I enjoyed the first generation X-Men quite a bit, and always found it quite odd that the series peaked with the Neal Adams run, which were some of the best stories ever, before being canceled. The issues in Masterworks 4 & 5 are a bit mediocre at times, but all titles suffer from that at one time or another.

I always found it odd that they didn't "morph" Maddie Pryor into a new Marvel Girl or use Rachel Summers or something, rather than bringing Jean Grey back from the dead, although the they did it did not completely destroy the Dark Phoenix storyline. Jean never was Phoenix, so the being/character that we all loved from UXM 101 - 137 was simply someone else who still made the ultimate sacrifice to save the universe and release the bottled up phoenix force. Besides, what more appropriate character is there to be constantly reborn?

Unfortunately, the long running book series medium does not lend itself to dram atic story telling that sticks, just like a soap opera. If you are writing a novel or trilogy, you can kill off an important character in dramatic fashion and have it stick. When you are writing an ongoing series, sooner or later the temptation is too great and you want to bring back a fan favorite. Jeez, even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle gave in to fan demands and a year after he killed off Sherlock Homes vowing to never write another story with his famed character and promising that he was dead, we have Homes crawling back over the rim of the cliff he fell off and away we go!

Dave