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[Chris]

Everyone should read this:

http://www.4thletter.net/2009/11/grant- ... the-x-men/

This is an amazing column. It says everything I feel about the X-franchise post-Morrison.

Grant Morrison ruined the X-Men when he wrote New X-Men.

No, really, it’s true. Look at Marvel’s moves after he left the book. The very first thing they did was launch X-Men: Reload, a branding and soft-relaunch initiative that saw Chris Claremont put on Uncanny X-Men, Chuck Austen placed on the last two issues of New X-Men (where he cleaned up plots that were already perfectly clean), and Joss Whedon hired to write what turned out to be one long love letter to the glory days of Claremont/Byrne Uncanny X-Men.

Later, they reduced the total number of mutants to the low three figures, a huge change from Morrison’s population of millions.

Morrison pulled the X-Men into the modern day, not even the future, and Marvel’s move after he left was to immediately dial things back to 1982. It’s a baffling decision, and one that’s hamstrung the X-Men ever since. Whedon’s run went from mildly entertaining to stone cold stupid with a quickness (Space bullet, Professor Xavier in a truck, too-cute dialogue, pretty much everything after issue 12, though granted John Cassaday was awesome throughout), no one remembers Claremont’s run despite the Alan Davis art, Peter Milligan’s run was a non-starter, Brubaker was a tremendous mistake, and Matt Fraction’s run is a little too cute and sandbagged by Greg Land. The best X-Men run since Morrison left was the first year or so of the Mike Carey/Chris Bachalo/Humberto Ramos X-Men, which managed to match the writing with the art and tell a solid story. It was good, however, not great.

New X-Men was great.

The X-Men have often been seen as a metaphor for oppressed peoples, with black and gay people being the most common ones cited. Morrison looked at this metaphor, looked at real life, and updated the X-Men to reflect that. Being a mutant became cool in the same way that being black is cool. You can buy clothes and music made by mutants and be down. You can even hang out in Mutant Town after dark to show how open-minded and cool you are.

At the same time, that only goes so far– no one wants to be black, or a mutant, when the things go down or the cops show up. So when Xorn visits Mutant Town and ends up witnessing the death of a young mutant? The humans react the way they always have: with fear and bigotry.

Morrison turned mutants into a subculture, a logical extension of what happens when new elements are introduced into society. They were still oppressed, but they actually had some kind of culture to go along with their oppression. He gave them their own Chinatown, their own Little Italy, and made it a point to show that mutants, while not entirely accepted just yet, were more than just mutant paramilitary teams. There were ugly mutants, ones with useless powers, ones with hideous powers, and ones who just didn’t really care about the X-Men.

Morrison.... forced actual change.

Jean Grey embraced her amazing powers, rather than being afraid of them and found true peace and confidence. Wolverine goes from a beast of a man to a man who has figured out how to keep the beast under control through discipline and poise. Emma Frost found love. Magneto found out what it really takes to change the world. And so on.

My favorite change, though, is Cyclops. He went through something horrible and traumatic, and after, he didn’t feel the same. He felt like he didn’t measure up to the storybook romance that he found himself in, and was worried about not being perfect enough for his (in his eyes) perfect wife. And it hurts their relationship, they grow apart, and he eventually finds someone else.

Grant Morrison made the X-Men grown-up. He eschewed stereotypical supervillain stories until the tail end of his run, and even those stories were layered with a depth of character and nuance that kept them above generic megalomania. When Magneto nearly destroys New York as the culmination of his big plan, he’s forced to confront the fact that the personality he created to further his plan, the healer Xorn, is better liked and more effective than he could ever be. No one wants Magneto any more. Magneto is old and busted, Xorn is the new hotness.

That’s what Morrison’s New X-Men run was about: the new. Mutants as subculture, the changes Beast has gone through, Wolverine fighting against his true nature, Jean loving herself and her powers, and Magneto joining the X-Men and doing more good than he ever did before. All of that is pushing the X-Men toward the new.

And ever since, Marvel has run screaming from it. Major developments were dialed back, retcons applied, and hands waved. The X-Men line, post-NXM, has been, to be kind, a complete mess. It’s finally found focus recently, but New X-Men? That was years ago.

They would have been better off embracing it wholeheartedly, rather than depowering all the mutants, reinforcing 15 year old status quos, and generally putting out bad comics. Morrison laid the ground work for a whole new generation of X-Men comics. We could’ve seen the tales of a new class of New Mutants who had no interest in being soldiers, explored mutant subculture in-depth, examined how humans react to having a brand new and vibrant subculture evolve right under their noses, or even just shown an X-Men team that didn’t solve all its problems by hitting things really hard.

The seeds for all of this are right there in New X-Men. But, we’ll never see it. Marvel got to the end of NXM, recoiled, and ran in the opposite direction. Now we’re just left, once again, with re-runs of our grief. The potential for the X-Men to be more than they were, and are, is gone. It’s sad, but it’s true. After New X-Men, the franchise took a hard turn into a brick wall.

I disagree with his assessment of Whedon's run, but everything else.. spot on.

[ReturnoftheMack]

I read this last week. I disagree with almost all of it.

[fanofcomics]

Great points. I haven't felt much for the X-men (who ushered me into the world of comics in the early 80s) for many years. I did like Whedon's run for no other reason than the guy can write great dialogue. Ellis has been great too.

[Chris]

I think Whedon's run stands out as one of the best post-Morrison because he ran with so many of Grant's concepts. It's true that it also harkened back to the classic Claremont run of the 80's, and toyed with nostalgia.. but it also kept the spirit of Morrison's run alive for a time.

[LobsterJ]

I agree with most of this, though I don't even think Whedon's run started out entertaining. It stunk from the first panel.

[ReturnoftheMack]

I just hate that whenever Morrison writes a major franchise, he writes the characters completely out of character. Then his disciples come out and say he took them in a new direction.

Well that's just great. I could make Wolverine a gay ballerina. That's a new direction too.

[Dooz]

I disagree with his assessment of Whedon's run, but everything else.. spot on.

Yeah, Whedon was the only guy to pick up Morrison's ideas and use them in the context of a more "traditional" X-Men story. If he hadn't had his way with Astonishing, I think Marvel would have swept all of Morrison's run under the carpet.

[mrorangesoda]

I agree with all of this (though I think that Whedon's run was a fun diversion)

[SuperginraiX]

I agree with Frag It.

I didn't hate Morrison's run completely but it was one of those times where I did drop the X-Men simply out of lack of interest (Morrison's dialogue is also eye rollingly bad in many, many issues). It also could have used better artists for most of the run.

[Chris]

Yeah, Whedon was the only guy to pick up Morrison's ideas and use them in the context of a more "traditional" X-Men story. If he hadn't had his way with Astonishing, I think Marvel would have swept all of Morrison's run under the carpet.

What always irked me at the time was all the praise Morrison got from Joe Q. and all the love that went his way for 'turning the franchise around'.. then they just turn on him at the drop of a dime when he goes back to DC.

I'm far from a Morrison fanboy, as outside of New X-Men I've hated the majority of his work in the 2000's.. but the dude got shafted by Marvel, big time.

[ReturnoftheMack]

What always irked me at the time was all the praise Morrison got from Joe Q. and all the love that went his way for 'turning the franchise around'.. then they just turn on him at the drop of a dime when he goes back to DC.

I'm far from a Morrison fanboy, as outside of New X-Men I've hated the majority of his work in the 2000's.. but the dude got shafted by Marvel, big time.

Shafted? Because they didn't follow what he did?

He got paid to do a job and did it. He didn't get shafted.

That's like saying he'll get shafted when Bruce Wayne comes back.

[Chris]

It also could have used better artists for most of the run.

I agree with this.

The Igor Kordey issues made me want to stab myself in the eyes repeatedly.

I think, ultimately, Grant was to blame for that because he seemed so adamant about wanting to do the book with Frank Quitely.. when that became impossible, Kordey was brought on and it was all rushed. Which isn't much of an excuse, because kordey's art sucks even when it's not rushed.. but still.

[ReturnoftheMack]

I'm just curious, what about Whedon's run was similar to Morrison's? To me, they were completely different.

[Chris]

Shafted? Because they didn't follow what he did?

He got paid to do a job and did it. He didn't get shafted.

That's like saying he'll get shafted when Bruce Wayne comes back.

You don't think it's disrespectful to pretty much completely retcon a writers run out a month after he's out the door? After previously praising the run and saying how great it was?

Come on..

It's a little different with Bruce. Grant wrote that knowing what the outcome would be. It was clear that he wrote New X-men setting up a new status quo.. he left alot of plot threads and ideas out there for other writers to follow. Whedon managed to get in there before the hammer dropped, but it's not the same scenario at all as with Batman.

[Dooz]

What always irked me at the time was all the praise Morrison got from Joe Q. and all the love that went his way for 'turning the franchise around'.. then they just turn on him at the drop of a dime when he goes back to DC.

I'm far from a Morrison fanboy, as outside of New X-Men I've hated the majority of his work in the 2000's.. but the dude got shafted by Marvel, big time.

Joey Q is a Stan Lee type EiC- a carnival barker getting you to pay to see a "Man Eating Chicken". It makes for great publicity and hype, but after a while, you start to question anything he says.