Feh.

I think it's become a vicious circle of shrinking marketplace causing what you just said, JB, which leads perhaps to the further shrinking of the marketplace as the characters become less "inspiring and heroic"

 What drew me into comics as an 8 year old was the sense of wanting to be like some of the characters that I read about. Cyclops is a good example of this. When these characters can no longer capture the imaginations of new generations of readers, of course the market will continue to shrink. There is nothing about this character, or many others, that would make me want to put myself in his shoes if I were a kid encountering these characters as they are portrayed today. 

It seems to me that the X-Men titles tend to really suck when the writers try to exercise this obsessive need that some of them seem to suffer from to have to squeeze every possible member onto a team at one time. This leads to crowding and screwed up characterization because there is no way to squeeze in proper characterization. As Warren Worthington once said, "What are we going to do with thirteen X-Men?"

    JB, you have always seemed to have exceptional ability when it comes to writing team books (Avengers, WCA, Next Men, FF, Alpha Flight, X-Men)

    Do you feel that you have a natural knack for writing such stories, or do you have to really remind yourself sometimes to give an adequate amount of attention to all the characters?

    I've never felt that any one particular character was left out or underused in your work on team books. But it seems to be something that many writers have a major problem with.    

Thanks for the re-direct JB, I somehow missed this thread and started one very similar.  I want to add my original thoughts from the other post...

I was thinking about how Cyclops was chosen to be the leader of the X-Men and how he never seems to actually lead.  Maybe I haven't read the right books that show him to be the actual leader but he never has come across as someone that I'd imagine the other mutants looking up to or even following.

I'm by no means an expert on the character so any opinions on the subject would be welcomed, but this line of thinking falls right into line with one of my biggest pet peeves in storytelling; assuming the audience somehow knows how a character should act or be interpreted rather than actually displaying it.  In this particular case, it seems that we're continually told that Cyclops is the leader of the X-Men but are never audience to actual acts of leadership.  Why should it be such a given that he's a leader when it seems like so many stories are about how he's losing or has lost the team? 

Coming from a casual point of view on the X-Men, I've just never considered Cyclops to actually be formidable enough to be the top gun at Xavier's school.  Is this a case of me not paying enough attention or poor writing?  Anyone care to paint Cyclops in a light befitting his status as the leader?

...and continue from there if that's okay.  It's funny, I was going to reference, as others in this thread have mentioned, issues 200-201 of the X-Man.  In my case, that was the approximate time I first started reading the X-Men.  I had been reading comics for a while at that point but never the X-Men.  I was curious to see what all the hubub surrounding this title was all about.  My only real exposure to that point were the various ad's found in Marvel titles.  The subscription ad is the one that sticks out the most in my mind now(with Cockrum art I think, and Cyclops charging forward in front of all the others).

Right off the bat, the character I think is the face of the team is being defeated and usurped as leader.  Since then, it seems that he's just been a device to further other characters development and not given any attention of his own.  Much less respect.  I admit that I haven't read all the X titles that are out there though, due in large part to ALL the X titles that are out there, but Cyclops to me, is a perfect example of writers using an established character to define other characters.  My notion of what kind of character he should be was a guy that personified Xavier's mission so brightly that all the other anti-social, loner, persecuted, paranoid, untrusting souls that were a by-product of becoming a mutant and shunned by their family, friends and society could and would follow.  Willingly  That's not the guy that I've read about.

In my opinion, the best way to read the stories that were reprinted in Classic X-Men is to get the Essential X-Men volumes. What is mssing is the back up stories which were new when released in Classic X-Men, but are not by any means needed to get the full experience of the Wein/Claremont/Cockrum/Byrne X-Men stories.  

  To answer your other question, X-Men 1-66 were original stories featuring the original team. #67-93 were reprints of some of those early stories. Giant Size X-Men #1 and issues 94 and up were new stories featuring the second generation of X-Men.