Uncanny X-men Disassembled coming in November

[Dementia5]

People of color and queer people must align exactly with what the census says but it's fine that half the X-Men are redheads (2-6% of Americans).

Speaking as a ginger, I feel over-represented.

[salarta]

Or maybe the direct market sales numbers are misleading because digital sales were good? How often do we see people complaining that Moon Girl is still running with less than 10k sales in DM? There's a reason Iceman got another mini and Wasp got uncancelled.

I don't go with that. In the digital age, it's easy to get statistics on these sort of things. I take Marvel not sharing those stats as a sign that there are books selling poorly that they want to keep going, or characters they want to keep promoting, and not providing digital stats gives them an out with the excuse of "They must be selling enough digitally."

[BroHomo]

That's what makes the theme so universal....so many people can relate to feeling "other" at some level or some time in their lives.

Yes telling this story with a majority of pretty White heterosexual people makes the most sense

I very much agree with inclusiveness, but it should be done in way that makes sense and based on current populations. If 13% of America is African American (per 2010 US census), then about 13% of X-Men characters should reflect that (for example). That's roughly 1 in 10 or a little more, and Marvel needs to work on it. If roughly 5% of the US population is queer, then that would be 1 in 20 of the X-Men. Given that Iceman is one of the top 20 X-Men and has gotten steady focus since being outed, that's about right.

Bringing up figures and percentages to try and quell people's disappointment of being under represented seems condescending, Theres been about 1 new 'student/member' each that's a representation of a Queer/black/latino/asian/native etc on an Xteam every 10 years... #smh but since even those numbers are slightly juust slightly below the percentages in America it's cool? Theres been about 50 alternative universe or time travelers who get waaaaay more prominence

Disagree completely. Then you start losing the fact that this is meant to be a fictional metaphor that any reader could relate to. It becomes exclusive, rather than inclusive.

And yet you applied real world percentages to explain the lack of the very people the X-men are metaphors for. How would an X-Team with only Asians, Latin and Black members be anymore exclusive for a white person than the Morrison era New X-men roster was for n

What I don't like seeing is tokenism, which is the most common result of placating a particular group. Editorial wants to try and get a group to ease off so compels a writer to use a character the he (or occasionally she) has little or no interest in. That leads to lousy story telling, imo. (Refer to Bloodstorm and her recent fate.)

"Tokenism" shouldn't bother you its the fact that writers can get a pass for shitty writing cause they were interested in the character....uh its their job to get interested...make readers interested and if they can't "grasp" the character then they should get the Axe

Speaking as a ginger, I feel over-represented.

Overexposure can lead to very serious health problems for The Ginge

The X-Men are meant to represent a slice of the world.

Most of the World ain't White or Christian tho :/

[Sundown]

Yes telling this story with a majority of pretty White heterosexual people makes the most sense

Which is why the O5 never really worked by itself and the X-Men didn't become successful until Claremont and ANAD groups going forward.

Bringing up figures and percentages to try and quell people's disappointment of being under represented seems condescending, Theres been about 1 new 'student/member' each that's a representation of a Queer/black/latino/asian/native etc on an Xteam every 10 years... #smh but since even those numbers are slightly juust slightly below the percentages in America it's cool? Theres been about 50 alternative universe or time travelers who get waaaaay more prominence

It isn't meant to. The figures are examples that, statistically, it's not under-representation regarding orientation. (I already pointed out that it still was, racially.) And it seems to me that with every new crop of students, there's at least one who is part of a real world minority. As a matter of fact, I'm having trouble remembering a group of students who didn't have that. The problem is that students or younger characters are disposable, and won't replace legacy characters. That's true of DC, as well.

This whole discussion was started on the grounds of Iceman's changed orientation vs. propelling forward lesser known existing LGBTQ characters and which was more effective. The way I see it, Iceman stood far more chance of success than editorial trying to push a newer character into relevance. That's one of the reasons I expect another "outing" of an established character in the near future.

And yet you applied real world percentages to explain the lack of the very people the X-men are metaphors for. How would an X-Team with only Asians, Latin and Black members be anymore exclusive for a white person than the Morrison era New X-men roster was for n
"Tokenism" shouldn't bother you its the fact that writers can get a pass for shitty writing cause they were interested in the character....uh its their job to get interested...make readers interested and if they can't "grasp" the character then they should get the Axe

That's where "fictional metaphor" comes in. By keeping mutants a fictional group who can be a part of any other group, it's inclusive. She's a mutant but she's also black. He's a mutant but he's also white. They're mutants but also gay, straight, Christian, Jewish, gypsy, rich, poor, so on and so forth. The connecting factor is that they are all mutants -- part of this fictional group.


I don't disagree that there's a white heteronormative Christian default setting, especially in the US. No argument there. That's the category the majority of the population falls into.

That's all the O5 were composed of. It shifted with ANAD, it shifted again with the first iteration of New Mutants, it's shifted multiple times over the years and it shifted yet again when Iceman was written as gay. All those shifts have been progress.

What Claremont did with this concept of a fictional minority group, when the X-Men first launched to fame, was brilliant. He knew his audience. He knew what they were mostly comprised of....who was buying the books. He wrote the X-Men in such a way that anyone who had ever felt like an outsider could relate. If he'd written it to incorporate the Latino experience in America (for example), then the readers who could relate to that background would obviously relate, but not really anyone else. If it wrote it towards the LBGTQ community, again, they could relate phenomenally, but probably no one else. If he'd geared the books towards any real world minority group, it wouldn't have worked for his readership. The only way he could share with the largest possible audience what it felt like to be persecuted and hated for what you had no control over was to use mutants as a fictional metaphor, albeit an imperfect one. Sharing what it felt like is key. If you belong to a real world minority group, you already know what it feels like, so the fictional part of the metaphor might feel unnecessary.

He tweaked the line up by including characters from different backgrounds and experiences and that has continued to be a trend since.

As far as decent writers...yeah, X-Men don't seem to be getting the cream of the crop in recent years, with a couple of exceptions.

Most of the World ain't White or Christian tho :/

Most of the US is, which is where the X-Men are based.

[BroHomo]

And it seems to me that with every new crop of students, there's at least one who is part of a real world minority. As a matter of fact, I'm having trouble remembering a group of students who didn't

That's my point theres only been a sort of 1 stand in for different races. There were never. Black...Asian etc. And when it looked like It was turning it got shat on...the New Mutants initialed recruited a Native girl, Vietnamese teen, and a black Brazilian kid. Every subsequent new member that wasn't an alien was a blonde with Rictor being the exception. of the members Sam, Rahne, Amara, Magik, Tabitha have a presence in the X-World Karmas in Limbo of Limbos, Dani depowered, and Bobby wont stay black so he went to the Avengers for a while.GenX is even. Worse. Blink, Skin, Synch, Monda all dead While Jubilee was depowered till recently and M wont stay black New X-men? you'd think it'll be better but still no Asian Male student made the cute and the second AA Male to be featured has similar powers to the first and winds up depowered while Dust and Surge are limbo'd instead the murders Glob and QQ have risen to be bit players

What Claremont did with this concept of a fictional minority group, when the X-Men first launched to fame, was brilliant. He knew his audience. He knew what they were mostly comprised of....who was buying the books.

I think I'm starting to understand what you're saying for a person who wasn't in the majority the otherness of the X-men was already there to latch on regardless of the makeup of the chars ?

[QUOTE=Sundown;3853241]He wrote the X-Men in such a way that anyone who had ever felt like an outsider could relate.

If he'd written it to incorporate the Latino experience in America (for example), then the readers who could relate to that background would obviously relate, but not really anyone else.

If it wrote it towards the LBGTQ community, again, they could relate phenomenally, but probably no one else.

I guess I have a hard time seeing why itd be so alienating:/
if he'd geared the books towards any real world minority group, it wouldn't have worked for his readership. The only way he could share with the largest possible audience what it felt like to be persecuted and hated for what you had no control over was to use mutants as a fictional metaphor

well that's kinda disappointing

He tweaked the line up by including characters from different backgrounds and experiences and that has continued to be a trend since.
Most of the US is, which is where the X-Men are based.

But the US only makes up 4 percent of the world and even considering the nonwhite population the only mutants worthy to becoming X-men have been Maggot and Thunderbird III ones dead the other Limbo if I can remember correctly those are the only minority dudes created after clarenont thats been on a "flagship" team.And none were Americano while Dr Nemesis Sabretooth a senior citizen Wolverine Fantomex various clones/The 05 AGAIN!! Have made the cut Just Weird
EDIT: I forgot Darwin was on uncanny for a while. But didn't stay black. And Bendis was the second one to have more than one nonwhite dude as the X-men proteges GenX being the first. Which is kiiiinda weird.
Sorry if anything's unclear I've been stuck at the airport all night and morning. I'm more than a little sleep deprived

[Tycon]

Don't put words in my mouth. You KNOW and have seen how divisive the fights over retcons — even EASY ones like Iceman (thanks to decades of jokes within the fanbase) — can be (speaking of Laura, a lot of readers didn't even realize the Adamantium Agenda #4 reveal was a retcon; they just assumed it was the case from the start. Yet that STILL got a little heated on her appreciation thread, no doubt fueled by Kyle's passive-aggressive tweet). Look at Kitty; Claremont built subtext in from the start and his intent was always well-known even though subsequent writers refused to touch it. But if you genuinely think her being outed woudn't cause a **** storm since it retcons 30 years of established character development, then I've got a bridge to sell you.

And your attitude is EXACTLY part of the problem; People aren't going to be allowed to oppose a retcon JUST because it's a retcon, or because it diametrically opposes the character's previous development and characterization. Because of the subject matter they're immediately going to get attacked and labeled just like you did now (and FYI I'm NOT saying that there's not people who would oppose for less savory reasons, but too many people try to make it a black and white argument). So thanks for proving my point for me.

What makes you think Laura being gay is soooooooooo life-altering to her? It literally doesn't change a thing. She's only ever had a relationship with Hellion and Angel. With Hellion, it's easy to see how Laura was fond of him because he was one of the first people in her life to risk their lives protecting her. And once she starts to grow as a person, it's clear there was nothing romantic between them, as Liu had written after Julian kissed her. And literally Laura/Warren was so lifeless, I doubt anyone would care if there was some retcon in place that invalidated their relationship. And, about Kitty, no it doesn't retcon ****. At all. Her being bisexual detracts nothing from her relationships with Peter, Pete, Peter, Peter, and Kinross. Just like everyone believing the retcon, in Adamantium Agenda, was already established canon, the same applies to most of the current X-writers and fanbase believing Kitty is already bi.

And that second paragraph reads a whole lot like "if you were nicer, maybe the homophobes wouldn't be so mad about retcons" sooooooo not really caring for that. And no one was being labeled.

[anyajenkins]

I don't go with that. In the digital age, it's easy to get statistics on these sort of things. I take Marvel not sharing those stats as a sign that there are books selling poorly that they want to keep going, or characters they want to keep promoting, and not providing digital stats gives them an out with the excuse of "They must be selling enough digitally."

It is easy to get those statistics, but marvel's not going to release them, no business would, honesty. That's proprietary sales data. None of the sales figures we argue about online are from marvel, they are all third party estimates. Marvel only talks about sales in a general sense. If marvel won't release their print sales data, even after all this time, they ain't going to release the digital, and that's not even being 'devious,' that's pretty standard business practice.

[salarta]

It is easy to get those statistics, but marvel's not going to release them, no business would, honesty. That's proprietary sales data. None of the sales figures we argue about online are from marvel, they are all third party estimates. Marvel only talks about sales in a general sense. If marvel won't release their print sales data, even after all this time, they ain't going to release the digital, and that's not even being 'devious,' that's pretty standard business practice.

My background is primarily with the video game industry. With the video game industry, we have a variety of sources for sales information. Most commonly, publishers will openly provide a rough estimate either in units shipped/sold or in amount of money made. I usually only see it for games they've been really trying to promote, but it's entirely possible they do it for "lesser" games and I'm not aware of it.

https://investor.activision.com/news...easeID=1047740

Some companies just flat out share their best estimated data publicly, like Capcom's investor relations page.

http://www.capcom.co.jp/ir/english/finance/million.html

And outside of what companies actually provide, there are groups like VGChartz, akin to Comichron, that attempt to get sales estimates with a variety of methods: http://www.vgchartz.com/methodology.php.

All that to say, video game companies don't release their exact sales numbers, which matches what you're saying about Marvel not releasing them. This is especially true about digital sales. But Marvel could most definitely provide a rough estimation, at least for the comics and events they consider most important. That's something the video game industry has no problem doing even when it makes them look bad. Capcom, for example, first projected Resident Evil 6 would sell 10 million copies, then they dropped the projection to 7 million (what it's at now, 6 years later), only to ultimately end up at 5 million.

So back to my original statement. I don't buy the "direct market sales misleading, maybe digital was good" line. If digital was good, Marvel should say so and give a rough estimate. Instead, Marvel operates in complete silence, which is clearly an individual corporate choice rather than a common practice given what video game companies do by comparison. I don't expect "We sold 18374 digital copies of this book and made $73496 as a result" or anything, but they could easily say "we sold over 18k digital copies." And I take Marvel not doing that as a way to obscure when they're doing things in the comics that people don't really want or aren't really buying.

[Sundown]

Regarding team balance, etc, that we've been talking about, if they were to use this particular line up, it seems about right, though it's probably just a teaser image.

Of the ten shown, three are racial minorities, one is an ethnic minority, one is gay, another is bi (if the writer remembers/acknowledges it). That's 6 of 10 as being a part of a real life minority group.


Anyway, Disassembled looks to be reset time. We'll see how they shake things up, and what we eventually end up with. More focus on continuity, a strong franchise narrative and connectivity between books would be great, in my opinion.

[Master of Sound]

Last week we got a cover 3 days in a row, of issues 1,2 and 3. I was hoping it would continue to all the Disassembled covers.

[Prof. Warren]

Last week we got a cover 3 days in a row, of issues 1,2 and 3. I was hoping it would continue to all the Disassembled covers.

The three covers we got were all from the upcoming November solicits.

No way they're going to release all ten covers so far ahead of the solicits for the months they'll run in.

[Prof. Warren]

I don't buy the "direct market sales misleading, maybe digital was good" line. If digital was good, Marvel should say so and give a rough estimate. Instead, Marvel operates in complete silence, which is clearly an individual corporate choice rather than a common practice given what video game companies do by comparison. I don't expect "We sold 18374 digital copies of this book and made $73496 as a result" or anything, but they could easily say "we sold over 18k digital copies." And I take Marvel not doing that as a way to obscure when they're doing things in the comics that people don't really want or aren't really buying.

Marvel, like other publishers, isn't obliged to supply sales information.

What would be the point? So fans could have more data with which to continue their armchair quarterbacking of the industry?

There's too much of that already.

The only people who need to see that info in order to make publishing decisions are the people inside Marvel.

The idea that Marvel is pushing books and characters that people don't really want - and continually losing money in the process - all as part of some hidden agenda on their part is more than a bit silly.

Especially when it's infinitely more logical to believe that books that seem to be struggling in the direct market make a decent return elsewhere and therefore earn their keep in ways we're not aware of.

[salarta]

Marvel, like other publishers, isn't obliged to supply sales information.

What would be the point? So fans could have more data with which to continue their armchair quarterbacking of the industry?

There's too much of that already.

The only people who need to see that info in order to make publishing decisions are the people inside Marvel.

The idea that Marvel is pushing books and characters that people don't really want - and continually losing money in the process - all as part of some hidden agenda on their part is more than a bit silly.

Especially when it's infinitely more logical to believe that books that seem to be struggling in the direct market make a decent return elsewhere and therefore earn their keep in ways we're not aware of.

I suppose a fair argument could be made that whereas video games are a booming industry, the comic book industry's been dying since the late 80s/early 90s. So it makes less sense for them to give numbers when it's completely pointless for them to tout any successes they have like that.

I don't think the idea Marvel's pushing stuff people don't really want is "silly" at all. When you have fans running a company, they'll prioritize things that are of personal interest to them. An example, years ago a certain editor kept making arguments that Polaris "can't" be Magneto's daughter. He proceeded to exclude her from events with her family, tried to "replace" her (first with Enchantress as a visual replacement, then with Luminous as a sister replacement), and went so far as to have an iconic House of M image redrawn to remove her. I use this example because it's what I know, with this argument. If an editor is willing to do all of that because of personal bias, why would they not also make decisions on what books and characters to promote also based on personal bias?

I'd cite Marvel's antics concerning Fantastic Four and X-Men pre-merger talks, but really that was more about what Perlmutter perceived to be appropriate business tactics than about bias for or against certain franchises.

[Digifiend]

Marvel, like other publishers, isn't obliged to supply sales information.

What would be the point? So fans could have more data with which to continue their armchair quarterbacking of the industry?

There's too much of that already.

The only people who need to see that info in order to make publishing decisions are the people inside Marvel.

The idea that Marvel is pushing books and characters that people don't really want - and continually losing money in the process - all as part of some hidden agenda on their part is more than a bit silly.

Especially when it's infinitely more logical to believe that books that seem to be struggling in the direct market make a decent return elsewhere and therefore earn their keep in ways we're not aware of.

Yeah, Iceman got another mini, Unstoppable Wasp got uncancelled, and Moon Girl and Squirrel Girl avoid cancellation because of non-direct market sales (bookstore and Amazon trade sales, and Scholastic). Stop beating the dead horse and pretending that they don't sell.

[WebLurker]

Any and all characters can be interesting. The deciding factor is if they're used the right way. Saying some should get more use over others because they're interesting is essentially saying any not used are uninteresting, when the reality is that the "uninteresting" ones haven't had a proper chance. They need more than just a book. They also need promotion, good writing, said writing done by a writer that really cares and tries to understand, a supportive editor, etc. You're treating these characters like whether or not they can appeal to people is set in stone with no way of changing it, when it's way more complex than that.

If you're saying X-23 is breakout because she has many traits in common with Wolverine, I could agree there. But if you're saying it's only cause she's associated with Wolverine as his clone, then I'd have to disagree. She's a little interesting to me (not enough to buy stuff of her, of course, same as all the other characters right now), but what makes her that little bit interesting to me isn't Wolverine. It's her nature, her background, and what she has to deal with as a young woman.

Makes sense. I'ma fan of the X-23 character and have zero interest in Wolverine comics.