There was nothing “Milestone” about it.''

Wrong there, since he introduced more Black Superheroes then DC or Marvel have in decades.

You'd think with most Marvel heroes based in New York you think heroes would be more diverse.

"OMG OOC!!!!!"

Professor X
Cyclops
Jean Grey
Wolverine
Colossus
Moira Mactaggart
Xorneto (maybe?)

and God only how's the story would've turned out...what would he have done with Scott and Jean? Still broke them up and kill Jean? What would he have done with Colossus and Moira? Emma and Beast had lots of screen time, and I can see how their additions probably changed his ideas quite a bit...pretty much only Wolverine (who didn't have as much character work done with him as the others) would have probably had the same story arc. Still, an interesting 'what might have been'...

Whenever someone suggests that there is anything racist or sexist in comics, a bunch of white male fans will rush in to deny it?

In an interveiw, in what i think was a Wizard X-Men special, Morrison (or Quitly, its been a while since i read it) said that they liked the idea of a more feline beast like in the old Beauty and the Beast tv show. He described it (and so did Beast in the comic) as a secondary mutation like Emma's diamond form.
And as far as the Cyclops/Emma/Jean triangle goes i really liked it. Cyclops was never mr. perfect. he always had issues dealing with things like leadership, girls, living up to others expectations (to the point were it got annoying), ect. He also just came back from the dead not too long before Morrisons run began (he died in The Twelve story arc) and he was kinda messed up. So it wasnt completely out of character to go for Emma. He was dealing with alot of stuff and rethinking who he was as a person which led him to go with emma over jean. It was also the first step that made him develope into the character that he is now. Finally he has a back bone and isnt constantly doubting himself. Hes the take charge leader that he always strived to be and should have been years ago (only took 37 years to develope further as a character, sheesh).

In the last issue of X-Treme that Beast was actually in, he was in a hospital bed, or something, and Sage used her evolving activation powers on him. she was thinking to herself "This is what you will become" and it showed a shadow of the lion he would look like in New X-Men. I'm guessing Morrison (or quietly) came up with the idea, and claremont, who was using Beast right beforehand, was commanded to come up with a reason beast was going to look totally different in a few months.

I would go further. Without Action Comics #1, there would not be a superhero comics INDUSTRY for Swan or Anderson to work for in the first place.

Right. Who cares if they invented Krypto the Superdog. They invenSeigel and Schuster synthesized the basic elements that define superheroes, even today.

Super Powers.
Colorful (skin-tight, even!) costume.
Secret identity.
Righteous Moral Code.

None of them are original, mind, but before Superman they hadn't been stuck together.

I see comb and razor's point, mind. The Superman we got today isn't much like the Seigel and Schuster Superman. (In a lot of ways Spider-man is closer, with the wise cracking, the nebulous relationship with the law and the limited powers.)

But I think that skirts the REALLY important issue here... Most of the basic tropes of superhero stories we still use today came from S and S.

anyway... let it be. seems we were actually talking about two different things, but we can at least agree that Jerry & Joe did create Superman (and, by extension, the superhero genre) and were treated unfairly and that is not cool. and Weisinger was a monster.

my point was that a lot of the elements of the mythos that made Superman as popular as he’s grown to be had little to do with Siegel’s original work

and

a lot of the elements that turned Superman into a billion-dollar intellectual property really had little or nothing to do with his work.

Thank you for giving me back SOME faith in modern comic fandom. Hearing people say that Seigel and Shuster’s contributions were least responsible for Superman’s success is mindblowing.

for the record, i never said this.

well... actually, looking back over it, i said "most" of the things that made Superman an icon were not from S&S when i really meant to say "many" and probably should have said "some."

still, i think i clarified my point a bit in subsequent comments.

So much of what makes superheroes superheroes came from Siegel and Shuster’s original blueprint.

Thank you for giving me back SOME faith in modern comic fandom. Hearing people say that Seigel and Shuster's contributions were least responsible for Superman's success is mindblowing.

It bugs me that Stan Lee gets credit for “creating” the X-Men when it was Chris Claremont who, for better or worse, made them what they are today, and it was Len Wein and John Romita Jr. who created Wolverine.

Stan Lee gets credit because he (and Kirby) created the initial concept of the X-Men as mutants fighting for peaceful co-existence with humanity while battling other mutants. And, to be fair, every generation of X-Men — including Claremont's — has made reference to Xavier's dream, which is from Stan Lee.

And X-Men, like most other titles, pay homage to the creator of the basic concept.

Claremont got credit for Excalibur and X-Treme X-Men, and will probably get credit on New Exiles (to replace whoever did the original).

What could be funnier than an X-Force letters page full of semi-literate retards decrying Milligan and Allred's inventive take on the franchise whilst simultaneously pleading for the return of Shatterstar and Domino, "Coz doze guys ROOOOL!!!"

Good times. I wonder, will we ever see another Megalomaniacal Spider-Man?

I think not.

I would go further. Without Action Comics #1, there would not be a superhero comics INDUSTRY for Swan or Anderson to work for in the first place. Read Men Of Tomorrow. Before Superman, comics were a minor part of the publishing field. After Superman, supeheroes WERE comics, at least until the 50s.

I understand that secondary creators get short shrift. It bugs me that Stan Lee gets credit for "creating" the X-Men when it was Chris Claremont who, for better or worse, made them what they are today, and it was Len Wein and John Romita Jr. who created Wolverine. That said... Superman is different. So much of what makes superheroes superheroes came from Siegel and Shuster's original blueprint.

*Granted, when Iceman first appeared in the pages of "X-Men", he might have been better called "Snowman" since he didn't take his more crystalline ice form for several issues.
**By "bestial/apelike appearance", I meant his original, fairly bulky/husky, almost gorilla-like shape as opposed to the more literal beastly appearance he got in the 1970s.
***Yes, yes. Before anyone points it out, compasses in the Northern Hemisphere point to the Magnetic North Pole and not the ACTUAL North Pole (which is oriented towards the star Polaris, or Alpha Ursae Minoris by scientific notation). Of course, the difference between the two is fairly meaningless unless or until you're in the higher latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere.

One thing to remember re: creator's rights is that for a lot of years, comics companies played it both ways: Creators had no rights to their characters because they were written on staff, but they had no benefits, health insurance, etc., because they were freelancers. Gardner Fox and John Broome were among several DC writers who got the axe at the end of the sixties for suggesting that as staff writers they should get staff benefits.