OK, what the hell is up with the X-Men?!

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2004-10-14 06:14pm

I was at Century III Mall today, and I was wandering around, so I decided to go into the comic book store. I like to good to Phantom of the Attic for manga, and while this was an inferior comic book store to that, it was there.

So I figure that I'll see what the X-Men are up too, since I haven't collected or read their titles in ages. I go to the rack and *bam!*. My jaw dropped. There were like fifty different X-titles now! What the hell? This was one of the reasons I stopped collecting. Back then, there were eight regular X-series (Uncanny X-Men, X-Men, X-Factor, X-Force, Wolverine, Generation X, Excalibur, and X-Man). Occasionally you'd get a novelty series like Gambit, but that was it.

Now I'm looking at the rack and there are a bunch of new ones. There is even yet another New Generation of X-Men called New Men! That just made me twitch, because they've done that premise not once but twice now. First time around it was X-Force who was the "New Generation" of X-Men in training. Then it was Generation X, where they introduced a whole batch of new X-people who were X-Men in training. Now the New Men. And suprise, suprise they have yet another Guthrie. Plus, now they've got an Islamic girl in a burqa on the team, whose dialogue is basically explaining facets of Islamic culture to other teammates. Thanks Marvel, you are teaching us while we learn! Now enough revolving around their school life and have them kick a Sentinel over.

And look, there is a new gaggle of titles revolving around individual characters who were kind of cruddy before, but now Marvel has decided to give their own title! Look, a Jubilee series! There is a Sabretooth series! What do you know? "Emma Frost" is on her 16th issue! That one got me. Why would they bother making a series about the White Queen in her early years? I'm sure they remember that they already had established Emma Frost's history, where she was put in an insane asylum by her richie rich parent who made sure she was nice and drugged up so that she wouldn't embarrass them by the voices in her head that she kept hearing, until she busted out by telepathically controlling a guard to murder her way out, which was the first time she really used her powers. Of course, I suppose it was as good an excuse as any to have a comic book with a hot bouncy blonde running around in miniskirts dealing with her new mutant powers.

*sighs*

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2004-10-14 06:24pm

I'm sure they remember that they already had established Emma Frost's history, where she was put in an insane asylum by her richie rich parent who made sure she was nice and drugged up so that she wouldn't embarrass them by the voices in her head that she kept hearing, until she busted out by telepathically controlling a guard to murder her way out, which was the first time she really used her powers.

err, just to nitpick, that was jean grey's early years. they've established emma's as being from a rich dilettante family who left her relatives to 'make it on her own', and wound up joining the hellfire club.

and do they seriously have titles revolving around jubilee and sabretooth?

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2004-10-14 06:29pm

Darth_Zod wrote:err, just to nitpick, that was jean grey's early years. they've established emma's as being from a rich dilettante family who left her relatives to 'make it on her own', and wound up joining the hellfire club.

Nope, it was definately Emma Frost. I remember them doing the back story on here, where she was in the creepy asylum and she made the guard carry her out on his shoulder and club people with what appears to be a table leg.

and do they seriously have titles revolving around jubilee and sabretooth?

Swear to god.

Utsanomiko · Post by **Utsanomiko** » 2004-10-14 06:30pm

Darth_Zod wrote:
and do they seriously have titles revolving around jubilee and sabretooth?

I believe my borhter has #1 of Sabertooth, though I dan't know if there was only ever one comic line for his story.

Just wait till they release New Man, Toad, Man Men, and X- X.

Majin Gojira · Post by **Majin Gojira** » 2004-10-14 07:37pm

Thank god I'm only reading Astonishing...I think my head would implode trying to keep up with ALL the X-Titles...

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2004-10-14 08:38pm

I suggested to marvel the idea of Mutant FBI/DEA guy who was fired, and left to rot in a 3rd world country after using his abilities to save the rest of his friends, and thus violating the Government's policy about closet mutants. The Title I suggested was X-patriot.

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2004-10-14 08:40pm

needless to say, while a great idea if marvel ever really did do something like vertigo, (I did suggest it for edge), it's not gonna happen...

Post by **Ghost Rider** » 2004-10-14 08:53pm

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

That's all I'll say on the matter. I left X-stuff more then a decade ago...I keep up with other people who read it, and honestly it's just as nutty or worse then I left.

Still crap as well(looky dead russian was never deda...him am clone...oh look Mags back for 4-5th time!!!...etc)

Vendetta · Post by **Vendetta** » 2004-10-14 08:58pm

The Yosemite Bear wrote:needless to say, while a great idea if marvel ever really did do something like vertigo, (I did suggest it for edge), it's not gonna happen...

Marvel Max, it's called.

And no, it's not Vertigo (By which I mean it's not Transmet, Preacher, The Invisibles, or etc), it's the same old Marvel shite that the OP complains about, but with swearing and fucking.

Pointless, really.

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2004-10-14 09:14pm

Vendetta wrote:
The Yosemite Bear wrote:needless to say, while a great idea if marvel ever really did do something like vertigo, (I did suggest it for edge), it's not gonna happen...
Marvel Max, it's called.

And no, it's not Vertigo (By which I mean it's not Transmet, Preacher, The Invisibles, or etc), it's the same old Marvel shite that the OP complains about, but with swearing and fucking.

Pointless, really.

Alias was a cool read, but I found out that they canceled it. Of course.

Mark S · Post by **Mark S** » 2004-10-14 09:21pm

You missed New Mutants as one of those titles.

Man. Now I remember why I stopped comics cold turkey after the X-Men and X-Factor merged into two teams of X-Men.

NeoGoomba · Post by **NeoGoomba** » 2004-10-14 09:26pm

Hey, Ennis's Preacher is still good.

But other than that....comics do suck nowadays for the most part.

*prays Gaiman writes more Sandman*

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2004-10-14 11:35pm

I left mainstream comics 15 years ago and haven't looked back since, barring the odd glance just to see how crappy the genre's gotten. Every title character is involved in a two-year long soap opera arc almost, sometimes branching into three or four different books simultaneously and all aimed cynically at artifically maintaining the market by compelling comic buyers to get every issue to avoid possibly missing a vital chapter. You can't just pick up a comic book and get a basic story anymore; it's always in the middle of some goddamned plot-arc and frankly there are very few books worthy of that sort of loyalty over the long-term; Cerberus being one of the few I can think of. What's going on with X-Men these days sounds like more of the Same Crap. I thought it was bad when Chris Claremont was essentially recycling the same story every year or so.

Sounds like I've got no reason to check out mainstream comics again.

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2004-10-15 12:08am

Patrick Degan wrote:I thought it was bad when Chris Claremont was essentially recycling the same story every year or so.

Funny you should mention that guy, because from what I can tell he's taken over writing for at least one X-men book.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2004-10-15 11:34am

NeoGoomba wrote:Hey, Ennis's Preacher is still good.

But other than that....comics do suck nowadays for the most part.

*prays Gaiman writes more Sandman*

don't hold your breath. last sandman book that came out was Endless Nights, though considering how gaiman ended the final sandman book, i doubt we'll be seeing anymore books in the future. although Dream's made several cameos in various DC titles beyond the main Sandman books, which is kinda neat.

Post by **Kuja** » 2004-10-15 12:13pm

Welcome to the comics industry.

NeoGoomba · Post by **NeoGoomba** » 2004-10-15 01:07pm

Darth_Zod wrote:
don't hold your breath. last sandman book that came out was Endless Nights, though considering how gaiman ended the final sandman book, i doubt we'll be seeing anymore books in the future. although Dream's made several cameos in various DC titles beyond the main Sandman books, which is kinda neat.

In the intro to Endless Nights he left the impression that he had more stories to tell about Dream and the Endless, it was just him having the motivation to tell them.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2004-10-15 01:11pm

NeoGoomba wrote:
Darth_Zod wrote:
don't hold your breath. last sandman book that came out was Endless Nights, though considering how gaiman ended the final sandman book, i doubt we'll be seeing anymore books in the future. although Dream's made several cameos in various DC titles beyond the main Sandman books, which is kinda neat.
In the intro to Endless Nights he left the impression that he had more stories to tell about Dream and the Endless, it was just him having the motivation to tell them.

possibly. gotta admit it would be nice to see more stuff involving the new Dream and how he relates to stuff after the big change.

Terminator · Post by **Terminator** » 2004-10-17 12:40am

i read the x-books for morrisons run, but before hadn't read it since like middle school, after morrison left so did i, most comic books are crap you see. They're Convoluted messes that destroy whatever semblance of coherence and logic any single writer may bring to them with every new writer. The whole way comics are done destroys attempts at creativity, if you want to read some find out the name off some good writer and track thier shit down.

Lonestar · Post by **Lonestar** » 2004-10-17 11:46am

I lved the "e is for Extinction" storyline. But seriously, I guess the editors over there just couldn't bring themselves to rein Morrison in. And Now Clarmont is getting worse and worse.

Austen has his bad moments and his good moments, but mostly it's "meh."

Only Whedon is really singing to me.

Terminator · Post by **Terminator** » 2004-10-17 04:16pm

i was reading the other peoples x-books during morrisons run (which did lose it towards the end, seemed rushed, either that or morrison is bad at concluding) but once it was over i couldn' make my self care any more.
planetary and invincible and powers are the only titles i check out with any frequency.

jimthegray · Post by **jimthegray** » 2004-11-24 03:13pm

with marvel I only read the ultimate titles now.

Post by **Ghost Rider** » 2004-11-24 03:24pm

Nice to see newbies with the brain of a peanut.

Read the annoucements