Dark Phoenix Saga and Days of Future Past. Both are intense and tragic stories that are still as good today as they ever were. They were even both so successful that they inspired the plots to X-Men films, even is one is far better than the other (hint: it isn't the one where Cyclops gets smooched to death off-screen).
That's not to say that later runs haven't been uncanny (I apologise for nothing) as well, including Grant Morrison's incredible re-invention of the team in New X-Men and nerd messiah Joss Whedon's all too brief run.