The Byrne Board tackle a question that we’ve all asked at least once in our lives: Whatever happened to the X-Men?
“I stopped reading the X-Men years ago because I thought there were too many X-Books, too many characters, etc and what made them unique and uncanny was neither anymore. And I LOVED the X-Men. But the X-Men are by far the largest, single comics success story of the last thirty years. JB was one of the largest factors in their meteoric rise. I stopped reading X-titles years ago and only pick up a book if their is a new team on board that interests me, think Morrison. I only stay on board if the team delivers, think Whedon, Byrne. Are the X-Men victims of their own success? In an effort to capitalize on their success, did Marvel kill the (creative) Golden Goose? What happened to the X-Men?”
“I picked up an x-men comic recently and didn’t know two thirds of the characters! This is not a way to get new people on board!”
(Because, of course, new readers should always be familiar with the characters, being new and all.)
“What happened to the X-Men is yet another example of ‘What sounds cool’ overriding what makes sense in terms of who the characters are and what the core concepts are. Everyone is so concerned about ‘continuity’ when it comes to history and events, but as soon as somebody has a ‘cool idea’ continuity of characterization goes right out the window! It doesn’t matter that Mystique, Emma Frost, and Sabretooth (!!!) have tried to KILL the X-Men countless times. It just sounds so “cool” to think of them being part of the team, fighting side by side with Cyclops and Wolverine! Fuck consistent character behavior! Just put them in the books! The ‘fans’ will love it!”
“Dozens of characters, an impenetrable continuity, stories based on 20/30 years old comics. I don’t want to TOUCH an X-Men book, either. I followed UNCANNY with the return of Chris Claremont, but I dropped it when the run ended. No more X-Men, for me.”
“I think a big reason for why the X-Men were successful is also one of the biggest reasons for the quagmire they are in today: Chris Claremont. We all know that the Claremont/Byrne run was the best the title had ever seen. It was spectacular, start to finish, and also due in no small part to Dave Cockrum. That’s a given. But I personally think that Claremont stayed on the various X-titles far too long and, in the end, made them every bit as convoluted, pretentious, and nearly as unreadable as DC’s confusing, convoluted team book, LEGION OF SUPERHEROES. What was once a very singular vision with a handful of exciting, captivating heroes, became an entire universe of mutants who complained nearly every issue about being ‘hated and hunted’ by normal humans. Gee, bleak and dire much? Instead of one team, we got an incalculable number of mutant teams and factions, most of which got face time in the regular X-books or became one in a host of convoluted, forgettable mini-series. The theme of the X-Men became one of whining, victimization, and oppression. The fun was sapped out of these characters and their stories…stories that often took the form of long, cross-title, mega events that ultimately ended in death, further oppression, alienation, and not one inch closer to the goal Xavier had in mind, although he’d take, through Claremont’s pen, two pages of expository dialog to tell you the ‘deeper meaning’ in any given conflict.”
Go read the thread, and watch out for the part where it devolves into whether Magneto was Right or not, and then what kind of comic fan is the “right” kind of comic fan…
December 13th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
Mike Carey’s doing a shockingly good job. By the standards of MIKE CAREY.
December 13th, 2007 at 5:22 pm
“I picked up an x-men comic recently and didn’t know two thirds of the characters! This is not a way to get new people on board!”
Comics should always be the same! No changes! None!
December 13th, 2007 at 6:14 pm
a) I really enjoy Brubaker’s stuff on the X-Books. Never been a huge X-fan in general, but yeh… that i like.
b) these guys are really concerned about new fans or keeping a large fanbase? really? If so, i must say, few things make me more aggravated about being a comics fan than being lumped in with dudes like this.
December 13th, 2007 at 7:04 pm
X-men is still the best, despite some bumps in the road.
December 13th, 2007 at 8:05 pm
To be fair to them, I don’t think the point is entirely untrue. Modern X-writers (even when doing a good job, like Carey) take their cues from the latter portion of Claremont’s reign, which was really convoluted and had an unmanageable number of characters.
December 13th, 2007 at 8:47 pm
I’m not sure it’s really a solvable problem.
There are a *lot* of characters roaming around the X-Men universe. And they have a ton of history. With something like Batman or Spider-Man, there’s always a baseline that they come back to. Even when those characters have three different comics coming out at the same time, they still don’t change all *that* much, they try to stick to what is more globally recognised as being part of that single character.
But three X books coming out in a month usually means three different teams. And those teams add and subtract members as they go along. That adds up over the years, not just in characters, but in the relationships between the various characters. To some people, that’s just added up to way to much stuff over the years.
But other people love that. They *want* the detailed history that they can study and study and study. So it’s not really a problem, it’s a style. It has advantages and disadvantages.
December 13th, 2007 at 9:13 pm
X-Books are the best they’ve been in DECADES
Whedon, Brubaker, Carey, Kyle/Yost, PAD.
Such a great line up of writers.
December 13th, 2007 at 10:15 pm
“It doesn’t matter that Mystique, Emma Frost, and Sabretooth (!!!) have tried to KILL the X-Men countless times. It just sounds so “cool” to think of them being part of the team, fighting side by side with Cyclops and Wolverine! Fuck consistent character behavior! Just put them in the books! The ‘fans’ will love it!”
Yeah, the idea that people can redeem themselves or ever change is just ludicrous.
December 14th, 2007 at 9:09 am
Notice that the anonymous sign-in posting here has more level headed and reasoned responses than the examples from the registered-profile board examples above. The comments here are great.
I think everything kind of went to crap after all the X-book crossovers in the 90′s, so now the X-men titles are more insular, which makes it hard for the casual reader to figure them out.
I quite enjoy Whedon’s Astonishing X-men and I look forward to seeing what Ellis does on it. This title and First Class are good for casual X-fans like myself who don’t particularly want to get caught up in the usual Marvel U shenanigans.
December 14th, 2007 at 9:11 am
I thought the most interesting bit from that thread was when Byrne related this story:
“Jim Shooter tells the story of being assigned, many years ago, to work
with an artist who was really, really bad. Shooter worried about how he
was going to deal with the guy. He wanted to give him some tips on how
to improve his work, but it was so bad he knew the guy must feel pretty
awful about it, and he didn’t really want to make the poor schmuck feel
any worse!
Then he had his first meeting with the artist and, as Shooter describes it,
was subjected to listening to the guy go on and on and on about how
brilliant his art was. He had, it seemed, absolutely no clue as to just how
bad it really was.
(Without getting any better, this same artist went on to become a fan
fave, so what does that tell us?)”
December 14th, 2007 at 9:17 am
I dunno… what does it tell us? That fans have no taste? That fans are stupid? That quality doesn’t always win out? The last point’s pretty bloody obvious and really doesn’t need an anecdote to “prove”. The first two are an odd motto for a former “fan favorite” arist to have.
December 14th, 2007 at 11:10 am
Maybe some sort of “No More Mutants” editorial edict would help to clear things up.
December 14th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
I can see where the “no recognizable characters” complaint it valid. I read comics for years, but never much X-Men. As such, my primary interaction with the group has been through the films.
When I heard Brubaker was taking over Uncanny, I thought I would give it a look, but when I flipped through a few issues, there was rarely a character I recognized from the films.
Speaking as an outsider, it would have been helpful to have more than just Nightcrawler to hang my hat on. When I (your arguably “average” reader) think of “X-Men”, I dont think of Havok, Marvel Girl, Polaris, Darwin, Warpath and a walking/non-psychic Professor X.
I did end of reading the hard cover of “Rise and Fall…” after being lent it by a friend, and I found it enjoyable enough.
December 15th, 2007 at 1:17 am
It’s the creative teams job to make you care about the characters by giving them a unique personality within an engaging story. If you can do that, it won’t matter if the reader knew the characters from the beginning or not.
In general, the X-Men books haven’t appealed to me at all since Lobdell/Maduriera. Grant Morrison’s run to me was fantastic as a standalone story, but when I try to put in continuity my love for the characters just goes way down. It seems to me that Morrison’s run works better as an alternate reality X-Men series.
I’m waiting for the Messiah Complex hardcover to turn me around.
December 16th, 2007 at 11:02 pm
“(Without getting any better, this same artist went on to become a fan
fave, so what does that tell us?)”
=====
That Shooter should have fired Byrne when he had the chance.