I hate, hate, hate death in comics. I read the newspaper to get news about deaths. I read comics for escapism ... at most, let the BAD GUYS get whacked.

And I got the issues that I missed.

Claremont was always pushing the envelope with change and I sure didn't like it all.  Dislike some of it as I did, it was never bad enough for me to quit because there was always a lot I liked. They were going to have to push really hard to get me to drop the x titles and they did.  I used to get them all.  

Then a few years later the rest of the line followed.  I had always gotten X Men, FF and Spider-Man.  Once I was soured on them, it was easy to drop all the titles.  Not that I ever got everything.  maybe 20 comics a month, though.    

I read for the characters.  The integrity of the characters was too important to me.  You can't be like that now.  They are going to do whatever they need to do to facilitate the next event.  The characters will behave however necessary to make that happen.  And they want to spend WAY MORE time focusing on these characters' flaws than I do.

With someone like Wolverine, fine.  With characters like Jean and Cyclops, no.

For whatever reason, I was glancing through DC solicits last week.

I'm reading about an edgier Superman and making tough decisions (aka moral compromise).  That just is not what I want Superman to be.

It's why I say that I didn't outgrow comics.  They outgrew me.  I want the same things I always wanted from superHERO comics.

Like you, I came back and enjoyed the stuff with Jim Lee, but then I was gone again, never to return! 

Those were the most perfect, best-crafted comics ever created. Or so he said. The plotlines were never more interesting and intricately woven. The characters were never more mysterious and intriguing. There was simply SO! MUCH! happening! Stories sprawled over multiple titles and you could roam around inside them FOREVER! Go anywhere! The characters were being taken in so many directions! It was amazing! Flat-out the best the X-Men have ever been! 

They've never reached those heights again, of course, he maintains, but with each new multi-part, multi-title crossover event he hopes it will drag him in and transport him to worlds of wonderment and drama like "X-Cutioner's Song" did! 

We all want comics to fascinate and enthrall us as they did when we first found them. The Golden Age of Comics as they say is twelve. In this guy's case, he was twelve in his late twenties.