Extraordinary X-Men #6-7
Well, this is all very traditional, now isn’t it? I’m used to ongoing titles lurching from one arc to the next, trade paperbacks for the collecting-in. But when you’ve got a big crossover coming up midway through the first year, it’s maybe better to get a couple of stories under your belt first. And here we are – a two-parter, nestling between the opening arc and the Apocalypse crossover.
And it’s a two-parter very much designed to get the plates spinning, and establish a direction for the series. Subplots abound.
So on top of an A plot and a B plot, we’ve got Glob showing tentative interest in Jean, and Logan being protective about her. We’ve got Colossus being steered towards a big brother role for some of the more experienced trainees. We’ve got a scene with Iceman and Anole which inverts the expected relationship by making the point that it’s Anole who’s far more comfortable being openly gay. And we’ve got Magik developing her bond with Sapna, the kid she rescued in issue #1, who shows an unnervingly good understanding of Limbo, and does some heavy foreshadowing of major stories to come. All this before we even get on to the main plots.
It’s a juggling act, and it cements the sense that Lemire is writing a throwback to the team book formula of the 80s and 90s – everyone must have something to do, and space must be found for them to do it. Artist Victor Ibanez is obviously very different from Humberto Ramos – most people are – but his solid, traditional superhero art seems a good match for this tone, and he makes the most of some of the visual set pieces that the script offers. He’s pretty decent with character acting as well, though he might be overdoing it in terms of playing up Jean as a teenager – how young is she meant to be, if she’s this short?
All this is nicely reassuring in terms of setting out the book’s stall and convincing us that it knows where it’s heading. Which is a good thing, because the two main story threads are both a bit underwhelming.
In the A-story, most of the team go to Weirdworld to rescue a group of mutants who were fleeing the riots and… I don’t know, got lost in the Bermuda Triangle or something? It’s all rather vague quite what Weirdworld is exactly. The story handwaves it as an “anomaly”, then muddies the waters by explaining that it isn’t a geographical location as such. So… a portal or something? Who knows. The X-Men already know all about it, it seems, so we’re spared the usual scene where a local explains the premise.
Even so, the plot pretty much consists of everyone taking some time to observe that Weirdworld is a weird world, seeing the local sites, and rescuing the mutants, who are being shepherded by Sunfire. Sunfire, apparently, is very much out of favour with the X-Men because he sided with Cyclops when Something Terrible happened during the eight-month gap. Sunfire’s a sensible choice of character to do something deeply ill-judged, but I hope we’re not going to get the “we all know what Scott did but nobody’s going to say” schtick dragged out indefinitely. Oh, and a local mystic gets to reiterate Sapna’s foreshadowing scene from earlier on. But pretty much, that’s your story, and it hinges on the local colour of Weirdworld to distract from the fact that it’s really very basic.
And… well, Weirdworld, eh? I mean, fair enough, it’s a new thing they’ve added to the Marvel Universe and they’re trying to establish it by doing guest appearances. That’s the traditional approach. Nothing wrong with that. But from what I’ve seen of it, both here and elsewhere, there’s not really much to Weirdworld beyond a bunch of fantasy tropes dumped in a chaotic landscape. And that’s not terribly interesting. It’s not really a place (or even a setting), so much as an excuse to roll out anything that feels vaguely appropriate to a particular type of fantasy subgenre. Maybe that’s the issue. I suspect it’s meant to feel like a place where anything can happen. In fact, it feels like a place where only established genre elements can happen, with the added wrinkle that they happen in a random bombardment that prevents any coherent world-building from emerging. And I don’t care.
In fact, Lemire and Ibanez seem rather more inspired by the B-plot, in which Jean and Storm go into Kurt’s mind to try and find out what left him so traumatised. Aside from re-hashing his first appearance, this lets them do some lovely Inception-style scenes with the village collapsing around him, or an upside-down ship sailing on the roof of the world. That’s nice – and more memorable than the Weirdworld bits. The problem with this thread is that the ultimate pay-off is underwhelming. Kurt is upset because he found a mass grave of mutants in Germany. And apparently, that’s it; that’s the traumatic experience that’s left him shuddering in a corner of the room.
The thing is, this certainly ought to be shocking. It’s not so much the anti-mutant venom; that’s been standard for decades. It’s more the fact that it’s something from a proper war zone rather than a superhero comic, plus the fact that it’s placed in nice democratic Germany instead of some invented republic somewhere. But the build-up has over-sold it. The baseline for ruinously traumatic experiences in the X-Men has been set rather higher than this – look at the Morlock Massacre or the obliteration of Genosha. So having Kurt react in quite such an extreme way leads you to expect something even worse – extended periods of torture or something – and ends up making the actual scene look like an anticlimax.
There was a vogue at one point for establishing new threats by having them beat up the Juggernaut, because the Juggernaut was a massively powerful A-list villain, so anyone who could beat him was plainly a really big deal. Extraordinary X-Men seems to have hit on the emotional equivalent – this must be awful because it has deeply upset Kurt, who is the happiest character in the series. It feels rather heavy handed, and not very effective either.
Once again, I find myself in the odd position of not being particularly gripped by the main stories, but feeling quite reassured by a lot of the smaller details. There’s still plenty of potential for this to settle down and get it right, but a bit more tuning is called for.
Marvel needs to stop trying to make Weirdworld happen. It made at least 4 appearances in a single month, including this, Squadron Supreme, its own title, and Black Knight, and it’s just not grabbing me. It’s like the new Savage Land, but with dragons instead of dinosaurs, and Crystar instead of Kazar.
Kurt being traumatized by a mass grave of mutants only works if you play it as, I dunno, latent PTSD from the afore-mentioned Mutant Massacre which nearly killed him or something. Given what he’s seen and been through otherwise, it’s hard to imagine him being overwhelmed by mutant-based atrocities. And pulling the genocide card in Germany feels just a little too on-the-nose blunt. You really want to shock people, do it somewhere unexpected, like Australia or Indonesia or Iraq. Or else give that story to a younger, more innocent character and break them instead. What happens when one of the less experienced X-people stumbles onto one of the most horrifying sights of their life?
Random thought: is this the first time since the Morrison run that Emma Frost hasn’t been on an X-team?
How likely is it that the reason why no one is saying what Cyclops did is because Marvel hasn’t decided yet?
Weirdworld had a nice go in Secret Wars, but no one bought it. Given how harshly every title’s sales are dropping, there’s barely a place for three X-books, let alone Weirdworld.
The most recent New X-Men alluded to some sort of Terrigen-related thing for Cyclops. But yeah, I kind of fear a Bendis-esque anticlimax where they string it along indefinitely like there’s a plan and eventually just make something lame up to get it over with.
i really would’ve liked a year off from crossovers after blowing up the multiverse. (And having that storyline run late AND require an extra issue). But no, civil war 2 AND an apocalypse crossover are looming. Couldn’t have anything to do with Hollywood, could it?
@Person of Con:
Longer than that. Remember, she was in the whole run of Generation X…
The issue of Kurt’s trauma highlights one of the many problems with characters that insist on hanging around for 40+ years: all of their best stories are done already. Anything you do with them either falls flat because it’s already been done, or requires changing the character so much that s/he’s essentially a new character. Nightcrawler has always been one of my favorite X-Men, and its long past time he be retired permanently. If you need a blue, fuzzy teleport with a tail, there’s a perfectly good second-generation character waiting to take his place on the roster; Talia Wagner.
Perhaps a “no-prize” answer for Nightcrawler is that the mass grave was the final straw after dying, going to heaven, and returning to Earth without a soul.
Sure it took a few years, but… at least they are finally doing something with him in the X-books other than standing in the background of fight scenes.
“Couldn’t have anything to do with Hollywood, could it?”
Oh, not at all.
“Or else give that story to a younger, more innocent character and break them instead”
And even then, some of the younger characters like Anole experienced a massacre at the school while they were there. You’d need an all new character who has only been around for a few years at this point. Maybe one of the students from Wolverine & The X-men? Unless they had their own Big Traumatic Incident during that title that I may have forgotten about.
Yeah, Weirdworld. I don’t understand why Marvel is pushing it so hard. It has its own comic book, you’d think that’d be enough, without trying to shoe-horn it in with all these other series.
I’ve come to see Weirdworld as a replacement for the Savage Land in the Marvel Universe. We haven’t seen the Savage Land used at all since before Secret Wars, and now Weirdworld is this strange place, off to the corners of the Marvel Universe, where different characters go to have a different kind of adventure. Savage Land, minus dinosaurs, plus magic.
As far as Kurt, isn’t the big deal that the German government was involved in the mass graves? Hence, it was meant to be a reminder of Nazi Germany.
Morlock Massacre and Genosha were both worse tragedies for mutants, bit they were also safely performed by super-villains.
I got the feeling they were saying an actual government condoned these actions being done to mutants, so you could see what Lemire was going for there, if that’s the case.
As far as “what did Cyclops do?”, I think there was a hint about him trying to go to war with the Inhumans.
I’m not sure why that would make mutants so hated now.
My guess is that, yes, Marvel doesn’t know exactly what the big reveal is going to be, and it’s going to be a huge disappointment when it finally happens, after such a build.
100% agreed that the reveal for Nightcrawler was a complete anti-climax, and it’s the worse for passing up a perfectly reasonable explanation. Horrifying discovery + an extended period of torture at the hands of Sinister = mental break. It’s one line of exposition that would have tied it all together and been a fairly easy sell. It doesn’t require newer readers to have done anything but read the book up to that point and covers the older readers knowing it would take more than more evidence of mankind’s inhumanity to mutants to drive Kurt to completely retreat from reality. Missing little tricks like that is why I don’t have much faith in Lemire pulling everything together on this book. And the Iceman and Anole scene just felt clunky to me, especially given the great time-skip between this issue and when Iceman (literally) admitted to himself that he was gay.
@Nu-D: Speaking from experience, feeling the core characters are tapped out is an indication it’s time to stop reading.
The problem is Marvel is still wedded to the idea of comic book time, won’t let their characters age out, and the next generation truly take over. What grates me about that with X-Men is the mutant concept makes doing just that so natural and easy. Instead, they insist on some form of rehash (as you’ve pointed out with Nightcrawler) or character deconstruction and disposal (e.g. Xavier, Cyclops, etc.).
Kurt’s primary character arc was complete by the end of the Ellis run on Excalibur. Storm’s arc was done with Fall of the Mutants. Scott and Jean’s arcs were finished with their honeymoon mini-series in 1994. Gambit’s was done by the end of the Nicieza run on his series. I could go on. At this point, we should be reading stories about their kids, not them.
One of the things I used to love about the DCU was their mythos actually had generations e.g. Justice Society and Infinity, Inc. If Marvel were doing something similar with X-Men, they’d still be getting money from me every month instead of just on the occasional omnibus collection of the old stuff.
I’d argue that Scott’s arc was ended during Claremont’s run when he had Scott retire.
Claremont set up that exact formula. He wasn’t really interested in the original X-Men anymore, because their time was over. He didn’t want them to continue being X-Men, they were meant to be replaced by the “All New” team.
He set the stage for this to continue with the New Mutants as the next stage to replace the “All New” team.
Marvel editorial is never going to allow that to happen.
Now, I may be misremberng, but I don’t remember humans persecuting mutants to this extent before.
As far as mass graves. Yes, humans may kill a mutant every so often. Yes, they often hate mutants.
In the Morlock Massacre, Sinister got other mutants to wipe out the “inferior” mutants for him.
On Genosha, Professor X’s sister wiped out all those mutants.
Yes, there’s “Days of Future Past”, but that’s just a possible timeline, and the X-Men are meant to be fighting to avoid that future from happening.
“One of the things I used to love about the DCU was their mythos actually had generations e.g. Justice Society and Infinity, Inc”
Yeah but they rarely retired anyone. Anyone big, at any rate. The big names who were killed off would come back eventually, and the only permanent deaths were D-listers at best.
Well, there’s the Sentinels, one of the backbone villains of the X-Franchise, being the result of a government programs across the world, the US included. And closer to home, there were former X-Men being crucified on the front lawn of the school. And a bus full of helpless kids being blown up practically on the X-Men’s doorstep.
No one’s been suggesting that Kurt should simple shrug off mass graves full of murdered mutants. But to have it be enough that a seasoned hero parts ways with reality? Without further elaboration, that’s the author asking a bit much, imo, epecially given how much the audience doesn’t know about what’s been going with the X-Men during the timeskip.
The Sentinels are truly a scary prospect for mutants, no doubt. I realize that the governments of the world have been shown fostering anti-mutant prejudice many times, especially during the Claremont years. The rising tension of the Mutant Registration Act.
Yet, outside of “Days of Future Past”, the Sentinels were never shown massacring huge numbers of mutants. (Outside of the Genosha thing, which was done by Professor X’s sister, who is a super-villain).
Maybe it was too much of an extreme reaction for a seasoned character. I guess I can see people’s point.
I wonder if the mass grave reveal was also meant to trigger (another) crisis of faith for Nightcrawler. Didn’t he say something like “Why did God make me see this?” Not that another crisis of faith storyline would be any better. Mr. Sinister being responsible the mental break would have made the most sense.
As for what Cyclops did, I’m sure it will be an entirely underwhelming reveal. It will probably rely on characters doing things that are out of character. It will certainly not be anything so major for the Marvel Universe as to draw the reactions that Marvel had portrayed. It most likely started with Marvel staff and execs having no clue what Cyclops actually did, and currently is probably still no better than some vague ideas, and even that will morph and change over the next few years.
I’d argue that Scott’s arc was ended during Claremont’s run when he had Scott retire.
Claremont set up that exact formula. He wasn’t really interested in the original X-Men anymore, because their time was over. He didn’t want them to continue being X-Men, they were meant to be replaced by the “All New” team.
He set the stage for this to continue with the New Mutants as the next stage to replace the “All New” team.
+1000
The problem is Marvel is still wedded to the idea of comic book time, won’t let their characters age out, and the next generation truly take over. What grates me about that with X-Men is the mutant concept makes doing just that so natural and easy. Instead, they insist on some form of rehash (as you’ve pointed out with Nightcrawler) or character deconstruction and disposal (e.g. Xavier, Cyclops, etc.).
Kurt’s primary character arc was complete by the end of the Ellis run on Excalibur. Storm’s arc was done with Fall of the Mutants. Scott and Jean’s arcs were finished with their honeymoon mini-series in 1994. Gambit’s was done by the end of the Nicieza run on his series. I could go on. At this point, we should be reading stories about their kids, not them.
+1,000,000
I hardly buy or read comics anymore, and I haven’t since 1995. The reason is this.
Magneto, Storm, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Jean, Xavier…all of them had their best days decades ago. Sure, good stories have been told with them since then, but those same stories could have been told with the next generation or with new characters. The old ones hang around too long and we either get disgusted by the changes that are made to them (e.g. Xavier, Beast), or they are tired and there’s not much left to do with them (e.g. Nightcrawler and Colossus).
I think there are many interesting Nightcrawler stories that haven’t been told yet. Plus, doesn’t every generation of new readers deserve a chance to experience and enjoy great characters like the original X-Men and Nightcrawler? Also, why permanently retire characters – you don’t have to dismantle Master Mold to introduce Nimrod, or retire Nightcrawler to write interesting stories about Nocturne.
While I understand and appreciate the desire to have stories with a beginning, a middle and a definite end, I think the hallmark of great corporate superhero comics is that they combine the sweep of a never-ending soap opera epic with the well-maintained illusion of change, with the occasional finite character arc and/or permanent death (like Gwen Stacy’s) thrown in for dramatic effect.
That being said, in retrospect I totally wouldn’t have minded Jean Grey staying dead-dead. Rachel could’ve taken her spot on the X-Factor team instead of joining Excalibur and starting her long descent into irrelevance. But then a whole bunch of stories I did like (abandoned Madelyne Pryor hanging out with the X-Men in Australia, the Jean-Emma rivalry) would have been different and/or impossible, so…
“Plus, doesn’t every generation of new readers deserve a chance to experience and enjoy great characters like the original X-Men and Nightcrawler?”
This might be one of the causes of the problem right here. The current comic book market seems primarily to consist of one aging generation of readers, at least as far as superheroes are concerned. I realize that’s a generalization, but for every fan who’s experiencing a recycled story for the first time, I’d bet there are 10 older fans thinking, “This again?”
The dwindling superhero readership doesn’t seem like it can support multiple books that feature the same basic character at different ages. Even DC is having a difficult time selling every iteration of their legacy characters right now, and legacy is their schtick.
And I would argue that if new readers want to experience great stories with the original X-Men and Nightcrawler, they should pick up reprints (or back issues) of the original stories. Many of them are in print in some form or another, and Claremont’s tics aside, many of them still read very well.
Ha ha! I just realized I’m old now. 🙂
There is something to that. But then again, current marketing strategies at both DC and Marvel do not address that concern, but instead aggravate it.
Ever since the 1990s both publishers have become entirely reliant on massive crossovers and events that can only drive away casual, uncommitted readers supposedly because they get more of a response from commited fans.
Of course, even professional reviewers ended up becoming ever less interested in actually following series as a direct result of that strategy. At this point the very existence of monthly series in Marvel and DC is more a matter of tradition than of policy or intent, as we move gradually but decisively towards digital media and trade paperbacks and we now expect even nominally ongoing monthly series to only maintain continuity with _other_ titles and even then as a consequence of the most recent events. Renumbering is not only a canniballistic attempt at artificially raising sales, but also a sign of how little connection with the comics of recent years their series now have.
I always say the direct market is now supported by inertial buying. Thats why i think “jumping on reboots” are just as likely to be jumping off points for the habitual buyer who saw his 300 straight issues of spidey or batman end.
I always say the direct market is now supported by inertial buying. Thats why i think “jumping on reboots” are just as likely to be jumping off points for the habitual buyer who saw his 300 straight issues of spidey or batman end.
Yup. Age of Apocalypse was a perfect jumping-off point for me.
I think there are many interesting Nightcrawler stories that haven’t been told yet.
And they can be told just as well with new characters.
Plus, doesn’t every generation of new readers deserve a chance to experience and enjoy great characters like the original X-Men and Nightcrawler?
Eh, new characters will work just as well. Good writers will be less confined and will tell more good stories.
Also, why permanently retire characters – you don’t have to dismantle Master Mold to introduce Nimrod, or retire Nightcrawler to write interesting stories about Nocturne.
Because average or mediocre writers just drag characters down with them. Better to go forward with new characters that can’t be ruined, but can be built up into the next classic.
Are you guys sure the German government was responsible for the mass mutant grave in Extraordinary X-Men #7? The three guys look like your regular thug-type – same guys who pop up during other massacres (Pierce’s thugs, for example).
And, I agree with those who thought Weirdworld was pointless. The purpose was to meet Gunfire (I assume) as well as drop the little hint about Magik and the Fall of the Kingdoms, but, seriously, that could probably have been done anywhere. In fact, I think it would have been more poignant if it was somewhere in the ‘real world’. Surely there are ‘magic’ types in all places – the Scarlet Witch series (sorry, I shouldn’t mention that series…) has shown that magic users are right across the world.
The team looks like it’s coming together in a nice way though. The last page has 8 characters in place: Storm, Logan, Colossus, Magik, Forge, Iceman, Jean and Nightcrawler. Eight has always been a good number for the team. And maybe Kurt will cheer up a bit now that he’s shown us all how terrible the world is. Moving on, peoples…
Gunfire? How the heck does my computer do auto-correct without me noticing? 🙂
Plus, doesn’t every generation of new readers deserve a chance to experience and enjoy great characters like the original X-Men and Nightcrawler?
Yes, and that’s what reprints are for. The new generation deserves new characters/stories
So by that logic going on here, should Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Fantastic Four, Spider-Man etc. etc. also be retired and replaced with new characters?
If i was a creator with a new character, id be more likely to tell that story at image/idw/boom/oni than give it to dc or marvel. Better to just tinker with random B-list hero/villain and then disney or wb new IP.
The market generally doesn’t seem to support new characters; lord knows, both publishers tried to launch plenty of them in recent years, and about the only successes have been legacy codename characters.
Even a lot of the “real-time” serialized stories end up blinking when it comes time to kill off the old favorites, or outright reviving the favored characters. Just ask Joe Dredd, Jonny Alpha, and Walt and Skeezix Wallet.
@The Prowler: I think there are many interesting Nightcrawler stories that haven’t been told yet. Plus, doesn’t every generation of new readers deserve a chance to experience and enjoy great characters like the original X-Men and Nightcrawler?
First, that’s what TPBs and Omnibus collections are for. Again, adhering to comic book time and characters never aging beyond a certain point made sense back when the primary delivery format was the periodical magazine, the primary market was indirect market newsstands, and graphic novel-style book collections of past stories weren’t widely available. Today, if a new generation of readers wants to experience the classical characters in the classic stories, they can order the TPBs off Amazon.
Second, what new generation of readers? I haven’t seen anyone under the age of 20 in a comic book store buying comics since the late 90s. If they’re in there at all, they’re buying toys or other memorabilia.
Third, if Marvel were truly serious about attracting a new generation of readers, they’d wind down the traditional Marvel Universe and start setting all their stories in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In other words, make the comics the expanded universe of the movies. More people have seen the MCU movies than have ever or will ever read the original comics.
So by that logic going on here, should Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Fantastic Four, Spider-Man etc. etc. also be retired and replaced with new characters?
Yes. And they have been. And the changes would stick if the writers wouldn’t insist on bringing back the old versions time and again.
The market generally doesn’t seem to support new characters; lord knows, both publishers tried to launch plenty of them in recent years, and about the only successes have been legacy codename characters.
If they committed to turning the stable over every so many years, the new characters would get developed and stick. They would have more time to shine, and writers would develop them.
With some exceptions on the margins, most of these characters have nothing inherent about them that make them lasting. It’s what the writers do with them that makes them last. The character is the sum total of the stories they are in, so characters with good stories become mainstays; ones with lame stories fall by the wayside.
If you force writers to work with newer characters and much the old ones out, more opportunities will develop for the new characters to shine.
Am I remembering correctly or did some of the Germans have pitchforks? Seriously? Pitchforks? And torches? What, they don’t have Duracell in Germany?
Cop the f*ck on Marvel.
@Nu-D: YES. To use an example from DC, that’s exactly what happened when they decided to kill Barry Allen and replace him with Wally West.
Wally stuck at the Flash because Mark Waid (among others) wrote great stories with him. And it wasn’t like people loved the character before then — his long history as Kid Flash probably didn’t hurt, but he was a real downer in the New Teen Titans and was quickly written out of that book.
I’m sure, if they had Marvel’s blessing, writers could do the same with the X-Men. It seems to be happening in Thor right now, although we know they’re going to give the hammer back to the Odinson at some point, which is too bad. I much prefer this new version.
@Thom H.
Agreed. And it applies to non-legacy characters as well. It doesn’t need to be a Wally West taking over for Barry Allen, or even a Nocturne stepping in for a Nightcrawler. New characters from similar or completely different angles can step in and be developed to play roles that have been filled by old characters.
Whenever I argue that Cyclops should have stayed retired after Uncanny #201, I get a lot of flack about all these great Cyclops stories that have come along afterwards. But really, similar or even better stories could have been written using other characters. It didn’t have to be Cyclops that led the X-Men to Utopia; it could have been Sam Guthrie or Havok or Moonstar or some other character that had been developed into “leader of the X-Men” in the intervening 20 years.
I sort of agree and disagree regarding using the same character.
Part of the reason it was controversial that Cyclops became the tough leader of mutantkind was because he was the first X-Man. He was Xavier’s heir and he’d held to and died for Xavier’s dream.
Some stories act as good endings for certain characters, but once that ending is missed it doesn’t really mean you can’t tell other good stories with them. If they’d retired Cyclops way back when, we’d might have had different stories with other characters in a similar role but the dynmaic would have been completely different.
The problem of Cyclops at the moment is not anything he has done (that we know of) but rather that some writers act as though Cyclops doing what we’d expect Obama to do in a similar situation is reacted to by the X-Men as though he’d gone 100% Silver Age Magneto.
There’s probably something to be said about retiring Cyclops for 25 years (that’s how long ago #201 was, right?) and bringing him back to replace Xavier once the latter is dead. That has much more potential mystery and drama.
One of the things that Paul so rightly points out on this site is that Marvel does well to give their characters a break every once in a while. It makes audiences excited to see them again, and it gives creators a chance to come up with stories that are interesting and fitting for the character.
Correction: 30 years. (Eek!)
I didn’t mind the Nightcrawler reveal. He nearly died during the Massacre, so seeing evidence of a new massacre is going to be traumatic on its own. Add that he knows all about the Days of Futures Past timeline…
“Eh, new characters will work just as well. Good writers will be less confined and will tell more good stories.”
I never buy the ‘confined’ argument. We’re talking about a fictional universe with so many possibilities that having to acknowledge that previous stories happened (or are happening) should only hamper the most unimaginative writers – and you’d have to wonder why they were writing superhero comics at all.
“Because average or mediocre writers just drag characters down with them. Better to go forward with new characters that can’t be ruined, but can be built up into the next classic.”
Not following the logic here. If a current writer is poor enough that they’ll drag a classic character down, then how are they simultaneously good enough to build up a new character into a classic?
I think the thing I’ve read here that I most disagree with, though, is that ‘comicbook time’ should be dropped in favour of real time. Modern artists can’t get 12 issues worth a year out – how are they going to have any chance of putting out real time stories? And modern, decompressed writing needs more pages than ever before to attempt this. You could make a far more compelling case for the silver age to have done real time than the current age, which would have no chance at all.
@Dave: I think the thing I’ve read here that I most disagree with, though, is that ‘comicbook time’ should be dropped in favour of real time.
It doesn’t necessarily have to be real time, just have the characters continue to age past a permanent “30ish”.
The point is to retire characters once their primary development arcs have concluded so as to avoid the endless cycles of rehash and deconstruction. (For example, how many iterations of trauma > nervous breakdown > adultery > emotional-reconstruction-by-new-girlfriend has Cyclops been through now?)
Rather than recycle what’s gone before–or deconstruct it into absurdity–use what’s gone before as the foundation for something genuinely new. Show the passing of the torch. Show the core cast aging out, starting families, retiring, etc. Show their kids aging in, taking up the cause, and replacing their parents. Have the characters actually accomplish something meaningful. Have events actually pay off in a lasting way. Extend the mythos.
So… Just wanted to be the first one to bring it up, but for everyone who thought I was being gross when I suggested Lemire is setting up Iceman and Anole as a couple… today’s issue of EXM fixes the age issue and I’d now put money on the relationship going in that angle…
Do you think Anole and friends will stay old? Hmm. I hope you’re wrong and Iceman’s first boyfriend is not literally a reptile. Who like his friends sounds like he still talks tween. Dudes.
Anyway, lots of interesting stuff going on in the comments. More interesting than the book for sure. I am not liking this hipster-douche take on X-Men. Storm should be used to frigging leading already. Character designs for Colossus (gargantuan daddy bear), Nightcrawler (pixie in a tunic) and Iceman (capris!) are awful. I don’t even like the colors.
I’m sick of Magik and Storm’s looks too. What’s up with these half shirts on our heroines? (“Heroine in a half shirt: navel power!”) Jean’s Marvel Girl outfit is lame too. And overall I just really dislike Ramos’ art.
I’m already sick of Old Man Logan. We get it. He killed the X-Men. Wah wah. But while talking about trying to change the future, every other thing out of his mouth except “I’m too old for this #$@!” is “x and y never happened where I come from.” The wind was quickly sucked out of those story sails.
And it seems obvious that the eventual Cyclops reveal will be as anticlimactic as the Nightcrawler one. Making it up as they go along hasn’t helped Marvel before. Remember Onslaught? Anyone who says they’re excited must be a shill. Granted I have yet to see such a person.
One other thing that bugged me about this story was how Jean (who bugged me earlier for saying she knew Hank since they were kids–Kid, you are a kid, and how long did you know Hank before you came to the future anyhow?) taught Storm about the mindscape. Okay then. Storm doesn’t know that stuff? Really. And instead of using the old “I guess our powers work here because it’s a representation of reality” excuse their powers do not work (Storm’s at least), Jean gets to teach Storm something, and then their powers do and don’t work as needed. Just dumb.
I severely loathe the new status quo. I think it’s very misguided. Where are all the million other mutants who could be helping Storm instead of Glob? What did Cyclops do already? What does sterilization really matter since every X-Man is the child of humans anyway? Can we please go back to ignoring the Inhumans? Doesn’t Cerebra seem like she belongs in Oz (knows some slang but is Data-like ignorant of other slang = annoying.)
I didn’t see any evidence that these thugs represented the government or any organization at all. And I’m pretty sure the folks with pitchforks and torches were from Nightcrawler’s first appearance (which is still saying something because that was 1975.) I definitely agree about the anti-climax. Ok. That is it? A mass grave of mutants. Nightcrawler has been through a lot, he was recently in heaven fending off a demon invasion basically, not to mention Mutant Massacre and Genosha, and a plethora of other horrible things. He loses his grip on reality because of this? So stupid. And now he’s back to normal and already on missions? Talk about resurrected for nothing.
I’d like to see more of the mutants who were living at the school or just around before the gap. Not Cypher I guess because they gave his power to Sapna. But this to me is a huge problem with this book. The school is full of no-names except for a dozen or so characters. What?
Marvel, stop inventing new characters instead of using the old new characters you never frigging developed properly. That’s what aggravates me the most. There should be about fifty powerhouses at the school to help Storm but there are, I guess, too many of them to use in a story so they all get ignored (although Mystique was in one panel defending the school in limbo?!) at the expense of everything except the “we’re on the ropes again” idea and the defending limbo scene. It’s embarrassingly ridiculous. How are there any rooms even left at the school? They introduce so many characters and igore them. Now, would I want the book to go back to the days when every mutant was in the book and there really wasn’t a team? No. But then get those developed X-Men away from the school and make that clear.
In fact, make things clear, period. This is the late 90s mystery for mystery’s sake all over again. Wtf did Cyclops and Sunfish* do? Who is at the school? Where are the other X-Men? Did Storm have a falling out with everybody?
I agree that Marvel’s timescale should be quicker. Show us these charcters aging. Having families, whatever. There are way more story possibilities. I disagree that every generation needs Nightcrawler as a 30 yo “ready for branding” Nightcrawler. That’s stupid. The idea of Rachel on X-Factor or Cyclops as Xavier and Moonstar led in Utopia speak to the possibilities. Heck, give us one book that is based on real continuity and ages in a timely manner.
And is new readership really that bad? That would be crazy because it would mean Marvel has been chasing new readers for many many years now. Marvel is the 40 year old new reader virgin! How about they try to keep their old readers? Who knows, maybe the same things that will keep the old ones around will attract the new ones? It’s worth a try.
I certainly didn’t get into reading X-Men comic books because they’re: virtually incoherent because creators are obsessed with pressing the reset button every couple of issues, characters look and speak and act differently all the time, you can never rely on what one character’s personal history is or who they have relationships with or anything like that month to month, and never mind the fact that these stories aren’t in fact all heading somewhere that has even a semblance of definition they aren’t even based on a beginning with a semblance of definition anymore.
Jumping off point, indeed.
*I like what autocorrect did there.