Xmen - the next big twist *spoilers*

[Hound]

http://www.marvel.com/catalog/showcomic ... rmat=comic

After the events of House of M, Wanda essentially wishes all mutants never existed, bar 198 of them.

Many characters such as Chamber, Jubilee and Blob will lose their powers, and be forced to rejoin society as a norm.

The whole idea behind the new direction is to reaffirm that mutants are a minority (this notion was undone by the mutant population explosion by Grant Morrison). It is yet more of Morrison's good work being undone.

Thoughts?

[sprunkner]

Seems a little editorially directed-- trying to clean up the wreckage from various X-books... Force, Factor, Mutant, New, New Mutants, the X-corp...

I don't know. You don't need 198 people to have a minority. Part of the appeal of X-men was always the "there's one right down the street" feeling, the same thing that happens to small communities throughout history with Jews, homosexuals, black people, Gypsies. etc. But this may be a good change, a revitalization, as long as it doesn't last.

[Hound]

I believe the idea is for this to be the way going forward, and with a ban on new characters (for the time being at least).

[Hound]

i just realised that Jetfire posted this in another topic (which i posted on also!)

I am an idiot. Please lock the topic

[Jetfire]

The whole idea behind the new direction is to reaffirm that mutants are a minority (this notion was undone by the mutant population explosion by Grant Morrison). It is yet more of Morrison's good work being undone.

Thoughts?

It's Wanda's fault

Seriously Morrison's work is not nessecarly being undone. It was done under morrison and it's reconigised. But other creators simply prefer to write mutants as a smaller number. It may have been good for Morrison's writing but not nesssecarlly good for anybody else.

Morrison's work is not being retconned out, it's still part of X history. But the new writers are simply taking a different direction., hence the fact former mutants have to deal with not having powers anymore.

In fact House of M implies that Morrison's Magneto storyline was indeed the real Maggie, but Wanda brought him back to life without him knowing which undoes Claremonts retcon.

[Jetfire]

i just realised that Jetfire posted this in another topic (which i posted on also!)

I am an idiot. Please lock the topic

Quoted just to highlight the statement

[Professor Smooth]

I'm not a fan. I see Marvel obliterating the mutant population (and stopping any more from being created) as the same thing that Christian Fundamentalists would like to see done to homosexuals and what White Supremacists would like to see happen to non-whites.

I liked that mutant rights movement had made progress since the 60's.

[Jetfire]

I'm not a fan. I see Marvel obliterating the mutant population (and stopping any more from being created) as the same thing that Christian Fundamentalists would like to see done to homosexuals and what White Supremacists would like to see happen to non-whites.

I liked that mutant rights movement had made progress since the 60's.

OOOOOOKKAY!

Talk about reading to much into it.

[Professor Smooth]

I'm not a fan. I see Marvel obliterating the mutant population (and stopping any more from being created) as the same thing that Christian Fundamentalists would like to see done to homosexuals and what White Supremacists would like to see happen to non-whites.

I liked that mutant rights movement had made progress since the 60's.

OOOOOOKKAY!

Talk about reading to much into it.

How so? Marvel, over the past 42 years, have had a Mutant Rights movement. They went from being universally "feared and hated" to being tolerated to a great degree. There are "mutant-towns" in big cities, their own sub-cultures, and they even had their own country. Compare this to the civil rights movement or the gay rights movement.

[Denyer]

Talk about reading to much into it.

Marvel gets more storylines out of divided characters, and a universe in which mutants are mainstream calls for more innovation than Marvel seem to have. It's easier to resell old stories and characters if you revert the universe they're in as well.

"Integrated" universe likers may appreciate Top Ten by Alan Moore.

[Jetfire]

Mutants are only partically a metaphore for civil rights. The holocaust and extermination of Jews has been far more infulential on most X-men stories. The wiping out of many mutants is to adress the fact recently the marvel universe has become the mutant universe with a few hero's and hence a company of X-Men clones and world where so many people have super powers it no long seems a normal universe with a few special deviations for fantasy effect.

The whole point of the X-men is to tell stories of a Superhero team who are feared and hated by people who misunderstand them. Often this concept is open to interpretation. I believe this is basically a back to basics approach in which the hypothesis is back to "What if people suddleny discovered a more powerful people were starting to emerge" and the fact powers are special.

It has nothing to do with accepting the beliefs of racists of bigots in general. I can't believe you seriously think the creators at Marvel support supression of gays or non-whites or meant this to be a metaphore for it.

[Jetfire]

Talk about reading to much into it.

Marvel gets more storylines out of divided characters, and a universe in which mutants are mainstream calls for more innovation than Marvel seem to have. It's easier to resell old stories and characters if you revert the universe they're in as well.

Not really. Most people have been saying the last few years of X-men stories (Astonishing aside) have been crap.

[Denyer]

The whole point of the X-men is to tell stories of a Superhero team who are feared and hated by people who misunderstand them.

I was reading for the characters rather than teen angst. It's already a given that appreciably new plots aren't going to be forthcoming, so the dialogue and concepts made the books interesting.

Characters have to be developed—eg, Rogue building up to being safe with her powers. Development does not consist of clock resets every few years.

Also, characters and storylines end. Then you write new characters and new stories, avoiding the tar pit of dwindling readership.

[Best First]

Seriously Morrison's work is not nessecarly being undone. It was done under morrison and it's reconigised. But other creators simply prefer to write mutants as a smaller number. It may have been good for Morrison's writing but not nesssecarlly good for anybody else.

so they are undoing it.

[Brendocon]

I'm not a fan. I see Marvel obliterating the mutant population (and stopping any more from being created) as the same thing that Christian Fundamentalists would like to see done to homosexuals and what White Supremacists would like to see happen to non-whites.

I liked that mutant rights movement had made progress since the 60's.

OOOOOOKKAY!

Talk about reading to much into it.

Is noting the ever-present allegorical values of the comic really "reading too much into it"?

The mutant scenario has long been regarded as a metaphor for "real world" social situations.

[Best First]

Talk about not reading enough into it.

[Jetfire]

Talk about not reading enough into it.

OK then. The X-men creators are White Supremacists using marvel comics to say homosexuals and ethnics should be wiped out.

[Professor Smooth]

Talk about not reading enough into it.

OK then. The X-men creators are White Supremacists using marvel comics to say homosexuals and ethnics should be wiped out.

Where did anyone say that?

[Jetfire]

Talk about not reading enough into it.

OK then. The X-men creators are White Supremacists using marvel comics to say homosexuals and ethnics should be wiped out.

Where did anyone say that?

I'm not a fan. I see Marvel obliterating the mutant population (and stopping any more from being created) as the same thing that Christian Fundamentalists would like to see done to homosexuals and what White Supremacists would like to see happen to non-whites.

I liked that mutant rights movement had made progress since the 60's.

It's just what I read into it

[Denyer]

OK then. The X-men creators are White Supremacists using marvel comics to say homosexuals and ethnics should be wiped out.

Not so. A world with old conflicts retconned back in, though, is a world that makes it possible for Marvel to cycle back through old stories and just change the titles...

I see Marvel obliterating the mutant population (and stopping any more from being created) as the same thing that Christian Fundamentalists would like to see done to homosexuals and what White Supremacists would like to see happen to non-whites.

The intention is to scratch out many years of backstory/progress and revert to basic "mutant = rarity/stigma" stories.

Which have been done to death.

[Jetfire]

[

The intention is to scratch out many years of backstory/progress and revert to basic "mutant = rarity/stigma" stories.

Which have been done to death.

I disagree. Most mutant rarity stories were never explored in depth in favour of Superheroics. It's clean entire creative teams can't work with the mutants everywhere and give them significance of any sort. One creator may have done a good job but it's pointless keeping it that way if nobody else can. A quality stories doesn't need to be chock full of "Kwel" new ideas.
The exploring of mutant towns, mutant police etc clearly had limited potential in itself and such social issues were done to death in the 70's but just didn't use mutants.
A culture of mutants not having powers and dealing with that however is a new idea. They are doing several books on it come 2006.


On a spoiler note Transfannabeel at the archive has detailed what he know about who is losing powers, who isn't and more on whats happening. A shock is cyclopes but I personally doubt Mr X-Man himself will lose his powers:

http://fancomics.3.forumer.com/index.ph ... entry24856

[Denyer]

It's clean entire creative teams can't work with the mutants everywhere and give them significance of any sort.

How so? This is yet another exercise in writers putting characters back to the state they remember reading about them in.

A quality stories doesn't need to be chock full of "Kwel" new ideas.

Depends if you mind being stuck with the old "kewl" ideas for another five years.

The exploring of mutant towns, mutant police etc clearly had limited potential in itself

Whereas fight books and angst clearly deserve to run for decades.

Marvel are historically keen to play with uber-powered characters such as Franklin Richards, Legion and Wanda. The second a big reality shift storyline starts, it's a question of "what point will they regress to after the inevitable return storyline?" and "what little curios will be held onto in hopes of justifying the event?" This time they're just regressing a bit further back.

A culture of mutants not having powers and dealing with that however is a new idea. They are doing several books on it come 2006.

Mutant normality is still a fairly new direction for Marvel. It doesn't excite twenty and thirty something fans who like fight books, so it goes in favour of more "[x] loses their powers" stories. Lack of "epic" conflict doesn't sell to spandex lovers—which is the bottom line—and widespread mutant populations push things towards character-driven narrative rather than "epic" conflict. Set in the same universe, they detract from the 'uniqueness' of elder heroes (a particularly specious argument: if there's any detraction, it's because elder heroes haven't been written as interesting characters in their own right.)

If Marvel manage to put out several years of depowered major characters, still keeping them in the spotlight and still giving them self-titled books, I'll be mightily surprised. Instead it's just a way to cut the roster for a while and place characters off-limit to writers (which, in itself, may not be a bad thing if enough overexposed characters are retired long enough for solid new ones to be written up—but that probably won't happen. The focus will just shift to the remaining powered characters.)

[KingMob]

Long post as comics are my life. Basically, I agree with Denyer if anyone wants to skip it.

2 threads? I have to ask, did this news break yesterday on some non-comic dedicated website that everyone visits, or just appear in adverts or something? Just curious.

I'm interested in Decimation because I'm curious what the characters will do. I am put off because of the retrograding of the mutant rights issues that crop up in the comic because of the plot. Mutants sound more like an endangered species in it, not a social group pushing for change.
Also, if I wanted comics featuring 'good guy fights bad guy with powers'...there are plenty non-mutant books for that.

A minority that holds up the metaphor (and much of the narrative point/worth of the X-Men beyond RL concerns like finding ways to promoting a license and generate income) that can perhaps be better defined is surely one that relates more to what we in RL percieve as 'minority issues', like race/sexualtiy etc. 198 on a population graph isn't that kind of minority, it's more like a barely perceptible blip.

I don't mind Morrison's work being 'undone' as it's the nature of comics to change the past and also (esp in the X-Men) to return to the status quo of the concept; however, it is a shame to see some of the work gone (and X-Corp buildings come crashing down). I liked Mutant towns, like in NYC, and the backdrop of a vibrant subculture. Ah, well.

I don't think Smooth is reading too much into it at all. It's a logical interpretation from established metaphor. Of course the creators don't actually think that way, but it's an interpretation readable from the material, and will occur to some people...anyone been reading Payty Cockrum's column?
http://www.screamifyouwantit.com/mambo/ ... view/68/27
There's an extreme example of reading into things right there.

And I feel that it's a fallacy to suggest that most X-Men metaphorical reference comes from 'the Jews and the holocaust'. That's (a bolted-on) play on Magneto's background and inspiration. Of course it comes up, often right there on the page and so it is certainly influential on the actual narrative, he's a central character. It's also a relatively 'safe' topic - how often do straight-up frank references to current race/sexuality issues come up in Marvel comics? The most recent and overt one I can think of was in Young Avengers between Cap and Luke Cage. And Luke Cage has always been a character connected to black issues. YA is also confronting gay issues with two of the team dealing with that situation while being superheroes. I can't quite think of one that dealt with religion recently.

The X-Men can comics perhaps be said to be quite staid about discussing these issues head on, which is thematically odd. I agree that part of their success is due to the 'generalness' of this approach. But a lot of the readership chooses to interpret it as referencing their modern concerns with bigotry. And it is nice to see more overt references made - like the one about 'being gay' we were discussing in another thread.

But I would suggest that the metaphor is seen rather commonly as general race/(oand if we have to nail one down more than another, how about black issues in particular)sexuality. Sexuality has been increasingly common in recent years. As said, that is one of the X-Men's strengths, the property rails against bigotry in many forms.
I asked a co-worker this evening (who is a comic reader, and somewhat more 'conservative' in his reading choices than I am) without any reference to this kind of discussion, what he thought the main X-Men metaphor was referencing. His reply was the black civil rights movement.

The main problem that has caused the Marvel U to feel like the X-men Universe is perhaps more to do with the fact that there are so many X-Men titles. The marketplace feels crowded and this has an effect on the perception of the universe. Rather than neutering lots of characters, they should perhaps stop putting out so many derivative books that incestuoise a group of characters. The Marvel U does not particularly feel like the X-Universe if you do not read all, any or only one X-title. To me, at least. The properties are normally kept reasonably seperate. Also, if there is reference to mutantcy in, oh, Iron Man or the Defenders or something...well, it is (was) an emerging civil rights movement in a shared universe. If the writer wants to include that, fair play.

To tell stories of a superhero team that is feared and hated and misunderstood does not require that all said superheroes on that team are mutants. Cancelling out the drive to promote that makes them redundant. This storyline is interesting for its effects on the character, not the concept.
It sounds like the stories focusing on the depowered characters will be more interesting than those on the team still out there fighting for the rights of half a 747's passenger capacity.

Ah, if only the Scarlet Witch could bring Skin back from the dead and we could have a Skin/Chamber road-trip comic.

The original X-Men comics which dealt with a handful of people combating this discrimination for a handful of people were cra-, um, less good than the ones that have dealt with the larger view of the issue, IMHO.

I have heard people complain about the core X-books since of being poor quality since the end of NXM, but those complaints have mostly been generated by poor plots and character design, rather than the evoloution of the world. Most people I have spoken to and read their views have been in favour of the school actually being a school, the X-Corps, Mutant Town, etc.

Much of the poor stories often held up as the recent nadir have been character pieces, not world-pieces. Nightcrawler's orgin, the Destiny diaries, regurgitative mind-control pervo leathergirl plots, Gambogue, Archangel and Husk's various plots etc. Chuck Austen has been voted worst X-writer ever.

Denyer's position is one I agree with and he has covered what I would say in much less space. This is one of the periodic status quo resets, not a complete acknowledgement that the last 3 years have blown and they shouldn't have done it. Things have just got too big for Marvel to deal with and so it's time to turn back the clock to repeat themes and cyles, and probably even particular events.

One thing worth considering is that the last time they predicted doom and gloom and a plague on the mutant houses was the reset after OZT, and that was one of the dampest squibs ever, as it was not possible to shake up the title so much and retain the traditional (marketable) X-Men set up. So perhaps this will not be as out-there as it has been talked up. The Marvel hype-machine has been outrageous recently ("the internet will crack in half111" etc)
In the All-New Brave post-House of M Decimated Mighty World of Marvel ™, ANYTHING is possible!

- thieved that last line from Millarworld.

[Denyer]

2 threads?

Default install of phpBB doesn't have threadmerge.

anyone been reading Paty Cockrum's column?

Only because Rich's column mentioned it. She seems less than... er, sane, judging by her forum posts. Possibly it's the thyroid talking, possibly it's just fangrrrl tendencies...

how often do straight-up frank references to current race/sexuality issues come up in Marvel comics?

A little more often than they used to, but Marvel still have their heads craned over their shoulders with real-world content. Persistent analogy is the most they've stuck with in their core titles, and now that's taken a hatchet.

I'm reminded of AoA, which kiboshed Gen X just as it was getting started.

[Best First]

AoA was smashing, but its impact on GX was tragic.

Bluntly tho i put that more doen to creators moving on and an idiot edior thikinking he could replace the creative team as he did than A0A.

Agree with Mob & Den on the rest. Jimmy Q sxtaretd off being quite ambitous but as time goes on he seems to be running in th eopposite direction.

X-Men is supposed to be about change.

[Denyer]

A quote from the mirror thread at TFA, which sums up a few more things quite succinctly, I feel...

f I really tried, I bet I could top a hundred-plus mutants who are either super-heroes or super-villains... the interesting stuff was always things like the Morlocks, or the mutant population of Genosha - who were there to serve a purpose in that the X-Men etc., as far as mutants go, are the beautiful people, and that not all mutations give you awesome superpowers. I mean, what are the X-Men fighting for if there are only 200 mutants in the world? It won't take long to keep them protected. ****, they could all fit in the institute no problem.

[sprunkner]

I wonder if Smooth is on to something. People have always been trying to put down mutants in the comics, make them "disappear" and the same goes for homosexuals, black people, various forms of immigrants, and some religious minorities in reality. Perhaps Marvel thought "What if we do a story where the bigots succeed?"

Of course, I tend to think the best version of this has already been written, as Joss Whedon's "The Cure" arc.

[Professor Smooth]

Of course, I tend to think the best version of this has already been written, as Joss Whedon's "The Cure" arc.

I was really looking forward to see what was going to happen with "The Cure." Apparently, it's no longer a big deal if there's less than 200 mutants running around.

[Jazz]

Have not been into comics since like the early 90's. now buddy of mine collects them and i occanly read them from time to time but iam never in the whole thing. but i have cought some of house of M.