X-Corp from Tini Howard and Alberto Foche

[ChronoRogue]

True we have no idea how sales are doing right now.

The last reliable lists were from Oct 2020 and Excalibur had dropped down to the 40s (out of 100) for best selling titles for Marvel. I did some guestimates based on relative sale data and if I had to guess which you can take with a grain of salt, it's probably around the low 20k.

But there are books lower than it on the charts that is are still being published so *shrugs*

[Havok83]

I assume it's because this book seems to be about a big corperation formed to serve the economic and political interests of a Nation, which has been noted to be utterly rich because of a monopoly on a series of high value products and with limitless resources as their disposale (a mercantilism dream).

So it seems reasonable that the main characters or at least those in charge will be the kind of people who have experience with and connections into the big business around the world, hence also being rich themself.

But not everyone that works for a big business/corporation is rich. There are secretaries, interns, executives trying to make a name for themselves, etc... There are also those that may have money but dont come from generational wealth. I think people are looking shortsighted by only expecting this cast to be made up of the likes of mutants who are rich. A good business needs smart, strategic people. Charismatic people that are good talkers. Those that are natural leaders in their own right.

[Thievery]

Well, this comic announcement makes me verry happy. I thought that X-Corp was going to be dropped.

Archangel is my favorite character, and Monet is a favorite of mine as well


I know that I am in the minority on this forum, but I really enjoy Excalibur, so having Tina as the writer is a plus for me.

Tina did a great job writing Warren and Monet in Empyre: X-Men. I think that she wrote the X-Corp parts, and HIckman wrote the Wanda scenes.
Tina also did a good job with Warren and Monet in Xof Swords.

The cover looks great.

Why are people assuming or thinking that this cast is or should be made up of rich characters?

I think that Madrox was mentioned in the interview. Doesn't mean that he will be appearing though.

I definitely didn't see this coming, but I'm happy for Tini since it was her pitch. I liked her monet and Warren and the last few issues of Excalibur improved a lot. So I'm still excited for this.

I just don't want her on two books so I hope excalibur gets a revamp. A new writer, artist, and let's focus the cast on the Braddocks and Otherworld and let Rogue, Gambit and Jubilee go to the main X-Men team maybe.

As for this books, I wonder what other Mutants would be cut throat business women and men? Sunspot and Emma come to mind. But I don't see them being supportive character for Monet and Warren.

This is just a guess, but I could see Gideon having some role in this comic, either as a villain or ally.
He made an appearance when the X-Ternal Gate was created, and he survived. That might not be a coincidence.
EDIT: Gideon has a corporate background.

I literally reading this thread getting ready to tell people that your opinions on Excaliber does not match reality. You might not like Tini Howard but Tini Howard's book is doing fine. Twitter is not the only echo chamber.

Anyways this Monet in a leading role so I am happy, I am normally critical of Angel but this a role that he is well suited for if he can't be interesting or useful in this book I don't know where they can use him. Madrox was mentioned in the interview and Sunspot has been dropping the X-corps name a bit so I guess those guys are options for the book

Yeah, I thought that Madrox was mentioned. we will see if that matters or not.

[frostedemma]

Apparently I'm in the minority of people who are excited for this. Excalibur got much better since X of Swords, Tini was having trouble establishing a prelude to XoS and finally found her pace. JDW said Tini and Hickman were the only two writers who were fans of Monet and invested in pushing her, so for one I sure am glad that she's being written as a team leader by one of those two people.

I'm relived that Tini mentioned how she loved new x-men and the original x-corps because I was a worried about the book being more about corporate stuff than like x-corps first run because i really loved the team dynamic and missions.

Except when they have her looking like white bread, I kinda feel bad when colourist get flack for colouring Monet bc she never got an established skin tone beside being visibly brown. Often the issue lies with artist giving her a white european face instead of north african features.

[Havok83]

Angel
M
Madrox
Sunspot
Boom Boom or Dazzler
Trinary
Hellion

Thats a cast I could go for

[davetvs]

Cautiously optimistic for this book. I love Monet and was looking forward to the concept of X-Corp in the Krakoan era but Excalibur is...not my favorite. Cautiously optimistic.

[DetectiveStrange]

Sounds awesome! I think Sunfire would be a good fit in here too.

[WildR]

Hope Tini has interests of Monet's family. Emplate is a good point of penetration as marginalized mutants in Krakoa society.

[Grunty]

But not everyone that works for a big business/corporation is rich. There are secretaries, interns, executives trying to make a name for themselves, etc... There are also those that may have money but dont come from generational wealth. I think people are looking shortsighted by only expecting this cast to be made up of the likes of mutants who are rich. A good business needs smart, strategic people. Charismatic people that are good talkers. Those that are natural leaders in their own right.

You may see it that way, but other's might see a series themed around big business and assume it being about the people who do the big business, the people in charge who also happen to be usualy of great wealth. With those in the jobs you mentioned being merely satelite or backround characters to them.

There is also the factor at play here that the "beautifull elite" has often been a popular focus for stories throughout history, since people like to glamour over the people above themself in social standing. It's why all these tabloids exist, which are all about photos of and speculation around celebrities, rich people or monarchs, often without basis. Hence why it might seem likely that a story about money and influence, will have rich people as focus characters.

It's likely an assumption born from familiarity of similar pattern.

Of course you are right in assuming that the entire remaining cast of X-Corp could essentialy be a pyramid unfolding underneath Monet and Angel, spread around the various roles people fill in a corperation (thugh possibly with diminishing focus and role).

[Silver Fang]

Update. Marvel twitter deleted the original preview, and posted the pages with a notably darker Monet
https://twitter.com/Marvel/status/13...381199363?s=20

[Killerbee911]

True we have no idea how sales are doing right now.

The charts you guys talking about guesstimates to begin with I understand that when I used them in post and does not include digital sales and trades. This is why I was comfortable in saying the book was doing fine for Marvel.

Excalibur was one of the first books I dropped but I didn't drop it because I didn't like how Betsy was being used or Rogue or Gambit being used as side characters. I didn't just care about the mutant magic concept and the book wasn't that compelling to me. It wasn't bad but it wasn't amazing either, It was just a serviceable book. The gripes that I see people have with Tini Howard does not reflect imo what an average fan would care about here is just as much echo chamber as twitter.

The easiest example is our poll for the fan vote where Tempo by far was leading here she was in 6th on the real poll. X-twitter does not reflect reality but neither does here

[DragonPiece]

True we have no idea how sales are doing right now.

The last reliable lists were from Oct 2020 and Excalibur had dropped down to the 40s (out of 100) for best selling titles for Marvel. I did some guestimates based on relative sale data and if I had to guess which you can take with a grain of salt, it's probably around the low 20k.

But there are books lower than it on the charts that is are still being published so *shrugs*

Do we have any clue on if digital sales went up this year because of covid? Marvel could be factoring those sales in more also.

[jwatson]

Update. Marvel twitter deleted the original preview, and posted the pages with a notably darker Monet
https://twitter.com/Marvel/status/13...381199363?s=20

Im glad somebody at least went into photoshop and adjusted the contrast/brightness probably the levels as the background is much darker too. Marvel really needs to have a staff meeting because this issue is only going to get bigger. When people say they want to be represented and see people that look like them in a visual medium we mean it. Next we need to get on them about how they do asian characters.

[bkart1978]

I’ve really enjoyed Excalibur, and M is one of my favorites, so this is good news for me. David Aja covers is a definite plus.

[ChronoRogue]

The charts you guys talking about guesstimates to begin with I understand that when I used them in post and does not include digital sales and trades. This is why I was comfortable in saying the book was doing fine for Marvel.

Excalibur was one of the first books I dropped but I didn't drop it because I didn't like how Betsy was being used or Rogue or Gambit being used as side characters. I didn't just care about the mutant magic concept and the book wasn't that compelling to me. It wasn't bad but it wasn't amazing either, It was just a serviceable book. The gripes that I see people have with Tini Howard does not reflect imo what an average fan would care about here is just as much echo chamber as twitter.

The easiest example is our poll for the fan vote where Tempo by far was leading here she was in 6th on the real poll. X-twitter does not reflect reality but neither does here

Just because there is some speculation involved doesn't mean you should write them off. There is and was sales data being used and collected from retailers involved including from Diamond which is a comics distributor.

And a lot of times you were able to predict which books were on the chopping block by taking a glance at them, usually books with projected sales of less than 20-15k were cut and it was clearly a pattern. I agree that digital sales do muck up the projections but that works on an assumption that digital buyers have a different market taste which doesn't have any real data to support that. The closet argument you could make there is demographic changes with where the books are available, like Moon Girl being sold at Scholastic (for kids).

As for Exaclibur doing fine, it probably is if they feel confident enough to give Tini a second book. That's not what I was implying, but it's not exactly doing steller sales either given by it's sales position. That it's competing with Hellions which has Z-list characters is sad.

As for bias regarding how people see Excalibur because of how their faves are being treated, while I would like to think the Rogue, Gambit and Jubilee fans have that much influence on these boards I don't think they number enough to vote it the worst X-book in 2020 by themselves. As you yourself mention, there are problems with Tini's writing itself that can contributed to not liking the book.

And while I do agree that CBR is, just like any message board or forum, a sort of echo chamber that doesn't necessarily translate to how the average reader feels about a book... I would argue that when you have iconic characters on a book it's extremely hard to get a book to fail regardless of writing quality. If Tini actually wrote bad enough to sink a book with golden goose 90s characters it would be a feat. it's why X-Men Gold still managed to survive despite being terrible, a name or character can entirely keep a book afloat, its takes a long time to break the average readers trust in a brand thats lasted for over 40 years