CSBG Archive
Comic Dictionary – The Progressive X-Men Era
Joe Rice came up with this term recently, and I really liked it, so I am offering it up to you folks here now. Rather than saying “Morrison’s X-Men,” the Progressive X-Men Era is expanded to include all the titles from the X-Line of the time, which marked a specific tendency to try new, progressive ideas.
The era started in May of 2001, with the launch of both Grant Morrison’s New X-Men, but also Peter Milligan and Mike Allred’s X-Force, plus Joe Casey’s Uncanny X-Men and X’s The Brotherhood. Not all of these projects worked out, of course (Casey and X’s projects basically flopped), but this time marked an age when the X-Books were willing to at least TRY new things. Other examples include the X-Factor mini-series and the David Tischman run on Cable.
The era officially ended with Morrison’s last issue of New X-Men in March 2004, but really, it probably ended a few months earlier, in late 2003, with the capitulation of Marvel editorial regarding the Princess Diana storyline in X-Statix. That was a clear statement of a return to conservative thinking on the X-Books.
Ah well, at least we got almost three years of progressive comics!
And, thanks to Joe, we also have a term to refer to it.
7 Comments
Russell
May 29, 2006 at 11:30 am
I’m pretty sure it was David Tischman. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything by Dan Mishkin, myself. Heard good things about Blue Devil, though.
Brian Cronin
May 29, 2006 at 1:43 pm
Thanks, Russell!
Russell
May 29, 2006 at 1:56 pm
No problem. Love the site, and the bells & whistles WordPress provides are super-keen. I highly encourage you to seek out some of the 2.0 plugins.
Regardless, yeah, big fan of the blog–and glad to see you over here at CBR.
Blue Spider
July 7, 2006 at 8:57 pm
I will continue to refer to it as the Grant Morrison Era of X-Men Comics.
Because I pulled it out of my own head, didn’t get it from you guys, did not find all of it that progressive (I suppose) and because it would not exist without Morrison.
On the other hand, we could call Casey’s and Austen’s comics progressive… because typically that sort of blind experimentation sucks. That’s what the typical result of progressivism is…. blind creation with the ends involving a faulty product.
Grant Morrison, on the other hand, knew what he was doing… and more or less just put his own twisted creative stamp on old X-Men stuff. It was ballsy, yes. But he actually knew what he was doing…. unlike Austen, for example.
Sov
August 6, 2006 at 6:11 pm
Good job.
auto progressive insurance
May 26, 2007 at 3:50 am
progressive auto insurance auto progressive insurance
Auto Insurance Rating
October 8, 2007 at 2:08 am
Hello, Just wanted to show some love in here! auto insurance rating