The Complex

[Mr. Brightside]

There has got to be a huge corporate subsidy underwriting all these Carol Danvers comics. If I were a writer, my contract would have to come with ginormous perks to convince me to expend creativity on Ms/Captain Marvel when I could be writing Rogue.

No one wants to touch Ms. Marvel. But her Female Avenger status keeps her afloat. Just get rid of her and work on NuMiss Marvel and all will be well with the world.

Marvel WILL shove inhumans down your throats, it IS going to happen. They will not stop until the property is considered a success, they will put whatever creative teams they need to on it to make it work. They will change whatever mutants into inhumans to make it work. Marvel is not giving up on this and will not stop until inhumans overshadows the x-men and the idea of mutants. This is not paranoia, this is a company in the business of making money and realizing where the long-term potential lies. It's in the IP of inhumans, not X-men.

When I don't get me some Wolverine (and I don;t eve like Wolvie!!!) or ANY Fantastic 4 member in my 75th Anniv cover but I get Rocket Racoon and Black Bolt (Or was it Medusa, IDK), they are stuffing our mouths and throats with their Inhumanity/MCUness.

[Mr. Huston]

I would disagree with this. I think the biggest problem is that there's too many cast members shared out across multiple books. IIRC:

Storm leads Adjectiveless, and is a frequent recurring character in Amazing and WatXM, as well as her appearances in Wolverine, and occasionally popping up in Uncanny. Oh, and now she has her own solo.

X-teens get appearances in both WatXM, Adjectiveless, and occasionally in AXM.

Beast pops up everywhere and every time they need someone to Rrrrrhate Cyclops, and his younger self is a regular in ANXM.

Cyclops leads Uncanny, appears in ANXM (and his younger self was until recently one of the leads), occasionally guests in WatXM, and his younger self now has a solo (this is balanced by the fact that Teen!Scott is appearing in his solo but NOT in ANXM).

Wolverine is Wolverine and therefore everywhere.

If anything, they need to stop spreading the same characters so thin across multiple books and actually USE their large cast (for one thing, that can help put an end to the confusion and continuity errors over when different books are set in relation to one another, and whether a given character should know something in Book A based on what he did in Book B or not).

I'm not worried about continuity.

I think there's a simple answer as to why certain characters are ubiquitous in the X franchise. Writers want to use the richest characters. They want to use characters that have proven to move the sales needle. As much as I personally love Wolfsbane and Armor, I don't think it's very realistic to expect either of them to ever be featured as prominent members of the X family, and certainly not at the expense of a Storm or a Wolverine. The truth is, there are a lot of characters in the X universe that were created solely to capitalize on the huge popularity of the franchise, and have never proven to have the staying power or even potential as the O5 or the Wein/Cockrum characters have.

[IdaqiBeauty]

Bendis turned all mutants into a cold war lab experiment in the Ultimate line. How am I supposed to rest easy knowing that?

[AcesX1X]

Bendis turned all mutants into a cold war lab experiment in the Ultimate line. How am I supposed to rest easy knowing that?

exactly. and he just made our dazzler a knock-off of the ultimate alison.

[IdaqiBeauty]

exactly. and he just made our dazzler a knock-off of the ultimate alison.

Winding her way to becoming a realtor.

[Jackraow21]

Sure but at some point it just becomes crying over spilled milk. Not you personally but X men fans generally. There are enough X men comics and movies out there to be getting all worked up over the lack of toys and cartoons.

Spilled milk sucks. That's why people cry over it.

[Ultimate Spider-Fan]

Spilled milk sucks. That's why people cry over it.

Small children cry over it, adults don't. There's a difference.

[ChronoRogue]

- Just because you think Bendis is crap doesn't mean other people think that, especially Marvel. They wouldn't put him on such a high profile book unless they considered it somewhat important.

As Idaqi said his status isn't what it used to be. And he's not pulling in the same numbers is evidenced in sales.

Creators being shifted around is not unique to the X-books. JRJR was only on Cap for the first arc, Land was taken off Iron Man for the Mighty Avengers, and poor Hulk has been all over the place the last few years. Plus, how do you know Gillen wasn't ready to move on?

It's not, but the lack of stability hurts the narrative the most because of the X-Men's theme.

Most other heroes can work under a serialized format better, because it's "bad guy of the week", but the X-men have an overarching theme they deal with, of trying to fight under persecution and better their cause. CC made this work slowly and while at it's base it is about superheroicss, he was allowed to develop and touch on the sociopolitical aspect more and it felt a lot cohesive. Which made his run great. All the shifts in writers dilute the over all message and the visions of the different creators conflict with each other on what the X-Men should be.

Not the mention the debilitating factor that was the cap on mutant numbers.

Because Gillen said he had more plans for the franchise and he obviously didn't get to finish what he started with things like the Lights or Hope. Then AvX happened...

While I realize some X-fans have a rating hate-on for Wolverine, the fact is to the general public Wolverine = X-Men.

The general public don't buy the comic books though. And we're taking about the comic market.

Complaining about the X-Men not having a solid direction isn't a new thing, most people would say it's been that way since Claremont left the first time, perhaps before.

I'm pretty sure the majority of complains during the 90s was the dip in quality over-all, and it's what caused Marvel to file bankruptcy, but there were a multitude of factors at work there and it wasn't an X-centric problem. What hurt the X-Men specifically was HoM.

at this point, getting rid of a bunch of the fringe X-titles would just feed the paranoia machine. Yeah it would be good for the health of the franchise, but the haters would just see it as proof that Marvel hates the X-Men and really is trying to destroy them.

I'm not suggesting getting rid of a bunch of them, I'm saying they need to stop muzzling the creators, promote the X-men in other media again, and get some stable writers on the titles that are in for the long haul.

[Star_Jammer]

Small children cry over it, adults don't. There's a difference.

[AcesX1X]

as chronorogue say, we need details on long-term plans.

when two of comics most prominent writers craig kyle and chris yost cannot tell you anything of their long-term plans other than "we love x-men!" then you know something is going on.

[Jynx]

as chronorogue say, we need details on long-term plans.

when two of comics most prominent writers craig kyle and chris yost cannot tell you anything of their long-term plans other than "we love x-men!" then you know something is going on.

What are you joking when do we ever get details on long-term plans, They have plans you know this, they will not tell us anything yet because it might spoil the surprises and the end of stories. They have stated they will announce a few thing at the New York Comic Con until then well you just have to wait.

[IdaqiBeauty]

What are you joking when do we ever get details on long-term plans, They have plans you know this, they will not tell us anything yet because it might spoil the surprises and the end of stories. They have stated they will announce a few thing at the New York Comic Con until then well you just have to wait.

Readers are basically the same as investors. We deserve to know what the company's long term plan is (or the narrative arc) or else why should we invest?

[Jynx]

Readers are basically the same as investors. We deserve to know what the company's long term plan is (or the narrative arc) or else why should we invest?

Do you want the end of movies spoiled before you watch them, do read the last chapter of a book before you read it? Come on grow up that is unrealistic, the will not spoil the plans and ruin the surprises until the time is right, because why buy it if you already know the end.

[Kaiolino]

What are you joking when do we ever get details on long-term plans, They have plans you know this, they will not tell us anything yet because it might spoil the surprises and the end of stories. They have stated they will announce a few thing at the New York Comic Con until then well you just have to wait.

We have a basic idea of what's happening to the Avengers up to May 2015, big changes happening and what's all leading up to. With the X-Men we know... nothing, because the creators didn't have their usual outlet (con panel) to tease upcoming storylines. It's just the usual "big plans, big plans, we LOVE the X-Men." All we know is that Axis will happen (which doesn't have input or involvement from the main X-Men writer) and Wolverine is going to die.

[IdaqiBeauty]

Do you want the end of movies spoiled before you watch them, do read the last chapter of a book before you read it? Come on grow up that is unrealistic, the will not spoil the plans and ruin the surprises until the time is right, because why buy it if you already know the end.

If I feel like I want a spoiler before I invest, I can seek them out. You're telling me to grow up? We live in a world of spoilers. They serve a commercial function. Marvel needs to be 100% transparent with us in order to stave off the reader attrition that's happening.