All New X-Factor 12 Preview (Spoilers)

[Neko]

Nothing I've seen PAD write is making Alex look worse than Remender did...

Don't waste your time - this is LoganAlpha's shtick. He says this all the time, and makes negative comments about the book all the time and puts down the book as often as he can. All of his posts are about how it will fail, and that its bad. And his only concern is Alex.

[LoganAlpha30X33]

I'm not always negative and I'm far from the only one to think that PAD is writing Alex badly intentionally, not every post is about whether it'll fail or not. I'm just not going to make grand statements that it'll last for years before it does.

[Heroine Addict]

Love this preview, specially with both Luna and Wanda on the way. Great to see Pietro having the time to deal with House of M, Wanda being back, Lorna and his daughter, it('s) was about time imo ...

This might be the best scene I've read in the title since it launched.

Well, this is a pretty awesome preview

Very excited for this issue! The more Pietro the better.

Loving the preview and PAD writes an incredible Pietro. Can't wait for the inevitable Wanda interactions (not to mention Luna). ... Very frustrated that Lorna does not seem to be featuring into the Genosha storyline of AXIS, but I really like this new iteration of X-Factor and can't wait for more.

I love this preview! That was "meta" indeed! ... This is character-growth for Quicksilver. I like to think that this is the result of him being with his other sister, as he says ; he needs to take care of a sister, kind of his thing since the 1960s.

I love Carmine's art so much! I hope people pre-order this issue and kick-up the numbers. (Although I buy digitally these days, so I don't know that the Diamond List is as valid any more.)

This is the kind of writing starring the Magnus Family that I've been waiting for, for years. Can't wait to read the entire comic.

I could've kept on going & quoted A LOT more posts, but the above - the bolded & especially the bigger - is a fairly perfect sampling of EXACTLY how I feel about this preview & upcoming ish, as well as 13 & 14!! This preview has made me want to go back to my not so LCS for the first time in quite a few years, just so I can purchase some actual hard copies - also for the first time in quite a few years - of #12 & the next few! HUGE props to PAD!!!... For wanting to do it, and to Marvel too I suppose, for agreeing to it. They may not be as enthusiastic about the extended Magnus Family as we would like, just yet, but they seem to be coming around more & more... just little by little, unfortunately.

[Neko]

I'm not always negative and I'm far from the only one to think that PAD is writing Alex badly intentionally, not every post is about whether it'll fail or not. I'm just not going to make grand statements that it'll last for years before it does.

And no one is making those statements. I'm happy with the book and will buy how many issues that are released.

[Purplevit]

I'm not always negative and I'm far from the only one to think that PAD is writing Alex badly intentionally, not every post is about whether it'll fail or not. I'm just not going to make grand statements that it'll last for years before it does.

You are. 90 percents of your posts are negative and the same.

[salarta]

Problems in drawings are not easy to spot...unless you were drunk when you were drawing. Heck, artists even have to deal with the fact that if they see a problem they might not know how to fix it. For example, one of my teachers was working on Wonderwoman as an assistant in the 70s, said they had to draw a panel of Wonderwoman looking at a flame, and couldn't figure out how to draw her eyes to look at the flame without making her look cross eyed.

My point was that spotting problems in drawings is a lot easier to spot than for writing. Not that it's easy. Only that it's easier. If you put a single page of comic book art without text beside a single page of text, the same size paper, it's going to take less time for you to look at the picture compared to reading the text. Then, after you've taken the time to do both, words require you to know their meaning, and consider other ways they can be interpreted depending on phrasing, culture, etc. Art requires thinking about how images will be interpreted based on culture too, but when you look at an image, you don't generally risk the chance the viewer will see an angry face and think the character is happy. Your example about the flame is a great anecdote I never would've considered, and I'm glad you shared it to enlighten me, but you know the problem by sight. Writing problems come in not just the word, but how people interpret the word.

This isn't exactly the same as what I'm talking about here, but it's close enough: Final Fantasy 14 had a lot of controversy for its poor quality, but one particular sub-complaint was when a chocobo was given the name "bird horse" instead of chocobo. It's an avian creature. It functions like a horse, allowing you to ride it. Technically, it is a "bird horse." But it's also a distinct creature, like dragons and trolls. In this case, in error in the use of two words would be akin to drawing a whole picture of a creature with four hooved legs and a pair of wings.

That said, an error of that sort is also much, much easier to correct for writing than for art. An artist would have to draw a completely new piece of art.

This also does not mean I'm in any way saying that being an artist is easier than being a writer on the whole. On the whole, I'd say being an artist, especially a good artist, is harder.

Well, I felt there was an accusatory tone to your original post that Marvel was setting ANXF for failure by not promoting it. Personally, I don't think ANXF needs the sort of promotion you're thinking of. Like I mentioned in my previous post, the cast has limited appeal, and so far the stories haven't been far reaching enough to warrant special attention. A book like X-factor probably gets its new readers from word of mouth by fans and positive reviews by comic critics as opposed to ads in other comic books and store displays.

I don't think the cast has limited appeal. I think they can have just as much appeal as any other character Marvel has. Wolverine didn't start out as this overly popular character everyone practically swooned over to the point where he had to be included in everything and take over the X-books almost entirely. He was even one of two characters in the running to be permanently axed very early on. No character is inherently "boring" or "terrible" or "can't generate an audience." Any character can become great and cherished if handled right, and I do mean any character. Even the most hated character can suddenly turn into a sensation if the character is handled in such a way that their usage seems highly intelligent and innovative. Hell, look at Guardians of the Galaxy. Five years ago, they had "limited appeal." Today they're dominating the box office with their own film.

It's all about a mix of writing and marketing. While ANXF still has room to do more exciting things, I'd say since ANXF #7, Peter David's mostly living up to his end of the equation. Marvel's the one letting it falter.

EDIT: Here's Cracked.com on Wolverine's risk of getting cut: http://www.cracked.com/article/97_7-...room-floor_p2/

I got to tell you, the "Check out this sister-sister relationship we have going on for this issue." promotion doesn't exactly make me want to run to the comic book store. It needs a hook. If I'm not a fan of the Magneto family, or Wanda and Lorna, why should I care that they're going to talk to each other? So they're the only sisters Marvel has, so what? Not everyone is a comic book geek who is interested with the history of sexism at Marvel. I have a sister, the fact that sister relationships aren't often depicted in the media doesn't keep me up at night.

Okay, that aspect doesn't appeal to you in its own right. Different things appeal to different people.

You're presuming a great deal. You're presuming that interest in a relationship between sisters due to their being sisters is somehow limited solely to people that care about issues of sexism, and that caring about issues of sexism in comics is somehow further limited to be only a "comic book geek" thing. You're implying that nobody will care, and it looks like you're basing that primarily on how it doesn't appeal to you and you think you wouldn't take notice. That's a Russian nesting doll series of assumptions.

Frozen exists, and it gets plenty of buzz for the fact it depicts a relationship between sisters. No, I'm NOT saying that relationship is the sole thing that drew people to the film. I'm not even saying that's the main thing that generated interest, though it's very much possible. I'm saying the fact the main characters are sisters has created a massive buzz purely because they're sisters. I haven't seen the film, I don't even know their names or what it's about, and I still know the two main characters of the film are sisters because people consider that important enough to talk about it moreso than anything else. The only other thing I've personally seen talked about more than the fact the two starring women are sisters is the song "Let It Go." Do you think a film starring brothers would've had this much buzz purely about the fact they're brothers above and beyond almost anything else about the film? Because I sincerely doubt it.

Now for the next layer down. Even if we say only people concerned with sexism would care about Lorna and Wanda as sisters, that net spans extremely wide. I know because I've seen how far it extends. People who never read comics will cite how idiotic a company is for doing something sexist entirely because it's sexist. People that have never read a comic can and do talk about how old Superman comics included a lot of sexist crap. On the flip side, Wood's X-Men has received a lot of buzz entirely because it's an all-female team, well outside the domain of "comic book geeks." You get articles like this in well known publications purely on the power of the fact it's progressive toward women: http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/2...eries/1830971/ and you have whole websites devoted to improving things for women (e.g. themarysue.com) that can and will draw attention to things that happen in that vein regardless of the medium. This wouldn't just catch the eye of "comic book geeks," it'd catch the eye of a LOT of people that don't even read comics right now.

Lastly, I just feel the need to point out that if the potential audience of people who would care is really so limited, then what you said in your previous post about how it'd be a bad idea to draw attention to not having a sister relationship in a span of 50 years no longer applies. After all, if nobody's going to care enough about a sister relationship for it to draw attention to that issue of ANXF, then they're certainly not going to care that it took 50 years to happen. Caring about it at all is a prerequisite to caring how long it took.

I can understand and respect that you may not care about their relationship, but many other people have plenty of reason to care, even if they don't yet know the relationship exists. Not every single person in the world is going to see it and automatically rush to buy the book, but some of those people will, just like I rushed out to buy issues of Marvel comics that had Lorna in them once I found out she existed.

[Flight]

looks like Quicksilver isn't taking orders from Havok anymore~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~!!!!!!!!!!!!!~~~~~~~~~~!!~

[LoganAlpha30X33]

Though last I checked Quicksilver will be joining the Avengers again before long.

[Quicksilverfan]

My point was that spotting problems in drawings is a lot easier to spot than for writing. Not that it's easy. Only that it's easier.

I speak from personal experience as I do the independent comic convention circuit to sell my work: drawing a comic is not easier than writing it. I've done wordless comics where people come up with interpretations that were totally not what I was aiming for. Maybe I'm a talentless hack, but other comic book artists also do confusing page layouts or don't draw things clearly (like action scenes). I think that proves visual communication is in no way easier than verbal communication.

I don't think the cast has limited appeal. I think they can have just as much appeal as any other character Marvel has. Wolverine didn't start out as this overly popular character everyone practically swooned over to the point where he had to be included in everything and take over the X-books almost entirely. He was even one of two characters in the running to be permanently axed very early on. No character is inherently "boring" or "terrible" or "can't generate an audience." Any character can become great and cherished if handled right, and I do mean any character. Even the most hated character can suddenly turn into a sensation if the character is handled in such a way that their usage seems highly intelligent and innovative. Hell, look at Guardians of the Galaxy. Five years ago, they had "limited appeal." Today they're dominating the box office with their own film.

What I meant by "the cast has limited appeal" is that there aren't legions of fans for any one character. Gambit's got the most fans in ANXF, but he still has trouble carrying his own title. Me, I'm a Quicksilver fan, which I assure you gets me a lot of blank stares from fellow comic book nerds. I'm not saying they'll never be popular, just that they currently aren't.
Characters usually get promotional pushes after they've established a fan base...unless it's a character that's designed to carry its own title. As you mentioned, Wolverine wasn't popular in the beginning. I wasn't reading comics back then (well, to be honest, I wasn't even born) but I'm fairly sure Marvel wasn't pimping the **** out of Wolverine right off the bat. Wolverine got his fanbase because a writer took an interest in him and wrote him in a way that was compelling to many comic book readers, so that by the 90s he had enough of a following to warrant Marvel promoting whatever the character was doing.

You're presuming a great deal. You're presuming that interest in a relationship between sisters due to their being sisters is somehow limited solely to people that care about issues of sexism, and that caring about issues of sexism in comics is somehow further limited to be only a "comic book geek" thing. You're implying that nobody will care, and it looks like you're basing that primarily on how it doesn't appeal to you and you think you wouldn't take notice. That's a Russian nesting doll series of assumptions.

I'm actually interested in Lorna and Wanda meeting, but that's because I'm already vested in the characters. I can tell you right now, if Marvel did a promotion for a family reunion that doesn't involve the Magnus family, I wouldn't care at all. Nightcrawler meeting Mystique? Meh. Cyclops with Cable or Havok or Rachel? Again, couldn't give two shits about it. Honestly, Marvel's gotta find a more compelling angle to get me to care about these characters like "Mystique tries to kill her son"...I know right off the bat that's a high stakes story. I imagine this would be true for people unfamiliar with Lorna and Wanda.

Frozen exists, and it gets plenty of buzz for the fact it depicts a relationship between sisters. No, I'm NOT saying that relationship is the sole thing that drew people to the film. I'm not even saying that's the main thing that generated interest, though it's very much possible. I'm saying the fact the main characters are sisters has created a massive buzz purely because they're sisters. I haven't seen the film, I don't even know their names or what it's about, and I still know the two main characters of the film are sisters because people consider that important enough to talk about it moreso than anything else. The only other thing I've personally seen talked about more than the fact the two starring women are sisters is the song "Let It Go." Do you think a film starring brothers would've had this much buzz purely about the fact they're brothers above and beyond almost anything else about the film? Because I sincerely doubt it.

Frozen was never marketed as a movie about sisters. Look at the official trailer: there's only one reference to there being sisters in the movie. Disney thought it would be better to stress the humor and action in the movie to get people in the theater than the family relationship. As to the buzz generated after people saw the movie, it wasn't just the fact that they were sisters that people talked about the movie. It's the fact that Disney made a movie where a female character didn't find salvation through a man but through her family. If the Ice Queen was in fact an Ice King, the message of the movie would have been intact. I don't believe relationship between sisters are more buzz-worthy/trendy than brothers.
Before I get lost arguing anymore, All I'm saying is that issue 14 doesn't require any special promotion. If Marvel decides to go ahead and do an article about it, then great. If they don't, I don't see it as a big mistake or missed opportunity on their part. And I don't find anything wrong with how they've been handling ANXF.

[LoganAlpha30X33]

The Lorna and Wanda meeting, while long overdo, will probably only appeal to those who already know the characters, I don't see it garnering many people buying it outside of that, and one persons pessimism is another's realism.

[Neko]

I'm actually interested in Lorna and Wanda meeting, but that's because I'm already vested in the characters. I can tell you right now, if Marvel did a promotion for a family reunion that doesn't involve the Magnus family, I wouldn't care at all. Nightcrawler meeting Mystique? Meh. Cyclops with Cable or Havok or Rachel? Again, couldn't give two shits about it. Honestly, Marvel's gotta find a more compelling angle to get me to care about these characters like "Mystique tries to kill her son"...I know right off the bat that's a high stakes story. I imagine this would be true for people unfamiliar with Lorna and Wanda.

Due to my investment which is a credit to PAD, I will buy #13 and #14. But if I was going cold into this book, I can say that neither solicit would get me to purchase either book. PAD needed to build these characters and as it is, people will find out more about QS and Polaris because of prior issues. In the end I'm agreeing with you.

Frozen was never marketed as a movie about sisters. Look at the official trailer: there's only one reference to there being sisters in the movie. Disney thought it would be better to stress the humor and action in the movie to get people in the theater than the family relationship. As to the buzz generated after people saw the movie, it wasn't just the fact that they were sisters that people talked about the movie. It's the fact that Disney made a movie where a female character didn't find salvation through a man but through her family. If the Ice Queen was in fact an Ice King, the message of the movie would have been intact. I don't believe relationship between sisters are more buzz-worthy/trendy than brothers.

In the end, not marketing Frozen as sisters was wise on their part. They are making more back in merch and other things because of the discovery of sisters. The general like of the dynamic especially by young ladies is viewed as good.

Before I get lost arguing anymore, All I'm saying is that issue 14 doesn't require any special promotion. If Marvel decides to go ahead and do an article about it, then great. If they don't, I don't see it as a big mistake or missed opportunity on their part. And I don't find anything wrong with how they've been handling ANXF.

And it wouldn't get it any special promotion as it is, this book has never gotten that kind of attention. It would be nice but we've got 12 issues and outside of interviews and being featured on solicits. Thats pretty much all the promotion the book will get.

The Lorna and Wanda meeting, while long overdo, will probably only appeal to those who already know the characters, I don't see it garnering many people buying it outside of that, and one persons pessimism is another's realism.

And again, in justifying yourself and your opinion, you have managed to put down the book, subtlety but still there. Realism is fine if that is what you want to call it. I'll call it your opinion. The difference is repetition, you do this repeatedly. You may soften the wording used but the end result is the same. You are negative and you do put down the book and its writer because of Alex. You come across as having some sort of campaign or a lobbyist to have the book fail; that is the reality of your posts. And you take every opportunity to do so, in various different threads. Are you buying the book?

[The_Greatest_Username]

I like Pietro's self-awareness of how the Avengers don't do anything for him.

[Neko]

I like Pietro's self-awareness of how the Avengers don't do anything for him.

Its actually nice to see blow back to the Avengers. I do like that myself. I think "superhero" teams need some flack from time to time. Just seems like it would be natural.

[salarta]

I speak from personal experience as I do the independent comic convention circuit to sell my work: drawing a comic is not easier than writing it. I've done wordless comics where people come up with interpretations that were totally not what I was aiming for. Maybe I'm a talentless hack, but other comic book artists also do confusing page layouts or don't draw things clearly (like action scenes). I think that proves visual communication is in no way easier than verbal communication.

Verbal communication is different from written communication. I'm pretty sure you meant the latter, but I'm saying that just to keep things on the same page. It's certainly possible to interpret an image in multiple ways, there's always a way to interpret anything in many ways because a lot of art in all its forms is at the mercy of reader/viewer/player prejudice. However, there's more risk of something in writing to get misinterpreted than with art. I'm saying this regardless of level of experience.

And again, having an easier time seeing problem areas is not the same thing as that form of expression being easier to do. Different forms of expression come with differences between how they work. There are things easier to do in art that are harder to do in writing, and things easier to do in writing that are harder in art. I even gave an explicit example of one area in which writing is easier than drawing art in my last post. There's nothing wrong with each form of expression having different strengths and weaknesses, and it doesn't mean one is inferior to another.

What I meant by "the cast has limited appeal" is that there aren't legions of fans for any one character. Gambit's got the most fans in ANXF, but he still has trouble carrying his own title. Me, I'm a Quicksilver fan, which I assure you gets me a lot of blank stares from fellow comic book nerds. I'm not saying they'll never be popular, just that they currently aren't.
Characters usually get promotional pushes after they've established a fan base...unless it's a character that's designed to carry its own title. As you mentioned, Wolverine wasn't popular in the beginning. I wasn't reading comics back then (well, to be honest, I wasn't even born) but I'm fairly sure Marvel wasn't pimping the **** out of Wolverine right off the bat. Wolverine got his fanbase because a writer took an interest in him and wrote him in a way that was compelling to many comic book readers, so that by the 90s he had enough of a following to warrant Marvel promoting whatever the character was doing.

I'll agree that without any kind of real promotion, the cast has limited appeal. Because characters like Wolverine would be in the same boat if they hadn't received real promotion themselves. I'll also agree that at present, the number of hardcore fans for these characters is smaller than many others. Because the lack of promotion means expanding their fanbases has to rely exclusively on word of mouth. Further, I'll agree that in the minds of certain businessmen only interested in whatever they think will make the most money, they might think it makes sense to not promote ANXF and rely exclusively on "proven sells." Because they're aren't willing to look at the full picture. I won't agree that it means it's fair that ANXF hasn't received any real promotion from Marvel.

As for Wolverine. There were fewer X-Men books back then. Of that smaller number, he was given a big enough role to be noticed, which today would have been the equivalent of placing Lorna on Wood's X-Men. By the 80s, about 6-7 years after his creation, Marvel was including him as a major player in the few cartoons that gave the X-Men a presence. While we can't definitively say whether he became well-loved by readers or started getting heavy promotion from Marvel first without evidence, what we can say is that at some point Marvel WAS promoting him, and that promotion further drew attention to him, creating a cycle of interest and promotion that kept feeding into itself. Marvel hasn't even made a token effort to give such a cycle a try with ANXF. They provided only enough promotion for fans of the characters to know the book would use them and left it at that.

I'm actually interested in Lorna and Wanda meeting, but that's because I'm already vested in the characters. I can tell you right now, if Marvel did a promotion for a family reunion that doesn't involve the Magnus family, I wouldn't care at all. Nightcrawler meeting Mystique? Meh. Cyclops with Cable or Havok or Rachel? Again, couldn't give two shits about it. Honestly, Marvel's gotta find a more compelling angle to get me to care about these characters like "Mystique tries to kill her son"...I know right off the bat that's a high stakes story. I imagine this would be true for people unfamiliar with Lorna and Wanda.

I figured it'd be obvious that promoting a storyline with family members interacting would need to include details on what the storyline will entail, so I didn't explicitly say anything about that. On the matter of the examples you provided, 1) none of them are two women, sisters to be exact, spending time together; other examples of those relationship types (though not their character-specific dynamics) exist, and 2) on the hardcore reader level, we've seen those interactions in the 616 before, and even in X-Men: Evolution with the Nightcrawler one. The only place where Lorna and Wanda's interaction as sisters has been a focal point was Exiles, a very short-lived (six issues) AU comic series. I was about to say the Wolverine and the X-Men cartoon counts too, but Lorna and Wanda really didn't have many moments together there. Nearly all of Lorna's family activity was with Magneto, with only a few short bits here and there of Lorna and Wanda interacting.

Frozen was never marketed as a movie about sisters. Look at the official trailer: there's only one reference to there being sisters in the movie. Disney thought it would be better to stress the humor and action in the movie to get people in the theater than the family relationship. As to the buzz generated after people saw the movie, it wasn't just the fact that they were sisters that people talked about the movie. It's the fact that Disney made a movie where a female character didn't find salvation through a man but through her family. If the Ice Queen was in fact an Ice King, the message of the movie would have been intact. I don't believe relationship between sisters are more buzz-worthy/trendy than brothers.
Before I get lost arguing anymore, All I'm saying is that issue 14 doesn't require any special promotion. If Marvel decides to go ahead and do an article about it, then great. If they don't, I don't see it as a big mistake or missed opportunity on their part. And I don't find anything wrong with how they've been handling ANXF.

Fair enough on explicitly marketing the issue over their being sisters based on Frozen's example, but that doesn't mean the issue wouldn't deserve special promotion thanks to the potential behind implicit marketing of that fact. One reference is still one reference more than no reference, and that's usually enough to get that detail out there in the mix as consideration with the rest of the story. Perhaps advertising the fact they're sisters as the main focus isn't needed to the level I was suggesting, but it's still a big reason for Marvel to give ANXF #14 special promotion.

This is literally the first time I'm seeing someone emphasize the salvation through family part of Frozen. Most of what I've seen of it has been about the fact the sisters are sisters. Again, I'm saying this as someone that has not seen the movie, I'm only going by what I know based on what I've seen and heard other people talk about. Maybe the salvation through family part is much more heavily discussed among people that have seen the film, but it's not what I've seen as someone not part of that group.

Also, I've seen Frozen's using women, sisters in particular, used in articles about the film doing great things to promote female leading characters in mediums saturated with male-obsessed content, especially because it provides a means for young girls to enjoy active female characters that can do all the things boys do. Many articles to that effect. For example, this: http://www.btchflcks.com/2013/12/fro...-feminism.html . It makes some assertions based on personal interpretation, but how valid those interpretations may or may not be is separate from that the article exists to deeply analyze the sister dynamic as part of what they consider to be a first foray into feminism. These kind of articles don't tend to exist in significant numbers for brother-brother relations, because there's no popular and accepted movement for boys that's equivalent to feminism. Note: I said in significant numbers. I'm certain articles exist, but they are rarely

[LoganAlpha30X33]

Due to my investment which is a credit to PAD, I will buy #13 and #14. But if I was going cold into this book, I can say that neither solicit would get me to purchase either book. PAD needed to build these characters and as it is, people will find out more about QS and Polaris because of prior issues. In the end I'm agreeing with you.



In the end, not marketing Frozen as sisters was wise on their part. They are making more back in merch and other things because of the discovery of sisters. The general like of the dynamic especially by young ladies is viewed as good.



And it wouldn't get it any special promotion as it is, this book has never gotten that kind of attention. It would be nice but we've got 12 issues and outside of interviews and being featured on solicits. Thats pretty much all the promotion the book will get.



And again, in justifying yourself and your opinion, you have managed to put down the book, subtlety but still there. Realism is fine if that is what you want to call it. I'll call it your opinion. The difference is repetition, you do this repeatedly. You may soften the wording used but the end result is the same. You are negative and you do put down the book and its writer because of Alex. You come across as having some sort of campaign or a lobbyist to have the book fail; that is the reality of your posts. And you take every opportunity to do so, in various different threads. Are you buying the book?

I've disagreed with PAD many times but I've never once put him down as a writer or as a person, I can criticize anything that he writes just as anyone else can if they so choose, for those that are estatic at the meeting of the sisters good for you however all of that enthusiasm does not in the least diminish the truthfulness of my statement, and no I'm not buying the book, I don't believe there are any comic book stores really anywhere close to me anymore as there used to be. Repeatedly slamming Alex and making him look bad over and over again to make someone else look good or to give Lorna a reason to stay away from him later on is something that I can be against. I don't see the book lasting as the sales are already dropping fast, it's like having a favorite actor in a tv show which some people love but you think is a bad show that won't last so you'd rather the end come sooner rather than later so that they can move on to something better.