Your crazy idea to freshen up the x-books?

[Sandy Hausler]

And yet Dragon Ball is one of the most popular comics of all times. (But to be fair, Goku doesn't do a lot of parenting)

I didn't say it was a good rationale. (Though if comics characters aged normally, Spider-Man would be on social security. Just saying.)

Sandy Hausler

[Heroine Addict]

... AoXM is a giant bus to put everything...

... interesting...

... into.

This. I dont get the big aversion from editorial and fans when it comes to characters aging

It's a comics thing, and has been forever, it's not eXclusive to the X-Men.

[Havok83]

... interesting...






It's a comics thing, and has been forever, it's not eXclusive to the X-Men.

Never said it was

[Heroine Addict]

Never said it was

Just adding conteXt.

[blinkingblah]

Kill off Charles Xavier and Magneto. Have the X-Men disband. Then spread out all the A-List X-Men characters across the MU. This will “retire” the big names from the X-Men, but keep their publication going.

• Storm in a Black Panther book.
• Jean Grey in an Avengers book.
• Beast in an Fantastic 4 book.
• Iceman in a Spider-Man book.
• Kitty Pryde in an Iron Man book.
• Psylocke in a Captain Britain/STRIKE book.
• Rogue and Gambit can keep their duo book.
• X-23 in a Young Avengers book.

Wolverine can stay as a solo character. Give Nightcrawler and Angel a buddy street-level book that's similar to Daredevil or Luke Cage/Iron Fist (play on the whole angel/devil dynamic). Give Dazzler and Northstar a buddy book that spans across the MU and isn't X-Men-centric.

Have the lesser known characters also feature in other books: Dani Moonstar should be the premiere Valkyrie for Thor and Magik can be an apprentice for Doctor Strange.

Cyclops can reform and lead a Starjammers book in honor of his late father's name. This will include characters like Moondragon, Cerise, Korvus, Raza, Hepzibah, etc.

Now, for the premiere and sole X-Men book --

Hire an extremely high-quality creative team that will sell well. Title this book Superior X-Men, which centers on Polaris rebuilding Genosha. Her team can include Bishop, Frenzy, Sunfire, Forge, Marrow, Quicksilver, and Emma Frost.

Leave the superheroics to the Avengers and have the Superior X-Men focus on mutants-- the world-building, political climate, culture, and drama of Genosha. This run should last quite a few years with very minimal interruption of editorial mandates and crossover events.

Eventually, have a giant event that's highly marketed by Marvel to bring back most of the X-Men together. In the last few years, we'll find out which of the A-List X-Men who found success in the greater MU books are and KEEP THEM THERE.

Start rebuilding the X-Line with new concepts and diverse teams (something that a few years of building Genosha would help do) -- for example: a Genoshan-based school (with the Academy X students) and Emma as the leading role of teacher; a B-List team that's more light-hearted and deals with grounded issues (like PAD's modern X-Factor run); and a Bishop-led secret X-Force team tasked by Polaris (similar to Cyclops tasking Wolverine to lead an X-Force).

As I said earlier, this will allow the big names to still be regularly published (just not in X-Men books) and allow the lesser known X-Men to rise and take focus. And a book about a society that's heavily populated by mutants would be something fresh for the flagship X-Men.

Yes to all of this with a few personal tweaks. But otherwise yes yes and yes!

[phoenixzero23]

Make everyone gay.

This but also make them polygamous.

[Hypestyle]

a team not based in NYC.
genuinely new powers. not the 50th teleporter.

[Fantasy Free Me]

Probably was said already but: Bring back Logan and Scott, make them all forget the schism happened, bring all the X-Men back together (Mags, Emma and the like included), take Kitty from the leadership and relegate her to teaching something non important.

[Harpsikord]

Stop listening to the fanbase. Every time that a new writing team is brought on (or at least almost every time) it's to do some sort shakeup to the status quo in some way or another, and a lot of the time it's because of editorial looking at places like CBR or basing it on what they hear at comic-cons and such as that as to what fans supposedly want to see, and a lot of the time it leads to some kind of rehashing of a story that has already been told or trying to bring things back to an era that has past, even if that can be a largely good base.

Tell the stories that you want to tell as opposed to the ones that you're expected to tell. Bendis' entire run for instance is critically acclaimed, and he told his own stories without really worrying what the fanbase had to say about it, but if you based it on what they did say it would be considered one of, if not the, worst runs that the X-Men have ever seen when that's largely not the case. It's not perfect, but it isn't awful and at least he tried to do something relatively new with the stories told. Chris Claremont, Scott Lobdell, Fabian Nicieza, Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, Grant Morrison, Kieron Gillen, Rick Remender, they all told stories that they wanted to tell without worrying what anyone other than the professional critics had to say about their work. And the stories that they told were better for it, they were interesting, fresh, and passionate. But because of writers and editorial trying to pander to the masses, we can't and haven't gotten anything like this since Gillen and Remender left. It's time to find people that are interested in telling THEIR OWN stories with the X-Men.

X-Men Red was that, but because of the pandering to the fanbase it was ultimately shoved to the wayside in favor of an Uncanny X-Men that, while I have been enjoying it, has been neutered of any remotely nuanced storytelling in comparison to those other writers who told the tales that they wanted to tell with passion and with vigor. And it's interesting, because a lot of their runs start out as darlings of the fanbase and then it turns right around whenever something happens that the fans just happen not to agree with, and it never regains traction. That's happened when Remender had Havok give his 'Call me Alex' speech, and it's happened even before that and will continue to happen. Apparently there's a large sect of fans complaining about Jean Grey's speech to Cassandra Nova and the united nations being about acceptance... in a franchise that's all about acceptance. Excuse me, what?

So yeah. Writers and editorial need to tell the stories they want to tell as opposed to what they think that the fans want. We need more books like X-Men Red, more arcs like the Dark Angel Saga, Phoenix Resurrection, and more. More writers telling the stories that they passionately want to tell. Less that feel indepted to a bitter fanbase that will virtually almost never be happy with what they're given.

[stormphoenix]

All the X-Men are prehistoric Dinosaurs...hows that for crazy.

[Harpsikord]

All the X-Men are prehistoric Dinosaurs...hows that for crazy.

[Askani's Flame]

All the X-Men are prehistoric Dinosaurs...hows that for crazy.

So they are Hauk'ka? Rachel is a trendsetter then....

[Gray Lensman]

I have a list of 'don'ts' for the writers as my idea. 5 years without any of the following.

1 - No imminent extinction story arcs

2 - no alternate reality/version characters unless they vanish after a max 6 issue arc

3 - no love triangles, squares, or anything else featuring any two of the following: Scott Summers, Jean Grey, Emma Frost, Logan

4 - Rachel is not to get turned into anyone's Hound

5 - no time travellers from any future dystopia with the exceptions of Cable and Rachel Grey

6 - no single story arc to reset the last several years of progress towards not hating all mutants.

7 - no mind controlled Wolverine turned on all the X-Men

8 - no Laura goes through her own version of a classic Wolverine story arc. She deserves her own stories

9 - for that matter, stop writing her as Girlverine. She used to have her own personality.

10 - if you can't get Wolverine on your team, you aren't allowed to take another character and have them suddenly act like Wolverine.

11 - no rehashes of old Avengers events starring the X-Men this time

12 - no rehashes of old X-events

13 - The same basic personality for any character is required no matter who is writing them. You also aren't allowed to bring someone in just to have them job for your arc villain.

[DragonflyJones]

Cancel the series.

Maybe one day when Marvel gets it together and they stop pandering to the pc crowd while alienating their other readers, they can bring back a real xmen book.

But for now...just throw the whole thing away

[Personamanx]

Let's change things up via typography. From this point on the only font allowed in an X-Men book will be "Highway Gothic."