Leah Williams reveals changes made in X-Factor #10

[pkingdom]

X comics are getting cancelled almost as fast as bad series in Shonen Jump lately. The hard reality is for most of these series is that the sales just aren't there. If its not selling, its getting the axe. In this case Leah is almost lucky that they thought she had a good enough story idea to give her an entire miniseries after her main series ended.

As for why so many are failing to catch on, its really hard to say. CotA and X corp are just not good. And I think a lot of fans on here and early writers drastically overestimated the 'mystery' of how the island of Krakoa works. So many of these stories feel like they were suggested based on worldbuilding prompts, and the story built around those prompts just wasn't interesting enough to justify making an entire book about them. Worst for me was that we were promised the truths and details about the resurrections, and the only one we really got was that they will forcibly bring back people who don't want to be brought back.

That's a whole different issue for me. Whenever we get these worldbuilding reveals it always feels like its just made everything look more scummy and just makes it harder to care about any of these people.

[Gripstir]

I..... kinda agree.I like realism in comics but it works best when subtle.Like Spec Spider-man had a story with Minors getting pressured into helping w/ robberies and child loss but the story was always a Spider-man story.or how "The kid that reads Spider-man" is about a cancer patient.
Not the best examples ig but the point is they should be a part of the stories but incorporated organically and not the main-plot most of the times.That's when they work best.

The execution doesn't help either.Almost always the writer beliefs are shoved down your throat, some cases there really is only one correct view but many times specially political charged situations the writers portrays his side as in the right and the other as a complete negative.We should be shown as many angles as you can and let us draw our own conclusions.

And at the end of the day I(and many others I think) read comics to relax and escape, not to be educated by a writer who is not as qualified as actual professionals in a particular case.They aren't qualified to handle such topics and it shows in spades.I mean atleast talk to people who deal with this stuff if you are gonna write it.

So like inclusion in first place isn't good or bad but with prespective limitation and lack of knowledge and bad execution it becomes a no-no.

So I prefer if they did dial back "realism" in some of the comics.

I kinda disagree with the escapism aspect. Everyone wants some form of social commentary. The issue is power fantasy. Everyone wants to feel empowered when reading fiction. See their favorites triumph and destroy the ones they hate. The issue is some power fantasies just get too toxic or niche and don’t reach a wide enough scale.

[Vishop]

I wasn't the biggest fan of this series, but it still sucks to hear how much editorial/marketing messed/interfered with the series. With the recent announcement that Hickman (and now Williams) moving to substack and others like Howard ending their exclusives with Marvel, I think that we are seeing the beginning the end of the HoX era in X-Men. The fact that Hickman is not writing the new flagship (and that flagship itself being more traditional superhero fare) and has no ongoing series in the new releases is pretty telling. I do belive that Inferno and ToM will serve as the endings for this current era. At the end nobody should be surprised, this are corporate comics at the end of the day. People love to take sides on the DC/Marvel "rivalry" like they are sports teams, and some belive Marvel to be more hands off with creators for whatever reasons, but at the end of the day both produce comics to create and maintain IPs for their larger corporate owners.

QFT! I think this was the very reason why I see too much involvement of Wanda to make it overdramatic time and again and her IP is quite popular now. I think why Hickman left early has definitely gotta to do with the amount of corporate bullshit goes around with these two conglomerates...Like really if you see Hickmans previous and this current run It's not even close to his best and on top of that he when writes at his best he isnt marketing all the roots on social media what he writes or not. Similar things had happened to him during the end of his Avengers which was rushed.

[loke13]

X comics are getting cancelled almost as fast as bad series in Shonen Jump lately. The hard reality is for most of these series is that the sales just aren't there. If its not selling, its getting the axe. In this case Leah is almost lucky that they thought she had a good enough story idea to give her an entire miniseries after her main series ended.

As for why so many are failing to catch on, its really hard to say. CotA and X corp are just not good. And I think a lot of fans on here and early writers drastically overestimated the 'mystery' of how the island of Krakoa works. So many of these stories feel like they were suggested based on worldbuilding prompts, and the story built around those prompts just wasn't interesting enough to justify making an entire book about them. Worst for me was that we were promised the truths and details about the resurrections, and the only one we really got was that they will forcibly bring back people who don't want to be brought back.

That's a whole different issue for me. Whenever we get these worldbuilding reveals it always feels like its just made everything look more scummy and just makes it harder to care about any of these people.

Yeaaahhhh I don't think that anybody is debating the X Factor had low sales we're mostly just disappointed on how Marvel handled the whole situation. A despite all your criticisms there are quite a few people who thoroughly enjoyed X Factor and Leah's writing so when fans of this book hear about the fact that Leah had plans to make Siryn and Shatterstar Krakoan gods and basically create a Krakoan Pantheon that will never come to fruition it really freaking sucks especially since it sounds like just the type of World Building Hickman wanted to encourage from the writers.

[Spiderfan001]

I kinda disagree with the escapism aspect. Everyone wants some form of social commentary. The issue is power fantasy. Everyone wants to feel empowered when reading fiction. See their favorites triumph and destroy the ones they hate. The issue is some power fantasies just get too toxic or niche and don’t reach a wide enough scale.

I agree we all want some social commentary, key word being some.It shouldn't be the main or sole focus for most stories(some stories it works well but most it doesn't), should be in the background in themes or a C plot.
And that's why we should get as many angles as possible and allow us to draw our own conclusions.They shouldn't force their views in the comic, unfortunately they do.

[Askani's Flame]

X comics are getting cancelled almost as fast as bad series in Shonen Jump lately. The hard reality is for most of these series is that the sales just aren't there. If its not selling, its getting the axe. In this case Leah is almost lucky that they thought she had a good enough story idea to give her an entire miniseries after her main series ended.

Except that's not what happened. Leah had pitched this idea for issue 15 of X-Factor and editors and higher ups thought it was good enough to turn into a mini. So in order to focus her writing efforts on this mini and make it happen right after the Gala they canned X-Factor. So even though it had lower sales it wasn't on the chopping block. Editors cancelled it to get her to solely write Trial of M. And that is why this is just sucky all around.

Yeaaahhhh I don't think that anybody is debating the X Factor had low sales we're mostly just disappointed on how Marvel handled the whole situation. A despite all your criticisms there are quite a few people who thoroughly enjoyed X Factor and Leah's writing so when fans of this book hear about the fact that Leah had plans to make Siryn and Shatterstar Krakoan gods and basically create a Krakoan Pantheon that will never come to fruition it really freaking sucks especially since it sounds like just the type of World Building Hickman wanted to encourage from the writers.

Exactly

[Gripstir]

I agree we all want some social commentary, key word being some.It shouldn't be the main or sole focus for most stories(some stories it works well but most it doesn't), should be in the background in themes or a C plot.
And that's why we should get as many angles as possible and allow us to draw our own conclusions
.They shouldn't force their views in the comic, unfortunately they do.

Well that’s the key. It’s why when people say “comics were always political”. They were always political but they were power fantasies as well. I think you look at a character like Magneto who was very oppressed. If you wanted to you could make the Holocaust Jewish kid grow up to be the hero. But instead hes the villain you need to stop. Whereas Charles is a overly privileged white guy who just believes in the good of people. Obviously this comic would be written differently today simply because Twitter would demand the switch

The issue almost always seems to come down to Twitter anger. Trying to avoid upsetting Twitter means Marvel can’t experiment or do weird things. Twitter makes sure comics are predictable based on demographics. I can tell you who the bad or good guy is in almost every comic with just a look at a few characters and a few panels.

But I think that’s why Hickman, despite his faults, has so much loyalty for what hes done because I still don’t know who the good and bad guys are. Is Krakoa meant to be salvation? Is it slowly rotting from within? It’s a great premise

[Frobisher]

Well that’s the key. It’s why when people say “comics were always political”. They were always political but they were power fantasies as well. I think you look at a character like Magneto who was very oppressed. If you wanted to you could make the Holocaust Jewish kid grow up to be the hero. But instead hes the villain you need to stop. Whereas Charles is a overly privileged white guy who just believes in the good of people. Obviously this comic would be written differently today simply because Twitter would demand the switch

The issue almost always seems to come down to Twitter anger. Trying to avoid upsetting Twitter means Marvel can’t experiment or do weird things. Twitter makes sure comics are predictable based on demographics. I can tell you who the bad or good guy is in almost every comic with just a look at a few characters and a few panels.

But I think that’s why Hickman, despite his faults, has so much loyalty for what hes done because I still don’t know who the good and bad guys are. Is Krakoa meant to be salvation? Is it slowly rotting from within? It’s a great premise

No-one gives a **** what twitter says. Whenever there's a news story about outrage on twitter it's just an excuse to promote a product with some drummed-up controversy. Only sales really matters to the publisher.

I mean, how many decades now have people been boycotting Nestle for pushing formula milk in the Third World?

[Wolverine12]

I think part of the problem, if you want to call it that, is the amount of X-Books being made right now. Personally I’m amazingly happy there are so many X-Titles but Marvel is a business so they want to make money. X-Factor wasn’t doing well sales wise but Leah had a great story idea so Marvel decided to pivot to let Leah tell her story and get the boost from a #1 when Trial of Magneto starts. It’s a solid business decision and I don’t blame Marvel for making that call. They could’ve/should’ve let her know about the changes before hand since her name is attached to the product but sometimes **** happens. I’d be interested to hear JDW explain why they made the changes they did and why they didn’t include Leah in the discussion.

[gurkle]

It would have been a lot better if they'd at least allowed her to use the last issues of X-Factor to build up to this story, as she probably would have done if it had been part of her own ongoing book as she originally intended.

Instead we have a murder mystery where only one character has been seen on-panel talking to the victim in the last two years. That's not her fault.

[CGAR]

She should have been allowed to go to issue 12 and start ToM. WITHOUT editors writing stuff in period.

[ospfwildcard]

Marvel is ending Zdarsky's Daredevil run as well. It might have more to do with those creators moving to substack, and that leads me to belive it will happen to Hickman's X-Men "run" as well.

it may be due to marvel wanting to bump their numbers for the Penguin roll out.

[Huntsman Spider]

uff, the queerest comicbook in the X-Men comics is treated so horribly...not a coincidence...Just remember everything Sina Grace said about his experience with marvel....

Can someone remind me why we are reading mainstream comicbooks in the first place?!?!

Because we think we can recapture our youth by reading reheated old stories about characters who had their heyday when we were still kids in the 80s.

you are old. :-p

90s for me, but yeah. That, and we still love the characters, regardless of how horribly mismanaged they've been over the years, one such example being Spider-Man after One More Day, even if that's not necessarily entirely comparable to what was done to Leah Williams and X-Factor here. You do raise a good point about how attempts to have the X-Men engage more meaningfully with the narratives of marginalized peoples in real life, as opposed to appropriating those narratives to give artificial depth to what would otherwise amount to colorful adolescent (male) power fantasies, get treated by Marvel editorial, however.

[Spiderfan001]

Well that’s the key. It’s why when people say “comics were always political”. They were always political but they were power fantasies as well. I think you look at a character like Magneto who was very oppressed. If you wanted to you could make the Holocaust Jewish kid grow up to be the hero. But instead hes the villain you need to stop. Whereas Charles is a overly privileged white guy who just believes in the good of people. Obviously this comic would be written differently today simply because Twitter would demand the switch

The issue almost always seems to come down to Twitter anger. Trying to avoid upsetting Twitter means Marvel can’t experiment or do weird things. Twitter makes sure comics are predictable based on demographics. I can tell you who the bad or good guy is in almost every comic with just a look at a few characters and a few panels.

But I think that’s why Hickman, despite his faults, has so much loyalty for what hes done because I still don’t know who the good and bad guys are. Is Krakoa meant to be salvation? Is it slowly rotting from within? It’s a great premise

Exactly, it's about providing all aspects and letting us decide in such politically charged subjects.
I don't know why writer give a sh*t about twitter, most of them either pirate or just don't read comics.A group of people who were extremely happy about Tim being bi on twitter were waiting for readcomiconline IIRC.(not saying if the decision was good or not, just an example)
The best stories never deal with such sh*t primarily, it's either in the background tones or not existent in the stories.

[Kingdom X]

I bet Marvel is PISSED at Williams cause this all came out the day before they announced Hickman’s departure and any attempts to make that seem planned out are waaaay less believable.