What Were The Editorial Reasons For "No More Mutants"?

[Confuzzled]

It was sloppy and heavy-handed, and certainly the Fox-Men films play into it at some level(why would Marvel bend their whole universe to serve an IP that they didn't have the film rights too), but Morrison really did open up a whole new thing that was too big for a shared universe. I don't like what Quesada did, but I understand why he did it.

You have to remember that at that point in time, Marvel were just beginning to recover after royally screwing themselves over in the 90's. So Fox and Sony were their best bets and they wanted to capitalize on their films as much as possible by tying the books to them (also why Mary Jane was hurriedly brought back to the Parker household as the romance was the crux of the Raimi films).

Personally, I feel the movie-inspired developments were for the better for both mutant and Spidey books. Like, who cared how they affected the Avengers lol. Just focus on your bread and butter. I know what Quesada was thinking with both HoM and OMD, but they definitely left their respective franchises worse for wear, not better. Incredibly telling that both X-Men and Spider-Man are reverting closer to their early-00's status quo.

[draco_dracul]

Does Joe know that trimming mutants down to less than 300 is substantially more ridiculous than a minority group growing when they aren’t being subjugated to constant terror and death?



I still don’t see why that’s such a detriment to the storytelling. It’s a giant ass mansion with only six to eleven kids at a time. It didn’t have to matter to the narrative if the writer didn’t want to focus on it. At that point, it just seemed like a personal grievance from Quesada.

Right? Tens of millions of mutants, even if they were all in America, would still be a minority group.

[Vishop]

You say this, and yet the Morrison run was instructed to follow the Fox-Men aesthetic(the black leather uniforms) and big school idea(as it appeared in X1). Obviously there was an influence at least in one direction. Once Marvel realized it wasn't making much money off of the X-films directly(and that they weren't bringing in that many more comic buyers), they started refocusing on the IP they hadn't sold off in the 90's, which is why Avengers got dusted off and re-positioned with Bendis, and then a few years later, Iron Man starts off the MCU. You can't tell me movies(which takes years to develop, cast, film, edit, etc) weren't on some powerpoint presentation Quesada was fed from corporate above him to streamline his objectives.

Like I said it was more to do with the popularity of the X-Men rather than franchises. X-films were bringing a lot of $ at its time, therefore, they decided to make changes to shake off the franchises that is similar to X-films and their designs but they actually tried that with Ultimate X-Men rather New X-Men. For the most part, it was good(financially) because Marvel got bankrupted in 90s and that was one of the main reasons why Marvel had to steer off the X-Men main continuity to something fresh like AoA but that didn't do much good for X-Men.

As for changing it back to the old 90s Esque persona for the X-Men, I think it has to do more with how Morrison was drastically changing the New X-Men rather than some costumes changes. Most people weren't a fan of killing of Jean Grey and top of that Xorneto was one of the MOST controversial issues with the X-Men.

EDIT: Btw New X-Men were consistently the top sellers of Marvel at its time, therefore, diversity in terms of designs was not a problem for them.

[yogaflame]

You have to remember that at that point in time, Marvel were just beginning to recover after royally screwing themselves over in the 90's. So Fox and Sony were their best bets and they wanted to capitalize on their films as much as possible by tying the books to them (also why Mary Jane was hurriedly brought back to the Parker household as the romance was the crux of the Raimi films).

Personally, I feel the movie-inspired developments were for the better for both mutant and Spidey books. Like, who cared how they affected the Avengers lol. Just focus on your bread and butter. I know what Quesada was thinking with both HoM and OMD, but they definitely left their respective franchises worse for wear, not better. Incredibly telling that both X-Men and Spider-Man are reverting closer to their early-00's status quo.

I think Marvel chose the best hand they could play with the cards in their deck. I mean, I personally prefer X-Men to Avengers conceptually, but look at what the MCU has done. Not even all the Spider-Man and X-Men films combined can barely match half of the MCU's gross. The numbers don't lie.

[Havok83]

I think Marvel chose the best hand they could play with the cards in their deck. I mean, I personally prefer X-Men to Avengers conceptually, but look at what the MCU has done. Not even all the Spider-Man and X-Men films combined can barely match half of the MCU's gross. The numbers don't lie.

The movie branch and comic branch are seperate though. The movies were highly successful but it was shortsighted to cripple the X-line in the comics in order to promote the Avengers when the sales dont directly translate

[yogaflame]

The movie branch and comic branch are seperate though. The movies were highly successful but it was shortsighted to cripple the X-line in the comics in order to promote the Avengers when the sales dont directly translate

Comics sales mean almost nothing compared to films. That's all these mega corporations care about. At this point the comics just exist to farm ideas for the films.

[Havok83]

Comics sales mean almost nothing compared to films. That's all these mega corporations care about. At this point the comics just exist to farm ideas for the films.

I know which was my point and why I asked you that question bc I dont feel Marvel Comics made the best decision

[yogaflame]

I know which was my point and why I asked you that question bc I dont feel Marvel Comics made the best decision

A few post ago, I said their actions were heavy-handed and sloppy, but that I understood why they did it.

[Confuzzled]

I think Marvel chose the best hand they could play with the cards in their deck. I mean, I personally prefer X-Men to Avengers conceptually, but look at what the MCU has done. Not even all the Spider-Man and X-Men films combined can barely match half of the MCU's gross. The numbers don't lie.

That's due to a lot of factors though, the most important of which were: 1.) the MCU had a steady build-up of films that were at least consistent in quality, if not flawless, 2.) Inflation increasing ticket price sales, ensuring popular films would get bigger as years pass by and 3.) the global market grew rapidly in the 2010's, favoring the MCU heavily (though on a case by case basis, Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 handily beat out Iron Man and Iron Man 2, and Iron Man 3 only beat Spider-Man 3 because the former was coming off the first Avengers juggernaut and also... Spider-Man 3).

That's not to say what Marvel Studios did with a line-up of formerly B-listers wasn't impressive, but that point doesn't have to do anything with the comics as HoM was decided way before the MCU rolled out, meaning the latter had the least impact on Quesada's decisions in 2005. And as someone said, tens of millions is still a global minority. The mutants were thriving under Morrison, but not to the point that they neutered the cosmic level threats that the Avengers usually face, making "Earth's Mightiest" entirely useless.

[Agent Z]

To be fair, Morrison totally jumped the shark by starting his run with an extinction function hidden in the human genome, and by exploding the mutant population into the tens of millions overnight. Even after killing Genosha, he still left a huge, burgeoning mutant population in the Marvel earth. It was a fascinating time for the X-line, but imagine the chaos that would create for the many other franchises that share the Marvel universe. They would all have to bend to the mutant's gravity.

It was sloppy and heavy-handed, and certainly the Fox-Men films play into it at some level(why would Marvel bend their whole universe to serve an IP that they didn't have the film rights too), but Morrison really did open up a whole new thing that was too big for a shared universe. I don't like what Quesada did, but I understand why he did it.

The rest of the Marvel universe has never had any problem ignoring what goes on in the X-books and vice versa. A burgeoning Mutant population (which wasn't even that large anyway) was not an issue, let alone so disastrous that it justified House of M.

[charliehustle415]

The rest of the Marvel universe has never had any problem ignoring what goes on in the X-books and vice versa. A burgeoning Mutant population (which wasn't even that large anyway) was not an issue, let alone so disastrous that it justified House of M.

This is my thinking too. The X-Men have always had their own of the Marvel Universe with only Wolverine or Storm venturing outside; the Avengers for the former and Wakanda for the latter

[pkingdom]

I thought I heard that it was done to bring down the number of mutant characters. There were so many and most of them weren't important/weren't doing anything, so editorial thought it was getting out of control. Didn't have anything to do with the movies.

[BroHomo]

I thought I heard that it was done to bring down the number of mutant characters. There were so many and most of them weren't important/weren't doing anything, so editorial thought it was getting out of control. Didn't have anything to do with the movies.

Buuut most of the known mutant chars didn't get depowered

[From The Shadows]

What are wallpapers?

Do you mean how the term wallpaper applies in regards to comic characters? It usually means when characters are just there for show and don't really have an active role. Or basically cameos. And that's lucky compared to those who just disappear for years completely.

[H-E-D]

Buuut most of the known mutant chars didn't get depowered

That’s exactly the point. It narrowed down the number of characters competing for space in X-books to, theoretically, the ones people were actually interested in writing.

In reality, we’ll, I don’t know if anybody cared about Dragoness still being around. But that’s besides the point.