David: The MC2 is back, and this week, we’re all about the X-Men. With Battle of the Atom over and Amazing X-Men kicking off this week, excitement about the line is at a high point in recent times Matt. But I’m curious, as a fellow X-Fan, how are you feeling about where the line is right now, and where it is headed as we get past Battle of the Atom?
Matt: Well, not to be the party pooper, but it’s kind the same as it always has been, isn’t it? Or, rather — the same as it has been in recent years. It’s literally just status quo.
I know you didn’t read it, so I’ll drop the bomb for our readers: Battle of the Atom was ultimately pointless. At the end of the day, it didn’t do anything to the line — and if it did, I’d love to hear what that was. Because (and spoilers, from here on out), the story ends with Kitty defecting, the All New X-Men going with her and everyone else just going back to their lives. All the double-future nonsense is wrapped up in the death of half of those characters and the exit of the other half. And since Bendis is writing All New and Uncanny, well, nothing’s really all that different, is it?
Which to me is a disappointment, because the X-Line of Events in the past decade have been so phenomenal, always shaking things up a bit and telling stories that felt important and epic, too epic for one book. This … this just kind of was. Everyone got together, everyone went home, no one accomplished anything outside of some cute references in honor of the 50th anniversary.
So, when you ask how I’m feeling, the answer is: meh.
David: To be fair, I read the first month of Battle of the Atom releases. I just dropped it because, as you said, it was pointless. As much as I enjoy circular conversations and storytelling that gets us nowhere – I do review The Walking Dead for us, after all – endlessly debating the merits of original X-Men being in the current timeline when the X-Men of all characters should know that is a bad idea is not something I particularly enjoy. It sounds like it ended like it began: with not much interesting happening.
To me, this event wasn’t a traditional X-Event. It was like…well, you watch Parks and Recreation. It reminded me of the X-Men equivalent of one of those town hall meetings Leslie would run, where everyone would stupidly talk around the edges of a subject as Leslie – us – gritted our teeth and shook our heads. It was an X-Men Town Hall Meeting, as opposed to other events where “an actual threat comes!” or “interesting things happen!”
So I have to ask you, out of all of the current X-Books, what is your status? What are you reading, and out of those, what are you really enjoying?
Wolverine and the X-Men, to me, is the best X-Book. I think creatively it has the best team — Chris Bachalo, Ramon Perez and Nick Bradshaw on art? Hell yes. And Aaron has been telling a highly compelling story with these characters, both old and new, for quite some time. It’s a nice mix of SERIOUS WORLD ENDING THREAT and FUN FUN FUN LOL DANGER ROOM TOILET stuff. To me, that’s the best kind of comics — disarm you with humor, pull you in unexpectedly, devastate you by putting a bullet in your beloved Broo.
X-Men by Brian Wood should be better. It’s not bad, not at all, but it should be a lot better than it is. I enjoy it, and I am looking forward to the real second arc, but it had a rough start. That’s about all I can say on it.
All New X-Men and Uncanny X-Men? I like it. I like that it reminds me of when Bendis was writing the Avengers, back when he first started. I think the characters are fun, even if I am not attached to any of the new X-Men at all, and I still like Bendis’ penchant for “overly real/snappy” dialogue that flows out of the Sorkin/Mamet school he belongs to. I think Uncanny has the most potential out of the two as All-New feels extremely limited, but I do quite enjoy both for their respective rides.
Continued belowI also keep tabs on Uncanny X-Force and Cable and X-Force, which I suppose is not the same as reading. Do those count? They’re X-Force… But I follow reviews, flip through each issue to look at art, etc. I think Uncanny X-Force is alright, if only because Adrian Alphona keeps drawing it. But our resident Bishop fan tells us he hates it, so I don’t know where to stand.
How about you?
I can’t get enough of that comic, which makes it all the more astounding that I dropped it during Battle of the Atom.
The rest? I tried All-New X-Men and I just can’t get over the silliness of the whole original X-Men in the present thing, Uncanny tries too hard and loses me on the Frazer Irving arcs (I love Irving, just not on this book) and I can’t really stand (adjectiveless) X-Men. I’ll be reading the All-New X-Factor, read a bit of Uncanny X-Force and Cable and the X-Force, but right now, I really find the whole X-Line to be pretty underwhelming.
That said, I am really, really excited for what Jason Aaron is looking to do on Amazing X-Men, and there is a huge part of me that wants Jason Aaron to be the architect of the whole line. I know people really enjoy Bendis’ take that aren’t me, same with Wood, but Aaron’s work is what I have always loved from X-Comics.
Are you onboard with that sentiment? What do you think they could do to spruce this part of the Marvel world up right now, save for getting out of forced events for a bit?
Matt: Well, ducking away from events will certainly help Marvel as a whole creatively, but not financially. The X-Line has always been pretty good about remaining largely independent, but I know there’s a small upcoming X-Force crossover (that will have no impact on my wallet at all, woohoo) and that’s the last of it for a while while Marvel tries to replace mutants with inhumans. So if Marvel just lets each individual X-Book do what they want for a while, I think we’ll all be better off; that’s all the multitudes of X-Books ever actually needed to do: their own thing. And it always worked in the past. Should still work now.
Generally speaking, yes, I agree that Aaron should be allowed to completely steer the X-Ship — but I think a key aspect of that that we’ve not really put into this discussion is that Aaron was the architect of Battle of the Atom. According to the other writers, anyway; Bendis made note multiple times when the event started that it was Aaron’s idea and all that good stuff, and here we are with you lauding Aaron’s work when you didn’t even finish reading the crossover (which is more to the point of the other creators involved, of course).
And, sure, I’m one of the people that likes Bendis and Wood’s takes on the X-Men (as I said earlier), but we can’t lay the blame solely at their feet here, as easy as it may be for some people and general commentators to do. It was a team effort, it was a team loss.
I trust Jason Aaron a lot, if only because of Scalped, so my faith isn’t wavered so to say. But even under the assumption that a) Wolverine and the X-Men picks right back up again and kicks more ass and b) Amazing X-Men is amazing, I stand by that the X-Line as a whole is at the lowest of lows for the past decade or so, and I blame the Battle crossover event for it. I’ll assuredly be picking up Amazing, no questions asked, but my enthusiasm can be summarized by me echoing my initial sentiments: meh.
Continued belowIs that the wrong answer? I feel like you’re going to tell me that’s the wrong answer!
David: It’s certainly not the wrong answer. There is no wrong answer! And you’re right, Aaron was supposedly the captain of the S.S. Battle of the Atom. That fits into my next question, which was are you excited for the release of Amazing X-Men this week, which sounds like it’s a mostly “no”. Or “meh” as you’ve said multiple times.
Matt: I’ll stick with “meh,” but with the added caveat of my face notably becoming a bit brighter and interested towards the notion of reading the book.
I like Aaron. I like McGuinness. I like Aaron writing and McGuinness drawing Wolverine together. I even like Nightcrawler. I have a theory about the book’s true nature (as created by Brian Salvatore) and am interested to see if it is related. There is a lot about Amazing X-Men that calls to me with open arms and a siren’s call of enticement, even if right now I’m down on the scene.
I just hope that its existence will essentially wipe the taste of Battle out of my mouth, like getting a delicious cup of froz yog on the walk home from a disappointing blockbuster film.
David: I like that you said Froz Yog instead of FroYo. You non-traditionalist, you!
I’m excited for the book. I think it sounds like a lot of fun, which is why I like Aaron’s take on the X-Men: he brings the fun hardcore! McGuinness is a fun artist, I enjoy the team on the book and the story at least to start I support because Nightcrawler is a BAMF (see what I did there?). The more Aaron the merrier, and I always appreciate a title that reminds me of Age of Apocalypse.
Last topic before we finish: you’re a decided meh. What three things do you think the X-Men books need to get back to the higher heights we desire from them?
Matt: Hmm. Good question.
One, I think the books need to show they have direction. Aaron’s Wolverine and the X-Men played a longcon, and it just paid off; I’d like to see the other books do something similar. Wood’s X-Men seems, right now, to be arc-by-arc with no greater narrative, and I tend to think Wood is better than that. Maybe I just can’t see the forest for the trees right now, but it seems pretty mild. And Bendis’ X-Men keeps flip-flopping on what the goal of each book is that its hard to get a handle on what I’m reading week-to-week — isn’t Uncanny supposed to be about a revolution? Why does everyone keep teaming up and being frenemies? And there better be a darn good reason to send everyone into space because that is just pushing it!
Two, I think that they had an excellent opportunity to introduce new mutants and they’ve absolutely squandered. If you ask me to name any of the new characters, I’ll tell you that one of them makes gold balls that go poink and maybe his name is Poink or Gold Balls but I also can’t confirm that the sound is poink — see how much I’m attached to them? Mutants are back, so lets do something with it; I’d love to see something similar to Joe Kelly’s run which had a load of new and memorable mutants (like Maggot), or I’d love to even see something similar to Bendis’ Ultimate X-Men run, which features one of my favorite issues of his ever (the one about the boy in the cave). Only Aaron seems to be embracing the new mutant ability, and only with light baby steps.
Three, as with all comics, I think the books need to establish their own identities and tell their own stories without implicitly relying on what is happening in the other books. Right now we’re in a weird post-crossover phase where it’s hard to see past that aspect, and we live in a world where company-owned books often mean that stories fall to the side in favor of money to be made. But, if these books are to matter, I think that the writers need to work in more identity — Wood’s X-Men has an uphill battle in coming up with an identity because I don’t even know how to define that book (it’s about female characters, and there is a baby and Storm and Psylocke kick ass… and that’s it? I think?), and Bendis’ two X-Men books just need to have some form of stability again, especially now that any ongoing threads in All New X-Men are seemingly being thrown out the window for X-Men In Space.
Continued below(I’d say artists too, but Marvel plays so fast and loose with artists on their books that it’s hard for artists to be as defining as writers in the long run).
That’s my three thoughts in the most rant-y I’ll let myself get. You?
David: Well, I’ve harped on this a lot throughout, but first and foremost, I want the X-Men to be fun again. Bad things happen a lot, but some of the stuff I loved about the X-Men growing up is the fact that they felt like a family, and one that was pretty damn goofy at that. There were a lot of intense parts, but every once in a while we got an issue where it was just the X-Men playing baseball. I loved that. Wolverine and the X-Men does a fantastic job of blending that in – I loved it when Kitty and Bobby went on a date, in particular – but the other ones aren’t very fun outside of Bendis’ typically charming-to-a-point dialogue. I know the world is divisive right now, but man, why would those kids stay with Cyclops and all them in Uncanny? It seems awful! Hiding in a freaking mountain or whatever, always in trouble, constantly fighting…is school so bad that the Jean Grey School is unappealing? Have some fun, people!
You touched on the artist deal, but I really think that’s another important aspect. Some of my favorite X-Men stories are memorable because of the brilliant artists who worked on these books. Jim Lee, Chris Bachalo, John Byrne, Joe Mad, Andy Kubert…you name it. There is a storied history here of great artists, and constantly rotating them – and making hugely divergent switches like Chris Bachalo to Frazer Irving – really grinds their momentum to a halt.
Lastly, I agree with your point about the identity deal. That’s my biggest issues with the Bendis books: what are those books about? Originally, All-New X-Men was about getting the original X-Men to convince Cyclops he’s wrong, but they’re still around now. What is its point going forward, now that they’ve rolled? And Uncanny…I don’t know what that’s about besides transitioning from set piece to set piece. X-Men doesn’t really have an identity for me save for it being the book where Rachel Summers and Storm have out of character arguments. Follow what Wolverine and the X-Men has done, and create an actual identity for the books. A mission statement. Something for us to connect with. Right now, there isn’t anything for me to hold onto as a reader.
All that said, All-New X-Men is the highest selling X-Book, so what do I know?
Anything else to add about where the X-World is at?
Matt: I still enjoy them a heck of a lot more than what is going on at DC.
That comment sounds in jest and it kind of is, and this being the M2 to MC’s DC3 (ha ha!) I feel like once per article it’s probably good to say that the only reason we’re so down on the X-Men right now is because we really want these books to be better.
The X-Men are a huge deal and one of the most anticipated superhero films of next year is an X-Men movie — that should tell you something about how big of a deal this group is in pop culture, let alone for us. So I want to see the X-Men comics excite me as much as the X-Men trailer has excited everyone else (I don’t watch trailers), and if it’s an issue of Wolverine dialing in to a b-ball game with Kid Omega and Broo and the gang, then lets have that.
Though, there is that upcoming issue of Girl’s Night Out in Uncanny. That could be the next 10.0 review I give, who knows?
Either way, I’ll happily report back on whether or not Amazing X-Men blew my brains next time.
David: Most definitely. I think one thing I want to underline is that while I may not love all the books, I could recognize why some people love them. Brandon Burpee from our site worships at the altar of All-New X-Men. Vince Ostrowski thinks Wood’s X-Men is the bee’s knees. Uncanny…well, nobody really loves Uncanny. But hey, girls night out!
There is a lot to love here, and there is diversity and unique takes. I just want a little more out of them, and I sure as hell want a better X-Event than something like Battle of the Atom, the first X-Event I’ve ever outright dropped. Given how big of a disaster Brandon said it was at the end, I’m really glad I did.
