Just how editorially-controlled are the X-Books?

[Hybrid]

It's something I've consistently heard both by fans and creators that the X-Books are hard to access for the other Marvel writers due to the X-Office being under some kind of iron fist (and I'm not talking about Danny Rand). This creates the feel of a partial disconnect, which varies over time, but the X-Books tend to be mutant-centric with less use of General MU appearances compared to others. I tried googling how exactly it was, but didn't get an answer, so I'm asking here as I'm sure I'll get one.

Just how tight is the control on the X-Books compared to other Marvel titles? What's the exact cause of this?

Here's a hypothetical scenario:

I'm a writer of a Spider-Book, and I want to have some mutant characters appear in the book as more than just some background filler. They actually interact with Spidey and bear on the current plot, taking place in both sides' status quos. How hard would it be to get the approval of the X-Office to do that?

If anyone has solid answers, please say so. Thanks.

[AbnormallyNormal]

I don't have a solid answer to your question.

At first I thought you were going to be talking about within the X-line itself and whether writers were able to implement their ideas or they were more executing "pushes" come up with "from above", which has definitely been a perceived problem for quite a while.

Your topic is something , that if it is happening I would think of as a GOOD thing. We want the X-line to have cohesion and control over its own narrative without wider MU getting in its way. If wider MU writers are able to understand the planning for the X-line and go along with it for their stories I'm fine with that though, but I don't want them just putting in mutant characters and then we get blatant contradictions with what's happening in the X books yknow?

[Hybrid]

I guess I could've worded it better or added more. I was mainly talking about the editor control of the X-Books vs. everyone else in Marvel, as I remember creators such as Kurt Busiek saying that it's under a tight grip. He wanted to an X-Book, but never did, because he was intimidated by it.

So all around, how is the editor control for them?

[Anduinel]

That's one you might want to save for an X-Men Monday, but I think how much sharing the offices do is going to be controlled by a lot of things: the attitudes of the actual people in charge, the current status of the characters in question, the popularity of the IPs, etc.

[tuck frump]

I guess I could've worded it better or added more. I was mainly talking about the editor control of the X-Books vs. everyone else in Marvel, as I remember creators such as Kurt Busiek saying that it's under a tight grip. He wanted to an X-Book, but never did, because he was intimidated by it.

So all around, how is the editor control for them?

Doesnt Busiek hate everything that came after the 05? No wonder he was shut down and thanks Jeansus for small favors.

[Omega Alpha]

Bob Harras was known for micromanagement. Later on, the whole "genies" thing by Quesada, plus the movie rights issue that made Marvel wanting to sideline the X-books.

[Anchorsify]

It’s just not known very well how much of what happens is editorial mandate and how much is the writer’s intent.. for the most part, that is kept very behind the scenes.

But you get snippets here and there, especially from past writers once they are done with their time at marvel, who will speak on it some.

Jim Shooter pretty infamously mandated kitty and Piotr break up because of the age difference and created the Zsaji nonsense to do it during secret wars, which was awful.

Guggenheim has mentioned how the original plan was to actually have kitty and Piotr get married but on a retreat some marvel editor suggested the fakeout and they changed it partway into gold’s run.

Writers tend to take the flak for things even if it is the editors mandates that create them, which is a shame. I believe there was another former writer that spoke about wanting to include more LGBT characters and themes and
Marvel said they were interested but didn’t actually follow up any and sort of gave them the brush off and quietly dismissed the proposal.

It’s very clear marvel editors have a lot of sway but not clear how they exert that influence or why or which editor is responsible. They would probably get eaten alive on forums like this if their decisions were public knowledge though, because the last ten years or so of x-men comics have been pretty lackluster.

[Kurt Busiek]

Doesnt Busiek hate everything that came after the 05?

Nope.

No wonder he was shut down and thanks Jeansus for small favors.

I wasn't "shut down," I simply turned them down every time I was offered an X-project because they'd offer something like "We're going to do a Beast mini-series and here's the story. Want to write it?" I'd say "No thanks, I'd rather write something where I get to come up with a story."

[Snoop Dogg]

If only they had wanted a Beast and Wonder Man mini-series and let you come up with the story...

[spirit2011]

I guess I could've worded it better or added more. I was mainly talking about the editor control of the X-Books vs. everyone else in Marvel, as I remember creators such as Kurt Busiek saying that it's under a tight grip. He wanted to an X-Book, but never did, because he was intimidated by it.

So all around, how is the editor control for them?

I wonder when Busiek wanted to write a x-men book? When Shooter or Harras was the editor?

I think different editors have different approached for wider Marvel Universe.

For example on Hickman avengers run, he had two x-men characters on his roster.

[Hybrid]

Definitely not when Shooter was EiC, as Busiek rose to fame in the '90s. It's either DeFalco or Harras.

[spirit2011]

Definitely not when Shooter was EiC, as Busiek rose to fame in the '90s. It's either DeFalco or Harras.

I know little about Harras or DeFalco approach to wider marvel.

What I know that Harras seems to like to give opinions on stories, so this oculd be a reason why Busiek was intimidated.

[gurkle]

I wonder when Busiek wanted to write a x-men book?

I recall him saying on X-Plain the X-Men that he once pitched a book about what happened to the X-Men (the original 5 + Havok + Polaris) during the period when they were cancelled.

This is the premise that John Byrne finally sold with "X-Men: The Hidden Years," but it's an obvious enough premise that several people probably already suggested it.

[Kurt Busiek]

I recall him saying on X-Plain the X-Men that he once pitched a book about what happened to the X-Men (the original 5 + Havok + Polaris) during the period when they were cancelled.

This is the premise that John Byrne finally sold with "X-Men: The Hidden Years," but it's an obvious enough premise that several people probably already suggested it.

Yeah, when I pitched it it was X-MEN: THE SECRET YEARS, I think. That was when Suzanne was in the office.

I wanted to do it, essentially, as a 64-issue (or thereabouts) mini-series, treating it as if each issue was one month further along in the Marvel publishing timeline, so #1 was basically April 1970, #2 was May 1970, and so on. And whenever you hit a point where the X-Men appeared in some other book (their appearances in Hulk, Captain America, Avengers and so on), it'd be treated as a crossover, and those issues would be reprinted as an X-MEN: THE SECRET YEARS SPECIAL, so you'd build up subplots leading to those events and then have the characters react to them when they were over. It'd have been an X-Men series as if there'd been an X-Men series that whole time, and the final issue would feed into GIANT-SIZE 1.

It'd still be fun to do, but I don't think Marvel would be interested in trying it again, after the way HIDDEN YEARS worked out.

[Kurt Busiek]

I wonder when Busiek wanted to write a x-men book? When Shooter or Harras was the editor?

I wanted to write X-MEN long before I broke in to comics. For a long time I'd have told you it was my dream book, but that had mostly changed by the time I broke in.

I never did talk to them about writing one of the main books, but I did have some talks about doing some kind of ongoing spinoff series -- one when Suzanne Gaffney was an assistant editor (so that was in the Harras era) and one when Joe Quesada was EIC, but neither of them went very far. I was offered mini-series a few times, but they were always projects where they needed someone to write a pre-set story, and I just don't find that sort of thing fun, so I didn't take them up on it.