It's tough not to look back at the past several years' worth of X-Men comics and not feel despondent about the state of the franchise. There are too many books fighting for attention and rarely a clear, engaging direction for the X-Men line as a whole. The problems are many, but there's one thing that's become apparent over the decades. The quality of the X-Men's costumes is often a direct indicator of the quality of the comics themselves. The clothes really do make the mutant.

Art by Dave Cockrum. (Marvel Comics)

Art by Frank Quitely. (Marvel Comics)

Art by John Cassaday. (Marvel Comics)

Art by Jim Lee. (Mavel Comics)

Art by David Marquez. (Marvel Comics)

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The 25 Most Iconic Comic Book Covers of All Time 26 IMAGES

As it turns out, pretty much every beloved X-Men era is marked by great costume designs. That's certainly true of Chris Claremont's Uncanny X-Men run, which kicked off with some truly classic designs by artists like Dave Cockrum and John Romita, Sr. These are some of the most iconic costumes in all of superhero comics, to the point where most of these characters are still wearing variations of the same basic designs even 40 years later.Then you have books like Grant Morrison's New X-Men, which reflect a much different but equally appealing design philosophy. In New X-Men, Morrison and artist Frank Quitely abandoned the colorful spandex for a more functional, movie-inspired set of black leather costumes. These costumes emphasized the X-Men as a team, with most of the characters wearing small variations of the same design. These Quitely-designed costumes were all about showcasing the X-logo, reflecting the fact that Charles Xavier was trying to establish a Nike-like brand that then human world could better comprehend.New X-Men was shortly followed up by Joss Whedon and John Cassaday's Astonishing X-Men, a run considered by many to be the pinnacle of the franchise. Cassaday restored the X-men to a more traditional sort of superhero costume. But he retained some of the uniformity of the Morrison/Quitely era. All of the X-Men costumes in that series share clear color and design sensibilities, as if they're all part of a single fashion series. The lone exception being Emma Frost, whose bright white costume amid a sea of black and gold reflects her self-centered personality.These are some of the most eye-catching X-Men costumes ever designed, and Wolverine's Astonishing suit remains one of the few truly successful examples of an artist removing a superhero's external trunks without ruining the flow of the design. Batman and Superman could learn a thing or two from Wolverine.Perhaps no X-Men era thrives on the strength of its costumes than the early '90s X-books, when artists like Jim Lee and the Kubert brothers reigned supreme. Frankly, there's a lot to criticize about this era in terms of its convoluted storytelling and crossover-heavy publishing approach. But these comics capture the imagination regardless, in no small part because of the colorful, dynamic costumes. Particularly in those early, Lee-drawn chapters of X-Men, every member of the team benefits from a look that shows individuality yet reflects a common design sensibility.That blend of individuality and team unity is something that's sorely missing in Marvel's current X-Men comics. Individually, some characters have been given great redesigns in recent years. Mahmud Asrar's work on X-Men Red stands out, particularly when it comes to giving the recently resurrected Jean Grey a fresh new look that still hearkens back to the Jim Lee era.But as a whole, the current X-Men lineup is an unsightly mash-up of all sorts of warring influences. This teaser image for the recent Uncanny X-Men relaunch showcases the problem as well as any other:Just as the X-Men line in general feels too cumbersome and aimless for this own good, this massive character montage fails to present the X-Men in a pleasing, visually attractive way. These costumes are all over the map in terms of shape, design and color. Asrar's stylish X-Men Red costumes are intermingling with the ones introduced in X-Men Gold, a series that seems to have settled for clunkily updating '80s favorites (which, again, kind of speaks to that series' larger failures). Then there are characters like Madrox, Warpath and the majority of the younger X-Men who haven't had a costume change since the early 2000's. And that's to say nothing of characters like Banshee, Jubilee, Sunfire and Havok who have all reverted to old costumes from decades past.Visually, the X-Men have become a bizarre conglomeration of visual influences spanning from the '70s to the present day. There's no sense of unity or cohesion to the X-Men as a team. Perhaps costume designs are only a superficial concern, but it really doesn't seem like a mere coincidence that the X-Men franchise is going through one of its roughest patches ever even as the X-Men themselves are experiencing such a fashion crisis.Naturally, giving the X-Men a massive wardrobe overhaul won't automatically fix all the problems with these books. But it would certainly be a start. Marvel would be wise to turn to artists like Asrar or Kris Anka - artists who have shown a real flair for designing striking X-Men costumes in the past - and commission a full, top-down redesign of the X-Men cast. Maybe if these mutant heroes start dressing like a unified team, the franchise as a whole can start charting a newer, better course.

Jesse is a mild-mannered writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter , or Kicksplode on MyIGN