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X-Men Thread: Regenesis is here, Phil Collins or Peter Gabriel?
TexiKen
Dammit!That fish really got me!Registered User regular
Dammit!That fish really got me!Registered User regular
For nearly 25 years, the X-Men were the top of the charts, because everyone wanted to be (and somehow was) a mutant:
But these days have long gone, since the craziest one decided to go and say:
So now there's roughly 200 or so mutants left, and they all coincidentally turned out to be the ones we care to read about anyway.
They are off on Magneto's old Asteroid M that is sitting out in San Francisco Bay:
So let's join in the fun of seeing Cyclops try and hold everything together, Magneto trying to be a good guy (again), Namor being a dick, and Wolverine juggling 4 or 5 teams a week. Cue the Jim Lee art!
Oh my God the two coolest X-Men are smoking!!!!!
But these days have long gone, since the craziest one decided to go and say:
So now there's roughly 200 or so mutants left, and they all coincidentally turned out to be the ones we care to read about anyway.
They are off on Magneto's old Asteroid M that is sitting out in San Francisco Bay:
So let's join in the fun of seeing Cyclops try and hold everything together, Magneto trying to be a good guy (again), Namor being a dick, and Wolverine juggling 4 or 5 teams a week. Cue the Jim Lee art!
Oh my God the two coolest X-Men are smoking!!!!!
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I think there's something to be said for sticking with the core concept of a franchise, but the X-Men are, as far as I can tell, always hated and feared, being hunted by some insane bigot who inexplicably has access to super-weapons, about to be destroyed by a virus/cure/magic, fleeing to some remote place where they hope to be safe from persecution (surprise, they won't be), and involved in some stupid shit happening in space. I definitely think progress has been made in recent years, as writers have worked to really add some depth and substance to Cyclops, and his relationship with the people around him, including Emma, Jean, Magneto, and the Professor. But I feel like a lot of the characters are still mired in the same muck they were fifteen years ago.
But I do like X-Factor. So, there's that.
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Which is kind of a shame, I really thought that the mutant population's time in San Francisco really suited them well. I agree that putting them all on an island is kind of overdoing it.
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I'm gonna be completely honest, Uncanny hasn't been good since #500. Until just recently (around #519), Fraction has had a really hard time telling a coherent story, he has used too many characters, didn't really grasp how to lay out slow burning plot points (he would have a subplot show up in one page then get back to it 6 issues later, you don't do it that way and expect the reader to follow, you give a little bit every issue), and of course, the terrible Greg Land art.
I would say X-Men Legacy is better, because Mike Carey can do no wrong getting the best out of B-list mutants, and embraces trying to fix the screwed up continuity and gaffes other writers ignore. Supernovas is the first trade of his run.
The best X-Books right now are X-Men Legacy, X-Factor and X-Men: First Class.
edit: If you haven't read the X-Men in the last 5-8 years, start with Grant Morrison's New X-Men run, which is available in trades, hard to find hardcovers, and the new three volume New X-Men Ultimate Collection.
it always seems like it has nothing to do with the rest of the Marvel Universe and not in a good way.
also [bracket] titles are dumb
New Mutants doesn't need to exist. Neither does 2 extra Wolverine books, Astonishing, Cable, X-Men anthology titles, and the other minis that show up all the time. The X-brand isn't healthy enough to sustain that right now, adjust accordingly.
Quick count:
Uncanny X-Men
X-Men Legacy
Astonishing X-Men
X-Force
X-Factor
New Mutants
Dark Wolverine (will probably go back to Wolverine after Siege)
Wolverine: Origins
Wolverine: Weapon X
Cable
X-Men Forever
and various minis/one-shots (X-Factor Forever, New Mutants Forever, there always seems to be a Wolverine one-shot each month)
And if you count the Deadpool titles, that's 4 more right there
I have been reading Fraction's run on and off since that terrible Sisterhood story arc, and it has more or less stood alone from the other X-books, at least to the point where I had no problem following every bit of it.
And honestly, that's probably for the best. The line should always have a main book that isn't burdened by the others. I know Astonishing is supposed to be that book, but it really isn't filling that slot anymore, and it feels like Uncanny has taken up that mantle, showing kind of a best-of group of mutants, and being the absolute definer of the status quo for them.
I liked the Sistehood arc because it brought back Madalyne Pryor and Psylock, unfortunately those were the only two positive things I could find in it. The rest was just meh.
One of the reasons I never read the X books as a kid is because of the gold team/blue team shit. But also because the continuity was impenetrable, and every time I tried the storytelling never seemed as cool and new to me as it did in the 90s toon.
Beyond that, I think it's inherently difficult to integrate the X-Men mythos into the rest of the Marvel Universe. Just as it'd be difficult to relate the day to day events of America in the 1950s-1960s without talking about the civil rights movement, it's difficult to imagine Spider-Man living in the same world as the X-Men without him constantly being affected by the oppression of mutants. You can't have Peter Parker debating mutant rights with everyone he meets while Spider-Man battles Sentinels, though, and you especially can't have the US government that oppresses mutants be the same government that the Avengers fight for and that Captain America represents. All you can do is cordon off the X-Men's version of the MU.
That said, I think the Ultimate Universe has done a good job of making the mutant issue part of every Ultimate book.
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I never bought most of the angst surrounding the X-Men anyway. If the Avengers, Fantastic Four, etc are lauded for their powers (at least, before Civil War), why wouldn't mutants be? Would the average person really care if the superpowered person they see on the news got their powers from a genetic mutation rather than, say, cosmic radiation? There's so much wild shit going down in the 616, I just can't see mutants being a hot button issue for most people, at least not to a greater extent than any other superpowered related item.
The X-Franchise will always be special to me due to nostalgia, but it certainly doesn't fit well with the rest of the 616.
I started with Astonishing X-Men #1, read Whedon's run (through 25 and giant-size), then started at Messiah Complex with Uncanny (which I don't get anymore, since I found it really, really boring, although I still read X-Force and Cable). Dunno if I'm the best one to get advice from, though: I tend to just jump into titles, for better or worse, and read until it makes sense.
The only explanation that makes any sense to me would be that mutants represent an evolutionary step forward. Whereas Spider-man, Fantastic Four, Hulk etc. got their powers through freak accidents that are more or less isolated incidents, mutants, at least in theory, developed organically to replace humans. They were potentially rendering humans obsolete.
Now, would your average angry bigot even understand the difference, let alone care? Probably not, so I definitely get where you're coming from.
Forever has nothing to do with the continuity of the other books- it's Chris Claremont writing as if everything that came after he left never happened. Definitely not my thing: I read the first issue, and little stuff like changing Gambit's last name just struck me as pointless and kinda self-serving, so I dropped it.
But the coolest part of Marvel is the interaction between all the different heroes and groups of heroes, and that's something that never seems to happen with the X-Men except very occasionally. I would argue that the Fantastic Four are also suffering a bit from this lately as really they should be involved in Siege given Reed Richard's importance in setting up the who shebang.
and Young X-Men doesn't count. It will never count.
This is where editorial and creators just play dumb sometimes with established concepts.
In the 80's X-Factor, after Fall of the Mutants, became heroes just like the FF in the eyes of NYC after saving the city from Apocalypse. Ship rooted itself in the middle of Manhatten and they were seen as heroes. This lasted for about 4-5 years until the arc where Cyclops gives Nate to Askani.
This time as heroes is literally never referenced again in all futures X-Men stories, not even in Whedon's Astonishing run where Cyclops acts like this is a noble new concept for the X-Men to be seen as heroes.
WH and Munch both posted pretty much exactly my thoughts on the books right now -- fine, the X-Men are the Marvel's inexplicably oppressed minority. This is actually kind of interesting when you look at the history of the books -- the second X-men team being consciously made up of people from all over the world of different ethnicities/nationalities. By the time you get to the movie in 2000 there are more overtones of them being a stand-in for the gay community or people who are just sort of "queer" in a general sense. Inside the books, the stories are about punching villains. Outside the books, this changing arc of who the "X" is a cypher for is the meta-story.
Morrison did a good job with changing up the one-dimensional "hated, feared" schtick. Fraction's initial stuff in SF had this with mutant rock bands and fashion shows being partially accepted.
If the X-Men are on the wrong end of discrimination, wouldn't it only be fair to show that civil rights have been progressing slowly but steadily throughout our history?
Sigh.
And I know I have said this several times on the forum, but I'm watching Necrosha turn into the one and only one thing I didn't want to see happen to the X-Men: they've been taken away from their "out of the closet" interaction with larger society in SF and they're crammed back into a tiny non-place. It's hard for the X-men to not feel like they're regurgitating the same stories when they're always tucked in a series of dark rooms filled with computers watching supervillains attack on a big screen and then talking about which one of their former teammates has been resurrected recently. Arrrrggghhhhhhhhh.
Let them get some fresh air! Let them exist in an actual freaking place! Acknowledge to your audience that American society has reasons for both embracing and fearing sweeping change!
Argh!
I agree with this completely.
By continuing to accept the notion that mutants are still feared and hated, you refuse to acknowledge that over time, society accepts minorities. Even compared to the 80's when this was going on (and at least was a novel concept then), things have changed in 25 years.
And really, you have all these good looking women with powers, normal guys aren't going to be all "what a freak!," they'd be all "I need to bang that chick who controls the weather or that purple haired asian ninja, they look nice"
I remember that era. It was right when I started getting into non-Transformers comics. I thought that Ship was so cool. Remember when Beast and Iceman were best friends? Has that friendship even been hinted at in the last decade?
*sigh*
For every step forward the X-Franchise has taken, it seems to have taken just as many back. The plots shouldn't be essentially the same as the books I read ~20 years ago. Editorial really needs to make a decision on where to go. Either repower all of the former mutants and get back to the idea of mutants-as-a-culture, or treat them as a true endangered species with federal, and perhaps even UN protection and immunity. None of this moronic "We're a nation because we say so" shit. At least, not off the coast of California. Do it in the Savage Land, or the old Australia base. Some place more hidden and logical than on Norman Osbourne's doorstep.
I would not be surprised at all if Nighty is %100 correct.
If "R.S" was a bigger star in the Xbooks I would imagine that her "future potential" might stop this idea from occuring but what are the odds *cough*Marveleditorsdroptheballfrequently*cough* of that happeneing?
Plus that Wiki entry mentions how there is a timeline where "R.S." doesn't end up as that character [or something to that effect] so that, plus the general "do what you want it's time travel stupid" attitude should not make for much of a barrier.
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I loved pre-shaman Nate, but man, that costume is pretty funny. Blue pleather with yellow trim, plus kneepads. I love the 90's. Still, it's better than his current look.
Are you talking about the shirtless look or Norman Osborn?
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The shirtless, shoeless, X-tattoo on the breast look. All he needs is to sit on the quad with an acoustic guitar.