Hickman moving on to......substack?

[pkingdom]

It reads like a repudiation of Marvel. Like, it sounds a lot like what he's going to be doing with his upcoming story is a lot of what he was saying the X books were going to be like just after HoXPoX. You'll learn about their politics! Their economics! New magic system! And then most of that ended on a wet fart.

When this all started I said that the story Hickman wants to tell is wholly unsuited to the medium he's telling it in. Month to month stories of only 20 pages or so and he has to dedicate massive amounts of space to text walls and exposition. Frankly, it never seemed like he wanted to tell some kind of epic; rather, he seemed to want to write a new DnD sourcebook and create a new playground for other people to play in.

I was hating on Hickman since Day 1, so if he leaves and this entire relaunch gets scrubbed I'll be thrilled. Too much of it relies on misanthropy and cynicism, and has doubled down on the biggest X-men problem: Only the White Ones Matter

[Captain Buttocks]

I didn't "hate" on Hickman myself, but as I stated previously, I just gave up and felt he lost me. HoXPoX felt like a shot in the arm and a return to prominence for an X-franchise that had been treated like a second-rate citizen ever since... ooh, 2005?

I'm not against any writer choosing to eschew characterisation in favour of plot/ideas, but the stories have to be good. I'm not precisely sure what stories Hickman told in full before I dropped X-Men (I think roughly around issue 10 or whenever that crossover nonsense started). Grant Morrison famously abandoned all characterisation in his JLA but it was still an exciting read. It makes sense that Hickman is unhappy with episodic serial storytelling, because his run on X-Men was full of ideas and plots being started and then dropped for ages, if they ever reoccured at all now.

I'm not against dangling plot threads (the X-books lifeblood!) but if I dont feel like they're ever going to be resolved (and with the removal of stakes since roughly three characters get killed per issue and resurrected panels later) then I'm not going to keep shelling out money for a holding pattern. Now as I said - I dropped the majority of the books, so they may well be now full of resolved plots and adept characterisation that would bring a tear to a glass eye, it's just my bad luck that I'll never know because I'm not interested. A common recurring criticism of Morrison was that he'd come up with ten ideas and focus on the least interesting one. That's one more idea being focussed upon than I see with Hickman.

I'm glad he brought the books back to prominence and I wish him well, but I think it's time to admit that with this, East of West, his Avengers and his Secret Wars all losing me, that maybe he's not for me. But hshould definitely be appreciated for bringing the X-books back to Marvel's A-list, and HoXPoX remains a good read to revisit.

[yogaflame]

I would actually say that the franchise is already saved. While we might not like everything that comes out of it Marvel is once again willing to put money into the X-Office and maybe more importantly willing to take creative risks with the characters.

I mean, Disney buying Fox certainly pulled the franchise out of the fire. But while Marvel is now open to using them again, it's already discovered it can spin its straw characters/concepts into gold in the MCU. The best X-men stuff is from Claremont's run. No one has come close to exceeding it from a financial or creative angle. Adapting that run into films and D+series will make for incredible content[and profits], but from a publishing angle, it may well be over. While the MCU films/shows have largely been great, their corresponding comics [since MCU-synergization] haven't been much to write about. X-Men adaptations in live action are still years and years out. Without Hickman's grand Krakoa experiment, we'll likely see a slow circling around the drain in the comics[until the films come and the comics realign accordingly].

[Mercury]

I guess Duggan is now head of x

Based on how he is handling X-Men thus far, I wouldn't be averse to this, tbh.

[Mercury]

I feel like that quote sounds more like he just doesn't intend on applying this kind of structure on his other projects, in other companies. He talks about not wanting to replicate it, which has nothing to do with the state of the original...

This is a good point.

[Hizashi]

How far removed are we from Hickman's original plans at this point do y'all think?

[Hizashi]

It reads like a repudiation of Marvel. Like, it sounds a lot like what he's going to be doing with his upcoming story is a lot of what he was saying the X books were going to be like just after HoXPoX. You'll learn about their politics! Their economics! New magic system! And then most of that ended on a wet fart.

When this all started I said that the story Hickman wants to tell is wholly unsuited to the medium he's telling it in. Month to month stories of only 20 pages or so and he has to dedicate massive amounts of space to text walls and exposition. Frankly, it never seemed like he wanted to tell some kind of epic; rather, he seemed to want to write a new DnD sourcebook and create a new playground for other people to play in.

I was hating on Hickman since Day 1, so if he leaves and this entire relaunch gets scrubbed I'll be thrilled. Too much of it relies on misanthropy and cynicism, and has doubled down on the biggest X-men problem: Only the White Ones Matter

I'm a worrier, and I worry that what I liked about this era was chiefly because of him and the things I disliked was from the current crop of creative teams; even if Hickman leaves, I don't see Marvel dropping this era unless there's massive dropoffs in readership. And maybe not even then.

[MechaJeanix]

If Hickman is leaving then I will be sad because we didn't get to experience his full vision. However we still have a lot of talented writers on the X-books and if some of those folks stick around for awhile then I think we'll be fine. I am loving Duggan on X-men. At least it is fun and hopeful. I enjoy many of the other writers as well. We are so used to shake ups with creators that we know it will happen sooner or later.

Also, we don't know if Hickman is leaving. Maybe he is doing both and that is why he isn't write a main on-going X-book?

[Digifiend]

I guess Duggan is now head of x

If the last issue of Inferno is indeed Hickman's swansong, I won't be surprised to see a different name as the Head of X credit from the following month. As the writer of the main X-Men book, I agree this would probably be Duggan.

[Mercury]

If Hickman really is done, that's unfortunate. He brought big ideas to the table. That said his X-Men run was incredibly uneven. I guess he won't be eclipsing Morrison for second-best X-run after all(Lord Claremont is forevermore #1). He started off very strong, I had high hopes for him, but after reading his FF and Avengers runs, I knew there could be trouble ahead. FF was concise and, well, fantastic, but his Avengers was meandering and ultimately ended poorly(I detested God Doom and Secret War). I think if he had focused on just writing 2 books to tell the story he wanted, it might have worked better. Spreading his ideas between so many other books[and writers] seems to have diluted his vision. Duggan's fluff on X-Men so far portends a massive blow for the franchise, creatively. Only Feige's MCU can save the mutants now, whenever he gets around to them.

It's interesting to read someone who doesn't pray Hickman to the high heavens. However, I lean more toward loving his work than you seem to, though I totally understand and can even agree with some of your critique(s).

[Revolutionary_Jack]

How far removed are we from Hickman's original plans at this point do y'all think?

Who knows? We'll have to wait for an exit interview and that might take a while.

It's easy to draw a dividing line between Hickman's title and that of the X-Line (Duggan, Howard) but the fact is that a lot of the stuff in other titles is based on stuff that Hickman planned or foreshadowed.

Like Gerry Duggan seems to be taking over but it's pointed out that the Mars terraforming in Hellfire Gala was something Hickman helped with and it was Hickman who designed the map of the terraformed Mars/Arakko.

So we can't assume that the other X-writers are doing stuff contrary to Hickman's vision and ideas or that them working in collaboration is something Hickman is against. (For one thing it seems that he and Tini Howard will collaborate on Substack).

I don't see Marvel dropping this era unless there's massive dropoffs in readership. And maybe not even then.

Who knows? You could have a more traditional X-Men set-up (Mansion) but Krakoa still exists somewhere.

Al Ewing has talked about plans for Arakko for another year, so we'll get another year's worth of stuff from this status-quo but after that who knows?

[Silver Fang]

Good riddance. I am still waiting for 1 writer who can do 1 book I can be excited about. Because 2016 was legit the last year that had those. I think. It's been so long, I may have the year(s) wrong. But last books I truly enjoyed were Duggan's Deadpool and Uncanny Avengers, along with Bunn's Uncanny X-Men.

Hickman's Era hasn't delivered anymore that the one before it.

[charliehustle415]

How far removed are we from Hickman's original plans at this point do y'all think?

I think a lot; of course I am talking out of my butt.

But if you look at HOX/POX and the first six months of the Dawn of X the stories were skewing very differently and when XOS hit, it made hard turn in tone and scope and when the Gala hit we had another hard turn.

Even in his Substack newsletter he said he had entirely new ONLINE ONLY X-Men outline done during the pandemic which was completely thrown out.

[Mercury]

Before Hickman leaves, he needs to follow up on this...



Oh, I know...

INFERNO.

[Outburstz]

This is horrid I really liked Hickmen's story idk if these writers are going to be able to handle this concept of Krakoa and Arrako properly I'm super worried it's just going to go back to stupid status quo X-men