X-Men Relaunch Wishlist: 7 Things We Want To See
It's time to Make Mutants Great Again.
It was the early ‘90s. The Comic Book Industry was in the middle of a speculative boom that caused an explosion of dozens of new publishers, churning out hundreds of titles with little concern for quality. The increasing value of classic Golden Age comics like Action Comics #1, a copy of which sold for over $80,000 in 1991, made people believe that there was serious money to be made in comic collecting. If the first issues of comics from the ‘30s and ‘40s were worth thousands of dollars, surely the number ones being released fifty years later would hold just as much value, right?
Marvel Comics was having huge success with Spider-Man, but their true cash cow was X-Men. Created in the early ‘60s along with most of Marvel’s stable, the X-Men were developed mostly out of convenience. Stan Lee felt he was relying on nuclear radiation too much to explain how the heroes gained their powers, so he developed the idea of mutants: individuals who were simply born with their amazing skills. The concept failed to excite audiences when they debuted; it wasn’t until the ‘70s under creators Chris Claremont and John Byrne that the X-Men developed into what we think of them as today.
Capitalizing on their popularity, Marvel expanded the X-Men into a franchise spread across several titles. There was already Uncanny X-Men, but the ‘91 launch of the adjectiveless X-Men book introduced a whole new generation to the mutant outsiders and made Jim Lee a superstar. The first issue still stands as the highest selling comic book of all time. The characters were split between the two titles; a “Blue Team” led by Cyclops appeared in X-Men and Storm’s “Gold Team” adventures were told in Uncanny. But things didn’t stop there. Soon, there was a wide selection of X-titles to choose from, such as X-Force, X-Factor, Generation X or any other X pun themed name you could come up with and slap on a cover. New characters like Cable, Bishop, and Deadpool burst onto the scene in heated competition over whose costume could incorporate more pouches. Crossovers between all the titles were very common, with such blockbusters as X-Tinction Agenda, X-Cutioner’s Song, and Age of Apocalypse occurring pretty much every year.
In a few years, around 1994-1996, the bubble burst. Apparently, the speculators who had descended upon the industry were not seeing fast enough return on their investments and fans felt serious event fatigue (certainly fueled in part by Marvel’s X-pansion). Sales plummeted and comic shops across the country had to close. Marvel, faced with bankruptcy, was forced to sell off the film rights to its most profitable characters, which is why Fox and Sony got to make all of the X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Spider-Man movies while Marvel had to make due with those C-listers on the Avengers. (And we all know how horribly that went for them.)
Fox’s acquisition of the X-Men film rights made them fall out of favor with Marvel. Though they didn’t turn their backs on them immediately, it was clear over the years that followed that mutants were personae non grata in the Marvel Universe. The House of M event reduced the number of mutants on Earth from millions to less than five hundred. X-Men characters were systematically removed from advertisements and promotional materials for Marvel. By 2013, it was obvious the company was trying to replace mutants with the Inhumans, a secretive race of genetically altered homo sapiens whose film rights they had retained, particularly because the Terrigen mists the Inhumans released over the planet are toxic to mutants and make them sterile. The 2014 announcement of an Inhumans movie from Marvel Studios and the comic event Inhumans vs. X-Men practically announced the death of mutants in the Marvel Universe.
But since then, things have changed. The Inhumans books have failed to entice readers, save for a couple of stand out characters like Ms. Marvel and Karnak. The movie has been canceled and replaced by a television show. But most importantly, Marvel has announced the ResurrXion comic event that will relaunch the X-Men and try to reclaim their iconic status.
But can Marvel really heal the wound that’s been inflicted on this long suffering race? Here are some things we hope they bear in mind.
7. Learn From DC Rebirth
DC Comics recently relaunched all of their books under the banner of “Rebirth,” promising to deliver versions of the characters that harken back to more traditional depictions. It has succeeded both critically and commercially and has even accomplished the Herculean task of getting people to care about Superman again. That’s fitting, since Superman has been losing relevance since 1992’s Death of Superman, right around the time the X-Men were at the top of their game. If Marvel wants to recapture the magic of the early ‘90s, Rebirth is great to take notes from.
In resetting their characters post-New 52, DC wisely moved very quickly in establishing a new status quo moving forward. Heroes who’d been missing in action for the past few years like Wally West and Ted Kord were brought back immediately. New storylines were initiated that required little knowledge of the preceding events, that appeal to lapsed readers. You don’t need to have read the past few years of Wonder Woman to appreciate what Greg Rucka is doing in the new series. Even though it would be easier to make sense of things if you’ve read Future’s End and Convergence, as long as you can comprehend the idea of a Superman from an alternate Earth, you can dive right in.
It’s important that Marvel makes the story welcoming for people who haven’t picked up an X-Men book for a long time while also not alienating readers who have kept current. In the past half decade or so, the X-Men have gone through several tumultuous changes like 2011’s “Schism” and 2012’s “Avengers vs. X-Men.” A major disagreement between Wolverine and Cyclops saw the X-Men splitting into two opposing groups and Cyclops eventually murdered Professor X while possessed by the Phoenix force (more on that later). Shortly after that, past versions of the five founding X-Men teens were transported to the present, causing some serious issues.
All of these elements have altered the direction of the franchise so much that it’s practically unrecognizable and nothing very good has come from any of this. It’s like a deconstruction of the concept without any subsequent reconstruction - like they threw a wrench in the X-Men machine but have yet to do anything about it, other than watch sparks fly. It might not be pretty; it might not make perfect sense, but if they can somehow get all of the X-Men back under one roof and within a framework where new stories can be told, everyone will be happy.