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Post by Duragizer on Sept 9, 2020 16:38:48 GMT -5
Fewer mutants + a reverse-Crisis placing the mutant characters on their own separate Earth.'
Never ever felt the X-Men were comfortably at home in the Marvel Universe. Spidey, the Hulk, and (maybe) Daredevil are the only non-mutant mainstays of the MU I could buy existing on a world with open, widespread prejudice against non-baseline humans.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 9, 2020 16:48:06 GMT -5
Fewer mutants + a reverse-Crisis placing the mutant characters on their own separate Earth. I could get on board with that. Can we have a separate Earth for the Punisher, too?
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Post by beccabear67 on Sept 9, 2020 16:52:02 GMT -5
Oops, I forgot that stuff about the Sub-Mariner being the first Marvel mutant... he wasn't always 'good' though.
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Post by earl on Sept 9, 2020 18:39:50 GMT -5
It is no different with Batman, which has turned into DC's version of the X-men where you get a new sidekick every few years. The stories have gotten so big and convoluted, it kind of seems hard to be able to do a simple detective/crime story with Batman except in flashback.
Pretty much the back story, even through the new 52 switcheroo was this crazy conspiracy stuff that keeps going on and on.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 10, 2020 4:42:39 GMT -5
As a kid, I read reprints of 50s and 60s tales. I had nothing but love and respect for Superman’s extended family or Batman’s extended family. It was great to read the likes of Batwoman, Supergirl, etc. And the pets!
That certainly feels less unwieldy than what we’re discussing. I suspect if Batman Family were published today, it’d need 300 pages.
I always liked that we might get one spin-off, e.g. Jim Rhodes as War Machine is fantastic. Or She-Hulk. But when I revisited Hulk comics years ago, there was also a Red Hulk and Red She-Hulk. I’m not sure they add anything. Do they even have a commercial value? Do these other Hulks have their own comics? If so, did their comics sell well?
It’s why I really gravitate towards characters who have retained their unique status, e.g. RoboCop. Okay, I have no idea if he has spin-off characters, but I doubt it. I’ve never come across comics featuring Lady RoboCop or RoboCop Jr. One could pick countless other examples.
One should perhaps judge these things on their own merits. I don’t mind Supergirl and Batwoman. I have no enthusiasm for a world where there are multiple X-teams (wasn’t there a Gold Team in addition to Blue and Red at one point?).
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Post by Deleted on Sept 10, 2020 4:44:17 GMT -5
Oops, I forgot that stuff about the Sub-Mariner being the first Marvel mutant... he wasn't always 'good' though. While he fits the definition of mutant, I’ve never thought of him as one. I don’t know why. I think it’s shaky ground to designate him as a mutant. Why? I can’t quite put it into words, but it’s like how I really don’t think a tomato should be a fruit. It is a fruit, but it shouldn’t be one (when I’m World President, that’ll change). Namor shouldn’t be a mutant. Please feel free to disagree, though.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Sept 10, 2020 5:48:30 GMT -5
I'm fine with having a lot of mutants, especially if there's to be written as an oppressed minority. (a few dozens individuals is not a minority; it's a handful of oddities).
I'd want most mutants to be non-superpowered, though. Some simply looking odd, some having slightly different metabolic functions, some being almost normal but not quite, just to show that prejudice is most often irrational.
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Post by Dizzy D on Sept 10, 2020 6:05:26 GMT -5
Anything to add, just out of interest? Sorry, I was grumpy yesterday and this is an argument I've seen reiterated again and again.
Anyway, the concept behind mutants is that they are a new offshoot of humanity, an emerging group still treated with mistrust and fear. If there were only 5-10 mutants on Earth, there would have been no X-Men stories. It would just be another Avengers, Fantastic Four, JLA or Titans with slightly different costumes and powers. Bolivar Trask would have not built any Sentinels if this big perceived threat to humanity where 10 dudes that would all be dead within 30-50 years. Magneto would not be talking about taking extreme measures to protect his own kind when there were only 50 mutants worldwide. Xavier's dream of peaceful coexistence is not necessary if you just need to avoid a dozen people. Just move to the next town, chances are there are no mutants there with these numbers.
To have the concept work you will need to have a group of heroic mutants, a group of mutant antagonists and a group of innocent/undecided mutants that are caught in the fallout. To make the concept really work, that third group should be the largest one. Claremont kinda figured it out and put the Morlocks out there. Morrison really caught on and started to expand what it meant to be a mutant beyond just "well, you join either the X-Men or the Brotherhood and then spend your life punching each other."
As much as Claremont's writing ticks frustrate me and his understanding of other languages is very limited, I'm still glad that he tried to expand the X-Men and make them more diverse than John Byrne adding another blond guy to his West Coast Avengers. Cause now you got fans from all kinds of backgrounds that could identify with their heroes on some level.
So what exactly is the issue? Are there too many mutants? Are there too many X-Men? Are there too many X-Men titles? Cause those are 3 very different things.
The first I disagree with on principle (see, well, *gesticulates wildly* all of this). The second, I still would disagree, but I can see why one would object. I also see no solution there. Any title that goes on for a certain amount of time will add new characters to add new possible interactions and show existing characters in a new light. Should we tell any writer that they no longer allowed to create new characters, but are just allowed to rearrange the characters that we have in the sandbox right now? We might as well replace all creative teams with reprints of older issues.
The third, I get it, but I also don't care really. I buy the three titles I like and there are other titles out there that other people like, well, they can buy those. Good for them. And if you like none of them, great, you have more money to spend on other things. I never felt a problem that there were other comics out there: there will always be comics that I'm not going to buy for various reasons.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 10, 2020 6:25:02 GMT -5
Thank you for expanding on that.
I can see the logic, e.g. why be concerned about mutants and build Sentinels if it’s only a handful of people. A topic like mine is about reading all viewpoints, for and against. So I do appreciate you adding to your comment. Discussion is never wasted.
I would like to see more X-Men stories that don’t involve battling other mutants - and anti-mutant folk. When I last tried to get into an X-Men comic or two, well it seems to be 100% mutant vs. mutant story. I do get that to a certain extent. It’s not the same, but it’d be odd if the Ghostbusters didn’t catch ghosts in every story. I have no yearning for them to suddenly go after werewolves or aliens. But I certainly would like to see the X-Men broaden their horizons a tad, such as going against the Sinister Six or visiting Latveria. That’s a different topic, though.
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Post by Ozymandias on Sept 10, 2020 8:05:19 GMT -5
The problem with the mutants being another species, other than being a gazillion of them, is that conflict with the human race remains fundamentally unchanged since even before the conception of the X-Men (Amazing Fantasy #14 by Steve Ditko). I'd say it's high time they resolved it one way or another. Exterminating the vast majority and leaving just the most popular characters works for me, but they could go some other way too. The encompassing problem is that the MU in general hasn't really gone anywhere since the end of the 80's (see tolworthy's work for a lengthy explanation).
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Sept 10, 2020 9:33:55 GMT -5
With its mutants, Marvel has an opportunity to address something that currently threatens our society: racism, to be sure, but also identity politics. Mutants are not a new species. That is absolutely nonsensical. That's not what a mutant is. Mutants are fully human, although with genetic quirks that place them at the extreme of the bell curve for certain traits (like healing fast, or being particularly hairy), or as complete exceptions (like shooting lasers from one's eyes). In fact, mutants don't even form a haplogroup, in that they are extremely varied genetically and belong to widely dispersed branches of the human phylogenetic tree. You can't group them together genetically, not any more than you could group all people who are 5' 5" together. Still, in the MU, mutant activists insist on their being a new species, which is completely false and dangerous to boot. Any claim of mutants being "the next step in human evolution" is grotesque: there is no such thing as an identifiable next step in human evolution (or in the evolution of anything, for that matter). Everybody has mutations, all the time; eventually, such mutations might become widespread in a population, and if their presence then affect the species sufficiently for it to be considered changed from what it was before, we'll agree that the species has evolved. But evolution is a continuous process, with no abrupt transition point (no matter what a distorted view of Stephen Jay Gould's saltationist hypothesis might say). It's practical to refer to "the X gene" to explain away the magical powers of the mutants, but that's like Iron Man's transistor-powered armor or Hulk's gamma-ray strength... It's so out there, it's not even wrong!Being an ostracized minority, Marvel's mutants naturally tend to flock together for protection. That is a very natural thing to do. That they would then try to define their group according to something else than just their common oppression is also very human, and Morrison got a lot of mileage from that with his "mutant chic" theme and the revolutionary attitude of Quentin Quire and Cyclops. It's good story material, and the metaphor is interesting. The conflict between Xavier and Magneto was first defined by whether mutants should live in peace with non-mutants or whether they should conquer them; however, both men were convinced that mutants were not humans. A more modern version of this conflict should be whether mutants see themselves as human, and it would not be uninteresting to point out that whenever a group tried to destroy another historically, one of its first propaganda tools was to argue that the other gang wasn't human. In this case, it is exactly the opposite: it is the victimized group that claims it's not human... and that's incredibly dangerous! We are all human!
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Post by Ozymandias on Sept 10, 2020 11:11:14 GMT -5
Wasn't the "X gene" somewhat engineered by the celestials?
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Post by Deleted on Sept 10, 2020 11:16:05 GMT -5
Wasn't the "X gene" somewhat engineered by the celestials? That question has reminded me to dig out the “Essential” volume of the OHOTMU. Their entry on the Celestials would answer that. Now, where is that book?!
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Sept 10, 2020 12:09:13 GMT -5
I like Dizzy D and RR's take on the X-Men and mutants. I think there's too many X-tiles (but then they aren't the only ones who are stretched out in that manner) and too many writers writing stories. Two of my favorite stories in the X-Men; Age of Apocalypse and She Lies With Angels (Uncanny X-Men #437-441) tell stories of oppression and bigotry towards people for being different. Albeit AoA slight less so as Apocalypse saw mutants as superior. But there were themes of prejudice and hate from mutants and humans both. It what kept me going reading X-Men for sometime after AoA. But then you get stories like Onslaught and fighting space pirates in the sky and the ever annoying Jean/Logan/Scott soap opera love triange.
I think the interesting thing with much of any of the X-Men stories I've read are the back to basics, that tell the story of why Charles and the X-Men have to persevere. And was illustrated really well in X-Men Omega #1 that followed the AoA when everything was returned to normal. They have to persevere. Because unfortunately so does hate and prejudice. Leave thee fighting with space pirates to the Avengers. Isn't that what they're assembled for?
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Post by Deleted on Sept 10, 2020 13:01:58 GMT -5
Most of the X-books I've read are more recent, but it feels like the X-books, while good, tend to amplify some of my least favorite things about recent/modern comics.I cannot think of a single post-Claremont story I've read that didn't involve mutliple titles or make reference to some previous stories where I had to ask a friend more into that corner of the MU to clarify. It also feels like the characters are constantly evolving/changing much more frequently than most comics characters. And nothing is ever forgotten. It's the crossover/event craze of DC and Marvel turned up to eleven.
That said, the stories are rarely bad and my list of favorite mutants is probably more extensive than the non-mutant list. So, I guess I don't think there are too many mutants or books, but I do sometimes wish it didn't feel like such a huge commitment to read a story.
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