Comic Book Resources

How bizarre, to see Brevoort state, “At that point, we felt that there were literally too many mutants, and that the core underlying metaphor of the X-Men as a minority had been thrown out-of-whack,” Brevoort says. House of M was designed both to scale back the mutant population and “put the characters’ backs up against the wall a little bit more.” Morrison’s sin, apparently, was to treat the X-people much like SF characters, with the idea that they represent human evolution actually meaning something. Marvel Editorial, as personified by Brevoort, decided to enforce the “illusion of change” policy, with evolution being an illusion, the X-Men anticipating a future that’s never going to arrive, except for time-travelers coming from alternate futures.

The X-books already rely very heavily on alternate futures for story material, perhaps because foes who want to attack the X-people for the crime of being mutants have become repetitive and boring. Fraction’s take on the X-Men in UXM has been split between two extremes: recycling persecution material from the ’70s and ’80s, and recycling Morrison’s SF-oriented material. Unfortunately. Fraction has bungled the scientific aspects, with UXM #522 being the latest and worst example.

Considering how far real-world genetics research has progressed, with researchers designing artificial genes and contemplating man-made bacteria, perhaps it’s time to consider the X-Men concept obsolete.

The conspiracy theory doesn’t work well if the quality of Bendis’s writing is taken into account. Practically any writer could have put Wolverine and Spider-Man with a randomly selected group of other heroes and been successful, if merely writing the two stars in character is a key to success.

Children read stories merely in order to see favorite characters (“Spider-Man! I love Spider-Man! Oh, goody!”), while adults read stories in order to appreciate a writer’s strengths and intentions. Unless someone can demonstrate that readers appreciate Bendis’s specific and unique strengths as a writer, Marvel’s handling of “One More Day” and other controversies, which had Quesada talking about children as the important audience, indicates that they think of the readership as children, regardless of physical ages.

The conspiracy theory also presumes that the Avengers-related movies will do well. What happens if one or more tank at the box office?

SRS

“Children read stories merely in order to see favorite characters (“Spider-Man! I love Spider-Man! Oh, goody!”), while adults read stories in order to appreciate a writer’s strengths and intentions.”

As someone who helps adults find book in library, I can say that this is not true. Adults want to read their favourite character just as much as children do.

What an extremely weak conspiracy theory. I can’t imagine how Marvel would benefit from tanking their X-Men line. I would assume that they’d want the X-Men movies to succeed (especially before they got bought by Disney, since it was apparent that they weren’t getting control of those characters back for film) since they get a cut of the profits.

Also, while I’m not currently reading the X-Men line, I would argue that the creative teams there are among the strongest they’ve had in a while. Seems to me that they’re trying to bring some attention to that corner of the Marvel U, but it just isn’t working. Maybe the X-Men have run their course? Honestly, while I used to buy pretty much everything X, I haven’t been interested in the titles in a long time. Even if I do like the creative teams.

The conspiracy theory makes no business sense. Why would Marvel purposely try to trash their decades long cash cow- the X-Men- to strengthen their Avengers line? Wouldn’t they instead want both properties to succeed?

I don’t think the X-Men are a tired idea, considering the ethnic/sexual diversity that fills everyday life they have the potential to be the most relivant group out there. The problem is that the current satus quo dosen’t work, now the idea is a solid one as a short term ark, but from the moment of it’s exicution it was handeled badly, most of the central X-main titles paid the concept lip serviclce then ignored it and got on with their own stories. This makes the X-men look innept to the point of moronic. Then to do messiah complex two years later didn’t work because no one treated it as a big deal, they were just sitting arround waitning to be wipped out. I’m hoping that second coming will move the franchese in a new direction but it dosen’t look likely. The new status quo has failed, it removes the X-Men so much from thier core metaphore that it makes them pointless, we have had some very talented writers working on the tittle over the last few years but they can’t make it work. Every title has just treaded water and have left the franchise stagnent. The franchise needs a new direction and I think marvel won ‘t do it. Thier rejuvination of the Avengers and Spider-man worked, the X-Men are dying on their arse.

Should be mentioned that Bendis made the Avengers the big title by throwing out all the elements of The Avengers, including pretty much any Avenger character.

Seems kind of a stretch to say they’re weakening the brand, but I do think they are trying to stop real creation within that brand for a while.

Take a listen to iFanboy’s recent podcast with John Hickman, and you’ll hear him say that when the concept for his SHIELD book was liked by Marvel West, they had to move it away from the X-universe so that Fox couldn’t get their hands on it.

Whether they admit it or not, Marvel IS keeping future multi-media applications in mind when they create new characters or new concepts. I wouldn’t be surprised if this meant a marked decrease in new concept generation within the X universe.

I’m very late to the party on this, having read Morrison’s X-Men less than two years ago, but did Marvel have to trash all of his innovative/interesting ideas? Seems as though the people who followed him didn’t understand what he was trying to achieve at all.