Okay, I stopped collecting a while back, but I still stop off at the store every now and again and glance through the new stuff. I got the first three issues of The New X-Men, and you can definitely see the influences the movie has had on the book.
Yesturday, I read an issue where Xorn (I think that’s his name) took the “Special Class” out for a camping trip, they got attacked by some people, and Xorn killed all the baddies. All, except for one, who the kids took down. Then, while he was unconcious, one of them picked up a huge rock and crushed his skull. In the meantime, a bunch of other students are running around killing people as well. And, in a previous issue, Wolverine killed a whole bunch of people.
When did the whole “We protect, not kill” belief of the X-Men go right out the window?
Joe Quesada, mostly. When Marvel came under a new EIC, they just took a dive for the worst, and they’ve been either in a state of Chapter 11 or about to file for it (sorry, I can’t remember which) for quite some time now.
Personally, I’ve finally given up on the X-Men. I’d rather live in the past, when the storylines were tight, made sense, and I actually liked some of the characters. (Warren Ellis’ run on Excalibur, here I come!)
Not to say X-Men is perfect–look at Banshee’s first appearance and marvel at the racism, for one example–but I think they really have taken a downturn lately.
Could you elaborate on this?
The new writer, Grant Morrison, is touching on how mutants might more convincingly react within a larger oppressive culture (the not-seriously-investigated murder of Jumbo Carnation) and how a new generation of them might not hold the same candyland ideals as the last three generations Xavier taught. Where heroic ideals are concerned, the blood is running thin–as well it might in the real world.
As for Banshee, ut the writers (Roy Thomas in that instance) a break. He was trying to be more inclusive by showing Mutants who don’t happen to be from the NY area, an idea expanded on about a decade later with the “All-New, All Different” international X-Men, who were also pretty cliche-laden. I got a kick out of Xavier tracking Banshee down at the Grand Ol’ Opry instead of some seedy Irish pub.
The new writer, Grant Morrison, is touching on how mutants might more convincingly react within a larger oppressive culture (the not-seriously-investigated murder of Jumbo Carnation) and how a new generation of them might not hold the same candyland ideals as the last three generations Xavier taught. Where heroic ideals are concerned, the blood is running thin–as well it might in the real world.
As for Banshee, cut the writers (Roy Thomas in that instance) a break. He was trying to be more inclusive by showing Mutants who don’t happen to be from the NY area, an idea expanded on about a decade later with the “All-New, All Different” international X-Men, who were also pretty cliche-laden. I got a kick out of Xavier tracking Banshee down at the Grand Ol’ Opry instead of some seedy Irish pub.
I read a reprint of “Giant Sized X-Men” number one, and found the writing to be hilarious. It’s definitely a sign of the times in terms of racial ideals. I think my favorite line is when Sunfire decides to show up and help afterall, Wolverine cries out:
“Look! It’s the Jap.”
And here I was thinking the Canadians didn’t descriminate against anybody.
A U.S. judge just ruled that the X-Men are not human! 
Are you kidding me? Cite cite cite cite cite. I don’t keep up with comics near as much as I would like to (financial issues and the nearest shop is 40 minutes away) but I was under the strong impression that Quesada is a miracle man. I’m 99% sure that the company was in its death-throes until old cuppa Joe came along and they’re doing absolutely great now. I know he’s had some radical ideas but for the most part I really like him. The Maximums and the Ultimates were both great ideas (although I don’t care for the Ultimates, they sell great.) The only thing he’s done to piss me off is take away Logan’s cigars :mad: .
Morrison is writing for X-men now? Crap, I gotta get me to a comics shop!
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My understanding matches yours except substitute “Much better” for “absolutely great”.
I don’t like a bunch of what he’s done (Marville may actually be worse than Street Poet Ray, his butchery of Captain Marvel sucks, The Truth cannot be squeezed into Marvel continuity and it’s a dumb idea: “We’re racists, so let’s give black people super-powers so they’re tougher than us!” :rolleyes: ) , but overall…look at the talent he’s brought in and look at the good things they’ve done: the X-Titles are readable again, the Spider-books rock, I have no idea what’s going on in Hulk but I’m enjoying it, Thor is in the middle of the best run it’s had since Walt Simonson left the book.
Not to mention the stunning success of the Ultimate line. That was a stroke of genius on his part.
When the X-Men film opened, TV Guide asked Marvel to put together a quickie little 16(?)-page X-Men comic that could be inserted into it for an article TV Guide was doing. Keep in mind that TV Guide has the largest circulation of any magazine in the country (or world). Great time to do a “Jumping on”/“Introduce your characters” story, right? Wrong. Claremont apparently (I haven’t seen the comic in question) just wrote another chapter in the ongoing drivel he was producing. He didn’t use many characters from the movie and unless you’d been reading X-Men all along it was literally incomprehensible. It had no start or stop point, no character development, etc. I believe it was either Julius Schwartz or Mort Weisinger who said “Remember, every issue is someone’s first look at the book.” In this case, it was like forty million (wild guess: I have no idea what the number is. I’m probably low) people’s first look at X-Men. Apparently, sales on the X-Books went down after the movie came out (which is why Claremont was booted)
Contrast that to what Joe Q. did with Spider-Man when the movie opened: he had a blitz of Spider-Man books all ready to go: Ultimate Spider-Man had just started, the JMS Spideys started a new, fresh storyline (you didn’t need to know 20 years of baggage), there were a couple of decent mini-series…in other words, the sort of things that were good starting points which would attract people to read the comics, rather than repel them.
I think the guy comes across on-line as an utter idiot (so does Peter David for that matter) but it’s hard to deny that he’s single-handedly improving Marvel’s product and has a killer instinct for marketing comics (with the exception of the stupid U-Decide thing).
Fenris