Anyone else hear this on other communities and get frustrated? While most of us are looking forward to Dawn of X, there's a smaller yet vocal camp who believes Dawn of X is just a rehash to old nostalgia. It often comes from outside this community, and it frustrates me because even that has little if any merit.
Looking at it overall...
- The X-Men and all the mutants titles all have a hub in the form of Krakoa, their own lush, advanced futuristic nation that can serve as the point of many good stories to come. It's like Genosha or Utopia, but taken to the max!
- Characters are rerailed to their classic characterizations after getting derailed. Maybe it could be "nostalgic", but I'd rather Cyclops be the reasonable and tough authority figure with a slight edge than the whiny person everyone in Marvel hates. I'm sure most would.
- Others grow into something new. The most obvious being Betsy becoming Captain Britain, and yes, she's been Captain Britain before but that was only a temporary title. This is legitimate, as she's gaining the powers of her brother and taking on the title.
- New designs that are true to X-Men, and great. No drastic alterations that feel unnatural, but rather the next logical step.
- Also, each title is completely distinct. Beforehand, you have your X-Men Red, Blue, Gold, Astonishing and Uncanny etc., some solos, and maybe one other team like X-Force. That was confusing as hell, because it's hard to gauge off the bat the real differences between the color titles and the adjectives. It also made the X-titles looks like a dumping ground for characters Marvel was treating like garbage over film rights, rather than a true pillar of the universe. Here, the six titles we know so farare all completely distinct and get the point across right away, while making the X-Universe feel more legit, which is miles better than before.
Also, looking at the titles we know, I've seen people complain about them supposedly milking nostalgia without looking further beyond the titles themselves. Many of them have been heavily retooled to a fit a new concept and grow the brand. For example:
- X-Men is the hub of all characters, free to show up at any time, and not featuring a set team.
- New Mutants is retooled to be a cosmic space adventure and '80s throwback, where the team travels through space and meets the Shi'ar and Starjammers. Before, their deal often favored horror-esque stories often with mystical elements.
- Excalibur more heavily focuses on the magic side of the Marvel Universe, and even establishes a new kind of "mutant magic". Before, Excalibur focused more heavily on adventure aspects when they weren't made into another X-book.
- Marauders is especially new, with it being X-Men pirate comic starring Captain Kate and the crew sailing the open seas, and that sounds fun.
- X-Force goes from being the gritty black ops comic to a mutant CIA organization, split between intelligence and special ops, in the name of keeping Krakoa in working condition.
- Fallen Angels expands upon the backstory of a mostly unknown character (outside of her body) and tells the story of people on the outside of paradise, those who don't belong in Krakoa for one reason or another.
And this just for starters, as we have at least two additional waves of X-Men books coming. The bottom line, I feel like the people complaining "Dawn of X isn't doing anything new!" only look at titles like X-Force and New Mutants, and assume it's exactly the same. I can get the idea of wanting completely new titles, but we'll get there. It's important to build a foundation to hold the others. Some of these old titles are well-earned anyways. Excalibur hasn't been a thing since 2007, so it's nice to see that make a comeback. Again, I understand it's a vocal minority, but I just don't like the way they act because it suggests they don't even know what they're talking about.
Anyone else see this and get annoyed? Just wanted to see if others felt the same way.
On the plus side, writing all this out just makes me even more excited for what Dawn of X has in store for us.