The "End" of Uncanny X-Men

As DC recently announced new #1’s for nearly all their titles, I suppose it should come as no surprise that Marvel’s killing its book with the longest-running history behind it. (We all know the Big Two love to attempt to keep neck-and-neck with whatever various stratagems the other has going on.) As a guy who fancies himself as a bit of an X-Men fan, I have some thoughts on this.

Put simply - history, even oft-revised and amended history, has recently become viewed as a negative thing in terms of comics' saleability, because it’s believed to limit new readers’ access.

To speak to that point, I started reading comics in 1986. I didn’t start reading Uncanny until 1989. By that time there were nearly 250 issues out. ***This didn’t stop me from picking up the books and figuring out what was going on – and this was before the internet, so you couldn’t go online and look up scans or plot points or covers (or straight download full issues). They didn't even really have trades then! Instead, you had to read the editor’s notes, you had to buy back issues, and you had to talk to other fans who knew more than you. Put simply, you had to do more work – which I was still glad to do, and so were TONS of other people.

To me, the “we've been making these books so long now it’s impenetrable” argument is incredibly weak. People still read incredibly long (previously published) series of books. Last I checked, books in the Chronicles of Narnia and Lord of the Rings series were selling pretty well, despite their having a huge page count of material. The argument could be made that these both have recent movies to draw new attention - BUT SO DOES THE X-MEN. Besides, I'm fairly certain that Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle works are still selling pretty well - which again involve serial characters with a lot of previously existing material. So I really feel like this is just a scapegoat argument. It's inarguable at face value - but if you stop and think about it, it really falls apart.

Don't get me wrong. I think the idea of writing comics for guys who are 30-60, to cater to what they remember reading when they were 5-15 is an incredibly bad idea which I am really against. I just feel like a key point comics is missing, is that comics attracted a vast amount of readers from the Silver Age through the late 80s with very little multimedia support or application - there were no quality films, there was minimal television exposure -- relatively minimal action figure availability, and next-to-no video games. But people were attracted to the books nonetheless - and this is because -- comics were cool when they were cutting-edge and/or counter-culture.

Every "big" thing Marvel's done from Civil War on has been very status quo in terms of its underlying message. And DC, I don't even know where to begin. Grant Morrison's been scrawling one big love letter to Alan Moore across the entire DC universe for years while Geoff Johns is simultaneously writing a love letter to 1982. In the meantime, guys like Dwayne McDuffie (R.I.P) weren't being remotely utilized properly.

There are guys who get it. Dwayne McDuffie was one of them. Chris Claremont still has it in him. Scott Lobdell gets it. Mark Waid gets it. I think Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost get it.

I know this is an unpopular opinion as it applies to the average 30s-ish comic reader of today, but I believe "comics by-and-large should be for children. They should be tales about looking outside of your own opinions and worldview and about questioning authority – things that entertain kids while teaching them how to read and teaching them how to think."

But I digress.

Don’t get me wrong, I get it. The comics industry is working to position themselves as the itunes of comics. They want to pull the attention and readership (and money) of the “I never bought a CD, let alone a cassette or a record” generation. A business has to make money to stay alive. I get that. I just feel like if they were telling good stories by writers who understood the source material and drawn by artists whose strengths suited those writers, the books would sell themselves. Especially in terms of the X-Men.

I’ve said before, “When I was a kid, the X-Men were hated by a world that didn’t understand them. But I understood them. Railed against for being different. Trying to figure out their purpose(s), who to trust and where they fit in. The story kernel of ‘the outsider’ is relatable.” I'd think you'd have to try pretty hard to screw that up.

Yet, I’ll live with it. And not just in the sense of the sound-and-fury aspect that so many comics fans bring to their fandom, but rather in - well, let me let you in on a little secret, and this is coming from a guy who absolutely LOVES the X-Men --- I HAVEN'T BOUGHT AN ISSUE OF UNCANNY FOR NEARLY 150 ISSUES.

I look at the art and the stories, and more often than not, I'm like "what?" Ever since around 2000 it seemed like things were going downhill for the X-Men to me. Please note that I'm NOT insulting the work of anyone who's worked on the titles in the interim - I'm just saying that from what I know of it, more often than not - it's not for me.

I don’t want to read about Wolverine’s “edgy” son, or how Mr. Sinister ended up as a lady, or why the X-Men are fighting vampires or living in San Francisco. That all sounds dumb. (Granted, the stuff I love often sounds dumb in a simple sense as well. “His son from the future is fighting his own clone on the moon!” could straight be lifted from an episode of Axe Cop.) I’ve tried to read this newer stuff though. Really I have. I tried reading Grant Morrison’s run and was only able to get slightly behind one story, “Here Comes Tomorrow.” (Pretty sure that Marc Silvestri's art helped, btw.) I tried really hard to get into the Kia Asamiya stories. And don’t get me started on Chuck Austen's Juggernaut-sex and friggin' Azazel. I LOVE some of the artists. Bachalo and Townsend's are comic book rockstars. But the stories. I have zero interest in stories about any incarnation of the Phoenix, or in Cyclops' secret evil brother who goes to space. I have zero interest in reading an X-Men comic that looks like pin-up art.

Side note: I thought 100 issue run of Exiles was (largely) excellent. As was a lot of the 2004-2005 Excalibur series - man, I really dug that Excalibur series (Thanks Aaron Lopresti and Chris Claremont!).

So, I may well have a bit of rose-colored-glasses as we all do, but I don't hate everything that's new - I like some of it, and I WANT to like more of it. Where I’m going with this is, I have no investment in most of the stories they’re telling now.

I’m marginally interested in seeing a super-powered Juggernaut going buck wild, and I’m neither pro-or-con the writers or artists (though it sounds like it might be similar to the original Doomsday story), but I just don’t have the interest I had in the Chris Claremont Uncanny X-Men era. I don’t have the interest I had in the Scott Lobdell Uncanny X-Men era. So, in a sense they’re killing something that maybe wasn’t already dead, but largely was already dead to me. They’re getting around to putting a toe tag on a body I’ve barely seen move in a decade.

And obviously, nothing in comics is forever. There will be a multi-headed X-Men franchise as long as someone will buy it – no matter what format(s) that’s in. But if, and this is a big if, they are able to make wherever they pick things up from BE GOOD, then it will have been worth it. Then I'll say, "Yes - this was a good idea, because the stories are good again."

See, numbers are numbers and stories are stories. Numbers are what we use to count by, but stories are the things that actually count.

Giving Comic Books a Bad Name

I would like to detail, briefly, some things that have happened in the last 10 or so years in comics which have greatly cheapened them to me.

1 - Grant Morrison's run on X-Men. This is the man responsible for making Beast look like a housecat. He is also the man I blame for (more on this later) annihilating any semblance of logic regarding Magneto, the X-Men's greatest villain for roughly forty years of publishing. And Morrison created Cassandra Nova too. Who's Cassandra Nova? She's a bald chick who's Professor X's unborn evil twin who he murdered in the womb but then lived in a sewer grate as psychic energy for 50 years or something while plotting her revenge. I wish I was making that up. Somebody did make that up and got paid for making it up. And his name is Grant Morrison. (I sometimes think his homepage jpg was created especially for me.) All I can think of is that Grant must've gotten into some bad peyote while he was writing this (as his prior run on JLA was pretty good). The big villain of his X-Men story arc, by the way - mold. Like as in, "dust, mold, and mildew." Asthmatics everywhere shivered as they wheezed.

2 - The creation of the Ultimate universe, which I guess I should blame Brian Michael Bendis for. It's basically establishing a continuous "What If" continuity as a way to recycle old stories with "a twist." For those of you who are not familiar with the works of M. Night Shamaylan - "twist" is a codeword for "something that sucks, and has the subtlety of a flaming chainsaw shovel." Something like "Cable is evil, only he's not, but he's Wolverine, I think." Stuff like that. Don't get me wrong, there have been cool moments in the Ultimate books, not to mention that I'll read a grocery list if it's written by Jeph Loeb (see Onslaught Reborn, discussed later on). Too, as real X-Men continuity got so thrashed by Morrison, it's fun to believe there's some universe where the X-Men aren't completely lame (which I guess is what Astonishing is for, but space is boring). And Ultimate did the right thing in terms of that they didn't UNDO the real continuity to tell these alternative stories, thank god. (Hear that, DC??) Nonetheless, the Ultimate universe has taken away creative talent from "real" books. You know, books that will still exist in five years and not be an anachronism. (Remember Nth Man, or Slapstick? How about SuperPro? Yup, I didn't think you would.)

3) Re-establishing universes in general. DC's Infinite Crisis, while employing a number of well-respected scribes working in tandem, to me is unjustifiable. When COIE hit in the 80s, the DC universe wasn't streamlined enough for new readers (even many established readers) to remember what happened in which reality - so they made ONE cohesive reality. Now we've gone from having one reality which worked for something like 20-25 years to 52ish realities. Batman has a son, for Christ's sake (who's a dick no less). Who's writing it you ask? Why it's our old friend - Grant Morrison. The one positive thing of Infinite Crisis is that DC has exclusive Morrison rights now, so he can't mess up any Marvel stuff in the foreseeable future. The one negative thing of Infinite Crisis is that Morrison has now screwed up the 1 title I care about for each company. I hope Denny O'Neil hits you in the head with a frying pan Morrison. And I hope Chris Claremont is holding you still while he does it.

4) Peter Parker sucks now more than ever. Spider-Man, the posterboy for the doubting inner-monologue in all of us (and therefore the grandfather of emo), had one thing going for him. Through all his incessant doubt and whining and his undeservingly having an incredibly hot girlfriend despite his constantly making poor decisions in general, (once he's done being indecisive) he had one phrase that kept him vaguely relevant. "With great power, comes great responsibility." He just sold his soul to Mephisto (comics' devil), which wrenches the last 20 years of continuity, in order to save Aunt May's life at the cost of his relationship with Mary Jane and/or their unborn child. Somehow or other at least one of the real Green Goblins are alive again, and the book comes out weekly now. Does selling your soul to the devil seem like a responsible decision? No. A human one, maybe, but not a responsible one. Thus, Spider-Man is now completely a nutsack. No, calling him a nutsack is too complimentary. The suckiest balls are like 'no way man, I'm cooler than Spider-Man.' JMS wrote this one, but not really. It was Joe Quesada's call.

5) Joe Quesada. As a guy I'd probably like Joe. As an artist I usually like Joe. Probably as a businessman I bet I'd like Joe. As the trustee of the few remaining remnants of the pop culture of my childhood which have not already been ruined by the uninformed profiteers of the modern media, I don't like Joe. Shy of DC's newest Crises, I'm pretty sure that everything I've discussed here has either been greenlit by, or at least not vetoed by, Joe. Remember the re-do of Age of Apocalypse, which sucked? On Joe's watch. Remember Onslaught Reborn? On Joe's watch. Remember Astonishing X-Men which takes place half in and half out of continuity? On Joe's watch. Remember Eternals? No? Good for you! (It was also on Joe's watch, featuring the 'everything has angles' artwork of John Romita Jr.) But all the Marvel movies have been on Joe's watch, and since I think Marvel views comics as monthly $3 ads for their films (which is where they make their real money) he's probably getting a thumbs up from everybody at corporate. I'm sure he cares about this stuff and has reasons for what he does. I just feel like a lot of it hasn't panned out. And how many fantastic artists have signed to DC during his tenure: Ian Churchill, the Kubert brothers, etc. That may not have any relation to anything listed above - but it does still suck.

I'm not incredibly rigid. There are changes I approve of. Skrulls all up in everything - cool. Hulk being an aboriginal guy turned space warrior, okay. Iron Man and Reed Richards being on the wrong side of a boring battle and generally being dickish - well that's just a given really. Speedball becoming some spiky-armor evil-looking guy who you might see at an S+M club on Halloween in Ybor at a Voldo look-alike contest - no problem. Wolverine being a turn-of-the-century pansy kid, which involved changing his name from Logan to James, and being the offspring of his mother's second (at least) illicit affair with the alcoholic help - why not? Captain America dying was stupid, but I have no specific problem with it as ultimately he succumbed to the outdatedness of his own ideals. (Sad.) Even Banshee dying was pointless, but at least he's a character that is kind of a C- at best. Storm marrying the Black Panther doesn't provoke my interest in the least but I'll let it slide. I'm just saying that if writers want to get "creative" in a wacky way (see "twist" above), go do it with Booster Gold, go do it with Ant-Man (or The Atom), go do it with Werewolf by Night or something, Darkhawk, Spider-Ham or somebody for chrissakes. Not the established flagship characters whose faces and logos are synonymous with your company.

Deconstruction might be all the rage right now, but sometimes a spaceship is better than the Lego pieces you put one together with.