To Many Characters, AKA what is your workable lineup!

[Sutekh]

That said, I think a proper X-Force/CIA book could work, but Percy was circling the drain for too long and didn't think wide enough. You can have a primary 'team' of 6 or whatever, but the CIA is a huge organization, and there should be actual teams of operatives and analysts and coordinators, support staff, etc. That's where you get to implement all the various C-Z list mutants with perfect powers/personalities for the various niches. And because those characters already have backstories and even a few fans out there, their roles are infused with even greater significance.

I guess Krakoa is off the board moving forward, but even just as a shadow government for mutants, the CIA concept could live on.

Cable, Bishop, Sage, Domino, Wolverine, and Kwannon can be the core '6'. Sometimes they actually go out as a unit to wreck stuff together, but more often than not they could be the sort of 'inner circle' to determine what the wider intuition is up to. They can sit at a psychic table and coordinate operations, each bringing their own insights to the table for greater consideration.

They lead sub-teams, and have further support staff, who would serve as supporting characters and cameos, respectively. This may seem like a ton of characters, and it is, but think of how many characters were in Game of Thrones? I mean, even just the central characters were more than a dozen, never mind all the supporting characters. With good writing they can all be developed and employed overtime. You just need a plot big enough to contain them all, which coordinating the security of mutantkind through time and space is.

Cable- temporal and mystical anomalies, weapons and technological development

On the look out for asynchronies to mutantkind's continued existence, and countermeasures.

Sub team:

Tempo, Magik, Forge, Danger, Whiz Kid

Bishop- threat assessment and neutralization, department of energy

Immediate dangers are dealt with, with extreme prejudice!

Monet, Magma, Warpath, Meltdown, Bedlam

Sage- data collation/analysis, personnel coordination

Knows everything about everyone.

Trinary, Prodigy, Karma, Multiple Man, Pete Wisdom

Domino- emergency intervention, extraction/support

Need a miracle?

Siryn, Manifold, Triage, Warlock, Doop

Wolverine- inter-agency relations, superhero/outer space interference

Outward facing, public façade of X-Force, full of its well-known, charismatic members who can work a press conference or make things happen. Best there is at what they do.

Cypher, Moonstar, Sunspot, Cannonball, Skids

Kwannon-mutant underground trafficking, organized crime infiltration, etc.

Interacts with the darkest side of humanity.

Greycrow, Shatterstar, X-Stacy, Rictor, Feral

I don't at all like what has been done with the X-Force 'mutant CIA' concept lately, but dayum, this sounds awesome! Love the lineups.

Cypher, Moonstar, Sunspot, Cannonball and *Wolverine?* That's a recipe for drama! I love the idea of these four New Mutants, experienced at working together, all having some leadership role or experience, bumping heads with Wolverine, whose likely to be exasperated with / wanting to strangle Roberto and overprotective of Doug, by turns. (Not a fan of Feral, but whatever, there's always one. At least she's not Quentin!)

Also love the idea of a group with Kwannon and Greycrow, Rictor and Shatterstar. Lots of great characters like Bedlam, Madrox, Manifold, Tempo, Wiz Kid, etc. This could rock!

[yogaflame]

Thanks! I really enjoyed playing with this concept in my head. I'm almost seeing the first issue....

Feral barely made the cut. I kept expanding the teams, trying to focus primarily on New Mutants and X-Force alumni, so eventually I thought she should have a spot. I had Vulcan in Meltdown's spot at first, but decided Tabby should get it instead, even if Vulcan far outclasses her. Wolfsbane never made the cut(I prefer her on Excalibur, the black ops just isn't for her, even if she can rip people's throats out). I thought about Quentin just because he's been on Percy's team, but I just couldn't get over my distaste for him, not even enough to put his 'million brilliant thoughts per second' mind on Sage's squad. Infectia was another character I wanted to fold in somehow, but she didn't quite fit on a dedicated squad. Maybe we can just bring her in for a featured cameo when they run into a bioweapons lab or something, ooooor she can take Feral's spot on Kwannon's squad. Feral is just SOOOO OG X-Force, I couldn't ignore her.

My concept for Logan's squad is that he'd be the figurehead, but Sam, Dani, Doug, Roberto, and Skids would be the counterpoints. I thought of Logan extending a hand towards them in deference to their history as New Mutants/X-Force prime, also wanting to atone for the sins of the Krakoa era by bringing them into the fold and having a bigger voice. I'm sure the younger generations lost a lot of trust in the older ones, seeing how Krakoa went to crap. Cypher would be the innocent mouthpiece, media darling, and omni-linguistic translator, Sunspot has the charisma/savvy, business connections and financing, Dani would be the tactical core(also was an agent of SHIELD), Sam the emotional core(plus his wife is in the Shi'Ar Imperial Guard, giving them that connection), and Skids was also an agent of SHIELD(and shit just slides off of her, hopefully extending to cover any negative media attention).

I can see the various squads coordinating on a target. Cable's team detects the threat, Sage's team coordinates intel/personnel. Logan's team is upfront and obvious, focusing any attention on them, doing the big superheroics, saving bystanders and mitigating collateral damage, while Bishop and Kwannon's teams tunnel up from underground and take care of business out of sight. And when shit hits the fan, Domino's team teleports in, saves the day, and extracts and heals any injured members.

In #1 we would see them all operate in concert together, but after that, I would have each squad sort of have their own plotlines that develop over time before they cross back over again every few issues. So while it's a lot of characters, they are basically divided into small squads with their own particular tasks, so everyone has something to do, but won't necessarily be in every issue. Think StormWATCH back in the day. The main six could have psychic or physical meetings more often, just to keep things relatively aligned and have them pull focus. So there's no singular leader, the core six are basically a six-headed board of directors. Cable, Bishop, and Logan probably butt heads the most jockeying for position, but they are all committed to working together so that another Hellfire Gala type event never happens again; so there are no blind spots. Shit, get two complementary artists on this, and maybe the book can ship twice a month, like Uncanny did back in the Outback era.

[Thievery]

If the X-office went the route of sidelining or retiring the 05/ANAD a-listers and put the future of the franchise in the hands of the New Mutants and beyond characters, that would be the beginning of the end of the x-franchise. It's the a-listers that carry the franchise, they are the ones who keep the readers coming back for more. I'm well aware that every character has their fans, even the most obscure but if anyone thinks that the new X-men team that got killed at the Hellfire Gala could carry the mantle of being the main x-team going forward is just kidding themselves. Sorry to say it but you put Cyclops, Logan,Jean, Storm, Rogue and Nightcrawler; just those six up against any group of mutants that exist and they would dominate in sales, interest and fans. No slight against other characters but it is what it is. People seem to believe it's more about the title and not the characters, I disagree. Put any group of b,c,or d-listers in a book called Uncanny X-Men and the six I mentioned in some random book and see which one does exceedingly better. Take Storm out of Red, is the same interest there? You can't force attraction, people like who they like and the vast majority likes the old school a-listers. Removing them from the spotlight, sidelining or retiring them will not elevate less popular characters to prominence or see them become the new standard bearers. If anything it will cause Marvel to lose readership. Just my two cents, I don't see the Dead X-Men cast or any group of lesser characters carrying the franchise to new heights in the new era to come.

Well, for starters I don't mean that all of the O5 and ANAD team members would be gone forever. It's like any team book, characters would leave and return later on. We see it all the time in team books. When a few characters would leave you would still have most of the popular characters available when a few left. You would still actually have most of them available if you had a rotating cast, although I will say that having one big team with a rotating cast like in the Fraction era is a bad way to go. Then you really do have characters get lost in the shuffle.

And you don't need all of those characters in the comic at the same time to get good sells results. Cyclops was away from the team when X-Men started to dominate the sales charts in the 80's. He was "retired" even if people knew it wouldn't last. Jean was dead. And Nightcrawler and Shadowcat were completely absent from the 90's Blue/Gold era when the X-Men were really at the height of their popularity. You can switch which characters are absent from the comics.

The only character that I'm convinced that needs to be with the X-Men at all times is Wolverine. Otherwise you have plenty of other characters to switch in and out. Especially if it's a rotating cast.

I really do believe that a comic can survive on the name of a tittle and not be overly effected by what characters appear in the book, as long as the name brand is strong, and you have 1 or 2 big names. All you have to do is look at X-Force. Kyle/Yost took over they helped make the X-Force name mean something again. That continued with Remender. There was the blip with Humphries were the X-Force title became bad again, but Percy, whether you like his run or not, fixed things up again, and with a not so stellar cast. The efforts of Yost, Kyle, Remendar, and Percy have turned X-Force into a comic where half of the cast is made up of Quintin Quire, Sage, Black Tom, and Omega Red. I mean no offense to fans of those characters, but they shouldn't be able to help carry a comic into the top 50, yet that has largely where X-Force has been. And absent Wolverine. Would that cast last longer than 25-50 issues? No. But it has come this far. And it is because the X-Force title is strong enough to prop those characters up.

Agree with you about the Dead X-Men cast. You have to have some name draws, even if it is only 1 or 2.
I will still get it because I like the story idea, but I don't expect it to set the sells charts on fire.

[Sutekh]

I really do believe that a comic can survive on the name of a tittle and not be overly effected by what characters appear in the book, as long as the name brand is strong, and you have 1 or 2 big names.

I agree, and have seen successful runs of the Avengers with a lineup centered around characters like Black Knight, Sersi, Crystal, etc. Or Fantastic Four runs that sideline one of the core four to make a space for Medusa or She-Hulk. I don't think the original X-folk need to be bumped off or retired, any more than four of the five were during the All-New, All-Different era that revitalized the (at the time) failing X-Men brand with 'new' characters like Colossus, Storm, Nightcrawler and Wolverine. While I'm sure Marvel 'lost' some diehard X-fans when that happened, and I'm sure some would walk away if a new flagship team direction similarly had only one (or less!) of the O5, it certainly wasn't the 'death' of the book!

[Jackraow21]

I really do believe that a comic can survive on the name of a tittle and not be overly effected by what characters appear in the book, as long as the name brand is strong, and you have 1 or 2 big names. All you have to do is look at X-Force. Kyle/Yost took over they helped make the X-Force name mean something again. That continued with Remender. There was the blip with Humphries were the X-Force title became bad again, but Percy, whether you like his run or not, fixed things up again, and with a not so stellar cast. The efforts of Yost, Kyle, Remendar, and Percy have turned X-Force into a comic where half of the cast is made up of Quintin Quire, Sage, Black Tom, and Omega Red. I mean no offense to fans of those characters, but they shouldn't be able to help carry a comic into the top 50, yet that has largely where X-Force has been. And absent Wolverine. Would that cast last longer than 25-50 issues? No. But it has come this far. And it is because the X-Force title is strong enough to prop those characters up.

I think you’re missing a common denominator across all of the higher selling X-Force runs, at least since the 00s started: They are all Wolverine led.

It pains me to say this as a Cable fan, but here are the X-Force runs that sold well in the past twenty years…

- Kyle/Yost
- Remender
- Percy

… and here are the ones that sold poorly…

- Hopeless
- Humphries
- Spurrier
- Brisson

My hope is that with a badass creative team we could get a Cable-led X-Force book that sells well again. But so far it hasn’t happened in recent times with Hopeless, Spurrier or Brisson all taking a shot at it.

[Malachi]

Many of us are forged by the times we started reading. My first issue was X-men 1 but I quickly picked up back issues and the X-men title in my country got canceled around X-men 6 ish. After Omega Red. So I read issues of Excalibur forming with Kurt and Kitty. Cyclops leaving and meeting Maddie. There was a sense of progression, a revolving cast. Members came and went and the title morphed with the trends and changes of the decades. I think it's more ingrained into me that a comic like X-men has no mainstays, no clear character or core of characters. Even Professor Xavier was more of a framing device, he was important in some stories but often he was not what drove the title. Not the most interesting guy.

The version I envisioned back then of what the X-men would be now is certainly not what it turned out to be. Synch as a leader, as he was/is in X-men, is probably the more accurate of what I had envsioned back then. Scott still being around? Nah not as an important character. He might be in other titles, or off world from time to time. Synch would have gradually have grown into the role as leader. Other characters would have stepped up. Rift's favorite Hellion and that whole generation would probalby be more of a presence then most of the old guard. More driving of the stories as they are less developed, younger. Heck Surge would probably be very relevant.

Even my own favorites Remy and Anna would have been more out then in the title. Maybe appearing elsewhere, like Rogue being an Avenger for some runs. They would pop up and return but it would be in waves. Otherwise they would be off doing their own thing, living their lives.

This is still on some level my view of what the X-men are.

[MentalManipulator]

I don’t mind the X-Men having a lot of characters but this is my idea of a more towned down lineup for the X-Books:

X-Men: earth’s main team, face of mutants.
Jean - leader
Emma Frost
Colossus
Iceman
Wolverine
Jubilee
Sunspot

Supporting: Cecilia Reyes and Beast
Base of operations: The Treehouse


Uncanny X-Men: the space response team.
Storm - leader
Magneto
Betsy Braddock (not as CB)
Nightcrawler
Mystique
Havok
Northstar

Supporting : Forge, Destiny and Wiz-Kid
Base of operations: Mars


X-Force: the mutant cover ops team.
Cable - leader
X-23
Magik
Shattestar
Kwannon
Greycrow
Domino

Supporting: Sage and Gateway
Base of operations: Australian Outback


Excalibur: Outworld mutant team.
Captain Britain (Brian) - leader
Meggan
Polaris
Rictor
Pixie
Sunfire
Redroot

Supporting : Saturnyne, Maggie and Jamie
Base of operations: Braddock Lighthouse


New Mutants: training the younger generations and protecting the island.
Moonstar- leader
Karma
Synch
M
Cannonball
Wolfsbane
Rockslide
As the mentors plus a bunch of kids in a rotating cast.

Supporting: Cyclops, Banshee, Professor and Dazzler
Base of operations: the new X-Mansion in Krakoa

[Ra-El]

Well, for starters I don't mean that all of the O5 and ANAD team members would be gone forever. It's like any team book, characters would leave and return later on. We see it all the time in team books. When a few characters would leave you would still have most of the popular characters available when a few left. You would still actually have most of them available if you had a rotating cast, although I will say that having one big team with a rotating cast like in the Fraction era is a bad way to go. Then you really do have characters get lost in the shuffle.

And you don't need all of those characters in the comic at the same time to get good sells results. Cyclops was away from the team when X-Men started to dominate the sales charts in the 80's. He was "retired" even if people knew it wouldn't last. Jean was dead. And Nightcrawler and Shadowcat were completely absent from the 90's Blue/Gold era when the X-Men were really at the height of their popularity. You can switch which characters are absent from the comics.

The only character that I'm convinced that needs to be with the X-Men at all times is Wolverine. Otherwise you have plenty of other characters to switch in and out. Especially if it's a rotating cast.

I really do believe that a comic can survive on the name of a tittle and not be overly effected by what characters appear in the book, as long as the name brand is strong, and you have 1 or 2 big names. All you have to do is look at X-Force. Kyle/Yost took over they helped make the X-Force name mean something again. That continued with Remender. There was the blip with Humphries were the X-Force title became bad again, but Percy, whether you like his run or not, fixed things up again, and with a not so stellar cast. The efforts of Yost, Kyle, Remendar, and Percy have turned X-Force into a comic where half of the cast is made up of Quintin Quire, Sage, Black Tom, and Omega Red. I mean no offense to fans of those characters, but they shouldn't be able to help carry a comic into the top 50, yet that has largely where X-Force has been. And absent Wolverine. Would that cast last longer than 25-50 issues? No. But it has come this far. And it is because the X-Force title is strong enough to prop those characters up.

Agree with you about the Dead X-Men cast. You have to have some name draws, even if it is only 1 or 2.
I will still get it because I like the story idea, but I don't expect it to set the sells charts on fire.

While it's possible for a comic with no big names to sell well based only in title recognition, I believe it would have to deliver more in terms of quality, a Uncanny X-Men led by Cannonball, Firestar, Surge, Synch and Chamber would had more difficult road than one starring Storm, Nighcrawler, Kitty, Jean and Colossus.

[Thievery]

I think you’re missing a common denominator across all of the higher selling X-Force runs, at least since the 00s started: They are all Wolverine led.

It pains me to say this as a Cable fan, but here are the X-Force runs that sold well in the past twenty years…

- Kyle/Yost
- Remender
- Percy

… and here are the ones that sold poorly…

- Hopeless
- Humphries
- Spurrier
- Brisson

My hope is that with a badass creative team we could get a Cable-led X-Force book that sells well again. But so far it hasn’t happened in recent times with Hopeless, Spurrier or Brisson all taking a shot at it.

Percy's X-Force started with Wolverine playing a big role, but it faded after a while. And judging by the limited sales data that we have most kept buying because they liked the comic.

One thing that I don't think that I am being clear enough is what I mean by brand. When I use brand I partly mean what the title stands for. In X-Force's case the brand is mutant wet-works team that kills enemies. I know that Percy's X-Force is meant to be a CIA type book, but enough murder happens to make it feel like X-Force. Some of the later titles like Humphries's comic went a little to far away from that.

I'll grant that the really successful X-Force comics of the 00's and beyond has had Wolverine as leader. But they did also include at various times Deadpool, Psylocke, Archangel, Domino, and other established characters.
Characters that made up the three low selling comics included characters like Fantomex and Hope. For the most part no one has ever really cared for Fantomex, he has a really small fanbase, and Hope was something of a disliked failure when she was part of X-Force. And Psylocke was viewed as somewhat damaged by her association with disliked Fantomex. And Bishop was hated for his crimes in the Cable monthly where he killed millions of people. So those titles had negative value character issues along with an absence of Wolverine. And I hate to say this, because I do like a couple of those writers, but their comics have never really sold well to begin with.

I think that if you were to launch an X-Force comic with Cable and Bishop piggybacking off of Children of the Vault you could get a pretty good selling comic if you kept to the X-Force mutant wet works brand, added a few other characters, and avoided some duds like Quire. The comic would have to be quality as well of course. And if you think that the comic needs Wolverine than use him for the first twelve or so issues. If the book is good enough I think that readers will stick around for the murder and mayham and stuff that you expect from an X-Force comic.

While it's possible for a comic with no big names to sell well based only in title recognition, I believe it would have to deliver more in terms of quality, a Uncanny X-Men led by Cannonball, Firestar, Surge, Synch and Chamber would had more difficult road than one starring Storm, Nighcrawler, Kitty, Jean and Colossus.

Well, yes a good comic would definitely be needed. And I have been saying that you need at least 1or 2 of the big names would be needed. So I think that we agree.

[Jackraow21]

Percy's X-Force started with Wolverine playing a big role, but it faded after a while. And judging by the limited sales data that we have most kept buying because they liked the comic.

Just went back and checked. Wolverine was in the book and/or on the covers until issue #39. They’re currently on issue #46, and he’s coming back next issue. So he was only gone for 7 issues, and they replaced him with Laura. Plus had Deadpool on the team. The point being that I’m not sure the X-Force brand is the seller you think it is anymore. At least without Wolverine anchoring it and helping to boost sales.

One thing that I don't think that I am being clear enough is what I mean by brand. When I use brand I partly mean what the title stands for. In X-Force's case the brand is mutant wet-works team that kills enemies. I know that Percy's X-Force is meant to be a CIA type book, but enough murder happens to make it feel like X-Force. Some of the later titles like Humphries's comic went a little to far away from that.

I'll grant that the really successful X-Force comics of the 00's and beyond has had Wolverine as leader. But they did also include at various times Deadpool, Psylocke, Archangel, Domino, and other established characters.

Characters that made up the three low selling comics included characters like Fantomex and Hope. For the most part no one has ever really cared for Fantomex, he has a really small fanbase, and Hope was something of a disliked failure when she was part of X-Force. And Psylocke was viewed as somewhat damaged by her association with disliked Fantomex. And Bishop was hated for his crimes in the Cable monthly where he killed millions of people. So those titles had negative value character issues along with an absence of Wolverine. And I hate to say this, because I do like a couple of those writers, but their comics have never really sold well to begin with.

I think that if you were to launch an X-Force comic with Cable and Bishop piggybacking off of Children of the Vault you could get a pretty good selling comic if you kept to the X-Force mutant wet works brand, added a few other characters, and avoided some duds like Quire. The comic would have to be quality as well of course. And if you think that the comic needs Wolverine than use him for the first twelve or so issues. If the book is good enough I think that readers will stick around for the murder and mayham and stuff that you expect from an X-Force comic.

As much as I’d love this to be true, as I’m a huge Cable stan and also enjoy Bishop, and loved Children of the Vault… the sales on that mini weren’t great. Just saying. Now, having said that… throw in Deadpool and maybe Laura too, put Greg Capullo or someone major on covers… with a good interior artist and maybe an up and coming X-writer like Deniz Camp… then maybe it has a chance to be a top seller without Logan in it.

It’s worth a shot. Wolverine can’t be on every team after all, and since he’s back with the X-men in Duggan’s book and rejoining X-Force… well, maybe in the Brevoort era they’ll give X-Force back to Cable to lead and give him another go. Fingers crossed…

[Devaishwarya]

Slightly revised.

X-Men...Featuring the O5 - A set team of 8 with supporting "behind the scenes" characters. The Special Ops/CIA team led by Jean and Scott handling the really bad stuff.
UXM...Made up of 2nd Generation/ANAD mutants and New Mutants characters...Rotating cast. Led by Rogue. Heroically saving the world that hates and fears them.
Generation X...A "Mansion/Academy" book training the many new, younger mutants...set in Otherworld. Led by Betsy. Anything and everything goes. Just go wild.
XMRed...Stays as is dealing with Space/Cosmic drama (If it ain't broke don't fix it). Led by Storm and Magneto.
Wolverine...with many guest appearances.
and
three or four Minis/LS... as wanted, featuring lesser used/known characters.

[JB]

Slightly revised.

X-Men...Featuring the O5 - A set team of 8 with supporting "behind the scenes" characters. The Special Ops/CIA team led by Jean and Scott handling the really bad stuff.
UXM...Made up of 2nd Generation/ANAD mutants and New Mutants characters...Rotating cast. Led by Rogue. Heroically saving the world that hates and fears them.
Generation X...A "Mansion/Academy" book training the many new, younger mutants...set in Otherworld. Led by Betsy. Anything and everything goes. Just go wild.
XMRed...Stays as is dealing with Space/Cosmic drama (If it ain't broke don't fix it). Led by Storm and Magneto.
Wolverine...with many guest appearances.
and
three or four Minis/LS... as wanted, featuring lesser used/known characters.

I especially love the Gen X idea. Otherworld is a vast playground for characters to train in and there could be a lot of fun interactions between Betsy and the up and coming generations.

[Devaishwarya]

I especially love the Gen X idea. Otherworld is a vast playground for characters to train in and there could be a lot of fun interactions between Betsy and the up and coming generations.

Exactatiously.

It seems like the the perfect melding of new mutants in training and the Otherworld (as danger room) setting which can supply and support so many different types of stories.

I know it's a bit different to make the O5 XM team Special Ops (like an X-Force) but I think they're all very experienced at this point in dealing with the darkness and evil hidden in plain sight scenarios they would be really good at it. I would bring in Sage and Wolverine, of course.

[JB]

Exactatiously.

It seems like the the perfect melding of new mutants in training and the Otherworld (as danger room) setting which can supply and support so many different types of stories.

I know it's a bit different to make the O5 XM team Special Ops (like an X-Force) but I think they're all very experienced at this point in dealing with the darkness and evil hidden in plain sight scenarios they would be really good at it. I would bring in Sage and Wolverine, of course.

The more I think about it the more into it I am. I typically envision the O5 as the face-forward, kinda poster heroes of mutantkind. It would be cool to have them go more black ops as a team.

[Devaishwarya]

The more I think about it the more into it I am. I typically envision the O5 as the face-forward, kinda poster heroes of mutantkind. It would be cool to have them go more black ops as a team.

Yupp. It's just to show them in a different, somewhat unexpected light character and story -wise. And it's time we get new and different Face-Forward visible Mutants hence my ANAD/New Mutants (more New Mutants, though) UXM with Dani, Magic, and Sunspot in key spots, along with Rogue, Colossus, and Nightcrawler.