To Many Characters, AKA what is your workable lineup!

[Grunty]

Just some food or thought.

Perhaps the bigger problem here isn't that there are so many fully or semi-developed characters, each with their bigger or smaller fanbases among the (diminished) readership, who want to see them used again, but that starting around the early 00's most of the continuity around the teams they were part of became lost, at the detriment of their ability to easily drop in and out of appearing.

Basicly if the teams kept existing without certain characters it was no problem to take out them out for a while and add new ones, since it was all part of an ongoing progression where enough of the old cast would remain to keep a sense of consistency, which any reader could then follow back from their current issue to their first.

Meanwhile there was also still a sense that these characters had lifes outside of just being part of these teams and therefor an excuse to be absent and leave space for others, at least for a while.

But with the mass cancelation of satelite titles in the early 00's these team continuities essentialy died and the characters mostly scattered to the wind, without a beneficial explanation of what they are up to until their next appearance.
Infact many writers eventualy begann to just skip these gaps in their stories all together.

Decimination then made things worse by essentialy removing every mutant character's "civilian" life, since they were now an "endangered species" that had to be herded together in one place and everyone not part of the super hero team or filling the backrounds was seemingly "not pulling their weight".

And now titles barely last long enough for teams to actualy develop any sense of continuity or progression anymore. They are assembled at seemingly random, their names also given with little relation to that of previously existing incarnation, they have 1 or 2 adventures and then their title is canceled and the team is never heared from again or even mentioned in many cases.

As such the increased number of characters and how many of them don't have anything to do when they aren't on teams became more apparent and over time a "problem".

[Factor]

Just some food or thought.

Perhaps the bigger problem here isn't that there are so many fully or semi-developed characters, each with their bigger or smaller fanbases among the (diminished) readership, who want to see them used again, but that starting around the early 00's most of the continuity around the teams they were part of became lost, at the detriment of their ability to easily drop in and out of appearing.

Basicly if the teams kept existing without certain characters it was no problem to take out them out for a while and add new ones, since it was all part of an ongoing progression where enough of the old cast would remain to keep a sense of consistency, which any reader could then follow back from their current issue to their first.

Meanwhile there was also still a sense that these characters had lifes outside of just being part of these teams and therefor an excuse to be absent and leave space for others, at least for a while.

But with the mass cancelation of satelite titles in the early 00's these team continuities essentialy died and the characters mostly scattered to the wind, without a beneficial explanation of what they are up to until their next appearance.
Infact many writers eventualy begann to just skip these gaps in their stories all together.

Decimination then made things worse by essentialy removing every mutant character's "civilian" life, since they were now an "endangered species" that had to be herded together in one place and everyone not part of the super hero team or filling the backrounds was seemingly "not pulling their weight".

And now titles barely last long enough for teams to actualy develop any sense of continuity or progression anymore. They are assembled at seemingly random, their names also given with little relation to that of previously existing incarnation, they have 1 or 2 adventures and then their title is canceled and the team is never heared from again or even mentioned in many cases.

As such the increased number of characters and how many of them don't have anything to do when they aren't on teams became more apparent and over time a "problem".

I have to agree with pretty much all of this. I miss having a sense of progression and consistency.
Now casts are changed all the time and barely get a chance to be developed. Look at X-men. Each line-up gets less than a year, which is nothing in this age of decompressed storytelling.
I also really miss having strong satellite books, which is why most of the line-ups I create is about bringing back concepts like Excalibur, X-factor etc. i wish we could get at least two years of consistent rosters and creative teams (including artists, even if they have to have 2 at a time).
As far as rosters go, I think Marvel should decide which are the characters who represent each team and have them as the core of their books, leaving some space for others come and go.
I want to see Excalibur, X-factor, New Mutants etc get lasting runs again.

[Fokken]

So I had some time off, so I came up with complete teams. The general concepts are still the same as above, but I made some changes to line-ups and merged NXM and New Mutants to leave a spot for Alpha Flight.
Notes: One big plot point would be that most of the Quiet Council would be in hiding after their failure to protect Krakoa. Frost would be a secret benefactor to X-factor, not a public member. The Five would also be MIA, which is a mystery the New Mutants would tackle.

I f*cking LIVE for your visual line ups!!! ahhhh!

[Factor]

I f*cking LIVE for your visual line ups!!! ahhhh!

Thanks, Fokken. I miss seeing your drawings! I’m actually working on homage covers with my line-ups in place of the originals, but it will take me forever lol.