What's Bully (Re*)Reading? 2024 #23: X-Men: The Hidden Years Omnibus by John Byrne

Probably the final Byrne project that I liked, altho' a lot of his little peccadillos are very obvious here.


He forces in retcons of characters that haven't yet appeared in the X-Men's history (Storm, Phoenix), and splits up the cast of characters in issue #1 whom we don't see them back all together until final issue #22 (a bit like his approach on Alpha Flight). Also, his tendency to cram his story into others' past stories (Fantastic Four #102-104) and creating characters (Aria) that have nothing to do, and manuevers characters into uniforms they don't wear anymore to explain why they wore them in an old Captain America story.

He also inelegantly shoehorns in his characters from Marvel: The Lost Generation. Plus, I remember how pissy he was about the book being cancelled because it wasn't bringing in the numbers.

In short, I like the concept and the treatment of the characters and Byrne's artwork. But. (shrug)

*I have read these stories previously in floppy comic format.