I think that's interesting since no one can agree on who these so called core members are, by your reasoning it would be the 05 but many would argue that Storm and Wolverine are also core members.
I think my point still stands some people who started with the early comics will say the 05 others who started with the 90s cartoon will include Storm, Logan and Rogue, people from my generation will include x-23 magik and Kurt.
...so you agree there are core members. It's a bit of a fuzzy topic and I guess it's all about what we qualify as a "core member" but I would think most Xmen fans would agree the Gold & Blue teams are pretty much the core members along with Nightcrawler. Perhaps you didn't understand my F4 reference so allow me to try and use a different example
The Avengers run through different members all the time, but I think most would agree the core members include:
Cap, Thor, Ironman, Hawkeye etc.
The Teen Titans run through different members all the time, but I think most would agree the core members include:
Robin, Starfire, Cyborg etc.
It doesn't matter when you started reading. I was born in the 90s and I was still able to go back, read old issues, do my research and learn my history of the team. Some members have more significance than others and it's okay to admit that
“A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.”
― T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land
I think it could be really great to actually follow through on what so many creators approach but stop short of, end the X-Men, let go of the X, disband the armies and let the Mutant population in Marvel Universe be unbound to a sorely redundant habit of drawing its energy from a depleted and depleting finite resource.
Eventually this has to stop, you know how Wile E. Coyote overruns the cliff and keeps going for a awhile until he realizes there's no solid ground beneath him? The roadrunner waves from the edge of the canyon, and then he finally falls and that fall takes a long time...but usually the perspective is from that place where he comes into his realization...we, the audience, see him drop...the expanse increases as he diminishes into that tiny cloud of dust...finally back on solid ground.
This should happen to the X-Men.
Those characters who have earned it could be given long form solo books that finally fill out their personal potential. The Avengers and even the Avengers members (Thor, Hulk, Captain America etc.) have done this and by doing this have kept the possibility of a 'team' worthwhile and generative rather than contained, claustrophobic and off-the-cliff delusional...bent on a prize it already passed and missed.
Yea, let the X-Men disband and if there is to be a team, that team can be composed of an ANAD Genisis of characters that somehow salvage some kind of meaningful purpose from a really well written permanent final end to the X and the Men that is the Mutants in Marvel U (final as final can be in comics, because Wile E. Coyote of course recovers and eventually is bound to fall and fall again) yet maybe it'd be a good idea to let this (never gonna happen idealistic) end of the X-Men have some legitimate time for the fans and franchise to truly die...at least die long enough for things to have their proper seasons of renewal. Let there be a long winter.
Focusing on what's good now and could be so much better with the 'X-Men' in the comics...without the need for and impossibility of there ever being a core team that could in any way truly contain or represent this fantastic expansive population of many and many and many...it's impossible...the more it's forced the more it corrupts what was 'good' about the second genesis' ANAD representations of the threatened diversity of the globally and locally and personally disenfranchised.
No more X-Men.
People are just people and mutants are already in need of more appropriate terms and vocabularies for themselves as individuals who come from a shared legacy but should not be forced or bound to embody a concept of their history in defense, defeat or desperation. That history begins before the X-Men and is greater than the X-Men.
Framing HIS-story, Xavier, Gold and Blue and Generation X or whatever...is what HE does in order to continue what HE (the MAN, the closed system, the bureaucracy) does in order to do what he does and wants to be. HE is and was and only can conceive in HIS terms...this is this was this is this so there, for HIM exclusively. Standing from his cliff...or border wall.
The fallen. Wile E. Coyote included doesn't fall and die, in the panel and panels it is the end of that hunt, that chase...but from the dust...comes a new same old hunger and pursuit...but with a new blueprint for hope and failure.
In creation stories...it's not that simple...and it certainly is FINAL and immemorial and never comes back from...the fall is from...Coyotes, tricksters, mutants...they're the heroes and anti-heroes of creation stories...even in the scientific ones of extinctions and dawns of new ages. Even the earth is layers...like a comic book...like the air and atmosphere...
No more X-Men.
Just mutants and people and NEW stories.
Last edited by sungila; 12-19-2018 at 01:08 PM.
“The reason of the unreasonableness which against my reason is wrought, doth so weaken my reason, as with all reason I do justly complain on your beauty.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Don Quixote
I swear to god the stock "dream X-team roster" for posters on CBR consists of 3 redundant power sets, 3 redundant personalities, 3 gay dudes, plus Maggott or Feral.
"THIS will FIX the X-BOOKS!!!!"
There are too many mutants, and people's favorites are too scattered, to center on just a few. We need a new "main" Marvel universe.
Ultimatum helped the 1610, the initial wave of books after it were solid and they became great during the Ultimate Comics relaunch. What killed the line is the same senior editor who drone bombed the X-Line immediately after the Ultimate books ended. The X-Men do not need any characters not named Wolverine.
I don't blind date I make the direct market vibrate
There is no core team. Every important X-man has died or left and the franchise move on without them. Wolverine is arguably the most popular X-man and with Laura they replace him quite well. In a world where it is not about businesses Wolverine could have stayed dead. Honestly Xavier,Cyclops,Jean Grey,Colossus,Banshee and Nightcrawler all could have stayed dead as well.The beauty of the X-men is it isn't a set define group of people makes it good but when a group of characters on the banner of franchise is working well. I can just start naming teams and people will react probably positively
1. Wolverine's X-force during Dark Angel Saga.. Fantomex,Deadpool
2. The Extinction team...Namor,Danger,Magik
3. Rogue's X-men squad Supernova.. Lady Mastermind,Omega Sentinel,Mystique,Cannonball,Sabertooth
4. X-treme X-men-Sage, Lifeguard,Thunderbird
None of those books had "the core X-men" as people imagine the "core group". I don't think it is stretch to say for anyone of those teams a lot fans would mind a long run with main creative team at their peak and those roster . X-men works because when it is successful it elevates the characters to "a core character" with the fanbase. You can't tell people Banshee, Wolverine, Storm, Nightcrawler,Rogue, Kitty ain't "core", You can't tell people that Psylocke, Bishop, Gambit, Jubilee, Cable ain't "core", You can't tell people that Magik, Emma, Multiple Man, X-23 aren't "core". You using your example Fantastic Four doesn't work without Reed, Sue, Johnny and Ben but X-men will work without Xavier,Cyclops, Jean, Iceman, Beast, Angel, Storm, Wolverine,Kitty, Nightcrawler and Colossus around.
Last edited by Killerbee911; 12-26-2018 at 04:54 AM.