|
Yeah, the problem is you're asking to have your cake and eat it. You want a unified story and direction for a line, but not for that direction to actually impact any story outside of that book's own borders, which... doesn't work.
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2021 14:10
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 27, 2024 12:41 |
|
|
Those charts are literally "here's what is coming out by week and if you're reading multiple books from the same week, read Planet-Sized X-Men before you read New Mutants if you don't want to be spoiled re: the Mars reveal. You can (and I did!) skip Wolverine, Excalibur, Children of the Atom, and X-Corp and read SWORD #6 and feel like you're not missing anything significant. The X-Books have been doing this chart in the back for over two years now, and Marvel's been doing some form of this ("Next month in Amazing Spider-Man... but next week, Web of Spider-Man and Spidey guest stars in Punisher War Journal! And in two weeks, Spider-Man/X-Factor! And in three weeks Spidey Summer Fun Special!") since at least the late 1980s. While they would certainly like everyone to buy everything, it's not a "crossover" and it's not structured so that you need to buy everything. I suppose laying it all out in a timeline like the X-Books are doing right now implies that more than the old style.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2021 14:28
|
|
|
It's also not hard in TYOOL 2021 to be selective in what you buy, even in a inter-title crossover. I stopped reading Excalibur, X-Force, Wolverine, and X-Factor (sorry, it never grabbed me) even on Unlimited. But it isn't hard for me to read this page or find another place discussing plot points that might be line-pertinent. During X of Swords, I kept up buying only X-Men, Marauders, Hellions, and the single issues. It wasn't hard to follow! (Though the generic alien things showing up at the end was a little confusing.)
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2021 14:32
|
|
|
It can be confusing though figuring out when an event will be chapter focused like X of Swords, and when it will be more loosely tied together like the Hellfire Gala, at least until you actually get the books. I know Swords through me off by putting the Wolverine/X-Force two parter early on, which was probably the most skippable part of the event.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2021 16:21
|
|
|
The idea is that if you just want the broad strokes of the story you can buy the ones highlighted in red. Of course Marvel wants you to buy 14 comic books that say "Hellfire Gala" on the front instead of four. They're a business. Which is why they bother to tell you about all 14 issues. But they're also not insane and would rather you buy four than zero, hence the highlighting in red. I promise you that the sky is not going to fall if you take a deep breath and skip Children of the Atom or whatever if you're not enjoying it.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2021 17:14
|
|
|
One other reason Marvel wants you to buy all those: because you might decide that you like a book you weren't buying beforehand. I don't know how much the data supports this marketing method, but it's part of the decision making in trying to get people to buy- say- Hellions on the regular. Y'all should be buying Hellions, btw, because if it gets cancelled it'll be Judgment Day, etc.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2021 17:25
|
|
|
Edge & Christian posted:Those charts are literally "here's what is coming out by week and if you're reading multiple books from the same week, read Planet-Sized X-Men before you read New Mutants if you don't want to be spoiled re: the Mars reveal. You can (and I did!) skip Wolverine, Excalibur, Children of the Atom, and X-Corp and read SWORD #6 and feel like you're not missing anything significant. Cool, good to know. Though I also intend to skip X-Factor and X-Force etc, and I read Excalibur myself. Gaz-L posted:Yeah, the problem is you're asking to have your cake and eat it. You want a unified story and direction for a line, but not for that direction to actually impact any story outside of that book's own borders, which... doesn't work. That's the thing about perspectives, what you're saying doesn't gel with what I'm saying. I don't think having 14 titles crossover in some way fairly often is the best way to tell stories in the X-Men line. I also don't think there need to be 14 titles in a month for a line in general. If they want a George R R Martin style narrative with 12 different team perspectives that intersect a lot, that's one thing, ambitious if unappealing to me. Written by a dozen writers that often don't last two years, and choices that feel arbitrary, it's just not appealing to me. I mentioned a lot of problems to me, and some Nutty fan-booking that would appeal to me. I would love a handful of books that go 100 issues, would be easier to follow, and I think stronger artistically. And keep Rogue and Gambit on the team, you maniacs Marvel. How Wonderful! posted:The idea is that if you just want the broad strokes of the story you can buy the ones highlighted in red. Of course Marvel wants you to buy 14 comic books that say "Hellfire Gala" on the front instead of four. They're a business. Which is why they bother to tell you about all 14 issues. But they're also not insane and would rather you buy four than zero, hence the highlighting in red. I promise you that the sky is not going to fall if you take a deep breath and skip Children of the Atom or whatever if you're not enjoying it. Not saying the sky is falling, just rambling about why I don't like corporate comics so much in the grand scheme of things. It's gimmick after gimmick, event after event, marketing kookiness, and not a lot of letting the quality of the work spread via word of mouth. Compare it to Saga or The Walking Dead, or Judge Dredd, or 80s X-Men. It's just not a great way to do things for me personally, and I think my complaints there aren't really new. You folks happen to be fans of their current way of doing it, which is cool, but I think it's also cool to find it baffling and not be a fan of it. I shouldn't have to be getting "the broad strokes" of a story every few months or whatever when following close to 200 comics in 2 years. Just to say, the camel's back is getting fatigued here, I just find their way of doing things exhausting. Heavy Metal fucked around with this message at 21:14 on Jul 2, 2021 |
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2021 21:06
|
|
|
Um, maybe read something that's not the X-Men? Like, Al Ewing's Immortal Hulk is about to hit 50 issues (plus a bunch of annuals/one-shots and a mini-series), has been all but entirely disconnected from everything else in the Marvel Universe, and was a surprise smash hit largely off of word of mouth. Black Panther under TNC, while it has some critics of the space stuff, ran for like 50 issues plus similar one-offs and also didn't tie in to other stuff. What you're asking for is out there, but the X-Men line has been sprawling and interwoven to some degree for like 30 years at this point, you're kinda just looking in the wrong place for what you're after. But also, I'm literally ONLY keeping up with SWORD currently and I'm able to follow it perfectly fine. Following the Gala is no more essential than following King In Black was.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2021 21:31
|
|
|
Sure I read other comics. I've pointed out plenty of differences, I don't personally agree that it's been so similar for 30 years, or that my points are dismissed. But I did mention I've had decades of complaints, yes, and I often do stop following the current X-line. And it's good to know following that is inessential. Since it ended up being the "end" of Hickman's first X-title, I didn't know what I'd be missing with my selection.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2021 21:38
|
|
|
Heavy Metal posted:Saga or The Walking Dead, or Judge Dredd, or 80s X-Men Two of those are creator owned, another is connected to a long running anthology series, and the last one was selling hundreds of copies a month through newsstand sales, where readership (and issue to issue collection) was completely different. Crossovers practically didn't exist until halfway through that decade and were limited by the fact that spreading a story over multiple titles would make it hard to read a story since you couldn't guarantee that Walgreens carried Excalibur or whatever.
|
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2021 01:44
|
|
|
danbanana posted:Two of those are creator owned, another is connected to a long running anthology series, and the last one was selling hundreds of copies a month through newsstand sales, where readership (and issue to issue collection) was completely different. Crossovers practically didn't exist until halfway through that decade and were limited by the fact that spreading a story over multiple titles would make it hard to read a story since you couldn't guarantee that Walgreens carried Excalibur or whatever. Also x-men started having crossovers with the mutant massacre in 1986 and then in 1988 with fall of the mutants. I would compare the gala to the fall as they were thematic related but you did not need to read every issue
|
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2021 02:02
|
|
|
bobkatt013 posted:Also x-men started having crossovers with the mutant massacre in 1986 and then in 1988 with fall of the mutants. I would compare the gala to the fall as they were thematic related but you did not need to read every issue Yeah, those first two you could just read the books you were already reading. I think Inferno was the first X crossover where you had to read both X-Factor and X-Men to understand the story. Excalibur and New Mutants and a bunch of non x-books were involved, but had no actual influence on the storyline.
|
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2021 02:06
|
|
|
Skwirl posted:Yeah, those first two you could just read the books you were already reading. I think Inferno was the first X crossover where you had to read both X-Factor and X-Men to understand the story. Excalibur and New Mutants and a bunch of non x-books were involved, but had no actual influence on the storyline. I would say new mutants was super important to inferno as Magik was a major part of the story
|
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2021 06:41
|
|
|
I do prefer the way the line was handled back in the day like that, and smaller scale crossovers in general. Like in the number of series involved, and the time between these happening. Stuff like say Extinction Agenda that does three issues of three series, that just flows better than the recent way I think. Plus even that may have flowed even better if it was just across two series, less varying in style and tone for the one story. I just like that better than something going one issue in thirteen series, or the X of Swords style for example. Plus, people have pull lists subscribing several months in advance, it's nice to know it'll be covered in a few main books. You're not gonna have every title on your list most likely. I like TFAW's service so much it's just a well oiled machine, I often go months without even looking at what got ordered for me. But these details and whatnot, it's just my yelling at Marvel clouds ramble moment there. Every fan gets one. Only posted mainly positive X-stuff for two years, gotta let Marvel have it once in a while so I don't go crazy. Going back some pages, it is harsh that they cancelled X-Factor on Leah while writing issue 9. Oddly enough now I want to give the new Trial of Magneto a chance, even though it sounded a bit like an editorially mandated generic-y kind of thing to me upfront. Kind of like when editorial made "The Magneto War" happen and writers weren't interested etc. Not to say it is for sure, just if cancelling her previous book was a surprise, it's hard to imagine doing this Trial series wasn't also a surprise possibly. So I'll give that a shot since the writer seems cool. I'm just more impressed when say they juggle two or three cool stories across the issues. So the trial of Magneto might be the A or B plot in various issues of the main X-Men book, and would be resolved in say six months, while other cool stuff happens with other character stories. Almost like a writer's room on TV, or a comic writing team like Wagner and Grant, for me it would've ruled to have Leah write Magneto's trial in the main X-book, alongside a B-plot written by Duggan. More bang for your buck. Lots of comics have included a big deal trial in their story among other plots successfully, and with less money spent to read it. I find it cool when key things like this trial are part of the main book without pomp and circumstance. People would just know the book is loaded with good content and is must read month to month, just the title X-Men on a cover. I'm just skeptical of a lot of aspects of how they do things, especially as a business vs artistic merit thing, and how much it costs, though still interested overall. But I'm concluded complaining, really would just like to armchair edit the line. And it will have 400% more Gambit. And Beast is gonna be redeemed because everybody else is doing 80s/90s nostalgia, I'm just not into the meme level blundering amoral Beast over recent decades. And we're gonna bring back the Tri-Sentinal from Spider-Man. And 500% more bedroom scenes, 600% more soap opera (prime time soap a la BH90210, nothing low quality). 900% more "you unspeakable cur!" from Charles and cool lines like that. Nobody has a surprise brother ever again. Wait, that contradicts my soap imperative, ok maybe a couple surprise siblings, but not often. We get Simon Bisley to do art on one of these minis, Boo Cook too. Get Ottley in here obviously. Just some ideas to throw into the thread universe continuum.
|
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2021 09:49
|
|
|
bobkatt013 posted:I would say new mutants was super important to inferno as Magik was a major part of the story I'm rereading the whole thing now and New Mutants definitely reads separately just fine. Magik's stuff is important but it can be summarized in footnotes easily.
|
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2021 12:55
|
|
|
For me with Jerkass Beast they should either fully commit to it or redeem him. I can’t think of him as a hero anymore and I’m not sure the stories are fully committed to that angle. I’d have him as a Dr. Doom type character, someone who isn’t evil for the sake of evil but absolutely not a Good Guy. It would make sense because with mutants having their own actual society there’s more room for characters to occupy these kinds of roles. That would mean though, that I’d also want to see other characters objecting to what the Mutant CIA does, and maybe working against them. I’d like to see some tension for example between the X-Men (heroes) and X-Force (government spies and assassins).
|
|
#
?
Jul 4, 2021 01:32
|
|
|
nemesis_hub posted:For me with Jerkass Beast they should either fully commit to it or redeem him. I can’t think of him as a hero anymore and I’m not sure the stories are fully committed to that angle. I’d have him as a Dr. Doom type character, someone who isn’t evil for the sake of evil but absolutely not a Good Guy. I think maybe a problem there is they already have somebody like that. He would simply be a less fabulous Mr. Sinister (but I engage in a redundancy).
|
|
#
?
Jul 4, 2021 01:43
|
|
|
Dawgstar posted:I think maybe a problem there is they already have somebody like that. He would simply be a less fabulous Mr. Sinister (but I engage in a redundancy). Nah, Sinister does his bullshit for his own reasons, Beast does his bullshit while truly believing it's for a greater good.
|
|
#
?
Jul 4, 2021 01:45
|
|
|
Beast's evil is it doesn't usually have enough ambition for him to go full super villain. He's an evil flunky without a master.
|
|
#
?
Jul 4, 2021 01:50
|
|
|
one thing i really like about modern shithead beast is that he instantly reverts to his old jovial self when he meets wonder man.
|
|
#
?
Jul 4, 2021 03:05
|
|
|
https://twitter.com/meakoopa/status/1411536266508767232?s=20
|
|
#
?
Jul 4, 2021 05:06
|
|
|
I'm reading X-Cutioner's Song and apropos of nothing, Kane eating a party size sub in Cable's safehouse  
|
|
#
?
Jul 5, 2021 23:48
|
|
|
Garrison Kane Loves A Big Sub
|
|
#
?
Jul 5, 2021 23:53
|
|
|
Man, X-Cutioner's song was my poo poo when it came out. The blue border polybagged issues and cards.
|
|
#
?
Jul 5, 2021 23:57
|
|
|
X-O posted:Man, X-Cutioner's song was my poo poo when it came out. The blue border polybagged issues and cards. It's not great but it holds up a lot better than a majority of the crossovers that would come out pre-Morrison. There's actual complexity to Apocalypse and his motives in it, the kind that would be erased (along with all antagonist complexity!) for years.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2021 00:12
|
|
|
danbanana posted:It's not great but it holds up a lot better than a majority of the crossovers that would come out pre-Morrison. There's actual complexity to Apocalypse and his motives in it, the kind that would be erased (along with all antagonist complexity!) for years. It also caused Peter David to leave x-factor!!
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2021 00:15
|
|
|
Cable is definitely not Cyclops's son if his response isn't "gently caress yeah I want a bite"
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2021 00:18
|
|
|
In X-Men 15, part 7 of X-Cutioner's Song, Reaper calls Gambit a "cocky rassum-frassum gumbo jackass". This is going to be stuck in my head for a while.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2021 16:30
|
|
|
Reaper is not a liar.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2021 16:40
|
|
|
https://twitter.com/KrakoaWelcomes/status/1412221533230149642?s=19
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2021 17:59
|
|
|
X-Men #1 is fine. I'm glad Cyclops is finally getting all his dreams, from a treehouse to eating a lot of subs on the moon.
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 19:17
|
|
|
It felt a little generic but well executed enough. Duggan is a good writer and Marauders is a fantastic book full of personality and charm, but this just seemed like a huge downgrade in terms of ambition and idiosyncrasy. How many times has "the X-Men are SUPER HEROES AGAIN!!!" been done? I was happy with the model of breaking new ground, albeit somewhat slowly. Hickman's X-Men wasn't always snappy but it was usually something I hadn't seen before. I'm kind of over the introduction of new evil billionaires every other week though, in the same way that 90s Bat books seemed to have a new, hitherto unmentioned top mobster of Gotham whenever one needed to be trotted out to be killed. Just pick one fake Elon Musk and stick with him for a bit, I don't know, put Dario Agger back together again, please, all these guys are beginning to run together. How Wonderful! fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Jul 7, 2021 |
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 19:28
|
|
|
Children of the Atom has covered less ground in five issues than a single classic X-Men issue. Why does this series exist?
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 21:13
|
|
|
X-Mech
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 21:39
|
|
|
The Krakoan era has seen the introduction of a bunch of new villain and villain-esque characters and the only ones I see sticking around long term are the Hordeculture, a handful of Arakko mutants, and maybe ORCHIS since it can act as the mutant hating super group that the Friends of Humanity, The Right, Reavers, etc are all sub-branches of Still liked X-Men though. Good debut outing for the new team, even if their potential threats don't seem very interesting.
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 22:32
|
|
|
I'm flipping through X-Cutioner's Song, and had no idea just how over the top 90s Cable was: This was an understatement: 
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 23:55
|
|
|
I hope Blurd has time to pencil me in for an appointment. 
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 23:55
|
|
|
I like how you can tell nobody in the X-office has played Super Street Fighter 2, because they named their evil billionaire Feilong.
|
|
#
?
Jul 8, 2021 00:00
|
|
|
OnimaruXLR posted:The Krakoan era has seen the introduction of a bunch of new villain and villain-esque characters and the only ones I see sticking around long term are the Hordeculture, a handful of Arakko mutants, and maybe ORCHIS since it can act as the mutant hating super group that the Friends of Humanity, The Right, Reavers, etc are all sub-branches of I feel like I have no idea who or what XENO is about at this point.
|
|
#
?
Jul 8, 2021 01:41
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 27, 2024 12:41 |
|
|
I think I need a primer on all the mutant-hating groups fighting the many different mutant teams. X-Men was good; not as ambitious as when Hickman was writing it, felt a lot more like a regular team book, but still different than the others, since it is part of the Krakoa era. It's not bad and I can handle it while we await for Hickman's return in Inferno.
|
|
#
?
Jul 8, 2021 03:30
|
|
