X-Men #3 annotations
As always, page numbers are from the digital edition, and this post contains spoilers.
COVER / PAGE 1. Cyclops and Emma Frost riding what are presumably meant to be dinosaurs. Other than the fact that the story visits the Savage Land, this doesn’t have much to do with the content.
PAGES 2-3. Mysterious bad guys come through the gate to the Savage Land flower farms.
The Savage Land. The Marvel Universe’s hidden jungle where dinosaurs still exist (not that we see any in this story). We established back in House of X #1 that the X-Men had set up a location in the Savage Land, and evidently it’s where they’re growing all the farms for those pharmaceuticals they’re making. From the X-Men’s point of view, it’s presumably place where they can grow the all-important flowers and be relatively confident of being undisturbed. The “harvest centre” has mutants picking the flowers by hand – the first time we’ve seen Krakoans actually working, I think.
The two X-Men supervising the gate are Pixie and Anole, both higher-profile student characters – but for the purposes of their role in this story, any old second-tier X-Men would do.
The bad guys are the debuting Hordeculture, but more of them later.
PAGES 4-5. Recap page and credits. Nothing much to see here.
PAGES 6-8. The Quiet Council meet to discuss disturbances on Krakoa.
The Quiet Council. The two empty seats around the Council table belong to Professor X (who’s still dead, following X-Force #1) and Kate Pryde (who can’t travel to Krakoa through the gates – her Marauders teammate Storm can, and presumably did). Cypher would normally be here to interpret for Krakoa, but he’s off in space in New Mutants.
Jean and Emma. This is the longest exchange they’ve had in the Hickman era, and indeed since Jean returned from the dead. In case you’re new to all this, Jean’s husband Cyclops had an affair with Emma in Grant Morrison’s New X-Men, and they became a long-term couple after Jean died at the end of Morrison’s run. As we’ve seen elsewhere, Scott and Jean are now back together, though apparently in a menage-a-trois with Wolverine; Scott and Emma’s current relationship has been left a bit vague. Despite them trading barbs, this is actually a comparatively friendly exchange by their standards, and Hickman seems to be treating them as somewhat reconciled.
PAGE 9. A data page about Krakoa. The main point is that Krakoa is deeply distressed by the interference with its Savage Land gate, but without Cypher around, the X-Men can’t ask it to explain.
Krakoan wildlife. We’re told that the animals of Krakoa have become suddenly more aggressive, and that until today there had been a month without any reported incidents. In fact, we saw a hostile Krakoan animal in X-Force #1 – so either a month has passed since then (and Xavier’s still dead), or Wolverine and Beast didn’t report it. The latter is plausible, since Beast seemed to be trying to make excuses for why it was happening.
Black Tom Cassidy is connected to Krakoa’s security systems, as seen in X-Force – though he can’t communicate with the island more generally.
Psychic feeding. We’re told, for the first time, that Krakoa is feeding on the psychic energy of its mutant inhabitants. This refers back to Krakoa’s first appearance in Giant-Size X-Men #1 (1975), where it did indeed imprison the X-Men and feed on their “mutant energies” (whatever that means). The claim here is that it’s very different when there’s a whole population of mutants living on the island, because Krakoa can take a tiny amount of energy from each mutant and everything’s great.
However, the X-Men have still got “aggressive protocols” in place to keep an eye on this – which seems to depend primarily on getting Selene and Emplate to keep an eye on Krakoa. Since they’re both psychic vampires and all-round villains, this doesn’t seem like the most robust solution. And the very fact that Krakoa is drawing on people’s psychic energy might reinforce the implication that all is not 100% right with the thought processes of the Krakoan residents.
PAGES 10-11. In which we meet the Hordeculture members.
While House of X and Powers of X were built around existing X-Men concepts in new orders, X-Men itself seems to be introducing more new characters, including… well, these oddities. Hordeculture is a group of four elderly women who are initially played as comic relief geriatrics. I’m somewhat reminded of Kade Killgore and his pre-teen Hellfire Club from Wolverine & The X-Men.
That said… once you get past the old-people jokes, which do wear thin, Hordeculture are actually pretty conventional Silver Age style supervillains. As we’ll see later, they’re mad scientists who have a long-term plan to wipe out most of the human race by infiltrating the food supply. The new plants from Krakoa have knocked their plans off course and they’ve come to investigate. And while they see Krakoa as a bit of a mystery to be investigated, the fact that they were able to seize control of a key gate shows that they already understand Krakoa much better than the X-Men do. The X-Men have embraced Krakoa in an attempt to outflank human technology, but they’ve actually just wound up dealing with a different type of scientist. (Times have probably never been better for plant-themed supervillains. Plantman’s phone must be ringing non-stop.)
Their costumes have plague doctor echoes, though it’s not entirely clear why.
PAGES 12-13. Cyclops, Emma and Sebastian Shaw stop off in the Outback on their way to the Savage Land.
Again, we’re reminded of the practical problems caused by Cypher’s absence. More important, though, is that since they can’t go direct to the Savage Land, they’re picking up Gateway, the teleporter from the X-Men’s Australia era who was already shown to be allied with Emma Frost in Marauders #2. An obvious question is he doesn’t come to Krakoa to get them, and why he didn’t bring Kate to the island for the Quiet Council meeting. Perhaps he can’t, for some reason?
PAGES 14-23. Cyclops, Emma and Sebastian confront Hordeculture.
There’s a weirdly inconsistent tone in this scene, which can’t quite seem to make up its mind whether the Hordeculture women are comedy foul-mouthed old women, or serious villains who are putting on an act for their own amusement – notably, it drops the jokes entirely when it gets to their origin flashback, for no apparent reason. I think we have to take it that any characters who can hold their own with Scott in a fight must be joking when they claim it’s all due to their water aerobics courses.
Shaw’s approach to them is, at root, actually quite sensible. He assumes they just want free drugs; he offers to give them what they want in exchange for an explanation of how they hacked the system. He puts it across rather obnoxiously… but basically he’s trying to solve the problem by making a deal, which is what Xavier brought him on board to do. Ultimately, though, Hordeculture run rings around everyone and then depart, proclaiming that they will figure out Krakoa and either co-opt it for their own plans, or destroy it.
Included in this is a flashback narrated by Augusta, who seems to be the sanest of the group, in which she claims that the group were radicalised by the experience of working on creating “seedless slave plants that could no longer reproduce.” That sounds like a reference to the urban myth that GM seeds are sterile in order to force farmers to buy new seeds each year. (In fact, that technology was never brought to market.) However, Augusta’s flashback also includes a really weird panel which seems to show a man’s body buried under a flower bed in a laboratory, in which case she may be talking about something much more extreme and Marvel-Universe-specific.
PAGE 24. Emma and Shaw report back to the Quiet Council.
Self-explanatory.
PAGE 25. A data page on Hordeculture, largely spelling out what was already in the issue. It’s suggested here that Hordeculture have also genetically modifying themselves, explaining their resistance to telepathy – which would add them to the list of post-human villains.
Bromes, Vetiver, Leymus & Scutch. Their names have no obvious continuity significance – the unusual surnames are all types of grass.
Sedona, Arizona. The current location of Hordeculture’s mobile base is a town of around 10,000 people, but if there’s any significance to the choice, it’s not obvious to me.
PAGES 26-27. Trailers. Five books on December 18? Really? The Krakoan reads NEXT: A SEAT AT THE TABLE
I wonder if the look of the Hordeculture was inspired by Mad Max Fury Road. Maybe it’s because I love that movie so much, and listen to the Minute podcast. But I see the Vuvalini.
https://madmax.fandom.com/wiki/Vuvalini_(The_Many_Mothers)
Boy howdy, this was an f-wording mess.
The comparison to the Hellfire Academy kids is interesting.
To me Aaron’s wackiness usually works and fits the overall story.
This did not.
So is this series just going to be set up for characters and ideas that will be theoretically picked up in other books? Because it’s been three issues of different unrelated plots without resolution.
As I recall the whole complaint with the Hellfire kids was that… they were kids and it stretched credulity to have them also be seasoned villains. No such problem with grannies.
I thought this was the best issue of the ongoings, frankly. The point of the villains is not that their age makes them funny – it’s that their age makes them weirdly chilled out while beating people up, and that is funny in its incongruity.
There’s a good niche for supervillains who are not raging or cackling.
Horde-culture or Hor-deculture? Both are problematic.
Neither.
It’s a horticulture horde.
As I noted elsewhere:
“Every mutant on Earth goes to live on an island which literally feeds on mutants, and the only thing keeping the island from eating them are two mutants who also feed on mutants.
This society is ruled by a council which includes terrorists, mutant supremacists, a guy who literally sold mutant-killing death robots to the government, and a mad scientist who specializes in mutant experimentation.
There’s no way this plan can go wrong.”
What’s Anole doing there? Didn’t he tell the X-Men to kiss off in his last appearance?
It sure looks like Scott and Emma entered the council meeting together, and Jean’s exchange is consistent with a poly relationship where she acknowledges Scott and Emma’s ongoing connection.
Phew, so I guess the strange tone shifts are one of the things people warned me about Hickman. Honestly, a bunch of women who spray goo and want to kill all humans sounds like a throwaway 90s villain. Like in the crap years of Generation X.
I liked some of the ideas–some people hacking Krakoa to control it, as well as the effects on telepaths is interesting. But I think it should’ve been a 10-second battle with the likes of Cyclops around.
Sadly, the attempts at humor are really awful.
I thought the guy under the flower bed was one of the scientists she didn’t like (the one holding the vial in an earlier panel?), and that was his “punishment.”
I’m liking the basically “one and done” stories in this book, even if the flavor of each issue is wildly different. It’s a nice break from all the other books’ six-issue opening arcs.
But yeah, this was a wacky issue. The tone isn’t going to be for everyone.
I suspect Hickman named them Hordeculture solely for Shaw’s Whoredeculture joke.
I like the one and done format but I agree that these stories but could more satisfying. Things happen, we get information, but is it really a story?’
@Talibak but that was before Age of X-Man wasn’t it? Presumably his time there changed things
One and done stories are fine. However, each of the three issues reads like the opening arc of another story. This is on top of the myriad dangling threads from House of X/POX. There is a post human theme with these women, reavers, vault etc. But the theme is not being translated into compelling stories.
I had dropped this book but my friend still ordered this issue. The art is a little better but action scenes lack energy still.
The story is awful as far as I am concerned. Bad character writing with Hickman’s trademark cringe humour. That Emma/Jean exchange read like a D grade 80s soap opera script. Where is Morrison when you need him.
Hickman seems to think that spouting tripe about sexuality counts as character development. Sebastián Shaw’s bisexuality and this bizarre polyamorous nonsense with Jean/Scott/Emma is banal and tacky. The grannies are obnoxious and while there is a nice Silver Age vibe there, it feels wholly out of place in Hickman’s more grounded modern tale.
If Hickman could write small character moments like Whedon (for example), I could look past this increasingly preposterous and implausible Krakoa setup. Like someone said on another thread, Marvel doesn’t do status quo transition stories anymore. It’s a shame because this Krakoa thing needed it.
I just wanted to add one more thing. I think Hickman is on the right track exploring post humans and what that would look like. It’s a nice angle to take and focus on as a central theme. But this theme along with any focus on the characters, seems to be secondary to getting all the plot threads and persons lined up for the next big crossover. Across the line, book stories seem to be stretched or compressed to suit whatever pacing Hickman and editorial have set to get to the next big breakpoint. On top of the two issues per month of each book, we are getting six next week! What’s the rush? And despite the intense publishing schedule, most of the storylines seem to be progressing slowly (Marauders, Excalibur) or hopping around (X-Men). Just strange.
There’s a weirdly inconsistent tone in this scene, which can’t quite seem to make up its mind whether the Hordeculture women are comedy foul-mouthed old women, or serious villains who are putting on an act for their own amusement – notably, it drops the jokes entirely when it gets to their origin flashback, for no apparent reason.
I’m about 90% sure that the personalities and banter of Hordeculture are based on the cast of the late 80s/early 90s U.S. sitcom The Golden Girls.
“An obvious question is he doesn’t come to Krakoa to get them, and why he didn’t bring Kate to the island for the Quiet Council meeting. Perhaps he can’t, for some reason?”
Has Gateway ever needed a reason to behave in mysterious and opaque ways?
@Col_Fury
I thought the guy under the flower bed was one of the scientists she didn’t like (the one holding the vial in an earlier panel?), and that was his “punishment.”
Same. It looked like classic supervillain retribution to me.
I’m really not feeling Yu’s art on this series. Hickman’s writing is so centered on characters having conversations, and Yu just isn’t good at drawing that. The almost-splash page of the assembled Quiet Council just has them standing around awkwardly, for example, instead of actually facing each other and talking. And thanks to how little his characters actually emote, I have no idea how friendly/harsh Emma and Jean’s exchange is actually meant to be.
People have talked about the weird tonal shifts or awkward humor and I maintain that’s largely down to the art, which just cannot sell a joke or a light-hearted tone.
Oh, hey, is this the first Savage Land story that doesn’t have a single dinosaur?
FUBAR-I’m glad someone else picked up on that. Yes, I’m pretty sure we were supposed to read Hordeculture as some sort of parody of the Golden Girls.
Wow! I wasn’t expecting Hickman’s X-Men to turn in to an absurdist comic, apparently influenced by Peter Milligan.
@Adrian
“The grannies are obnoxious and while there is a nice Silver Age vibe there, it feels wholly out of place in Hickman’s more grounded modern tale.”
Man, I don’t think I’d ever call Hickman’s writing grounded. It’s incredibly over the top, just a) in a slick way and b) the bloodlessness of his characters masks it at first glance. But at heart, he’s the guy who’ll name his big anti-mutant mad scientist Killian Devo.
Is Sedona just a pun -I think it is pronounced closed to ‘SEEDona’
This series is losing e. The art is very stiff – I normally don’t mind Francis Yu but he’s been associated with so many X-reboots to me now, he leaves me cold. And he’s not the right fit for this slightly surreal tone.
I feel I’d be more satisfied if this book wasn’t called X-Men, implying a team dynamic. It should more appropriately be called “Krakoan Vignettes starring Cyclops” as it’s building the new world up in a very non linear fashion. (Maybe World of X or something?!).
And Hickman really can’t write dialogue worth a damn, can he. The ideas are still coming but goodness it’s clunky. I get we need new villains as all other bad mutants have been co-opted by Krakoa, but really: killer garden grannies?!
ChrisV: “Wow! I wasn’t expecting Hickman’s X-Men to turn in to an absurdist comic, apparently influenced by Peter Milligan”
Hah!! 🙂
Golden Girls on Netflix has been a huge hit with younger viewers so why not?
Where I’m from in New York, lots of people retire to Arizona or Florida or the Carolinas because of favorable weather and taxes, so Sedona might just be a place four old white ladies can blend.
I’ve never heard Sedona pronounced with a long “e” sound.
“I get we need new villains as all other bad mutants have been co-opted by Krakoa”
I’ve been thinking X-Men comics need new villains for years now – at least since Apocalypse and Sinister both started dying regularly, and then when M-Day made new mutant villains impossible (after it became possible again they just didn’t bother). I suppose it’s more of a general comics problem where it’s always the historic villains (and heroes) being reused as new characters don’t stick very much.
OK, maybe I’m crazy here, but the whole “Whoredculture?”/”Hordeculture” joke doesn’t work at all if spoken out loud?
Like, the difference is in spelling and meaning, not pronunciation, so this doesn’t make any sense.
The “comedy” in this issue is ROUGH.
Funny, it’s like this whole direction isn’t any good and never should have been approved or something.
Best,
Dazz
PS unfortunately for my shop they seem to have ordered this issue at a similar rate as #2. I’ll let you guys know if these books ever move because I know it’s important.
@Ylu grounded is probably the wrong word. I am struggling to find the right one but what I mean is that Hickman’s story so far is not told in a Silver Age style so this issue is just jarring with these villains. I do agree that the art shares part of the blame in the Emma scene but the dialogue is still god awful.
Yeah, I don’t see these Golden Girl parodies lasting as the next big villains for the X-franchise.
When was the last time that the X-Men comic created a new villain who did last?
I’d say it was during the original Claremont days.
Well, I guess Cassandra Nova is somewhat of a popular recurring villain.
Maybe Omega Red from the early-’90s would count.
Plus, Mikey, that was your only problem with that line of dialogue?
It was really cringe worthy. It shouldn’t have made it in to the finished product at all.
The only way it would have worked is if the Dorothy analogue said it as a joke to make fun of the Blanche analogue. Then, it would have worked.
“We are Hordeculture, or in the case of Blanche here, Whoredculture.”
Adrian-Yes, I was thinking that issue #2 would have made a nice pastiche of a Silver Age story, except there was none of the fun or charm that comes with a Silver Age pastiche.
Dazzler-It’s not the direction that was the problem, it was the follow up.
There was nothing in House of X or Powers of X that said we were moving towards issues of “stand-alone” X-Men comics that fail to actually tell a story and simply leave more open-ended plots, apparently for future writers to maybe pick up on again.
Nor did it promise villains based on 1980s sit-coms.
Although, if Hickman decides to stick with this and makes parodies of Full House and ALF coming up, I may have to change my mind that this was a mistake.
Chris V: Be fair. Dorothy *or* Sophia.
I see I’m in the minority in that I actually enjoyed this issue far more than #2. At least the choice of villain was surprising.
It also picked up the medicine thread which seemed almost forgotten about after being dropped like a bomb in the first few pages of HoX #1. Nice to see some follow up outside of the vague smuggling of it in Marauders, which we have not actually seen.
I agree with everyone else that the humor doesn’t land and Yu’s art is really rough in this book. No backgrounds and scratchy figures at best. Not sure why they assigned it to him when they knew there would be a faster pub schedule.
@Dazzler I read on bleeding cool (for what that’s worth) that #2 will have a second printing and #5 topped advance reorders. Perhaps that is the retailers being too optimistic, but would this be happening if they had piles of unsold copies of #2?
I believe that second printings are based on order by retailers from Diamond/Marvel.
Retailers have still been ordering “Dawn of X” books based on sales of House and Powers (which did sell quite well).
So, if a retailer ordered far too many copies of X-Men #2, Marvel is going by order figures, not what actually sold in the stores.
So, we shall see.
RE: Hickman’s dialogue. Is this what it’s always like?
His X-Men is my first exposure to his writing, and I can’t tell if the dialogue is intentionally awkward and weird as a plot point or if this is just how he writes dialogue.
Not always, no. Characterization has never been his strong point, but this is just badly written.
Black Monday Murders was a very well written comic, for example.
This almost reads as if he didn’t really want to write X-Men.
@chris ah ok. So Marvel printed more because they are hoping for more orders from retailers? But they don’t yet know if that printing will be needed?
I thought a 2nd printing being created meant that there was some kind of demand coming from somewhere for that issue.
This is what I get for trying to understand the direct market.
That’s how I understand it.
I don’t understand anything Marvel does.
They give out free copies of comics that that they don’t expect to sell well.
My local comic store had two big stacks of the Conan: Serpent War #1 comic this past week.
I asked him why he had so many.
He said, “I wish I knew. Ask Marvel. I ordered twenty copies, and they sent me another twenty copies for free. I won’t even be able to sell twenty. What am I supposed to do with forty now?”.
He told me they’ve done this with other series too, it’s not just Conan Serpent War #1.
Marvel is a very strange company. I have to assume that if they weren’t owned by Disney, they would’ve gone out of business.
Thinking about other Hickman books, I come to the conclusion that at best I appreciate his work, but I don’t think I ever really enjoy it – with the exception of some single issues of FF/Avengers.
With that said, I definitely didn’t enjoy this. But I appreciate the Hordeculture as a toy that some other writer might pick up in the future. They would make excellent Deadpool antagonists, for example, if somebody wanted to lean into the Golden Girls thing. And staying closer to mutants – they seem to be awful X-Men villains, but they might make great X-Club villains if anybody ever revives that concept. I bet Si Spurrier could write a great Dr Nemesis / Hordeculture story.
@Chris V: I was basically saying “This is the flagship book? This is what they’re doing with the X-Men? All the fuss for this??” There are things I can see appealing to people about, say, Marauders and maybe Excalibur; I think this could absolutely be one of the worst excuses for a flagship X book ever. Honestly the ham-fisted polygamy stuff is so gross and it makes me have contempt for every character involved. It’s impossible to take seriously and I don’t understand how any of this will ultimately be worth it. That’s really my point. I think Jonathan Hickman was just a terrible, terrible choice
As for the second printing, I have several ideas. I think there are absolutely business reasons for extra printings even when there’s no demand at all, especially for the flagship book. What I’m saying is the unsold piles of some of these books make me very uncomfortable. HOXPOX was pretty huge for my store and its success is going to end up costing them money. It’s just one shop, but I saw the excitement over HOXPOX, and the relative lack of interest in Dawn of X is palpable.
It’s absolutely possible that some shops ran out of X-Men #2 and wanted to order second printings, but I guarantee you there are plenty of unsold issues out there because let’s be honest it’s not good and it’s a poor excuse for a flagship.
Just read on Newsarama that New Mutants #1 was the best selling book for November. It’s just anecdotal, but based on the two (2) stacks of unsold copies at my shop I’m guessing it was their biggest order of the month, perhaps by far, and there’s no way they sold enough copies to end up avoiding losing money on it.
I seriously wish more people would say what they’re seeing at their shops, but these comments sections have already settled down to normal levels, supporting the theory that the enthusiasm for HOXPOX was fleeting.
I wonder how much enthusiasm will even be left for the next wave of books. How interested could readership possibly be in Hellions at this point? The idea of X-Corp and Moira X books doesn’t sound much better. I expect they’ll release waves and waves of books that are short-lived because they’re badly going to need an endless parade of fresh #1 issues to prop up sales until this is over.
@Mikey-
“OK, maybe I’m crazy here, but the whole “Whoredculture?”/”Hordeculture” joke doesn’t work at all if spoken out loud?”
It would depend on the accent of English. While accents that distinguish between w/wh are uncommon, they do exist.
They were also more prevalent in the past, and performative antiquatedness is sort of Shaw’s aesthetic.
Aaand I just realized that’s completely irrelevant because “whore” has a silent w. Never mind, never mind…
I love Paul’s write-ups, but the negativity and judge-jury-executioner vibe of the comments following do not reflect my experience of these series: I am mostly enjoying the new X-direction.
That said, I agree that the art on the X-Men series is a problem as discussed above, not well-suited to talking head Hickmanisms.
I also offer the following:
Sedona is not pronounced with a long “e.” Sedona is most known for being a spiritual/new age type community: it has a number of stores that sell crystals and tarot cards, for example, and some of the rock formations are considered to be “vortexes” of spiritual energy. The location has local Native American spiritual significance as well. Perhaps it will be relevant, perhaps not.
As for absurdist Hickman series, I’m getting a Manhattan Projects vibe from the latest issue. Very flip.
Thanks to everyone for their insights and input.
Dazzler-Hickman is a “hot” writer. Just the announcement that he was taking over on X-Men got people talking.
He improved sales on Fantastic Four and Avengers when he took over those books.
Why wouldn’t Marvel want Hickman on X-Men?
I think the bigger question is, if not Hickman, who should have led the latest X-relaunch?
Gerry Duggan or Tini Howard? No one cares about their names on a book.
Chris Claremont again? Yeah, no.
Marvel has basically tried every other top writer in comics on the X-Men at some point now.
Outside of Grant Morrison (yeah, you’d love that!) or Alan Moore….which isn’t going to happen….Hickman is probably the biggest name that Marvel could have gotten for this X-relaunch.
Well. Arguably Kieron Gillen is much bigger now then when he actually was writing X-Men, though obviously not Morrison-level. Mark Waid recently crashed and burned on the Champions (and Avengers), but he was coming off a very well received Daredevil run (and hasn’t written mutants in 20 years if I googled him right).
Honestly, my hope is that Al Ewing rides the wave of Immortal Hulk’s success all the way to stardom and becomes the next big name writer to revamp the X-Men.
Yeah, Al Ewing on X-Men would be great. He’s the best writer at Marvel.
He was busy with making Immortal Hulk the best comic currently being published though.
Right now, he would definitely be my pick for taking over the X-books after Hickman.
Ewing’s name isn’t as big as Hickman yet, even though he’s a far better writer (and I am a fan of Hickman).
There’s also the matter of if someone like Gillen has any interest in coming back to Marvel.
I’m not sure if Waid on X-Men, at this point in his career, would be interesting or not.
Yeah, I think the last time he was on the X-Men comic, he ended up quitting after writing only a few issues because Marvel was forcing the Onslaught cross-over stuff on him.
The only reason I wouldn’t want Ewing to take over X-Men after Immortal Hulk is because the Fantastic Four title needs him so much more.
Gillen has stated outright he has no more interest in doing corporate comics. His Secret Wars Siege mini was sort of his swan song to the Marvel Universe.
Good point, YLu. I’d much rather have a readable FF comic again.
I haven’t enjoyed the book since Hickman left, and Slott is definitely not the correct choice.
So many poor Marvel series in need of help, not just the X-Men, but so few quality writers left willing to work for Marvel…
@YLu didn’t Gillen write Star Wars after saying no to corporate comics? I’d guess this would be negotiable…
I think there is a dearth of new comic book writing talent that can step up and manage a franchise like X-Men. Things are even tighter as independent work is a different beast from a superhero team book that is character focused like the X-Men (and has a ton of characters and complex lore). An example is Warren Ellis. He has written some great stuff like Planetary but I have found his superhero work forgettable to mediocre.
I think Marvel needs to change their approach and pare down the titles (not just X-Men) and find someone to stick with them for a 5 year period or longer. They definitely need to release the editorial and marketing reins a bit and have them tell longer form storylines (like the Claremont days) that do not necessarily have to be tied into some corporate mandated annual big event. There aren’t enough good writers around to rotate regularly and certainly not for 6 bimonthly X-Men books and various one shots and miniseries.
One would think that from a Disney-Marvel viewpoint, it is not that critical that the comic book arm be spewing out billions of titles to meet a sales target in what is a niche market. I would think the focus is on monetizing the brands in movies, merchandising etc. The comic book arm to me would be the pipeline for scripts/movie ideas and less of a critical business unit in and of itself. None of this is probably going to happen though.
I’m not sure if it’s the editorial department at Marvel or if it’s the Disney corporation, but some individuals at Marvel are insistent that Marvel Comics continue to be the top comic book publisher every year.
The only way Marvel can accomplish this, as sales on most of their monthly titles have been steadily decreasing, is to release so many titles each month that the total sales figures at the end of the year put Marvel in the top spot, even if their monthly sales on individual comics are in decline.
It’s sheer madness to me, but Marvel continues to flood the shelves with more and more comics.
I would think it would make more sense to put the time and effort in to increasing the quality of the titles they publish, so that they can see sales figures increase.
That’s not Marvel’s strategy.
There’s absolutely no reason to have six ongoing X-titles, or to publish each of the titles (seemingly) three times a month now.
Disney/Marvel seem to be using comics publishing as a Petri dish for launching new properties or revamping old ones. This is a sensible strategy. It’s much, much less risky to produce a comic to build hype and gauge interest than to commit to a huge summer blockbuster.
Look at Captain Marvel, Captain Falcon, Black Panther, the Inumans, Miles & Spider-Gwen, Jane Thor, SHIELD, etc. Hickman’s Infinty is clearly a proof of concept for the Thanos movies in retrospect. Obviously, those examples fit the model to varying degrees, and sometimes Disney still pushes ahead with obviously unworkable properties (Inhumans obv.)
But Disney is not stupid. They are terrifyingly rational and ruthless in their cultivation of media franchises for maximum profitability.
So: what’s Disney’s angle with Krakoa, since it’s very obviously not a viable direction for the X-Men in the MCU?
Two reasons, I believe: first, it’s a dog whistle to hardcore fans that the Fox drama is over and the X-Men are once again a top priority at Marvel. They want to get fans talking again, and a massive change in direction with a heavy release schedule, interconiuity and big name creators has done the trick.
Second, I think Marvel is “auditioning” specific characters for consideration in the inevitable movie reboot. Again, the’ve done this blatantly in the past with Cap. Marvel, Falcon, etc. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Kitty, either Psylockes, Jean, Emma or the New Mutants were among the first wave of X-Men in the MCU.
Ah. So, basically, Disney-Marvel is pursuing a “survival of the fittest” strategy?
It doesn’t matter what effect Marvel’s seemingly insane policies have on the comic market.
To Disney, they are rational, because the comic publishing industry is secondary.
It’s a matter of attempting to throw out as much content as possible at once, and see what the fans decide to embrace.
Then, whatever manages to flourish in that environment, Disney looks at for possible future movie options.
The fact that Marvel does manage to stay at the top of comic publishers each year, based solely on the sheer amount of material they are publishing, probably does look like a positive too.
@Chris V
For Marvel/Disney, weekly comics fans like us are the proverbial “whales” – dedicated, long-term, reliable sources of profit. Weekly comics are a vital tool to keep us engaged in the IP and spending between the major film/television releases for general audiences. A fan unhappy with the franchise is still visiting the shop once a week, buying collectibles and merchandise, talking about the books and keeping the characters alive in pop culture.
If Marvel doesn’t publish enough books, we might become bored or disengaged and drop out of fandom entirely – and Marvel loses a “whale.” A disengaged fan is a permanent loss of revenue. So erring on the side of publishing too many titles is the safer bet.