Stuart Moore's A Thousand Flowers: The X-Men Column [Archive]

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MattBrady

08-12-2003, 07:44 AM

<center><a href="http://www.newsarama.com/Thousand_Flowers_index.htm"><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/flowers/flowers_banner.jpg" width="475" height="75" border="0"></a></center>

<center>A THOUSAND FLOWERS</center><center>Comics, Pop Culture, and the World Outside</center><center>Installment 24</center><center>by Stuart Moore</center>

X-MEN: Worlds Enough, and Time

Siddown, Cletus, an’ lemme tell y’bout the ‘70s. First thing you gotta know is, that Watergate thing: It weren’t right. Second thing is this: If you was readin’ comics in 1975, the big surprise was the gol-dang, ass-kickin’, all-new all-different X-Men.

(Let’s drop that accent right now -- I’m sick of it already.)

<img src="http://www.newsarama.com/flowers/xmen97.jpg" width="200" height="303" border="0" hspace="2" align="right">I missed the new X-Men’s debut. I was a teenager, and like most kids, I drifted in and out of reading comics. I pretty much skipped 1975-76, and I’d never been much of a Marvel reader anyway -- the main thing I remember from that period was being disgusted when DC dropped their main features down to 18 pages, and discontinued the 100-Page Super-Spectaculars. Comics just seemed…over, for me. (Management at the two major companies pretty much agreed -- they didn’t see much future for the medium, either.)

But the All-New X-Men -- kicked off by Len Wein and Dave Cockrum, and carried down the field to a touchdown by Chris Claremont -- was the talk of the industry. The X-Men were perpetual also-rans; even Neal Adams hadn’t been able to turn them into viable characters. But with nothing to lose, the new creative team threw out half the old characters and introduced a new, international cast that gelled immediately, becoming an instant fan-favorite. The rest is oft-repeated comics history.

X-Men started out with a manageable-sized core cast, but from the beginning there were complex conspiracies, dangling plot threads, and lots and lots of supporting characters. At the end of the new X-Men’s first adventure, in 1975, Angel asks, “What are we going to do with thirteen X-Men?” By the early ‘90s, thirteen would have seemed like a skeleton crew. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Chris Claremont pumped the series full of mysteries and character conflicts, some of which hung, unresolved, for years -- especially since the book was bi-monthly at the start. Once John Byrne came on board, he contributed more of his own characters to the stew, most notably the Canadian super-team Alpha Flight.

In those days, X-Men was unique because the artwork was fresh and, more importantly, it was an extension and reinvigoration of the Stan Lee soap-opera comics formula. Claremont built on Stan’s serial-comics template, weaving a huge number of threads through the book’s uber-story. Many of them were family-oriented: Cyclops’ brother Havok had mysteriously turned against him, Banshee’s cousin Black Tom teamed up with Xavier’s stepbrother The Juggernaut against the team, Moira MacTaggart shared a mysterious romantic past with Xavier.

The early Claremont X-Men never alienated its audience because, while you might be wondering what the hell was going on with Phoenix, there were eight other immediate plot threads moving forward to keep your interest. Once the series went monthly, you’d have expected the dangling threads to be resolved more quickly -- but the opposite happened. Xavier, Phoenix, and the Beast spent the better part of a year believing the others were dead, and vice-versa. The mystery of Cyclops’s father, Corsair of the StarJammers, stretched on even longer.

And the book grew even more popular. Its audience loved the spaghetti-strand plots, the personal stories that exploded into galactic-war epics, the hyper-Marvel-style of soap opera piled upon soap opera stacked on top of giant robots, surreal mind-wars, and globe-traveling adventure.

Then came the ‘80s. The X-Men itself went through a few rocky periods, but always climbed out of them. (Chris’s writing has always seemed more inspired when he’s teamed with strong artists.) The book’s popularity led to spin-offs, some written by Claremont, some not. As Marvel changed ownership a few times, X-Men became not just a creative phenomenon but a tangible, commercial one, vital to the company’s bottom line.

In 1991, Chris left X-Men, and artist/co-plotter Jim Lee himself left for his own Wildstorm/Image within a year. Marvel was deep into its Ronald Perelman desperate-expansion period by then, and the X-Men spin-offs had multiplied: X-Force, X-Factor, Wolverine, Cable, a second regular book, and many single-character miniseries. The characters numbered in the dozens, with new ones introduced all the time. Even to those of us in the industry, the books seemed harder to understand. The plot threads had multiplied to an insane degree, and a lot of core storytelling values seemed to be missing.

But the books stayed popular. Why? Three main reasons.

The first is simply the rise of the Image artists. Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, Marc Silvestri, Whilce Portacio, Todd MacFarlane, Jim Valentino, and Erik Larsen created a true aesthetic that caught the imagination of a generation, for a while at least. Comics were seen, briefly, as art objects, no different from trading cards, collectible busts, or wall posters. And X-Men was right at the heart of it.

Another reason, always overlooked, was the X-Men animated series, which debuted in 1992. This show retold many of the core X-Men stories, simplifying and rearranging them but keeping most of the basics consistent with the comics -- which made it a perfect primer for the comics themselves. I know a woman who’s never read a comic book, but who can describe the entire Dark Phoenix saga for you. For myself, after watching several episodes of the TV series, I almost understood who Cable was. (I’ve completely forgotten now.)

(Digression: The X-Men cartoon, following as it did on the success of Batman: The Animated Series animated series, transplanted the strengths and weaknesses of the two companies at the time directly onto the TV screen. Batman was stylish, carefully thought-out and beautifully rendered, with a gleeful use of celebrity voices and a dark vision of Gotham City, perfect in the details. By comparison, X-Men looked slapdash, the animation jerky, with half-drawn backgrounds and often clunky voices. But the show was honest, and there’s just something about those Marvel characters and stories; the final product was compelling as hell, flaws and all.)

And the third reason X-Men, the comic, remained popular: Its audience had invested a lot in getting to know these characters, and loved the whole experience of a soap-opera epic more intricate, more complex, more long-running than any in comics history.

Let’s examine this reason for a moment. It flies in the face of all conventional wisdom about bringing in readers, particularly the first rule: Make The Stories Accessible. X-Men wasn’t accessible. It was complicated. In fact, it was pretty difficult. Even if you could follow the plot, you were bound to miss some of the details, the backstory.

But -- and again, this had always been part of the appeal of Marvel in general -- that was part of the fun. Maybe you didn’t know who Bishop was, but there’d be a handbook or a miniseries coming along to tell you. Or you could seek out back issues, part of the fun of “serious” comics reading in the pre-trade-paperback era.

I’ve written before about the tendency for companies to jump on whatever’s perceived as the current hot fad -- regardless of whether it’s actually duplicable or not. By the early ‘90s, X-Men was a phenomenon unparalleled in modern comics. In 1992, the first full year of its existence, the second regular X-Men title sold an average of 967,808 copies a month. That’s a hair short of a million copies -- on average. The venerable Uncanny, by contrast, averaged a paltry 731,425 copies a month.

Those numbers were highly inflated by the speculation boom, of course, and were already on a sharp decline by year’s end. The defection of the Image artists also hurt X-Men’s numbers, though not as severely as many industry insiders had predicted.

But that’s a lot of comics -- and a lot of money. And, as usual, a lot of people tried to jump in on the action. Some companies, including Image and a surprising number of small presses, launched superhero team-books, many with a dizzying array of colorful characters, lacking in the personality or history of the X-Men. Champions, Ex-Mutants, Hero Alliance, Lunatic Fringe, Justice Machine…the list goes on, not even counting the Image books (Youngblood, WildC.A.T.S, Cyberforce, etc.). Once Image split from Malibu, the latter company launched the much-hyped Ultraverse line, which featured its own team books: The Strangers, Exiles, Freex, and later Ultraforce.

DC dipped its toes into the water, reviving Doom Patrol and launching a few short-lived team-books like New Guardians and Checkmate. Marvel tried to duplicate its own success with a rash of new titles, all of which escape my memory except Force Works -- a relaunch of West Coast Avengers that proved, once and for all, that putting two random tough-sounding words together doesn’t automatically make a comic book.

<img src="http://www.newsarama.com/flowers/doomforce.jpg" width="200" height="303" border="0" hspace="2" align="right"> (A few years before Force Works, Tom Peyer and I -- both DC editors at the time -- concocted the title Doom Force over a long lunch. Tom threw the title to Grant Morrison, who was just winding up his Doom Patrol run, and Grant ran with it for an inspired, hard-to-find 1992 one-shot -- one of the few real parodies of the Image style that appeared at the time. The Giffen/Mignola cover alone was worth the price. I remember Archie Goodwin looking at Doom Force with kind of a weird, pained smile and saying, “You know…the really strange thing about this is that we probably should have a few more books that look like it.”)

All the X-Men imitations -- with the exception of Doom Patrol, which evolved into something unique -- died out fairly quickly. Some of them were too old-fashioned, out of step, or just plain bad. But most of them made the same key mistake: They believed that, because readers enjoyed the complexity and difficulty of X-Men, they’d jump for that quality in a variety of new titles.

But it just didn’t work that way. It’s the same principle at work with strategy and collectible card games: Players invest a lot of time learning the rules, conventions, and complexities of a single game. They don’t want to turn around and do that again, once a month. They want to keep playing the same game -- or be eased gradually into a new, spin-off game.

Or, to put it another way: X-Men was a whole world, one that required constant attention (and money), and rewarded fans with the community of a network of like-minded fellow readers. But fans’ time, money, and attention are limited. They’ll only follow so many worlds at a time. X-Men was a great comic and a gold mine for Marvel, but a bad template to follow for Big Comic$ $ucce$$.

We’ll continue this next time with a look at another great ‘80s comic, and another bad template…for creators, this time.

**

An addendum: Anyone interested in the history of the newsstand vs. direct markets, as chronicled in several past columns here, should check out Steven Grant’s amazingly concise summary of events in the ‘70s in his current Permanent Damage column: http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/?column=10 . He pulls a lot of threads together; must-reading for those who think we’ve got to “get back to the newsstand.” (What newsstand?)

**

Stuart Moore has been a writer, a comics editor for Vertigo and Marvel Knights, a kitchen worker, a book editor, and the nighttime manager of the Lawrenceville, NJ Woolworth's curtain department. He has won the Will Eisner award for Best Editor 1996 and the Don Thompson Award for Favorite Editor 1999.

My current comics work: JUSTICE LEAGUE ADVENTURES #22, in comics shops now, features a nice stand-alone story spotlighting Green Lantern and Hawkgirl; details and a great cover image here (http://www.dccomics.com/comics/dc_display.html?cm_dc_itemCode=jladv22&month=August). Next up is LONE, a new future-western series from Dark Horse/Rocket Comics in September, drawn by Jerome Opena, this year’s Russ Manning Award-winner for best newcomer. It’s likewise previewed here (http://www.rocketcomics.net/profile.html?SKU=12196).

More details on these and other new projects, including GIANT ROBOT WARRIORS, VAMPIRELLA, and PARA, here (http://www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com/news/105884489322456.htm) and here (http://www.popimage.com/content/viewnews.cgi?newsid1058854264,10752,) .

And check out Ryan Kelly’s great double-page International Robot spread from GIANT ROBOT WARRIORS here (http://newsarama.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4639). Don’t you just love the Canadian robot with the hockey stick?

**

spider985

08-12-2003, 08:48 AM

Hey Stuart, I agree with everything that you have said, but you left one big ommission as to why X-men were so damn popluar, and that was the real world anology of the world; Martin Luthor King versus Malcolm X. The legacy virus being a reflection of the aids (pre) epidemic that people wrongly belived that could only effect the homosexual community a la mutants. For everything else that was and is great about the mighty x, what I have always loved has been the real world comparisons that the book used to be so full of, and a part of me wishes they still were.

gOgIver

08-12-2003, 09:03 AM

Stuart Moore said:

But fans’ time, money, and attention are limited. They’ll only follow so many worlds at a time.

By Job! I think he's got it. :)

Stuart Moore

08-12-2003, 10:13 AM

Spider: I agree -- I just didn't cover that because it's SUCH well-travelled territory. Probably should have mentioned it in a sentence or two, though.

Best,
Stuart

Duke Jupiter

08-12-2003, 10:16 AM

The reason why The All-New, All-Different X-MEN was a success back in the day is because there was one book and one creative team telling a good story with characters people cared about getting to know.

Too many writers and too many books make the story impossible to decipher over the years, so they bring in lowest-common denominator writers to dumb it all down and throw continuity out the window.

We'd be better off if Marvel threw everything out and started from scratch with one title and one creative team, period. Fat chance of THAT happening...;)

Stuart Moore

08-12-2003, 10:26 AM

To follow up on this a little more: I'd argue that Grant Morrison's NEW X-MEN is absolutely full of real-world resonance. He's just taken the metaphor to a different level, treating the mutants as new-generation humans rather than oppressed minorities.

Duke: That's an (arguable) artistic judgment, but it doesn't explain why the series became popular -- because it still is. Relative to the comics market, it's still the perennial top seller, and it's probably better known to the general public now than it was twenty-five years ago, even though there isn't one creative team on it anymore. I also prefer books with stable creative teams at the top of their game -- but there's more to the X-MEN's appeal than that.

Best,
Stuart

slug N lettuce

08-12-2003, 10:55 AM

I stopped reading comics in the early ninties for about 3 years. I did see the rise of the X-Men multicover number 1 phenomenon, but the lure of booze, women and music proved more exciting. I did not even know that they tried to reboot the West Coast Avengers. So many people I talk to loved the first run of the West Coast Avengers (with covers that had Master Pandimonium with two screaming babies as arms how could you not at least pick it up and read an issue) I also saw through hazy eyes all the X-Men rip-offs. I remember seeing Ex-Mutants and wondering who the hell they were kidding. It made me think of the moving industry and how there are so many scam companies that have names that sound like a major chain mover but will take your belongings and hold them for ransom. I doubt anyone is getting there money back on the Ex-Mutants. OF course it could have been decent. I am serously judging a book by its cover (and a very quick flip through). Apparently the industry did not learn from its mistakes because I still see companies trying to copy anything that made money the first go around.
(oh and about the booze i have been drink and drug free for over five years, now its wife, Comics, and music, sex comics and rock and roll!!!

J.C. Bakken

08-12-2003, 11:03 AM

Originally posted by MattBrady
<img src="http://www.newsarama.com/flowers/doomforce.jpg" width="200" height="303" border="0" hspace="2" align="right"> (A few years before Force Works, Tom Peyer and I -- both DC editors at the time -- concocted the title Doom Force over a long lunch. Tom threw the title to Grant Morrison, who was just winding up his Doom Patrol run, and Grant ran with it for an inspired, hard-to-find 1992 one-shot -- one of the few real parodies of the Image style that appeared at the time. The Giffen/Mignola cover alone was worth the price. I remember Archie Goodwin looking at Doom Force with kind of a weird, pained smile and saying, “You know…the really strange thing about this is that we probably should have a few more books that look like it.”)

HAHA! As a kid, I found that comic, and owned it for a week or so, I must hvae been between 10-13 or something. I found it at a used-books store. I had totally forgottan about it. :D :D :D

Anybody know how mucit's worth these days?

spider985

08-12-2003, 11:32 AM

To follow up on this a little more: I'd argue that Grant Morrison's NEW X-MEN is absolutely full of real-world resonance. He's just taken the metaphor to a different level, treating the mutants as new-generation humans rather than oppressed minorities.

It's funny that you mention that I was about to say that its has not been done for a while, but then I realised what Grant Morrison did with opening up the school and creating"freaky" looking mutants has taken the Claremont model onto the next logical evoluation.

Tue Sorensen

08-12-2003, 12:19 PM

Cool column! A few comments:

>The X-Men were perpetual also-rans; even Neal Adams
> hadn’t been able to turn them into viable characters.

Actually, I think he had. It’s just that not enough people noticed. Those were definitely and by far the best stretch of pre-Claremont issues, and I think they still hold up magnificently.

>the hyper-Marvel-style of soap opera piled upon soap opera

No offense or anything, but I actually find it condescending (not by you, but in general) to call good comics soap opera. I’m all for not taking superheroes too seriously, but, as opposed to a lot of other superhero comics, these *were* seriously good stories (and Claremont is a very serious writer, most of the time). The motivation and rationale for creating such stories have far more to do with creator passion than some assembly line production of fluff that is only supposed to benefit sponsors and advertisers.

Also, to me the term “soap opera” covers largely mundane things, not the fantastic genre.

> Another reason, always overlooked, was the X-Men
> animated series, which debuted in 1992.

So you’re claiming that the TV show’s popularity translated into actual comics sales? Isn’t this what people usually say *isn’t* the case (at least not to a significant degree)? Do you have any evidence? You yourself said that the woman who could summarize the Dark Phoenix saga never actually read a comic book!

> there’s just something about those Marvel characters and stories;
> the final product was compelling as hell, flaws and all

Yeah, the Marvel characters have always seemed more real, less cardboard to me. There is some sense of vitality and even radicality to them that makes them more meaningful than most other characters in comics. I think’s it’s all to do with Stan Lee’s guiding touch of passion, engagement and connection to the real world, and of course the fact that it was all grounded thoroughly in the ‘60s.

>X-Men wasn’t accessible. It was complicated. In fact, it was pretty difficult.

Thus attracting intelligent audiences... :-) Another thing that I always loved about many Marvel comics. Of course, that’s all pretty much over now. Man, I miss the ‘70s!

> that was part of the fun. Maybe you didn’t know who Bishop was, but
> there’d be a handbook or a miniseries coming along to tell you. Or you
> could seek out back issues, part of the fun of “serious” comics reading
> in the pre-trade-paperback era.

Seeing as many many backissues are not (yet?) collected in TPBs, I would have to insist that seeking out backissues is very much still part of the fun of “serious” comics reading. In the last half-dozen years I’ve generally bought more backissues than new comics, and I fully expect this to continue. About half my entire collection - maybe more - were acquired as backissues.

> In 1992, the first full year of its existence, the second regular X-Men
> title sold an average of 967,808 copies a month.

Not counting the first three issues (coverdated Oct.-Dec. ‘91)? If so, that *is* amazing.

Kudos on Doom Force, by the way. I found it in a backissue bin two or three years after it came out, and was royally entertained! You’re right about the cover - it’s ROTFL-kind of ugly!

>They believed that, because readers enjoyed the complexity and difficulty
> of X-Men, they’d jump for that quality in a variety of new titles.
> ...
> Or, to put it another way: X-Men was a whole world, one that required
> constant attention (and money), and rewarded fans with the community
> of a network of like-minded fellow readers. But fans’ time, money, and
> attention are limited. They’ll only follow so many worlds at a time.

Well, none of the imitations could really measure up. If fans find good things, they’ll follow it. If not, they’ll say “this sucks” and leave it. So it’s not really a question of an attention deficit, nor do I think it’s a question of money. Back in the early ‘90s comics were still pretty cheap. The decisive factor was that almost all the imitations were just plain *bad*, or, at least, uncharismatic.

Again, Stuart, very nice column!

Tue Sorensen

08-12-2003, 12:26 PM

Originally posted by J.C. Bakken
Anybody know how much it's worth these days?[/B]
Not a heck of a lot. Milehigh sets it at $6 in NM, although it's not in stock. And Milehigh are usually quite pricey, since their pricing partly covers the maintenance of their site (scans, etc.).

I have seen Doom Force in backissue bins recently. Over here in Denmark, at least, "hard-to-find" can mean two things: that a lot of people want it, or that nobody wants it (meaning that shops don't bother stocking it). But it can still show up in the cheap bins. If you're in Scandinavia and looking for a copy, I can probably find one for you and mail it to you. Email me at sorensonian@hotmail.com. :-)

mpg

08-12-2003, 01:17 PM

Originally posted by J.C. Bakken
HAHA! As a kid, I found that comic, and owned it for a week or so, I must hvae been between 10-13 or something. I found it at a used-books store. I had totally forgottan about it. :D :D :D

Anybody know how mucit's worth these days?

prob not much...but with a character named "Shasta..the Living Mountain....it is worth much more in laughter...

my fave part...is Shasta watching the team in battle..he ponders "Everybody hates me because all i can do is turn into a mountain"

me and my buddies at the shop referenced that book on a daily basis!! ... i think 25 copies of that book sold....whihc was huge for a small run dc book

Gregg Cummings

08-12-2003, 01:28 PM

Originally posted by Tue Sorensen

> Another reason, always overlooked, was the X-Men
> animated series, which debuted in 1992.

So you’re claiming that the TV show’s popularity translated into actual comics sales? Isn’t this what people usually say *isn’t* the case (at least not to a significant degree)? Do you have any evidence? You yourself said that the woman who could summarize the Dark Phoenix saga never actually read a comic book!

I would never have started reading comic books had it not been for the X-Men cartoon. I was never interested in Superman or Batman as a kid and pretty much thought that they were all that comics had to offer. Than I saw the X-Men cartoon, I loved it. About a month later I saw X-Men #1 in Walmart, picked it up and started reading comics. Stopped for a little while after comics were taken out of grocery stores and the like.

kcekada

08-12-2003, 01:51 PM

I was lucky enought to discover The All-New, All-Different Uncanny X-Men with issue 100--and quickly bought the back issues (excluding issue 94).

The 70s (and late 60s) stories are still the best.

The article neglected to mention the most popular copy of the X-Men--DC's revamped New Teen Titans. At hits height, it surpassed X-Men in quality (during the post Byrne era), if not in sales. But when Perez left, the fat lady was singing for that title.

Jim Lee helped ressurect X-Men--bringing back some of the panache and energy of prior legends (Adams, Cockrum, Byrne) that the interim artists lacked.

I still pick up an occasional X-Men comic. Some are quite good--but Marvel's mutant population just got too unwieldy.

mpg

08-12-2003, 01:55 PM

my first xmen comic was the Havok cover by Jim lee..."Havok..why did you kill storm??"

i was hooked....done by claremont and silvestri...

it was given to me at a baseball practice by a teammate's father

he also gave me the issue where john walker went nuts on the resistants in cap america....i was shocked! to this day.....john walker still has some relevance to me!! haha..i am the only one!

American Caesar

08-12-2003, 02:13 PM

I always thought the "oppressed minority/gay analogue" angle of the X-Men was always secondary to its success. The X-Men's best stories seemed to me to have nothing to do with that tack, i.e. Asgardian Wars, Dark Phoenix. I cannot recall one conversation where me and my friends discussed the X-Men as persecuted outsiders in their Marvel Universe (where mutants seemed to outnumber humans, anyhow). It was the claws, the bamf, the steel skin and the eyelasers that hooked us.

I-Ching

08-12-2003, 02:18 PM

Add me to the list of comic book readers that started because of the X-Men cartoon.

I remeber seeing the X-Men in brief appearances on Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends and thinking they were the absolute coolest heroes.

Batman and Superman were fun when I was a very young kid but they weren't as unlimited in potential as X-Men.

Jim Lee's artwork is what really drew me into truly appreciating comic books as an artform and even though I'm not the most vocal supported of the franchise these days it'll always be a special thing to me.

Heck, I'm still waiting to get a nephew or son to pass them down to.

Freedom Fighter

08-12-2003, 02:22 PM

Isn't part of what the made the New X-Men so popular was the perceived speculator value of the comic books?

In 1975 no one knew that Giant Size X-Men #1 would be a hot back issue. And in the late 70s when there were no trade paperback, back issues were the only way to get to read those hard to find stories. By the time it was selling for $600 folks began snapping up everything with an "X" in the title.

so I agree with Stuart Moore's X-cellent (ugh--I had to do it) column, I just think there was more to the X popularity. (greed)

mpg

08-12-2003, 02:23 PM

superman and batman seemed so grand yet distant ..

Marvel really struck a chord with the everyman...(stan and jack's intention)

the X-Men....while essential underground....seemed to have to deal with things that were a bit more analigous to our everyday lives....they didnt all get along..they had differing theories on how to go about things...they struck that "i dont fit in either" chord...and they are always holding back from going off on humanity.....i know we all wish we coudl jsut go off on people sometimes....imagine if you could blast a building with your eyes, though!

cactusmaac

08-12-2003, 03:28 PM

Originally posted by mpg

he also gave me the issue where john walker went nuts on the resistants in cap america....i was shocked! to this day.....john walker still has some relevance to me!! haha..i am the only one!

I had that issue too.

I remember thinking, "This Captain America guy sure doesn't take prisoners."

mpg

08-12-2003, 03:45 PM

Originally posted by cactusmaac
I had that issue too.

I remember thinking, "This Captain America guy sure doesn't take prisoners."

i remember almost not beleivng what i was seeing....i had to have more! i had to see what got this nut to that point..how his folks died...etc...gruenwald got so much crap for that storyline....but he really pushed the envelope....i really miss that man!

it really had me thinkin.."what else is possible??" i starting getting the ff..xmen and spidey....then..i starting working at the comic shop...re-organizing the back issues....going thru bulk...working for books....i loved it!

then..excalibur came out....wow....alan davis's pencils were liek nothing i had ever seen...what a quirky book that was....i would have to re-read it.....what the heck happened?? who are these guys...??.

Michael C Lorah

08-12-2003, 04:43 PM

I am yet another reader who started on X-Men comics because of the Fox cartoon.

My interest in comics as a whole is largely due to watching Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends and Transformers as a kid, although I never read more than four or five TF comics (it at least made me aware of the format) and didn't start reading Spider-Man (or really any comics) regularly until almost a decade later.

I think media exposure does generate interest in comics, but i think it is much less likely to create interest among adults and later teens, as their interests and hobbies are fairly well established by that point.

As for the popularity of X-Men, well, let's just say that the comics never really hooked me, despite a couple attempts at reading current issues (lobdell/nicieze, alan davis, morrison) and some back issue digging (claremont, lee), so I don't have many insights into the phenomenon myself.

The history kept me intrigued for a couple years when i first got into comics, but I never found a connection to any of the characters really. I figured it was a bad sign when I actually preferred seeing the X-Men getting beat up in their own comic.

cncoyle

08-12-2003, 04:52 PM

To make a bluntly generally-sweeping statement, this is how I feel about DC & Marvel characters:

DC's characters relate to who we want to be and Marvel's characters relate to what we are. Now, I'm referring to the core value of the characters, not the modified modern versions.

ALL of Marvel's characters had very human flaws, from family bickering to jealousy to confusion about the right/responsible thing to do. DC's characters (up to the '60's) have always known exactly what to do and haven't suffered any consequences for it.

I guess it boils down to the period in which they were born. Superman, Batman & Wonder Woman were born of the Depression and World War II, in which America was needing idealized heroes that never erred. Spidey, the FF, the Hulk, and the X-Men were '60's characters, born of the Red scare, mushroom-cloud fearing society on the brink of turmoil.

mpg

08-12-2003, 05:00 PM

goood points..bravo....excellent connection made

the only guy at marvel who stands away from this is iron man..in my humble opinion....(other than the bob layton/dave michelline runs)

OcCaM

08-12-2003, 05:13 PM

Ummm minor point really....

But, is there more than one Champions? I remember the Marvel title from the 70's or was it early 80's? Certainly not a 90's spoin-off.

Never knew about the Doom Force one-shot. Bummer!

My first X-title was Uncanny #116. Loved seeing the red-hot Colossos on the cover. Was hooked every sicne. (Until Casey drove me off screaming form #400, and seeing a worst hack on it Austen doesn't help!)

Still, good memories! :)

Philip A Moore

08-12-2003, 05:35 PM

(A few years before Force Works, Tom Peyer and I -- both DC editors at the time -- concocted the title Doom Force over a long lunch. Tom threw the title to Grant Morrison, who was just winding up his Doom Patrol run, and Grant ran with it for an inspired, hard-to-find 1992 one-shot -- one of the few real parodies of the Image style that appeared at the time. The Giffen/Mignola cover alone was worth the price. I remember Archie Goodwin looking at Doom Force with kind of a weird, pained smile and saying, “You know…the really strange thing about this is that we probably should have a few more books that look like it.”)

great comic unforchanently there were alot like more like it with in 2 years can any one remember the Amalagram Imprint By Marvel an DC .:D

wraith

08-12-2003, 05:36 PM

This was a great column. Here are my thoughts on some of the things that were brought up in Stuart's column.

1. Roy Thomas and Neal Adams actualy did manageto increase sales on the x-men. The thing is, that by the time marvel had received the final sales figures for the book (many months later),the book had already been canceled.

2. The all new, all different x-men (according to Byrne) did not become a big success (in terms of sales) until shortly before he had left the title. If I recall corectly, Byrne said that the x-men was selling around 100,000 copies a month towards the end of te phoenix saga.

3. Stuart is ABSOLUTELY CORRECT that the x-men cartoon was responsible for bringing in many new raders to the x-men comics (most of them KIDS).

4. Another reason why the x-men comic was so popular troughout the 80's and 90's was that the book was both suitable for and appealing to kids/all ages.

5. The x-men's status (within the marvel universe) as being a group of outlaw super heroes (like spider-man),who rarely got the credit (or acceptance) from the public,the government,and law enforcement agencies was also another reason why they were so popular. Hell, I'll even go so far as to say that the x-men's "outlaw status" had more to do wit their popularity among comic fans, then the whole "I'm an oppressed minority" angle.

6. Like another poster has already said, the new teen titans was the only team book that successfuly managed to duplicate the all new, all different x-men success. NTT was doing extremely well up until DC decided to make the book more "mature" by dropping the code and switching to the baxter format.

Dave Accampo

08-12-2003, 05:37 PM

No offense or anything, but I actually find it condescending (not by you, but in general) to call good comics soap opera. I’m all for not taking superheroes too seriously, but, as opposed to a lot of other superhero comics, these *were* seriously good stories (and Claremont is a very serious writer, most of the time). The motivation and rationale for creating such stories have far more to do with creator passion than some assembly line production of fluff that is only supposed to benefit sponsors and advertisers.

See, now I don't think Stuart was trying to belittle the quality of the comics at all. He qualified the term "soap opera" by describing long running serials with plot threads that overlap and intertwine. Claremont's run on the X-men was structured VERY SIMILARLY to many of the daytime soaps. I don't see anything wrong with this. It's just another way to tell stories. In fact, reading Stuart's column, I was struck by how much I actually missed that style. Some of my favorite memories of the 80's X-men was the fact that there was NO status quo. You had no idea when or if Storm would get her powers back, no idea if they would ever live in the X-mansion again. Around that same time, I must admit, I became hooked on "Days of our Lives" for that very same reason (and yes, I was a heterosexual high school boy, thanks). Crazy plots with evil twins, government agents, stolen babies, nefarious villains scheming to renew the passion of jilted lovers. Not too different than X-men. And the appeal was the same; you had to keep watching/reading to see what was going to happen next. Even if they did end one plot, there were 32 other plots still running.

I've long since shaken off the daytime soap opera jones, but I definitely see the appeal of that type of storytelling. In fact, I'd love to see someone take that storytelling approach again, maybe with the modern literary techniques that have evolved from the medium...a smart, long-term serial packed with action and drama would be really great to see. The closest equivalent of what I'm imagining is Joe Casey's run on the 2nd volume of Wildcasts. An open-ended serial storyline that just seemed to wander around with the characters...I never knew exactly where it was going, and that made it especially intriguing to me.

And, you know...the soaps I've seen or talked to people about are VERY much given to the fantastic. Possibly a little too much so. Secret agents, evil twins, alien abductions, demonic possession...I dunno...didn't seem too mundane too me...

Stuart Moore

08-12-2003, 06:10 PM

Exactly right about the soap opera business...I meant nothing derogatory by the term. Though there were precursors, Stan Lee and his early Marvel collaborators are rightly credited with bringing extended interpersonal subplots to superhero comics on a regular basis.

And good point about the TITANS...that was a success (and a really fun comic), though it never gained a life of its own, like the X-MEN.

Best,
Stuart

little kon-el

08-12-2003, 06:19 PM

Originally posted by Dave Accampo
I've long since shaken off the daytime soap opera jones, but I definitely see the appeal of that type of storytelling. In fact, I'd love to see someone take that storytelling approach again, maybe with the modern literary techniques that have evolved from the medium...a smart, long-term serial packed with action and drama would be really great to see. The closest equivalent of what I'm imagining is Joe Casey's run on the 2nd volume of Wildcasts. An open-ended serial storyline that just seemed to wander around with the characters...I never knew exactly where it was going, and that made it especially intriguing to me.

i think they're calling it the "buffy" formula right now. joss whedon adapted many stan lee story ideas along with his love for chris clairmont's strong women into his television show. writers from morrison to clairmont have been trying to use that particular style to tell their comics. it's a modified A plot to B plot with a twist that merges the B plot into the A plot, by making characters change what we assume they're going to do in mid-scene. somehow, no one has really been able to pull this off in comics (or at least attempted this sort of plot) except for casey and possible joss whedon in his book "fray."

little kon-el

protonik

08-12-2003, 06:23 PM

Great article Stuart but I do detect an error... it wasn't until Cockrum's second run on the book that the X-Men began to pick up serious sales. John Byrne even said in his SLush Factory columns that X-Men was consistently just above cancellation numbers on his run and the idea they were an instant success is part of the mystique of the X-Men. Sure, there was a lot of heat on what they were doing, because they were such a poor seller (actually, the Fantastic Four and the Avengers were Marvel's big franchises at the time) John and Chris got away with stuff that later creators would never have gotten away with (including Claremont), but that heat came from within the industry mainly and not from the fanbase. The best selling issue was the double sized Death of Phoenix issue and since it received little promotional fanfare, it wasn't much of a spike to speak of. It IS because of the work of Mr. Byrne and Claremont that the book became what it is today because it was the base on which all later tales were built, from Phoenix to Days of Future Past to the popularity of Wolverine (who was almost killed off by Claremont).

The soap opera appeal really came into play a few years after Byrne, reaching it's first height during from the Ashes and really reaching an Apotheosis around the time of the Fall of the Mutants with Marc SIlvestri on art chores and the myriad X-crossovers that inundated the market afterwards, like Inferno and X-Tinction Agenda.

Forgive my rambling post here... sales were poor until Cockrum returned was my original intent here...

Jason

NotYourAverageX

08-12-2003, 06:28 PM

Stuart, thanks for a fantastic article. The point you made that I felt I could really associate with is what you said about the X-Men animated series. For me, it was this series which introduced me to the comic world, and I felt the storytelling in the cartoons was excellent. The Phoenix and Dark Phoenix Saga were done excellently, and so were many other stories such as Days of Future Past. They served as a great introduction to comics to me, especially the X-Books, and I think that's what made it quite special. But if a kid was to watch the new X-Men cartoon X-Men Evolution, and went to read the comics, he wouldn find it hard to recognise the characters. it may not matter to some people, but I do think that makes a difference.

Which leads me to a point I always wanted to make. Surely it would have made more sense for the Ultimate books to be based on the actual movies of the X-Men and Spiderman. That way if a kid enjoyed the movie, and wanted to read a comic, he could go find a book where he 'knew' the character, and could recognise the characters. This may seem trivial to some people, but I know as a fact, this would help bring in more readers. Anyone agree? I still think great stories can be told within the 'movie worlds'.

little kon-el

08-12-2003, 06:41 PM

Originally posted by Stuart Moore
To follow up on this a little more: I'd argue that Grant Morrison's NEW X-MEN is absolutely full of real-world resonance. He's just taken the metaphor to a different level, treating the mutants as new-generation humans rather than oppressed minorities.

I always saw the metaphor shown in the x-men to be adaptable to the times, more than a strict racial or sexual metaphor:

1) the early x-men: were beatniks going against a system that would either subjugate them to their will (sentinels) or force them down a path that was pre-ordained by adults (magneto). xavier was only a few years younger than the initial x-men in those first stories (he was shown to have a crush on jean grey in the initial stories), so he was part of the "youth" culture...sort of like a young teacher letting his students go on trips to greenwich village to hang out with some bongo-playing goatee kids.

2) the all-new, all different x-men: were racial allegories. an international cast lead by an african-america goddess was an attempt to reach a broader audience by delving into more international issues. warren ellis does the same thing in stormwatch when he places his stories in an international setting with his group sometimes at odds with america. This is where the whole MLK Jr. vs. Malcolm X analogy comes from.

3) the fall of the mutants 80s x-men: were homeless/punk allegories. the morlocks were introduced during this time and the notion became "street" x-men who went up against "authority figures." these were the nihilistic punk x-men who knew the future was their deaths (as seen in days of futures past and following stories) so they lived to stop the future. curiously enough, the jla tried to adapt a similar posture, but the detriot league became a bust because they went with stereotypes rather than evolving the characters they had on hand to adapt to the metaphor they wanted to show. the punk storm with a mohawk was infinitely more cool than the breakdancing boom box known as vibe.

4) the late 80s-90s x-men: used again the young vs. old metaphor, but with a generation x slant. they were fraught with angst and aimless in their pursuit for some sort of stability. you can think of this almost like a japanese pastoral story (like grave of the fireflies or akira), where the main character's goal is to go back to the "original" state before the difficulty that took them out of that state. the x-men's mansion was rebuilt and that was their home, but all the events around them pushed them out of their comfortable life. the whole gist of generation x, from the douglas coupland book to nirvana is about going back to a time when things were happier.

5) today's x-men: uses the metaphor of a vocal political minority group. the x-men are doing what many organized minority groups are doing: getting people who share the same common background together into a political block in order to affect change to their people. this means a focus on "mutant culture" and "mutant rescues" as way of organizing people under one banner. These are more trendsetters and focus groups than supervillain fighters. morrison's slant is that the x-men are rescue workers, much like the NY Fire Fighters, going into a situation to diffuse not to ignite. They're more like superpowered social workers than superheroes.

little kon-el

Dave Accampo

08-12-2003, 07:07 PM

Originally posted by little kon-el
i think they're calling it the "buffy" formula right now. joss whedon adapted many stan lee story ideas along with his love for chris clairmont's strong women into his television show. writers from morrison to clairmont have been trying to use that particular style to tell their comics. it's a modified A plot to B plot with a twist that merges the B plot into the A plot, by making characters change what we assume they're going to do in mid-scene. somehow, no one has really been able to pull this off in comics (or at least attempted this sort of plot) except for casey and possible joss whedon in his book "fray."

Buffy definitely incorporated many of those elements, but I really see more of a parallel with X-men and the daytime soaps in that they both had large ensemble casts in which all the characters got equal face time as their plots came to the forefront. That, and teh sheer number of plots running simultaneously. While each plot had its moment to shine, there was always the feeling that the various plots were equals -- it wasn't that there was one plot that was more imporant, it was simply which plot was cresting at that moment. Buffy carries a lot of these traits, but the episodes still seem to be anchored by Buffy, and they usually all service one over-arching theme, or resolved themselves in one episode.

I can't quite capture it all here, but anyone who has ever watched a soap for any period of time knows what I mean. There's never a sense of status quo, never a "high concept" that runs the show. There's never an over-arching theme. We just follow the characters around as they lie, cheat, steal, love, get possessed by the devil...you know, all the normal stuff...;) It's too bad they're so awkwardly and melodramatically written and acted. It's funny, in their own way, they have a similar reputation to super-hero comics -- the red-headed stepchild of serious literature (or TV).

mpg

08-12-2003, 07:30 PM

Originally posted by Dave Accampo
Buffy definitely incorporated many of those elements, but I really see more of a parallel with X-men and the daytime soaps in that they both had large ensemble casts in which all the characters got equal face time as their plots came to the forefront. That, and teh sheer number of plots running simultaneously. While each plot had its moment to shine, there was always the feeling that the various plots were equals -- it wasn't that there was one plot that was more imporant, it was simply which plot was cresting at that moment. Buffy carries a lot of these traits, but the episodes still seem to be anchored by Buffy, and they usually all service one over-arching theme, or resolved themselves in one episode.

I can't quite capture it all here, but anyone who has ever watched a soap for any period of time knows what I mean. There's never a sense of status quo, never a "high concept" that runs the show. There's never an over-arching theme. We just follow the characters around as they lie, cheat, steal, love, get possessed by the devil...you know, all the normal stuff...;) It's too bad they're so awkwardly and melodramatically written and acted. It's funny, in their own way, they have a similar reputation to super-hero comics -- the red-headed stepchild of serious literature (or TV).

sit with someoen who speaks spanish and watch a few novellas...have them tell you the storylines....they put american soaps to shame! hahaha....no body can act!

mpg

08-12-2003, 07:34 PM

Originally posted by OcCaM
Ummm minor point really....

Minor...but still excellent...poop on you

Duke Jupiter

08-12-2003, 09:16 PM

Stuart,

I agree that there is more to the X-Men's appeal than simply having a stable creative team on the book(s). But the reason why the book got the following it did has a lot to do with there being, for years, one distinctive voice (Chris Claremont) who was able to develop characters with consistency, and, in collaboration with some of the best artists in the biz, tell great stories in a serial-type fashion.

That's the building block that makes the X-Men franchise what it is today. Sure, the '90's animated series and the motion pictures are bringing new readers into the fold, but these other forms of media are, to a large extent, stripmining Claremont's initial run moreso than any other writer for their story content.

Chuck Austen has nothing to worry about in that respect. At least, I hope not.:eek:

Regards,
Duke

MindTricked

08-12-2003, 11:01 PM

Great article, Stu (can I call ya Stu?).

I collected comics for like 2 years in the mid 80s, but didn't give a damn at all about X-Men. Even then, I knew that such stories as The Dark Phoenix Saga was classic and near-legendary. Still, it wasn't until the X-Men toon came along that I actually started caring about these characters. On that one episode... the one they aired during Sunday night prime time... that ended with "Coming soon... The Dark Phoenix Saga!" - I just about jumped out of my chair! I was so jazzed and thrilled about this... that I found myself in Waldenbooks, and bought the trade paperback. Slowly, but surely, I found myself wanting to start collecting comics again. Next, I bought The X-Tinction Agenda - that cover of the TPB, done by Jim Lee, featuring Wolverine, Archangel, and Cable, looking like no one would look crosswise at 'em... sucked me in. I borrowed my cousin's comics, and read a lot of X-Men and related titles and, in August of '96, I went to her comic store, and raided the back issue bins. I was, after 9 years, a collector again, and I hit it hard.

I, too, owe my renewed interest in the medium to the X-Men toon, and many of those episodes still hold my attention... only now, I know the real stories, but that doesn't ruin it at all (even though I wish they had killed off Jean, rather than that "hold hands and give up some life force" stuff that makes me cringe a bit now).

RDFozz

08-12-2003, 11:26 PM

Originally posted by MattBrady for Stuart Moore
And, as usual, a lot of people tried to jump in on the action. Some companies, including Image and a surprising number of small presses, launched superhero team-books, many with a dizzying array of colorful characters, lacking in the personality or history of the X-Men. Champions, Ex-Mutants, Hero Alliance, Lunatic Fringe, Justice Machine…the list goes on, not even counting the Image books (Youngblood, WildC.A.T.S, Cyberforce, etc.).

Your placement of the list of indy super-teams might lead some to believe these were created around the same time as the rise of Image. Most of these teams were created long before that.

Champions was originally published by Eclipse, in the general vicinity of 1984-5. No this isn't the Marvel team (to answer someone else's question); in fact, I believe Marvel tried to get them to change the name, but hadn't showed any intent of reviving their Champions, so these guys got to use the name. This book shared the name of an RPG (pen and paper, of course) involving super-heroes instead of fantasy elements. The book was later published through an even more independent publisher as a continuing series, dwindling off into oblivion when the owners/creators/whatever discovered that comics featuring their female characters in a lot of cheesecake poses did even better. Hard to say that this book ever tried to go for the X-Men style of story-telling, but maybe they just did it so badly you can't tell. Not too soap-opera like in any incarnation I remember, at least not beyond the level championed by Stan Lee.

Justice Machine may hold the record for publishers - I don't have the info in front of me, but they appeared under the auspices of Noble Comics, Texas Comics (their only publication I know of, notable for teaming JM with the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, and really notable for introducing the Elementals), Comico, Innovation, and Millennium (I think I may be missing one...). Justice Machine first appeared in 1982, I think - 1983 at the latest.

In its original incarnation, the Machine were simply super-powered soldiers, slowly discovering they might not be on the "right" side of the war they were fighting. It did get soaped-up a bit more in later incarnations, but still more at a Stan-level than a Chris-level.

I never followed Ex-Mutants, so I'm not certain when they first appeared - probably following the debut of the logical topic of your next column (a quartet of mutated, under-20 reptiles with training in a certain stealthy martial art?), so 1986ish. This (and its spin-off, the New Humans) was very much intended to attract the attention of X-Fans (hence the names), although it was set (from what little I did see) in a standard post-apocalyptic world. Most people were mutated strains of humanity (hence the names...).

Hero Alliance was originally from an extremely short-lived company named Pied Piper and/or Wonder Comics, most of whose stuff seemed to have been picked up later by Innovation. This book is the one you mentioned that perhaps best exemplifies what you were saying; super-heroics are downplayed severely, and the characters are played up. It's arguable where it started, but it ended up, again, in cheesecake-land - one character (a female) seemed to wind up being sexually aroused almost exclusively while in costume (not to mention she was in love/lust with the "superman" clone, who was one of her late dad's best friends), and, shall we say, many of the women seemed to have problems with the air conditioning around them being way too low? Basic underlying concept was nice, execution was flawed.

I believe Lunatic Fringe was also published by Innovation. Never read it, so....

And, just because I hate passing up a chance to remember one of my favorite groups from the early 80's, I'll mention The Southern Knights (nee the Crusaders, but Archie had used that title pretty recently at the time, so...). This book featured a team that was pulled together under severely contrived circumstances, with some fairly generic characters (strong girl, martial arts girl (named Connie Ronnin, for heaven's sake!), and armored suit guy; admittedly, rounding out the group with a centuries-old dragon was a bit less traditional).

For me, these guys were the original "heroes in the real world/as real people" bunch. There were other super-powered characters, but most of the team had no "secret identities", half the time they didn't really have super-villains to fight, and (most importantly) they normally acted like believable people. They added a magician (who had been in stasis since colonial times), who really wasn't too great at magic, and included among their opponents a pair of assassins (Carl and Larry, if I recall correctly) who were completely human, quite competent, and just happened to be a couple to boot.

Oddly enough, Doom Patrol (pre-Grant Morrison) is one I'm inclined to give on - there was a strong element of the soap opera there, pretty much from their SHOWCASE appearance (probably 1976-77 - it was before the DC Ex/Implosion), and that initial appearance left many danglers that went unresolved for years....

Legion of Super-Heroes is another tempting target for X-comparison, but it had long-running unresolved plot elements running back into its early years (death/resurrection/maiming/healing of Lightning Lad, the famous Adult Legion story). However, what is arguably (I argue it, for instance :-) ) the Legion's most successful period, the Levitz/Giffen years and shortly following, the soap-opera element, sub-plots, and the like became much more prevalent, and much more X-ish (to coin a phrase).

I guess I started this less as the nostalgia trip it's turned out to be, and more to say I don't see these titles as being quite so X-derivative as Stuart's article makes them sound.

I admit, my perspective is colored by the fact that I didn't discover comics until Giant-Size X-Men #1 was, at the least, in the can (I think it came out very shortly after I got my start, or during - a summer confined to traction and a body cast makes it difficult to do much shopping...). However, I suspect that fans with a lot of ideas about characters they want to create (and I suspect that many of these comics came about in that fashion) want an outlet to put all their ideas together (admittedly, in some cases because no single character would be developed enough to hold the story on his/her own). Hero Alliance's best developed character was the Superman-clone mentioned above. Champions came out of RPG sessions, something that almost certainly involved several people operating their own characters, almost necessitating a team. Justice Machine always reminded me more of the Legion of Super-Heroes than X-Men - government-sponsored heroes, including a guy who could grow to fantastic size, a character with telepathic and future-seeing abilities, and a master martial artist with no true super-powers, who used no weapons. Admittedly, the group size was far more manageable than the Legion's (five central characters), but I always felt that that was where they pulled their riff - what if the Legion found out the United Planets weren't the "good guys"?

It seems overkill to me to write off any team book (yes, hyperbole, many books never got mentioned by Stuart, including Elementals and Southern Knights as notable examples) as being done because the X-Men did well, or as being done in the X-Men style. At least in terms of being notable - corporate comics have always been far more about duplicating the other guy's success than about trying something innovative that could be the next big thing (again, mentally review the stands a year or so after next time's comic o' choice came out (assuming I'm right, which I, surpisingly enough, do). Soap opera elements in general were brought in primarily (as far as I've heard, not having been there to see on my own) by Stan Lee's writing on the early Marvel books, and slowly spread elsewhere (based on the Archives, Tower's books got a dose); Chris simply kicked things up a notch, including subplots that got mentioned once in a blue moon, instead of once an issue, and leaving throwaway lines that people wanted to know more about (Corsair as Scott Summers' dad being an excellent example).

Hope somebody else enjoys my writing this up - I've successfully put off going home for at least 90 minutes doing so....

C Knight

08-13-2003, 01:26 AM

"We’ll continue this next time with a look at another great ‘80s comic, and another bad template…for creators, this time".

Why do I get the feeling that the next column will be about Watchmen?

William Coate

08-13-2003, 02:24 AM

For me three things propelled me into getting into comics

1) The X-Men cartoon
2) The very gimmicky Death of Superman
3) The readability of Valiant comics

All of which led me to read Uncanny during the Lobdell years.

It's interesting though to think that many X fans don't like Lobdell considering he had them by the balls for several years.

It was okay but I would have to say that Morrison did a better job motivating me to come back to the X-Men for a nice little visit which will soon be over.

What's interesting is the idea which I spoke to others as well was that in many ways comics are a soap opera or Shakespeare in that there is quite a bit of drama that goes on here. It's what pulls us in and makes us want to know what is happening next.

While the soap opera is the only current example, because like comics it's a serial that continues on daily, it was a common way of telling a story in the past in the movies and in magazines. So the connection is there. That's why pulps are considered the precursor to comics.

WC

czeskleba2

08-13-2003, 03:08 AM

Originally posted by protonik
Great article Stuart but I do detect an error... it wasn't until Cockrum's second run on the book that the X-Men began to pick up serious sales. John Byrne even said in his SLush Factory columns that X-Men was consistently just above cancellation numbers on his run and the idea they were an instant success is part of the mystique of the X-Men.

Though I haven't seen the sales figures, I am pretty sure Byrne was either misremembering or deliberately distorting the truth when he made the claim that his issues of X-Men sold poorly. The reasons:

1. During the second half of Byrne's X-Men run, the book was consistently the top selling comic (or #2 after Miller's Daredevil) in The Comic Reader's monthly survey of Marvel and DC comic shop sales. Even though the direct market was only a fraction of total comic sales back then, it seems unlikely that a book that's the very top seller in comic shops would be a terrible seller on the newsstand.
2. X-Men became monthly shortly after Byrne took over. If the book truly was selling "just above cancellation level" they would have left it bi-monthly.
3. During Byrne's run, there were a couple X-Men annuals, and the conclusion of the Dark Phoenix story was a special double-sized issue. Marvel didn't do annuals and special double sized issues for poor or mediocre selling titles.
4. In 1980 (about halfway into Byrne's run) Marvel revived Amazing Adventures as a reprint book featuring early issues of X-Men. Marvel would not have started an X-Men reprint book if the regular X-title were not selling well.

The fact is, early during Byrne's run, X-Men became a huge fan favorite, and I'm pretty sure that must have translated into at least decent newsstand sales. I think Byrne gets tired of people claiming his best work was done 20 years ago, and maybe that's why he deliberately wants to understate the popularity of the title at the time he was doing it.

danzo

08-13-2003, 05:49 AM

o.k., now yer forcing meto comment; specifically in response to this, quoted from RDFozz:
"Legion of Super-Heroes is another tempting target for X-comparison, but it had long-running unresolved plot elements running back into its early years (death/resurrection/maiming/healing of Lightning Lad, the famous Adult Legion story). However, what is arguably (I argue it, for instance :-) ) the Legion's most successful period, the Levitz/Giffen years and shortly following, the soap-opera element, sub-plots, and the like became much more prevalent, and much more X-ish (to coin a phrase)."
um, WRONG!!! as a die-hard Legion fan, i can tell you aren't. Legion has always been that way, even before Shooters' run.... with the revival in the early 70's (pre-dating the New X-Men) it went into over-drive: intra-team rivalries/antagonisms, romances, hints of futures, spectres of the past.....all of it. the Levitz/Geffin years were so hot because it was the first time anyone ever strung all the elements that make this series so rockin' together and aimed for a larger goal. all while actually tapping some of the potential of the series....
but in no way has the Legion ever been an X-Men wannabe. in fact, i feel the reverse is true, X-Men has always been the Marvel answer to the Legion, forget that 60's Doom Patrol theory....
and for anyone who wishes to argue against this point, name me a prior series of any weight that actually built it's own sub-reality prior to the Legion; that relied on prior knowledge of the characters and their history. you can't. Legion was the first, heck, it's what made Shooters' rep- he really did re-define the medium there, and that was in the 60's- he out-stanned Stan, while still just a kid himself....

LarryHouston

08-13-2003, 06:32 AM

Hi, I'm Larry Houston. As the Producer/Director of the X-men series in the 90's, I read Stuart Moore's column about the shows I did and was impressed with his insights. I liked his observations and I'm glad the audience out there enjoyed our efforts.

We never had the budgets and time the BATMAN crew had. Our animation didn't have their polish but I had a core group of extremely talented artists working for me ( Mark Lewis, Frank Squillace and others) who had real heart and helped me keep the X-MEN look and stories faithful to the source material. My own knowledge of Marvel characters and trivia was extremely useless anywhere else but on a Marvel show.

One thing I'd like to add that the audience may not know is that, on my own, I added cameos overall to the series. I used cameos when it did not detract from the main story being told. But it would certainly attract the attention of kids who DID know and, hopefully, thought it was fun, like I did when I was younger.

Best,

Larry Houston

littlewolvie

08-13-2003, 08:51 AM

I've to admit I usually fly over Stuart's articles and often find myself thinking at the end, what was all that about. But this one was great and not only because it focussed on the X-Men, but mainly because this time I could relate and found myself interested in the subject!

slug N lettuce

08-13-2003, 10:30 AM

amazingly concise summary of events in the ‘70s in his current Permanent Damage column: http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/?column=10 .

For some reason comicbookresources.com isnt coming up today. It is very frustrating!!

Ace

08-13-2003, 10:48 AM

I'm a bit late to comment, but one thing did stick out.

I know any number of people who read X-Men strictly out of inertia. They have for years, and they will for years, so long as Marvel doesn't toss everything out the window. I've hit the point where a creative team is more important than me for a character(though I did buy the most recent issue of X-treme X-Men, after really not liking the current storyline just on the promise that Cannonball would do something cool).

That said, I still continue to buy Austen's Uncanny because it feels right, even if the stories aren't necessarily good. And if I read Morrison's NXM at all, I read it on the shelf, because it didn't feel right. Ultimate X-Men I don't have a lot of time for because it doesn't feel write and I don't like Millar's work, although I do like Bendis', I'm skeptical but excited about the Ultimate New Mutants, and I'll give Mack's run a try.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that X-Men more than a lot of books(mostly due to the cartoon, and the trading cards, and the general longlevity), is more important to a lot of comics fans that mostly any other title. Not everyone is the right age to have grown up with the Wolfman/Perez Titans but even those people who missed the Claremont run completely, still can feel a strong bond to the X-Men.

It's the only comic I imagine where getting a general feel right might be more important than telling good stories. And I know how counter-intuitive that sounds.

Matt

Zonker

08-13-2003, 12:35 PM

Originally posted by danzo
o.k., now yer forcing meto comment; specifically in response to this, quoted from RDFozz:
"Legion of Super-Heroes is another tempting target for X-comparison, but it had long-running unresolved plot elements running back into its early years (death/resurrection/maiming/healing of Lightning Lad, the famous Adult Legion story). However, what is arguably (I argue it, for instance :-) ) the Legion's most successful period, the Levitz/Giffen years and shortly following, the soap-opera element, sub-plots, and the like became much more prevalent, and much more X-ish (to coin a phrase)."

um, WRONG!!! as a die-hard Legion fan, i can tell you aren't. Legion has always been that way, even before Shooters' run.... with the revival in the early 70's (pre-dating the New X-Men) it went into over-drive: intra-team rivalries/antagonisms, romances, hints of futures, spectres of the past.....all of it. the Levitz/Geffin years were so hot because it was the first time anyone ever strung all the elements that make this series so rockin' together and aimed for a larger goal. all while actually tapping some of the potential of the series....
but in no way has the Legion ever been an X-Men wannabe. in fact, i feel the reverse is true, X-Men has always been the Marvel answer to the Legion, forget that 60's Doom Patrol theory....
and for anyone who wishes to argue against this point, name me a prior series of any weight that actually built it's own sub-reality prior to the Legion; that relied on prior knowledge of the characters and their history. you can't. Legion was the first, heck, it's what made Shooters' rep- he really did re-define the medium there, and that was in the 60's- he out-stanned Stan, while still just a kid himself....

Yes, and while I like the Levitz/Giffen run, the early Dave Cockrum issues (pre-X-Men) and the Mike Grell issues really made the Legion a fan-favorite. At DC, you can divide the 1970s in half: Prior to 1975, most of the action was in non-super-heroes, or at least non-traditional super-heroes (including the Neal Adams "big change" books GL/GA and Batman). After 1975, there were a ton of new super-hero books attempted. Not until New Teen Titans did anything new really stick at DC, but nevertheless you had a ton of experiments from 1975-1979 in the super-hero genre, and specifically the super-hero-team genre.

The question is, what drove that change? Maybe just the changing of the guard between Carmine Infantino to Jennette Kahn. Or maybe a response to what was selling best in that period? I'd agree New X-Men did not really take off as a sales leader until Byrne came aboard. So the question is: What influenced what? Legion or New X-Men? I've always wondered how things might have been different if Cockrum had stayed at DC to do Legion rather than move to Marvel in 1974-75.

mpg

08-13-2003, 12:53 PM

Originally posted by LarryHouston
Hi, I'm Larry Houston. As the Producer/Director of the X-men series in the 90's, I read Stuart Moore's column about the shows I did and was impressed with his insights. I liked his observations and I'm glad the audience out there enjoyed our efforts.

We never had the budgets and time the BATMAN crew had. Our animation didn't have their polish but I had a core group of extremely talented artists working for me ( Mark Lewis, Frank Squillace and others) who had real heart and helped me keep the X-MEN look and stories faithful to the source material. My own knowledge of Marvel characters and trivia was extremely useless anywhere else but on a Marvel show.

One thing I'd like to add that the audience may not know is that, on my own, I added cameos overall to the series. I used cameos when it did not detract from the main story being told. But it would certainly attract the attention of kids who DID know and, hopefully, thought it was fun, like I did when I was younger.
Best,
Larry Houston

I will second this....Larry came into the comic shop i worked at.....He was lookin for back issues with mutants he could use....you know what he ended up grabbing?? Issues of the Power Pack! I was so impressed.....this guy loved comics....and his run on X-Men....you could really see that....he had a ton of respect for the fans....he wanted to give back to them....

He told me the story...the episode where we see images from gambit's past.....Ghost Rider is very clearly wandering around....he told me....he had to name him..The Creature From The Id....for copyright reasons! haha

Joe Kilmartin

08-13-2003, 01:44 PM

Originally posted by little kon-el
i think they're calling it the "buffy" formula right now. joss whedon adapted many stan lee story ideas along with his love for chris clairmont's strong women into his television show. writers from morrison to clairmont have been trying to use that particular style to tell their comics. it's a modified A plot to B plot with a twist that merges the B plot into the A plot, by making characters change what we assume they're going to do in mid-scene. somehow, no one has really been able to pull this off in comics (or at least attempted this sort of plot) except for casey and possible joss whedon in his book "fray."

little kon-el

It was said in the early 1980's that Stephen J Canell was doing exactly the same thing when he started HILL STREET BLUES - basically takingt the Stan & Jack 4-5 "episiode" story arc with 8 continuously running micro-plots involving characters who contributed to the whole but were secondary to that particular story arc.

Stan & Jack, but particularly Stan when it comes to this, have been considered the fathers of night time TV drama by some of its writers for that reason.

This was waaaaaaaay before Joss Whedon. Tho, you can see "pre-Buffy" Joss's arc-style story writing on the seasons of ROSEANNE that he worked on, particularly with sub plots involving their daughter's boyfriends, Jackie's abusive relationship with George Clooney's character, and Dan's trying to get the motorcycle shop started up...

Calling it "Buffy-style" is just Buffy fans reaching for more credibility, in My opinion ;)

Arc-style story writing in Prime Time, began as early Paul Henning's BEVERLEY HILLBILLIES (which were episodic, but often had unresolved scenarios that ran for a month at a time). There were even cross-over and guest appearence episodes between the Paul Henning shows (HILLBILLIES, GREEN ACRES, and PETTICOAT JUNCTION). Very very "Marvel-style" particularly in the late 60's early 70's when those shows "peaked".

Joe

Stuart Moore

08-13-2003, 01:50 PM

I think you're mixing up HILL STREET BLUES (Steven Bochco and Michael Kozoll) and WISEGUY (Stephen Cannell), both of which used arcs in different ways. WISEGUY, which had a small cast tightly focused on its lead, had fewer subplots and more sharply defined, longer arcs, while HILL STREET ran a lot of three- and four-part stories with lots of interpersonal subplots involving its huge cast. Interesting point, though.

Best,
Stuart

Joe Kilmartin

08-13-2003, 02:03 PM

Originally posted by Stuart Moore
I think you're mixing up HILL STREET BLUES (Steven Bochco and Michael Kozoll) and WISEGUY (Stephen Cannell), both of which used arcs in different ways. WISEGUY, which had a small cast tightly focused on its lead, had fewer subplots and more sharply defined, longer arcs, while HILL STREET ran a lot of three- and four-part stories with lots of interpersonal subplots involving its huge cast. Interesting point, though.

Best,
Stuart

I'm sorry, you're kind of right there, I meant Bochko & Kozoll, tho I typed Cannell. I might have been wrong about the actual length of the story arcs in question but they were there in HILL STREET as well (remember the two months that one of the characters fell in love with Jeffifer Tilly's Mob-Moll character? you were led to beleive she was in as a one-episode joke, then all of a sudden she's a secondary character with a backstory who's being used to establish how lonely the DA character was- that's Silver Age Marvel all the way, even if its more Wolfman and Wein than Stan & Jack...). They would also use "themes" in a way that we're seeing on seasons of shows like OZ and THE SOPRANOS now, where for about 4 months worth of episodes, everything would key into the concept of "loyalty" or of "revenge" and it would run like a ripple through all of the sub-plots. You didn't see that on shows like Kojak or Hawaii 50, which were what HILL STREET looked like it came from.

I'm surprised you hadn't said anything about the "Paul Henning-verse", Stuart, it seems to be one of those "lookit them doing the same thing over *there* that you've previously only associated with the thing you know you knew over here" kinda things that I know you like.

Great column, keep up the good work, man.

Joe

MadPiscus

08-13-2003, 05:20 PM

Originally posted by RDFozz
Oddly enough, Doom Patrol (pre-Grant Morrison) is one I'm inclined to give on - there was a strong element of the soap opera there, pretty much from their SHOWCASE appearance (probably 1976-77 - it was before the DC Ex/Implosion), and that initial appearance left many danglers that went unresolved for years....

I do hope you are referring to the Doom patrol relaunch in Showcase. The original Doom Patrol had some of the soap-opera too, I'll note, and definitely played on alot of the same major themes that X-Men originally did (although there was no Civil Rights Movement analog, as such).

As far as the point of this article goes, however, I'd have to say that the relaunch in Showcase might have indeed been a nod at tapping into the X-Men's newfound fame... especially when they really delved into those plot points in the third-relaunch that'd been introduced in Showcase; there was a real echo of those weirder X-Men stories there.

I find it pretty interesting, however, that the original Doom Patrol did debute almost three months before the X-Men and that the original premises were strikingly similar. As far as anyone's ever said the similarities are entirely accidental (the amount of time between the launches given as the evidence that it was too close for one to have copied the other), but it was rather odd; man in a wheelchair brings "freaks," shunned by society, together to do good (unappreciated as it was) and find solace/companionship in eachother.

MadPiscus

08-13-2003, 05:32 PM

Jeremy Williams

08-13-2003, 10:51 PM

I agree that the X-Men have always been a mess. I also agree that`s always been the charm of the concept since the 70s. To tell you the truth i don`t even mind if it will always be that way.

Stuart, your column opened my eyes: there was a time everyone agreed that The X-Men books were so convoluted and to innaccessible for a new reader to jump into one of those stories. But in a way, the X-Men editors did keep it all together, especialy in the capable hands of Chris Claremont. For whatever reasons even though people should have needed a road map to understand that continuity, an the end of the day, you were drawn and engaged by what was in these books. A few guys slaughtering the underground mutants The Morlock without any apparent motives? Who cares! Cool stuff! (as I used to say at that time). Heck we never even did know why Mr. Sinister killed The Morlock to this day! ;)

As for the last few years, Grant Morrison did try to bring some cohesiveness to the concept and he did by focusing on the school and presenting the mutant as a new species. But it almost seemed like it didn`t fit, because the strenght of The X-men has always been melodrama, these guys wouldn`t have been mutants and it would have worked as well; high-concept was never the X-Men. Claremont wrote these guys as been people with powers essentialy not a new specy per se.

czeskleba2

08-13-2003, 11:19 PM

Originally posted by Zonker
At DC, you can divide the 1970s in half: Prior to 1975, most of the action was in non-super-heroes, or at least non-traditional super-heroes (including the Neal Adams "big change" books GL/GA and Batman). After 1975, there were a ton of new super-hero books attempted.
The question is, what drove that change?

Probably desperation more than anything else. When Infantino took over, DC was still the top selling company but overall comic sales were declining, so he felt his brief was to experiment with new concepts and different types of characters to find the next big thing. When Kahn took over, DC had slipped to number two and their sales were in freefall, so presumably they wanted to stick with what was safe and proven successful (ie superheroes). Ironically, DC's biggest sales success in the late 70s was a non-superhero book (Warlord) which had been cancelled by Infantino after 2 issues and then revived by Kahn.

I've always wondered how things might have been different if Cockrum had stayed at DC to do Legion rather than move to Marvel in 1974-75.
Well, Nightcrawler would have been a Legionnaire, for one thing (Cockrum had already designed the character and come up with the name as a potential new Legionnaire prior to leaving DC). It's arguable the whole New X-Men phenomenon would not have happened without Cockrum: he was integral in the creation of Nightcrawler and Storm, and I believe contributed to the plotting of those crucial first issues of the revival.

Jorge_Martinez

08-14-2003, 04:16 AM

Hmm, I heard a Doom Patrol/X-Men analogy once before but the other way around. The original Uncanny X-Men were a bit like the original DP.

I know squat about DP just saying I heard this before. Anybody know what I am talking about or I am just crazy as usual.

thanks

Jorge

wyld1

08-14-2003, 09:31 AM

Originally posted by spider985
Hey Stuart, I agree with everything that you have said, but you left one big ommission as to why X-men were so damn popluar, and that was the real world anology of the world; Martin Luthor King versus Malcolm X. The legacy virus being a reflection of the aids (pre) epidemic that people wrongly belived that could only effect the homosexual community a la mutants. For everything else that was and is great about the mighty x, what I have always loved has been the real world comparisons that the book used to be so full of, and a part of me wishes they still were.

I want to clearify a misconception with the Xmen. Often people make the assertion that the Xavier/Magneto relationship was an analogy of the Malcolm X/Martin Luther King relationship. This is wholly incorrect.

Malcolm and MLK were fighting the same war, but from 2 different camps. They're views were similar. They both preached peaceful resolution to the race issue in this country. As a matter of fact, Malcolm was kicked out of the Nation of Islam because he wanted to allow people of all races to be part of the Islam.

The famous image of Malcolm X holding a rifle with the saying "by any means necessary", is misleading. The only time Malcolm took up arms was when his life was threatened by the National of Islam. He was not a violent activist as Magneto is.

This is a misconception about the Xmen that I think need to be cleared up. It is not similar to the Xavier/Magneto relationship. To understand Malcolm X's character, Spike Lee did an excellent movie called Malcolm X, which was approved by Malcolm's widow.

slug N lettuce

08-14-2003, 09:49 AM

Spike Lee did/does Nike commercials. Nike expoilts its workers in other countries, only other countries make Nike.

Jeremy Williams

08-14-2003, 08:15 PM

Good point there

RDFozz

08-14-2003, 11:25 PM

Originally posted by danzo
um, WRONG!!! as a die-hard Legion fan, i can tell you aren't. Legion has always been that way, even before Shooters' run.... with the revival in the early 70's (pre-dating the New X-Men) it went into over-drive: intra-team rivalries/antagonisms, romances, hints of futures, spectres of the past.....all of it. the Levitz/Geffin years were so hot because it was the first time anyone ever strung all the elements that make this series so rockin' together and aimed for a larger goal. all while actually tapping some of the potential of the series....
but in no way has the Legion ever been an X-Men wannabe.

I didn't claim to be a "die-hard Legion fan", and to many, I'd be a definite Johnny-come-lately, since I didn't start reading until SUPERBOY 217 or so (right about the time Tyroc joined up, while Grell was still pencilling). And I've read much of the late ADVENTURE run, especially 350-380 or so.

Still, the caliber of the Legion interaction and sub-plots were different. Sure, one could say that the X-Men's "Days of Future Past" storyline (the original, not one of the many later pretenders) echoed the Adult Legion story. But the Legion rarely (in my experience) had significant long-term subplots going on until just before the Great Darkness Saga. There were certainly soap-opera elements in the stories, at least a dozen romantic relationships, and a few rivalry-type scenarios - but most of the romantic relationships where completely stable for 15-20 years prior to Levitz' breaking up Light Lass and Timber Wolf, and Shrinking Violet's replacement, imprisonment, and the fall-out therefrom. And the rivalries generally only lasted for short periods of time, normally a single storyline. True, in the 220's, when Wildfire took over as leader there were a few notable grumbles over his high-handedness; and the time between that period and the one I'm talking about featured the marriage of Garth and Imra, their leaving the team, their return; the Earthwar story, which I think actually was preceded by some small degree of subplot; Brainiac's going insane, and later being cured (insane in one story, basically ignored for some time, then cured, as I recall it); and Blok's transformation from somewhat reluctant super-assassin to team member (a transformation that took place in two-three separate, distinct stories, with no sub-plotting between. The last significant nod to the Adult Legion days, the death of Ultra Boy and birth of "Reflecto", took some time - however, the time it took was primarily in separate, distinct stories that took a while to tell.

And remember, I was looking for changes in the book that seemed to match the style of the X-Men books. The Legion had several storylines that included the characters engaging in "down time" activities, for instance, but those usually lead to a fight/contest of some sort, where characters got to display their mental and physical prowess in some fashion in the old days. In the Levitz-Giffen era, we started to see the stories that were nothing but "down time" (and in the Wolfman/Perez NEW TEEN TITANS, from the same time frame, as well).

(OK, maybe I felt my status as a Legion fan was a bit slighted by your statement, or else I wouldn't have delved quite so strongly into my memories of the book.)

Now, by no means am I trying to say the Legion became a clone of the X-Men; however, I can say that an argument that Levitz came to add/alter elements in the Legion in a fashion that seems similar to the X-Men.

I don't necessarily have the right perspective to say that Cockrum brought a bit of a Legion vibe when he hit the book (although I buy the Nightcrawler theory - especially since Cockrum has always seemed to have a creator's interest in that character (more so than Storm or Colossus). Certainly, stylistically, Claremont always treats his characters with strong doses of angst, with doubts and (occasionally inappropriate) attractions, and with a degree of moral ambiguity on both side of the hero/villain fence.

Certainly, by the time the Legion had its own feature in ADVENTURE, it was one of the few comics DC was publishing where you couldn't take the issues, shuffle them into a random order, read them, and have things make perfect sense. But I wonder if Legion fandom hasn't made the Legion of old into something it wasn't. The size of the cast made it impossible to cover every member in any depth on a regular basis, but that could allow fans to read things into those few events that did impact their favorites.

Element Lad's being gay was something that fandom had tossed around long before a writer put it in the book; in context, all we saw was that he was a Legionnaire that hadn't hooked up with someone else in the cast, like most of them had. In fact, fandom (to an extent, I believe) felt betrayed that the character seemed attracted to Shvaughn Erin, and pleased that their theories were 'vindicated' later. Many people who enjoyed the Bierbaum era seemed to like it when the creators brought in elements that fandom had called for before; others felt the book became impenetrable, as elements of the backstory existed not in any published comic, but in the minds of long-time Legion fans.

Hmmm. Not that I feel I've stated my case so well, but I think I'll stop here, and get on about some other business.... Later!

protonik

08-15-2003, 12:11 AM

Originally posted by czeskleba2

1. During the second half of Byrne's X-Men run, the book was consistently the top selling comic (or #2 after Miller's Daredevil) in The Comic Reader's monthly survey of Marvel and DC comic shop sales. Even though the direct market was only a fraction of total comic sales back then, it seems unlikely that a book that's the very top seller in comic shops would be a terrible seller on the newsstand.

I will give on your other points except this one, there are plenty of examples of a title selling GREAT in the direct market and very poorly on the newstands and vice versa... DC's top selling title currently is Bionicle as an example. Micronauts vol. 2 and Moon Knight vol. 2 are also great examples. Both books started out as direct sales only. This was to test the direct market for it's viability. When these books did really well in the direct market, Marvel relauncched both for both markets and while direct sales were incredibly strong, the newstand sales were barely tepid and both books were cancelled. There was a time when Marvel had a direct sales only cut off of 125000 copies, before Liefeld came along, New Mutants almost became a direct sales only book. It did well in the direct market but the newstand was just horrid. I would say this is the same way the X-Men were selling during Byrne's run, GREAT in the direct market and horrendous on the newstand. Back then the newstand was a measure of whether or not a book was selling great as compared to now...

Jason

czeskleba2

08-15-2003, 01:25 AM

Originally posted by protonik
I would say this is the same way the X-Men were selling during Byrne's run, GREAT in the direct market and horrendous on the newstand.

Well, I still say all my other arguments point to that being untrue. Aside from Byrne's statement, there is no evidence X-Men was a marginal newsstand seller. And Marvel's actions (particularly, promoting X-Men to monthly status with Byrne's second issue) would make no sense if X-Men was not selling well.