Are People Tired of the X-Men? (Axel-In-Charge Spoilers)

[AgentFelix]

'All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.' ?

The problem with that is it isn't the customers problem. Aside from the fact that most entities have money, and many a ludicrous amount of it so they aren't really the one in need of a backer, is that when doing something that deprives it's consumers it's the salespersons end to do so in trade: " We're taking this from you so you can receive this in return." Not " We're depriving you because we need more money. That's just the way it works ". Their bottom line is not your bottom line and robs your investment when it's played like that. Robbing Peter to pay Paul is not a fair deal for Paul clearly. I'm certain almost everything from unions to commercial regulations were established for this reason. If I had told my prospective buyer last weekend that they had to soak my losses and gains they would have walked on that sale 100% of the time. Instead I met them in the middle and took the hit I had to in order to keep the business momentum going. Their review and word of mouth will make more sales for me in the area in the long run anyways.

It's actually more like a coffee shop going under because they traded what their consumer actually wants for a fad just because numbers where lower than normal that season and ending up losing the initial market and the draw from the fad once it ends. When I read your metaphor I immediately thought of four coffee shops I watched go under in the past five years because they tried this choppy tactic. Conceding to have titles who don't have a proven track record much less most have yet to be established at all take precedence over the established ones is bad math and at worst wanderlust. You introduce your new Lime Coke next to your regular Coke product, not take regular Coke off it's reserved shelf space and place the testing phase product there. So the question becomes if the new test product does not hold it's weight in the long run (note how well it's worked every time Marvel tried this, are you reading a new Lyra or Red She-Hulk issue at the moment?) and there's no product to sell to the fad base do the long time consumers that jumped ship when their standby product was futzed with return when you reintroduce " Classic Coke " and after you pushed them around in the first place?

You'll have to pardon me for not drinking the Victory Gin here. I see this whole " because a business therefore they know " ideology as of late and I'm only shaking my head. Just the fact of being a business doesn't exempt one from the capacity for making mistakes nor another to see it in results. This era should be a portrait of that for anyone with their eyes open. How many corporate giants have we watched fall now after they came out like Felix with a bag of tricks and assured everyone " it was all part of the plan "? A little closer to home how many titles, especially new ventures have we seen over the decade go from a great start to low sales figures then vanish into obscurity? How many times have we been told that the cancellation, but only upon the date of it or later, was all the part of the plan and they only plan to have a series run to that exact number of issues from the start? Sorry but when I see a leak in a life boat I'm not one to board and set sail. I'll go hop on the other sailors ship that's showing stability.

HEY. I did no such thing

[dragonmp93]

Don’t really agree based off of what I’ve seen with your breakdown.

The X-Men indisputably have 6 specific zones, 7 if you count Old Man logan.

X-men
Domain of Apocalypse (Age of Apocalypse)
The Monarchy of M
Sentinel Territories (Days of Future Past)
Mutopia (New X-Men)
Old Man Logan
Westchester (X-Men 92)
Limbo (Inferno)

The Avengers it gets more complicated many of them are strong solo’s in addition to being on the team. But there are 6 that are pretty clearly Avengers even though some are very much solo based. In my opinion you really shouldn’t lump in anyone who’s ever worn an A automatically with the Avengers, I mean hell, at this point who hasn't been an Avenger. Included in this are Age of Ultron and Civil War which are questionable because they represent line spanning crossovers. Further both Technopolis and Hala Field are solo based not Avengers based.

Avengers
Technopolis (Armor Wars)
Perfection (Age of Ultron)
The Hydra Empire
The Warzone (Civil War)
Hala Field (Captain Marvel)
Killville (MODOK)

Hulk, Spider-Man and Dr. Strange are Avengers but have strong separate identities that I’d question automatically lumping them into Avengers territory. Hulk has 2 zones, spider-man has 3 and Strange has 1. By the same token I wouldn't lump in Ku’un Lun, who from its description has pretty strong ties to certain X-characters.

Hulk
Greenland (Planet Hulk)
Dystopia (Future Imperfect)

Spider-Man
Spider-Land (Spider Island)
The Regency (Renew your vows)
Arachnia (Spider-verse)

Strange
Eye of Agmatto (Dr. Strange)

Iron Fist
Ku’un Lun (Kung-Fu Land)

Then there are a bunch that so far simply don’t fit any existing classification or haven't been determined yet.

Other
Manhattan (616 and 1610)
New Xandar (The Infinity Gauntlet)
Weirdworld (?)
New Quack City (? almost certainly Howard the Duck)
2099 (Its the 2099 verse, has a strong identity and although it will have Avengers its not something I'd yet classify as an Avengers zone)
Egyptia (New Warriors, in the original story it featured villainous Avengers serving Sphinx versus the Mutant Liberation Front)
Marville (Marvel Babies)
Higher Avalon (Captain Britain)
The Deadlands (Marvel Zombies)
King James England (1602)
Utopolis (?)
New Mars (?)
The City (?)
The Far East (?)
Valley of Flame (?)
The Wastelands (?)
Arcadia (?)
Bar Sinister (?)
The Wall (?)
*Classified* (?)
*Classified* (?)
*Classified* (?)

Going through the list, maybe its just me but I think all things considered the X-Men have a pretty strong showing.

I guess this is a half-empty/hall-full glass thing, then.
And the only one that i sincerely can see as an Non-Avenger is Spider-man. (Please tell me that you kidding about Hope and K'un-Lun.)

A minor nitpick, the Wastelands is the "Old Man Logan" territory.

HEY. I did no such thing

[Rotm]

I'd cut the X-men territories to five and the Avengers to one really. Goes to show how much they have to stretch to draw anything from that property.

[The Overlord]

I think the problem is the X-Men seem rather stagnant at this point. Really very little has changed for the X-Men from a sociological point view from the mid to late 80s, humanity seems to harbor a genocidal hatred of mutants for ill defined reasons. Not all bigots have genocidal hatred towards those they they dislike. I think dropping the evil genocidal villains and focusing on other forms of discrimination might be for the best.

[LordUltimus]

I think the problem is the X-Men seem rather stagnant at this point. Really very little has changed for the X-Men from a sociological point view from the mid to late 80s, humanity seems to harbor a genocidal hatred of mutants for ill defined reasons. Not all bigots have genocidal hatred towards those they they dislike. I think dropping the evil genocidal villains and focusing on other forms of discrimination might be for the best.

At the very least, do this and release a title based on E is for Extinction and have an alternate universe where mutants number in the millions while the main MU they share the minority stuff with the Inhumans or whatever.

[Park Slope Pixie]

Not tired of the franchise, but i'm certainly tired of a lot of the boxed-in conventionalism some of the fans seem to clamor for. "Heroic squads fighting evil", "feats galore", "same old same old characters", et al.

[Galerion]

It's about the time for hard core comic book fans to accept they are no longer the target audience and really haven't been for years. Our time has come and gone and it's like our grandparents telling our parents that rock music is terrible and then our parents tell us that alternative or hip hop music sucks. We've become the cranky old dude telling those pesky kids to "Get off my lawn."

It's surprising that still not everyone knows this. It's happening everywhere.

Just look at the video game industry. Vidoegames were much more "hardcore" and only something for "nerds" in the past.
Nowadays they are mainstream and games have become so simple that even 6-year olds can complete them without a problem.

Dragon Age: Origins = One of the best and last "old-school" RPGs made
Dragon Age 2 = Stupid, simple hack and slash fest that was toned down and removed everything that made Origins great.

[Beezzi]

It's surprising that still not everyone knows this. It's happening everywhere.

Just look at the video game industry. Vidoegames were much more "hardcore" and only something for "nerds" in the past.
Nowadays they are mainstream and games have become so simple that even 6-year olds can complete them without a problem.

Dragon Age: Origins = One of the best and last "old-school" RPGs made
Dragon Age 2 = Stupid, simple hack and slash fest that was toned down and removed everything that made Origins great.

The best example ever!

'Oh look a another opportunity to run down this narrow corridor for like the fourth time, Oh joy...'

Gamespot's review? RPG of the Decade...

[cranger]

Just look at the video game industry. Vidoegames were much more "hardcore" and only something for "nerds" in the past.
Nowadays they are mainstream and games have become so simple that even 6-year olds can complete them without a problem

The best example ever!

Or, maybe, worst example ever?

I'm not saying that some games have not been 'dumbed down' or in some other ways ruined as a result of the way the modern market works, but video games used to be mainstream and 'simple', at least when I was six. Whether it was an Atari based console or a Commodore 64 it was pretty common to find some sort of gaming system when they first started coming out. Everyone hung out in arcades which were everywhere. I really am not sure when video games became solely something that nerds played (although I am aware of the concept of 'gamer' as an identity not being mainstream).

[Beezzi]

Or, maybe, worst example ever?

I'm not saying that some games have not been 'dumbed down' or in some other ways ruined as a result of the way the modern market works, but video games used to be mainstream and 'simple', at least when I was six. Whether it was an Atari based console or a Commodore 64 it was pretty common to find some sort of gaming system when they first started coming out. Everyone hung out in arcades which were everywhere. I really am not sure when video games became solely something that nerds played (although I am aware of the concept of 'gamer' as an identity not being mainstream).

It's not just a dumbing down thing...Dragon Age 2 was an insult to the franchise and gaming as a whole. ET had more soul (and probably better AI).

I'm not a hardcore game nerd, but there's easy mode and then there's DA2, which not only dump down the difficulty, but also the story, the RPG system and level design...It was so bad the long time lead designer at Bioware infamously quit - he claimed the company had "changed". Many think it was because, after the success of Mass Effect 2, EA increasingly got their sticky fingers into Bioware, à la Maxis after The Sims success- Simcity 5 anyone? No one? Didn't think so...

Now you argue that that is kinda what's happening at DisMarvel...

[kevinism]

Yes, "changing tastes" that clearly disliked/bombed Inhumans but that resulted in Uncanny Inhumans and Attilan Rising....... -_-

I'm really liking the Inhumans stuff *ducks behind something

[Jackraow21]

Not tired of the franchise, but i'm certainly tired of a lot of the boxed-in conventionalism some of the fans seem to clamor for. "Heroic squads fighting evil", "feats galore", "same old same old characters", et al.

Agree somewhat. Except for the "same old characters" part. Those are the ones who got us into the X-men in the first place. And the newer characters just haven't resonated enough to replace them, at least in my case.

So without guys like Wolverine (dead) or Cable (limbo), I'm having a hard time caring enough to even buy these books right now. Inverted Sabretooth is now my favorite character appearing in a monthly comic, and he's a distant third behind those other two.

[sureshot]

I like my X-Men as underdogs. It makes them better.

I can respect that even if I disagree. The X-men as a underdog works when they are a minority. In the 616 universe they are not that much of one. In a world where at least 50% or more have some kind of super ability. Mutant and non-mutant it simply makes no sense to just target mutants. The example I like to use The Thing from the FF. A 8-10 ft walking talking orange rock. Somehow is given a free pass on racism because of his appearence 90% of the time. Simply because he got his powers from cosmic radiation. Yet Cyclops who is more human looking except for firing ruby colored laser beams suffers from Racism. His powers come from nuclear fallout. If anything anyone that is different would be discriminated against. Either mutant or not. The way Marvel handles it. It's unrealistic, clumsy and heavy handed. Given all that has happened post Civil War their should have been a increase in hostility towards anyone and everyone with a super ability.

If mutants represented say only 10-20% of the population. In a world where 80-90% were regular humans with no super abilites of any kind. Then yes one could say they are the underdog. I'm not seeing them as underdogs at all in a world where half the population is a metahuman of some kind. Tony Stark walks around with a suit of power armor than can level a city. If he ver gets mind controlled. Or his tech falls into the wrong hands. With money and the resources to keep building more power armor. Yet he gets a free pass on fear and mistrust simply because he is human. That's one of the things DC did better than Marvel imo. In a world where the top three villains and heroes are as human as can be. Mistrusting someone like the Martian Manhunter is imo dumb.

[sureshot]

Maybe my expectations were not to high. Or simply because I accept that change happens. Yet I did not like DA2 as much as the first. I did not hate it.

At the very least, do this and release a title based on E is for Extinction and have an alternate universe where mutants number in the millions while the main MU they share the minority stuff with the Inhumans or whatever.

I would do the reverse. Make mutants a true minority in a world where humans are the majority. Then they can actually come off as lapdogs. Make it part of the background that given time Mutant will replace humans and make it public knowledge as well. Then humans would really fear mutants imo. Current universe where half the population or more are metahumans yet mutants are persecuted underdogs not so much imo.

[ExodusCloak]

I can respect that even if I disagree. The X-men as a underdog works when they are a minority. In the 616 universe they are not that much of one. In a world where at least 50% or more have some kind of super ability. Mutant and non-mutant it simply makes no sense to just target mutants. The example I like to use The Thing from the FF. A 8-10 ft walking talking orange rock. Somehow is given a free pass on racism because of his appearence 90% of the time. Simply because he got his powers from cosmic radiation. Yet Cyclops who is more human looking except for firing ruby colored laser beams suffers from Racism. His powers come from nuclear fallout. If anything anyone that is different would be discriminated against. Either mutant or not. The way Marvel handles it. It's unrealistic, clumsy and heavy handed. Given all that has happened post Civil War their should have been a increase in hostility towards anyone and everyone with a super ability.

If mutants represented say only 10-20% of the population. In a world where 80-90% were regular humans with no super abilites of any kind. Then yes one could say they are the underdog. I'm not seeing them as underdogs at all in a world where half the population is a metahuman of some kind. Tony Stark walks around with a suit of power armor than can level a city. If he ver gets mind controlled. Or his tech falls into the wrong hands. With money and the resources to keep building more power armor. Yet he gets a free pass on fear and mistrust simply because he is human. That's one of the things DC did better than Marvel imo. In a world where the top three villains and heroes are as human as can be. Mistrusting someone like the Martian Manhunter is imo dumb.

It's been addressed before, a lot of it has to do with not all mutants = superheroes. Not every mutant opts to work in the superhero business in fact most are normal citizens attending your schools, competing against you in sports, serving you in a coffee shop.