X-Men Monday: Two Key Words

[loke13]

I disagree. The X-Men die far more frequently now. They appear less skillful at times as a result. The actual problem is that the writers feel compelled to kill off characters unnecessarily. That hasn't been addressed. The resurrections just give an easy answer for their return. That being the case, the resurrections don't seem like that big of a "win".

I disagree. The only books I can think of that treat their deaths callously would be X-Force and well...it's X-Force so I don't expect anything less. Every other book have treated the resurrections as at least a minor plot point within a given arc.

And I also disagree with the idea that the X-Men are being written more incompetently than in the past because I can literally throw a rock into any previous X-Men era and find multiple instances where the X-Men acted incompetently or "less skillful" than they usually are.

The problem is lazy writing. It was here before the resurrections and will be here after.

[useridgoeshere]

If Immortal X-Men and Sinister are the same book than it is Gillen.

Ah, thanks for the insight.

[Spiderfan001]

I want ressurection to be around and explored more personally(that Infinity comic should have been about the 5), but it's current handeling is terrible.

The justification in the Reddit thread is death in already meaningless, which is untrue.Deaths still has meaning in the short run, it's when you look at it long term that they are completely meaningless.

Yet the main thing writers have done w/ ressurection is kill characters to create some semblance of stakes.The lack of stakes of death is why people said it's better to be done w/ it 100%, yet deaths being used for shock value and as a crutch in stories has skyrocketed due to ressurection.

Death is meaningless yet is used now more than any other time for stakes.It's shooting yourself in the foot in disguise of treating getting a cut on said foot.You have to fix the cut(death's meaning problem) instead of taking away the foot(death as a concept) entirely because whether we admit it or not most of the writers need the foot(death as a storytelling device).

And w/ ressurection that crutch looses all it's value, yet it's being used more than ever now.

Also Reddit vote was made by a small audience, importantly a small hardcore audience.I'd argue a majority of readers haven't been nearly as fed up w/ the "death is meaningless" thing as compared to people on that reddit board.

[Journey]

Hmm Immortal X-Men? Only "immortal" ones I can think of are Logan & Clan, Iceman, Selene, & Mystique at least off the top of my head cause none of them really age.

[Nazrel]

Shouldn't that be a red flag that these comics need to stop in some way, rather than just increase the numbness of the dwindling consumer base?

Yeah, shock deaths aren't even shocking anymore (Not that shock deaths were ever a good thing.)... they're just tedious... it's just "So we're doing this again are we?". Even a sincere and heartfelt end is striped of emotional weight.
(This is directed at all death in comics, not the resurrection protocols.)

[Kingdom X]

Let's recap, this is a vote made by less than 400 people, on an internet discussion board, which i assume is frequented (and potentialy gated) by a certain selection of often likely minded people, mostly used to express their likes or dislikes regarding certain things, which because of the anonymus nature of such places means there is practically no way to actualy proof if these people expressing their sentiments actualy do so in real life, actualy buy or even read the product they are commenting on (which means their opinion has no direct value towards the success or failure of a product) or what overall group they represent.

This is basicly worthless for an empirical study towards the likes and dislikes of the potential or active reader/buyership of the current X-men titles. If anything it's just reflective of what people on that board feel about the topic and that's also not entirely empirical because it was a random vote, rather than an organized gathering of individuals from a representative spectrum of visitors and participants on it.

For everyone who voted, there could have been 10 more who felt there was no need to participate. So a large majority of possibly different thinking individuals could have been left out. The classic silent majority situation.

Considering the average sales of the X-men titles seems to currently sit between 20000 to 40000. Asking 400 unconfirmed people means you have asked potentialy less than 1% or 2% of the confirmed active buyership IF any of them are actualy part of these 20-40k to beginn with.

If we go by the larger overall fanbase of X-men, via comics, cartoons, movies, video games, toys, or just casualy liking the characters, which could very well be in the hundred of millions, these 400 represent even less.

Can either of us provide evidence that not 99% of them would prefer it if death remains meaningfull even if characters still have a chance to come back via complex seemingly impossible odds?

And that's on top of internet discussion boards and social media having been noted quite frequently to neither really represent a larger consumer base nor actualy being reflective of the discourse going on in larger fanbases.

We can rage all we want about comics or a new movie adaption and how bad they are. But if they are successfull, we are obviously not fully representative of the majority of the buyer/viewership. Meanwhile if they are unsuccessfull (or less successfull than versions we like) we can consider ourself validated in POTENTIALY reflecting part of what has repulsed others from a product.

At best internet gatherings can be a cross-sectional look at the topics and point of a discourse going on among a certain group. But only if they showcase a large enough diversity of confirmable individuals participating.

Put another way. That vote is possibly like going to a meeting of LA Lakers fans and asking them who the best basketball team in the world is and then comming to the conclusion that 90% of all basketball fans love the LA Lakers.

Of course this very forum is just as much not represenative of the overall X-men fanbase. Neither can i claim that my opinion is factualy representing a larger group either.

This of course makes my above expressed impression of the active and potential buyership as highly debatable or downright disputable. However noticable deflating sales, anectodale report from various comicbook shops (the people at the forfront of actualy getting these works into the hands of buying customers) and personaly observed reaction of casual fans upon learning of the current comicbook status quo, gives me the impression that the above mentioned reaction towards the resurrection protocol and the "death is meaningless now" status quo has some factual basis.

Again though, i admit it's disputable and not entirely empirical either. So if your point was that i was presuming myself to know what is notably repulsing an increasingly larger consumer base from the current comic, than touché.

I'm not reading this entire novel, but all I'm gonna say is that I acknowledged that the poll wasn't representative. I even made sure to say "based on these respondents" in every part of my post. I didn't once act like this little poll (which still has more responses than any poll I've seen on these boards) that I happened to come across was the be all end all. You made a definitive statement that new and old readers were "repulsed" by the resurrections and I simply shared something that points to the fact that other people may hold a different opinion.

You're doing the absolute most, when I myself am still conflicted over whether I like the protocols or not and didn't make a definitive statement about it.

[Spiderfan001]

Yeah, shock deaths aren't even shocking anymore (Not that shock deaths were ever a good thing.)... they're just tedious... it's just "So we're doing this again are we?". Even a sincere and heartfelt end is striped of emotional weight.

Shock deaths were bad bad then but have even less meaning now, and are used far more.

They lost what little value they had and have never been used this much.

[Rift]

Re: The Protocols. Being brought back from the dead is inevitable for characters like Wolverine, Nightcrawler and Cyclops. But so many lesser-known, but still loved characters are killed or written out for shock deaths, and their revivals are much less certain. The Protocols gave them a chance to come back and possibly even get focus again. For that alone, I consider them a godsend.

[TheDeadSpace]

I disagree. The only books I can think of that treat their deaths callously would be X-Force and well...it's X-Force so I don't expect anything less. Every other book have treated the resurrections as at least a minor plot point within a given arc.

And I also disagree with the idea that the X-Men are being written more incompetently than in the past because I can literally throw a rock into any previous X-Men era and find multiple instances where the X-Men acted incompetently or "less skillful" than they usually are.

The problem is lazy writing. It was here before the resurrections and will be here after.

The other books might use the deaths as minor plot points, but they're still killing off characters only to bring them back. Characters dying isn't a necessity. The threats haven't exponentially grown, so it seems odd that they die so frequently.

As for previous incompetence, did it usually end in their death? Making a mistake is one thing, but dying from "normal" threats often is a bit too much. Other superheroes don't rely on resurrections.

It seems like we'll have to agree to disagree, honestly.

As for the lazy writing comment, I agree. However, that doesn't seem like a valid reason to keep the resurrection protocols.

Re: The Protocols. Being brought back from the dead is inevitable for characters like Wolverine, Nightcrawler and Cyclops. But so many lesser-known, but still loved characters are killed or written out for shock deaths, and their revivals are much less certain. The Protocols gave them a chance to come back and possibly even get focus again. For that alone, I consider them a godsend.

Bringing back lesser-known characters is probably the one positive I agree with. That being said, their use doesn't seem to improve too much, unfortunately.

[AppleJ]

Glad to see Sarah Brunstead coming over, though hate to lose her on Black Widow and Captain Marvel.

However I'm pretty sick of the resurrection protocols because we're seeing even more deaths that are essentially now meaningless and have no impact to the story or the character. In some cases, characters are gone for not even a page or die every issue as a recurring joke and at this point I kind of find it gross. Maybe it's just because we're at a time in history where life already feels so cheap, it just feels distasteful to me. To a degree, it takes away the ability to speak to the loss real people are feeling right now in the middle of a pandemic.

If the resurrection protocols stay, they need some level of stakes to them. Some kind of cost or change. That was starting to be addressed in Way of X, but floundered a bit.

[Grunty]

I'm not reading this entire novel, but all I'm gonna say is that I acknowledged that the poll wasn't representative. I even made sure to say "based on these respondents" in every part of my post. I didn't once act like this little poll (which still has more responses than any poll I've seen on these boards) that I happened to come across was the be all end all. You made a definitive statement that new and old readers were "repulsed" by the resurrections and I simply shared something that points to the fact that other people may hold a different opinion.

I tried (or thought i did) to include in my "novel" that the vote is infact representative of a group having a largely different opinion than mine, even if it's not representative of an overall collective. But i admit that was a bit too much arguing about the pros and cons of using randomized online votes as example on my part. Though it was not meant as attack on you and more me going on an extended thought towards online votes/polls.

Also examples like that are why i prefer not to make statements of "everyone" or "nobody" when it comes to people enjoying or disliking something because obviously there will be people who enjoy something that others don't enjoy. There are never absolute opinions or truths when it comes to taste of consumers.

[Pumpkin King]

Re: The Protocols. Being brought back from the dead is inevitable for characters like Wolverine, Nightcrawler and Cyclops. But so many lesser-known, but still loved characters are killed or written out for shock deaths, and their revivals are much less certain. The Protocols gave them a chance to come back and possibly even get focus again. For that alone, I consider them a godsend.

Agreed. I have honestly been delighted knowing that the original Hellions, Pyro, Avalanche and Destiny, Shinobi Shaw, Fabian Cortez, old Acolytes, the dead New X-Men kids, etc. have gotten to come back. They may not all be the focus of stories right now, but they are back in continuity with the potential to be used.

[Spiderfan001]

Re: The Protocols. Being brought back from the dead is inevitable for characters like Wolverine, Nightcrawler and Cyclops. But so many lesser-known, but still loved characters are killed or written out for shock deaths, and their revivals are much less certain. The Protocols gave them a chance to come back and possibly even get focus again. For that alone, I consider them a godsend.

You can have best of both worlds

Just have a mass ressurection and turn the 5 thing into a one time ritual and bring all of them back using but some power source or something as a way to explain why it can't be done again.

[Devaishwarya]

This meet and greet was...cute, if not very illuminating. I do appreciate the enormity of the editorial work load, though.

Notable takeaways:
Emma is wearing her HF White Queen outfit...always a plus.
Christian is recovered.
Lorna is serving HAWTNESS!!!

[Vegeta]

Wanda looks weird is it just me? Just not a flattering photo.

I think it is the glowing red eyes and the way the cape collar is so tightly wrapped around her neck (as well as traveling all the way up to her jawline). Otherwise, it looks competently drawn. Better than average for a modern Marvel book.