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Well *I'll* buy the first issue, because current X-Men continuity sucks balls.

And there is the logic of "X-Men v2 1 sold 8 million, nowadays it barely breaks 100,000" so..........

I actually find it kind of sad that Claremont only ever writes alternate reality X-men these days. Not that his last two cracks at UXM were very good of course...but just seeing such a legendary creator building his own nostalgia ghetto is a bummer.

And there is the logic of “X-Men v2 1 sold 8 million, nowadays it barely breaks 100,000? so……….

X-Force #1 Vol. 1 by Rob Liefeld sold 5 million copies.

X-Force #1 Vol. 2 by Rob Liefeld sold 46,000 copies.

I don't think Marvel seriously thinks there is a sales correlation.

I DO think they feel there's a dedicated market of Claremont fans who might be able to make this comic feasible. Which is fair enough, of course, it just seems like such an amusingly niche market.

This is hilariously stupid.

And yet, I'm curious. I could see myself picking this up.

So, well done, Marvel. You've gotten me both to accept your stupid idea and to feel ashamed of myself for doing so.

Well, at the very least, we get to see some ape Beast again. Can't say I'm much of a fan of cat Beast. He just ends up looking rather silly when most artists draw him.

Considering the entire superhero industry is powered by a nostalgia niche market these days, it could work. Depends on the margin, I suppose. And a great deal will hinge on the artist.

But it's not nearly as nutty as it sounds. Ask yourself this, doubters: how many times have you seen a favorite title run into the ground by a new creative team? How many times has a title been rebooted to 'back to basics' approach? This is just that same thing, but with the added twist of creating the illusion of actually tossing out the stuff that annoyed you in the first place. Certainly, I'd be first in line to buy 'new' Batman from O'Neil and Adams with this same premise, or even O'Neil and Giordano. I'd be right there for 'new' Dr. Strange from Steve Englehart.

Hell, I WAS there for DARK DETECTIVE from Englehart and Rogers which was essentially the same premise done for a mini-series. And I bought and read every issue of Kirby's second run on Captain America in the 1970's, which worked the same way as this. Kirby ignored everything that had come between his two stints on the book and it drove fans crazy. And I think John Byrne joked about taking the same approach to his two stints on She-Hulk. Certainly Steve Gerber took that approach with Howard the Duck.

So it's definitely a niche, but the premise is sound. I should shut up because the germ of a "CAN you go home again?" column is forming.

Where is that image from? I remember seeing it a bunch of times but don't recall where exactly.

I agree with Hatcher, it's not such a bad concept...plus it's a tremendous FU to Bob Harras...

Gotta say......I'm probably going to pick this up. It'll be interesting just to see if all the "this was my plan for the next two years of X-men" comments, that Claremont has made over the intervening years are what he actually uses. Especially his "Dark Wolverine Saga" concept!

And I think there are enough fans like me out there to ensure the first issue is a big seller. Whether or not it's a sustainable concept depends a lot on the quality within, and even with a good artist, I'm not sure whether Claremont still has the chops. Albeit, his Exiles issues were improving based on the couple that I'd picked up.

So, anyone want to place bets on long running unresolved Claremont plots getting cleared up in this? Anyone?

The image is an old promotional Jim Lee poster that came out around the time of the second X-Men volume. Used to have that pinned up with my comic book stash.

(And yes, I'd be about fifty times more likely to buy this if Lee were pencilling it. Now THAT would be a great nostalgia trip).

Wow, putting Claremont and Grummet into one ghetto is perfect! It reduces, for the 10 issues this will last, the chances of me having to accidentally encounter the work of either.

Hopefully they'll do the same thing in a few years with Grant Morrison...

X-Men Claremont work is "niche?" Uh, no. Something like Steve Ditko's Shade The Changing Man might count, but considering all the arguments that *for years* we've been having over Claremont's unresolved plotlines, and people complaining about how other writers have handled the X-Men, I'd say that this is pretty justified.

What amazes me about its publication is that Marvel apparently doesn't care what the people who worked on X-Men after Claremont left will think. Many of them were popular and might still want to write the mutants again someday...

I don't understand why they'd do this without Lee. I mean, let's be honest here, he was the real pulling power on that volume of X-Men.

As good as Claremont was back in the day, his style just seems dated now.

I won't be buying it despite being a big X-Men fan (mainly because I strongly dislike Grummet's noses - they just annoy the hell out of me)

I think you misunderstand Sijo, this doesn't replace the other X-Men titles, this is going to be seperate continuity to the main X-books.

And I doubt that any of the open plot points will be resolved, as most of them were created after X-Men #3 anyway in books like X-Treme X-men and the arcs with the Neo and things.

Ohboyohboyohboy! Another X-Men book!

So, anyone want to place bets on long running unresolved Claremont plots getting cleared up in this? Anyone?

Ha, doubtful.

Claremont will probably just start up a bunch of new plots that go on forever without getting tied up. It's his style, after all.

Wow, putting Claremont and Grummet into one ghetto is perfect! It reduces, for the 10 issues this will last, the chances of me having to accidentally encounter the work of either.

They were collaborating on Exiles (or New Exiles? Whatever) for a while there. And, having them cordoned off in one, easy to ignore corner of the MU was definitely a pleasure.

Seriously, no-one esle? The noses thing?

On the plus side, so long as Claremont is still writing X-Books ( which he has been since 2000, albeit with inconsistent results ), giving him his own sandbox to play in is the best way to go about it. And those of us who think the franchise went utterly balls-up after he left in 1991 can enjoy seeing what might have been.

Claremont on an X-Book is not evidence of comics being a niche market unless the other X-Books fall into that niche. When the company is promoting the hell out of something like Dark Wolverine or X-Force: Sex and Violence, though, then there's evidence of a problem.

I for one think this is an awesome idea. I've never been into X-Men all that much, but it would be a great title in theory. For all those who disagree, think about it it terms of your favorite character. Chuck Dixon on Robin or Nightwing as if he never had left would be amazing for me. Or twenty years from now revisiting JMS Spider-man, that kind of thing. How could that not be awesome if you love the characters and the run.

X-Force #1 Vol. 1 by Rob Liefeld sold 5 million copies.

X-Force #1 Vol. 2 by Rob Liefeld sold 46,000 copies.

I don’t think Marvel seriously thinks there is a sales correlation.

I think the point is that this title is actually probably LESS niche than the current books since more people know and understand that point of X-history compared to the amount of people who know and understand everything that happened between that period and now.

There are 8,000,000 people out there who know the status quo of the X-Men during this period and can jump right in. Compare that to the amount of people who understand what's going on in the X-World post-Morrison and every reboot that followed? This is not only the X-Men back when most comic fans could follow the continuity, it's also the version of the X-Men most famous thanks to the 90s cartoon.

Liefeld's X-Force volume 2 was not just picking up where the last left off, so it's not quite the same.

As to what Graeme White says, put me in the camp of those who like Grummett over Lee. Also, Lee's pinched noses bother me more than Grummett's noses.

I almost feel compelled to buy this. Not because I have any desire to get involved in a current X-Men series, but instead because X-Men v.2 #3 is when I stopped reading X-Men, after years of doing so. It seems like this book is aimed directly at me.

"And those of us who think the franchise went utterly balls-up after he left in 1991 can enjoy seeing what might have been."

Ha! That series goes balls-up every four years, regardless of who the writer is.

I'll probably pick up the first issue or two of this to see if it's any good, and I haven't bought an X book since the whole Onslaught storyline started. Well, I bought Milligan's X-Statix, but that was barely an X-Book. This has the potential to be interesting.

Yeah, I think this is pretty hilarious. I was a huge X-fan in my younger teens but got fed up with X-Men while Claremont was still very much on the book, and finally dropped it several issues into the Dead in Australia arc.

At that point I think I realized that I'd just been reading a soap opera, and that Claremont wasn't going to untangle any the dangling plot threads that he'd left lying all over the place, so the idea of obsessing over how the master would have resolved them just seems ludicrous. Does anyone give him that much credit anymore, especially considering any of the stuff he's actually written in the last couple decades?

I stopped reading X-Men regularly before this point where it was already getting crappy.

I want X-Men before Cable, whoever that big guy with that little wisp of hair is, that other awful Leifeld-looking thing with the runny mascara is at the bottom right, and anybody else whose name makes absolutely no sense.

Hate to be the party pooper, but I don't see what's so hilarious or niche about this. What, like AGENTS OF ATLAS or THE TWELVE or Morrison's obscuriosity that was FINAL CRISIS were "mainstream?" It's not just that Claremont's X-Men remain the pinnacle of the comics industry (though certainly not of the artform), it's that the X-Men of today still revolve around the status quo of X-MEN #3. Going back to that doesn't strike me as any weirder than, say, the mutiple attempts to reset Batman back to 1988 or the DCU back to 1985 or Superman back to pre-Byrne or putting Wonder Woman back in a white jumpsuit or ACTUALLY RESETTING SPIDER-MAN BACK TO 1987; if anything, it's more of a no-brainer than any of them. Yes, it's a massive "What If...", but so what? A series devoted to no-one-wondered-about-that stuff like "What If the Fantastic Four All Had the Same Power?" and (more recently) "What If Karen Page Had Lived?" are acceptable, but "What If the Creator of Comics' Biggest Franchise Had Never Been Forced Out?" is ridiculous? It'll probably be crap, but then, Norman Osborn is Director of SHIELD, Spider-Man made a deal with Mephisto, Superman saved the universe with a song, and Kid Vulcan is Shi'ar Emperor -- as indicators of crap go, let's wait until Claremont actually does do a crossover where an amalgam of Xavier and Magneto tries to take over the world by eating Franklin Richards (and _IT_ got a sequel!) before laughing at the absurdity and going back to reading our complete collections of COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS.

But niche? Cronin, you just did a column where you said one of the 365 coolest things in comics is Aquaman's trained musical octopus, yet THIS is niche? I know it's all relative, but c'mon! It must be some blogosphere Bizarro sickness that deems valid a hypothetical "Should Wonder Man have died?" question yet dismisses an actual "Should Claremont have left X-Men?" answer as something only relevant to the obsessed. If this were the ghost of Jack Kirby coming back to write MISTER MIRACLE #19 or, I dunno, Giffen and DeMatteis reuniting for YOU GOTTA BE SH*TTING ME, THE JUSTICE LEAGUE, ALIVE?! , would we be having this discussion?

Agents of Atlas is niche, too.

Final Crisis, though, was DC's best-selling series of the year.

X-Men Forever will sell like Agents of Atlas, hence it being termed as "niche."

Although Agents of Atlas at least ostensibly could appeal to a broader market. This is about as specific of a niche market as you can get.

I'm basically going to echo Sijo here, but I really don't think this is as much of a "niche" as much as an aknowledgement that a lot of people have been really unhappy with the X-Men story lines for years. More than enough people to make this comic a success wish that the books could go back to the days of our youth (the early 90's).

It is no such thing as an "acknowledgment that a lot of people have been really unhappy with the X-Men storylines."

Marvel GAVE Claremont Uncanny X-Men TWICE and the book lost sales both times. When there were three X-Men titles, Claremont's title sold the least of the three. So somehow, Claremont is not counted among the X-Men storylines that fans were unhappy with?

After twice having him return to the main title (and twice removing him from the main title), Marvel appears done with the "Hey, maybe the books just need Claremont to return!" train of thought.

This is most certainly "GeNext (a similar nostalgia project) sold well enough to justify doing more, so we can probably sell enough copies of a nostalgia-driven Claremont title to justify publishing the comic."

Based on the sales of GeNext and New Exiles, they likely have determined that while they don't want to put Claremont on established properties, as that doesn't work, sales-wise (note the Exiles re-boot after 18 issues of Claremont's run), there is enough of a Claremont/nostalgia-driven market to (possibly) sustain his own "Claremont-verse."

And again, while it is amusing to me to see Marvel aiming at such a niche market as "Claremont nostalgia," that says nothing about the quality of the book at all. Agents of Atlas, as I mentioned before, is a niche book, as well. It is good. "Niche market" does not equal "bad comic book."

Claremont's recent returns to the X-Men though were continuations of the runs that occured in the meantime, meaning it still included all that extra 90s and onward continutity. This however is Claremont continuing the X-Men at their peak popularity at a stage of X-continuity that the average comic reader can grasp. I have marginal knowledge of X-continuity from the time Claremont left and onward. Omega X and Maverick make me scratch my head, the whole Psylocke/Kwannon thing and just about all of Bob Harras's overseen storylines were a confusing mess. When Claremont returns to the modern X-books in today's continuity, I still don't purchase it because I know all that confusing continuity is still in play.

Going back to where he left off is NOT niche though. It's a point in X-Men history that just about every person who watched X-Men cartoons in the 90s or read comics in the late 80s knows like the back of their hands, meaning it has way more widespread appeal than a current in-continuity reboot like post-Messiah complex San Fran X-Men.

Of course I imagine it will still fail unless they figure out how to market it right. But if people are made to understand exactly what this comic is supposed to be, I imagine ti could be a hit.

Optimally though, I think this would be a much better idea if picked up around the Byrne, second Cockrum, Smith or JR JR runs. Like someone above already commented, the X-books were already starting to get crappy around this time.

A lot of people will ALWAYS be unhappy with the current X-men storylines. This has nothing to do with the quality of the work, and more to do with the people.

I'm glad to see more out-of-continuity stuff from Marvel, just 'cause the best out of continuity superhero stuff (Watchmen, Dark Knight Returns, Batman: Year 100) tends to be better than the best in-continuity superhero stuff.

Wait...

Chris Claremont left the X-Men?

"those of us who think the franchise went utterly balls-up after he left in 1991"

That had already happened YEARS before. I even picked up my first copy in ages when I heard he'd been canned (not that that brought me back - I didn't bother again until Morrison).

Also, looking at that illustration, I'm reminded of one major factor that drove me off when I gave the X-Men another try around that period: Jim Lee. Man, I just loathe and despise his work from that period. Hideous, wanky 90s sludge.
I won't argue with anyone who bitches about the writing in "Hush" and "ASBAR", but at least they feature something I never thought I'd see: Jim Lee art that I find pleasing to the eye.

" Ha! That series goes balls-up every four years, regardless of who the writer is. "

There were high points and low points throughout Claremont's inaugural 17 years, but this was still the period when the X-Men was a book that could continually reinvent itself and try new things. Magneto could convincingly reform, Jean could convincingly die, the X-Men could convincingly " die " to the world, etc. Whereas when Claremont left, the editors undid most of the developments he made to the book in favor of a static status quo and the return of several elements the books had out grown ( Professor X, the mansion with the Danger Room, Wolverine's yellow clown suit, etc. ).

I suppose it's impressive that the X-Men remained under one writer's direction for so long, but X-Men vol. 2 1-3 ( the issues Claremont wrote on his way out ) basically wished any meaningful glimmer of creativity and story development into the cornfield. That the next 9 years of X-Books were rid of some of Claremont's irritating pet themes didn't make up for their near-total mediocrity.

This is the highest level of fanboy pandering I've ever seen. And old writer pandering too, I guess. It's a panderfest. It's like you've got two panders in captivity and they finally mate.

"Hopefully they’ll do the same thing in a few years with Grant Morrison…"

I thought that was basically what Whedon did. I haven't read Ellis, but I was led to believe he was ignoring as much of the interim as possible too. But I'm probably wrong (unfortunately -- I could see Ellis following through on Morrison pretty well if he didn't have to wade through too much to do it).

Like T. said, this isn't Claremont writing the other people's X-Men (as he's done, be it UXM or Exiles or Nexcalibur or GeNext or The End, since 2000), this would be Claremont writing HIS OWN X-Men. Not saying that automatically makes it better or more valid or anything, just that, for a writer who was all about character and momentum and who could barely write a coherent plot to save his life, having characters and momentum that he's familiar with and doesn't have to reinvent and restart is a very big deal.

But I still don't get the niche argument. I mean, if you're arguing that it appeals to a only a certain segment of the readership, well, then that applies to EVERYTHING (unless you're assuming every superhero comic reader is reading the #1 comic each month, and going by the number of people HERE who say they didn't read X-MEN when it WAS the #1 comic by an exponential degree over today's #1, that's almost certainly not true), so why make the argument? "The Bible is a niche product" would technically be correct going by the same logic. Yes, Claremont's X-MEN was a long time ago, but it's still popular in ways other current storytelling engines (hi, Mr. Seavey!) aren't -- I don't see a lot of quasi-Wolfmanian "Nightwing and the New Teen Titans" cartoons being churned out, nor for that matter any quasi-Morrisonian "X-Men Origins: Cassandra Nova" movies on the docket. Today, almost 20 years since X-MEN #3, that particular paradigm still captivates mainstream audiences. Is WATCHMEN niche because it's 6 years older than X-MEN #3? If Alan Moore came back to write SWAMP THING #65, would that be niche? Or is something only "niche" because you don't like it?

Niche is "a distinct segment of a market."

The market here being superhero comics.

This is not aimed at the whole market, this is aimed as a distinct segment of the superhero comics market.

If you're not going to agree to the plain definition of a term, I can't help you.

I was going to say something like Greg Hatcher said in the 6th comment... isn't this marketed toward the same market DC and Marvel play to already? Talk about a niche market.

Oh, the comment where Greg said "So it’s definitely a niche"? Good comment to cite.

This is the highest level of fanboy pandering I’ve ever seen. And old writer pandering too, I guess.

Really? GREEN LANTERN: REBIRTH? FLASH: REBIRTH? The return of the Milestone Universe? Return of the DC multiverse? Greg Rucka's chronicles of Renee Montoya? Devin Grayson's NIGHTWING? Shooter's return to LEGION? Waid's return to FLASH? Bendis's chronicles of Jessica Drew/Jones? Warren Ellis's various fictional versions of himself? Giving Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld HEROES REBORN for a year? Giving Joe Quesada the MARVEL KNIGHTS line? MARVILLE? Waid's return to CAPTAIN AMERICA? Kirby's return to CAPTAIN AMERICA? The Fourth World and ETERNALS? JUST IMAGINE...? Terry Long? "Back in Black?" "One More/Brand New Day?" "A Death In the Family?" MARVEL VS. DC? Comic cons? Creator blogs? This very website?

What, because THIS particular group of fans got something they wanted (and, as a contrast to everything above, not at the expense of what other people want), it's the most egregious? Because THIS particular creator got his own sandbox (which, as a contrast to everything above except Kirby's ETERNALS and the Infinite Ellises, was a sandbox that this creator built), it's worthy of particular scorn? The only reason these panders are in bondage is because you put them there! It's like a Chris Claremont comic! FREE THE PANDERS! BODY AND SOUL!

Is that snark toward my comment, Brian? I'm not arguing with you at all, Brian. I could be reading your commenting incorrectly or we have a misunderstanding on what was in my comment... I'm not sure if your most recent comment is even directed to me. But I'm saying I agree with you. We could have a misunderstanding on what was in Greg's comment...

But I agree completely with your post. It's an incredibly niche market to aim towards. I just think that most comics at DC and Marvel are already focused on that same niche market.

And that's a criticism of the mainstream output of DC and Marvel, not a dismissal of your analysis of this particular product.

Thank you, Dork.

Yes, I did misinterpret your comment. I apologize.

No prob'.

"I thought that was basically what Whedon did."

No, see what Whedon did was take all of Morrison's dangling plot points and then make them completely awful. Immediate reversal of the costumes situation aside, a good example would be how after Morrison does an entire story arc devoted to cutting the X-Men off from the cosmic stuff by severing their ties with the Shi'ar, Whedon decided to promptly reintroduce space plotlines with the Breakworld, which was unimaginably worse than the Shi'ar could ever dream of being.

I don't know what's more brobdingnagian in this thread: the level of denial or the persecution complex.

Holy crap, Cove, go back on your meds.

I don’t know what’s more brobdingnagian in this thread: the level of denial or the persecution complex.

And the weird part is that this comic being proposed would appear to be the result of Marvel trying to make EVERYONE happy. What exactly is there to argue about? It's by definition a niche -- the niche market of X-fans that would buy the books if only they would go back to the good old days, a subset of the larger group of X-Men readers. I certainly don't disagree with that idea.

My suggestion was simply that it's not as outrageous an idea as one might think since that sentiment has been driving the entire superhero market for at least a decade. Brian's post seemed to imply that it was a little odd for Marvel to go after such a specific segment of the market., and my feeling is that it's not as small a segment as one would think at first glance. Most all of us here have fond memories of SOME era of the X-Men (whether we admit to it or not) and for a long time that meant fond memories of Chris Claremont's work. It's a good gamble. Even people who think it's silly seem interested enough to sample it, and we've seen similar gambits work in the past. That was all I was saying, and I gave some examples.

I was just speculating, though, because I won't be checking it out myself. MY fond memories end many, many issues short of Claremont's stated launch point. If this book's mission statement is really going to be "how Claremont had originally planned it," I'd want him to start before Jean was resurrected the first time for X-Factor. That was when I walked away. I wish him well, though. That must be kind of a cool thing, to have a company come and make you an offer like that seventeen-some years later. If this is a new trend at Marvel-- call it the apology/do-over book-- I've got a short list of OTHER writers I wish they'd make that same offer to.

MMMMMMAAAAAYBE if Lee was on this it wouldn't be "niche."

But the HISTORIC team of Claremont/Grummet?

Hahahahahaha!

My suggestion was simply that it’s not as outrageous an idea as one might think since that sentiment has been driving the entire superhero market for at least a decade.

Yeah, I had no problem with your comment, Greg.

I've specifically said that niche does not equal bad.

You'd think that clarifying that would avoid ridiculous straw men like "Or is something only “niche” because you don’t like it?," but apparently not.

Like one of those truffle-hunting pigs, they will sniff out reasons to be offended. Oh, yes. They will find them.

@Graeme White: Oh, I know this stuff doesn't replace the current X-Men comics. Still, as a writer, how would you feel if a comic that prints an alternate version of the stuff you worked on by the guy who preceded you got published? That basically says "the guy we brought up as a replacement was no good." At the very least, it must be annoying to the later writer.

(On a separate note: what's up with the posting system on this column? It's giving me the default name of "Sean Whitmore" right now, and earlier on I was Anonymous Guy (I think). It's this a forum joke? I don't mind, but considering all the times I've forgotten to sign my comments, I wouldn't like it very much if they accidentally got attributed to someone else.)

Aargh, it just happened! O_O For the record, the above post was by Sijo, not Sean.

SEAN!!!! SIJO WANTS YOUR IDENTITY! RUNNNNNN!!!!

I think this is less of an "apology" to Claremont and more of Marvel throwing up their hands because they don't know what to do with him. Over the last five years, his only projects have been tangentially connected to mainstream continuity or completely outside of it and unashamedly aimed at his specific fans. They may as well just put him on the book he and his fans have wanted him on for the last seventeen years. I think this book actually has a broader appeal than any of his recent work because, as we've seen already, besides his fans, people who read(and quit) the x-books around this time are genuinely curious.

Can't say that I'll be buying the book, but I am curious.

Woah, wait, I didn't mean that the way it came out. I didn't mean YOU, Brian, I meant it in the royal sense, and hypothetically as an actual question, not rhetorically. In this industry that is itself by definition a niche of pop culture, and superhero comics being a niche of that, the whole concept gets divided and subdivided to the point where EVERYTHING is a niche. My question wasn't rhetorical, it was serious: is the "mainstream" of superhero comics determined by popularity within the industry or the popularity without pop culture? Does the zeitgeist determine "nicheism," or do the people within the niche determine it? I take it you aren't in the niche that Claremont would appeal to, and therefore can speak to a "hilariously specific market" that I, being within that niche, don't think is that outrageous at all -- but then, you also are within your OWN niche of comicdom that can't speak to why people without comicdom in the mainstream see (or might see) Claremont's X-Men as less niche-y than everything currently being published by Marvel and DC not called DARK TOWER. Which is why I ask: is something only a niche because those outside of the niche don't like it, or is it a matter of perspective?

Batman, Superman, Spidey, the X-Men -- they're bigger than the direct-market. FINAL CRISIS and SECRET INVASION may rule the Diamond charts, but they don't rule anything else. Stan Lee's name still adorns the Spider-Man daily comic strip (whether he writes it or not) approximately ninety-seven writers since he last put pen to ASM. Frank Miller can make a fandom bestseller out of a piss-take of his own 20 year old Batman reinvention, but it's Tim Burton and Christoper Nolan who get credit for slaying Adam West and rake in the millions because of what Miller is piss-taking. On the flip side, Richard Donner can make the outside world believe a man can fly, but apparently the people who already believed it are more interested in whether he can sing (okay, that's a cheap shot; still, more people got FC #7 than Donner's first ACTION issue, right?). It seems to me that it's not just that comics don't tap the zeitgeist like they used to, they actively reject it. The mainstream right now is where comics were about 25 years ago -- Dark Knight, Shooter-esque cohesion of the Marvel properties, WATCHMEN -- yet fandom thinks they're CURRENTLY the arbiters of the zeitgeist. We're NOT. The fandom of 25 years ago is running the show now. Which is why I wonder why a direct-continuation of Claremont's X-Men is so outrageous. Looks about five years early to me, and if they even get just 2% of the sales X-MEN #1 got, it'll top the chart; niche or not, why is that such a ridiculous idea to try?

The difference is Cove, I my estimation, between how many people a comic can appeal to and how many it will appeal to. A spy comic for instance could appeal to spy fans, which is potentially a large amount of the market, even though spy comics generally tap only a small amount of that market. But this comic, the way Marvel seems to be selling it, is only ever going to appeal to those people who ever fans of Claremont’s X-Men in the late eighties/early nineties. When you looking at who the market is we are comparing between 'spy' or 'sci-fi' or 'action' or 'Claremont writing X-Men in 1990s’. This is not just appealing to a genre or a creator but a PARTICULAR writer writing PARTICULAR characters at a PARTICULAR time. Its those THREE levels of particularity that makes it niche. This isn't saying 'The Shining' was good so let’s make a horror movie, this is someone saying 'The Shining' was good so let’s get Kubrick to direct a horror movie starring Nicholson set in a mountain hotel.

I don't get the "is something only a niche because those outside of the niche don’t like it". People have repeatedly said that niche isn't an insult, I don't see why you see it as an insult. If you feel as if the comic was written specifically for you then it is hugely niche, the niche of one. Can you honestly tell me that if you had heard "we are going to get a writer that worked on a title decades ago and we're going to get them to write a book as if they hadn't ever left the title" you wouldn't have thought it was a little strange. Not even a little strange. No-one is saying that it is wrong to do or wrong for you to want, just that it is very particular, and that particularity makes it niche. To be honest many other comics are just as niche, but few advertise the fact so adamantly.

If you honestly can't see how a 'Claremont X-Men in the 90s' comic is more niche than a 'Spy' comic or a 'Batman' comic or a 'Gaiman' comic, then I think you might need a little perspective. But niche doesn't mean bad, it means niche.

Ted, it's more the "hilariously specific" part that I'm wondering about than the "niche" part. I get what niches are; I don't get why, in a niche market that in turn caters to even more niche niches, this particular one is more hilariously specific than others. I know Brian meant it as a relatively-harmless throwaway, but it's still an odd thing to say on a site with a talking cybernetic dog as it's mascot. As you say, "Claremont X-Men in the 90s" is a more specific niche than "Batman," but no one writes "Batman," they write "trippy sci-fi uber-thing Batman" (which didn't appeal to me) or "insane brutal Batman" (which didn't appeal to me either) or "slighly odd super-sleuth Batman" (which did appeal to me), and so then which one of these is a seriously broad market Batman and which isn't, because no one's really going to argue that Morrison, Miller, and Dini are tapping the same vein. Again, the question isn't whether X-MEN FOREVER is niche, it's whether its niche is somehow remarkably dismissable.

Your explanation of the three converging particulars is roughly what I figured the issue was, but ask yourself this: is the strangeness a product of audience, the publisher, or the creators? Like I've said, if DC took a poll asking people if they'd want Alan Moore to return and write SWAMP THING #65 as if everything that came after him never happened, it'd be higher than Obama's approval ratings. Conversely, if CBR took a poll asking the same question, DC wouldn't dismiss it out of hand as frivolous (impossible, yes, but certainly not risible). No, the only real stumbling block to this would be Alan Moore himself. Look at the Star Wars prequels if you want a more concrete example: Lucas was writing a prequel instead of the X-Men sequel Claremont will essentially be writing, but there had been twenty years of a post-Lucas Expanded Universe that sprouted up, much of which Lucas was now going to negate. How is George Lucas revisiting the BACKSTORY of Star Wars twenty years later different than Claremont continuing his X-Men story twenty years later? Because Lucas owned his property and Claremont didn't? So is ownership the criteria that turns a niche market into the worldwide phenomenon that was Episodes I-III?

Like I say, it's not that fans and companies have never WANTED beloved creators to return, to ignore all the crap that followed that they didn't like and just write it like the Good Old Days -- it's practically de rigeur in the music industry, where all you hear is people clamoring for Metallica to just do "Master of Puppets" again or for Dylan to ditch the electric crap -- it's that usually the creators have moved on. Well, Claremont is one creator who never moved on, he was pushed away. Fine. So Claremont has no life. But ridiculing the IDEA of a pure comeback, the VERY THING that people want but never get, on the thing more people liked than anything else in at least the past 30 years of this industry, just strikes me as completely missing the boat. "Oh, Metallica doing 'Master of Puppets 2' like it's 1987 all over again and their alternative phase never happened" strikes me as the Coup of Rock if someone could get it done, so why is it different in this industry?

Again, it's a weird thing to see happen, but that doesn't mean it's laughable or of small significance, which "hilariously specific market" seems to indicate, and why I wondered if maybe the niche was being interpreted differently from the other side of the niche-line. Didn't mean it as a flame.

I must say that, like most X-product these days, this doesn't interest me in the slightest.

The debate over its nichiness, though, is interesting. I have to wonder where all the negative emotion is coming from. Are you offended to be placed in a "hilariously specific niche"? Why bother worrying about what Brian Cronin thinks of your taste in comics? I'm sure Brian's a great guy, and I appreciate all the work he puts into this site, but I couldn't care less what he thinks about the comics I like.

Personally, I'm the one person waiting on the edge of my seat for Essential volumes of GHOST RIDER 2099 and NOMAD. I'm the nichiest of them all! Bwah hah hah!!!!!!

"SEAN!!!! SIJO WANTS YOUR IDENTITY! RUNNNNNN!!!!"

Hello, I'm the victim here? If anything, HE wants MY id.

PS. Looks like the bug or whatever it was got corrected, I'm *me* again.

No, Jim Lee doesn't belong anywhere in this "relaunch", folks. Jim Lee was one of the reasons why Claremont left Marvel, after all. When Lee and the other proto-Image guys became big, the editors started to value their input more than the writers. Plots suggested by Claremont were cut because they weren't "visual" enough.

It seems to me like the idea behind this book isn't only to continue from where Claremont left off, but to continue according to what Claremont would have done if he had no editorial inteference.

It is an interesting idea. I see what Brian Cronin means. This would have been much bigger if Claremont hadn't tried a couple of failed returns to the X-Books already. So yeah, this is a niche comic book, for those fans who stuck with Claremont.

On the other hand, I also think Claremont's pre-1991 comics don't get the recognition they should, the Internet in general hasn't treated Claremont with the respect I think he deserves, mostly because the Internet nowadays more and more only really respects stuff that have some Silver Age connection, it seems.

But what I really would like to see was John Byrne in the Fantastic Four as if it were 1986. Or possibly Roger Stern and John Buscema in the Avengers as if it were 1987.

The debate over its nichiness, though, is interesting. I have to wonder where all the negative emotion is coming from. Are you offended to be placed in a “hilariously specific niche”? Why bother worrying about what Brian Cronin thinks of your taste in comics? I’m sure Brian’s a great guy, and I appreciate all the work he puts into this site, but I couldn’t care less what he thinks about the comics I like.

it'd be lovely if everyone felt that same way.

Personally, I’m the one person waiting on the edge of my seat for Essential volumes of GHOST RIDER 2099 and NOMAD. I’m the nichiest of them all! Bwah hah hah!!!!!!

Exactly! Embrace the niche!

@ Cove: "Laughable or of small significance, which “hilariously specific market” seems to indicate."

Ah, here I see were the confusion was. I don't regard, nor do I think Brian intended, for 'hilariously specific' to mean 'laughable' or 'of small significance'. Quite the opposite in fact. It’s like if you called it 'ridiculously perfect' you wouldn't be calling it ridiculous, just really, really perfect. I don't think “hilariously specific" is an insult, in fact I could see how it could even be construed as complimentary to Claremont's talent, that it could be so specific and still have such a large audience.

However your mention of the prequel trilogy is an interesting one, in that fans wanted Lucas to make the movie as if he was making in 1983 but he couldn't because he wasn't who he was then. I worry that the same thing might happen here, that fans want Claremont to write like it's 1991, but it isn't '91 and Claremont isn't who he was then any more than you or I. It might well be a very good comic, but I wont be what he would have wrote in '91, because it can't be. It’s a lot easier to turn back time in comics than it is in real life.

Yeah, "hilariously specific" is akin to "ridiculously perfect" in this instance. Good call, Ted.

Ah! So that's it. See, I thought Brian was saying something akin to "see how laughable these fools are for getting a comic they might like." Sorry 'bout that, Brian. And thanks, Ted, for finding the rub.

Not to open another can of worms or anything, but I DO think what Brian says is worth worrying about. I mean, I pick up a lot of the comics mentioned on CSBG, and I've often NOT picked something up because of what is said about it here. This isn't Joe Blow's Blog, this is a major site. Like it or not, the guys are barometers of the winds of the industry to some degree, and as such, I think it's worth particular attention to argue with their judgements (though in this case, I admit I jumped the gun). If CBR or CSBG were the difference between a title selling 20,000 and cancellation at 19,000, I'd hate to be the creator out of a job because of it. I thought Brian was being carelessly offhanded, I erroneously called him on it, but I certainly wasn't "off my meds" or suffering from "persecution complex," and whatever it was people thought I was saying, I didn't see anyone jumping all over THOSE comments like they did mine, which is why I continued to fight the point. Anyway, hey, did you hear the Ultimate line are COMICS now? Whodathunk?

Meh.

I want to care, but I just don't. Like Greg Hatcher points out, they'd have to take it back to UNCANNY #200, pre X-FACTOR, to really make it grab my interest. But by 1991? With Apocolypse, Mr. Sinister, Goblin Queen, Genosha and the rest of that garbage in play? No thanks.

Rene wrote: "No, Jim Lee doesn’t belong anywhere in this “relaunch”, folks. Jim Lee was one of the reasons why Claremont left Marvel, after all. When Lee and the other proto-Image guys became big, the editors started to value their input more than the writers. Plots suggested by Claremont were cut because they weren’t “visual” enough."

I never saw the business sense behind that. The X-Men sold well, with or without Jim Lee. If he was such hot stuff, wouldn't it have made more sense to put him on one of their poorer selling titles?

[...] [Snark] Talk about a niche market… Link: Brian Cronin [...]

"X-Force #1 Vol. 1 by Rob Liefeld sold 5 million copies."

That's perhaps the saddest statement I've ever read.
If anyone ever needed further proof that crap sells, well, there you go.

Niche rules! (I'm just not part of this one)

I pray every day for a return of the original Death's Head, X-Men 2099 (it may be crap, but it's fun crap), and I would be first in line to buy YOU GOTTA BE SH*TTING ME, THE JUSTICE LEAGUE, ALIVE?! by Giffen and DeMatteis if it ever got made (do you think Quesada or Didio reads this blog? Let's get them greenlit folks!)

Does this mean we'll get Mr. Sinister as kid?

We're really running out of ideas aren't we.

"Claremont will probably just start up a bunch of new plots that go on forever without getting tied up"

Ian, this is what us old-timers call "writing serial comic books."

See, back before Bendis, Brubaker and their ilk ushered in the era of Single Issue Rip Offs (also known as "decompressed storytelling"), comic book writers wrote stories that included plots carrying over from issue to issue in an ongoing manner, similar to this thing called "real life." So stories would not be wrapped up in trade-collectible, 6-issue "arcs" in which no real character development happens and the equivalent of one 1980s 22-page story is dragged over 100 pages of pretty pictures.

Does anyone else get a weird, "LSH Fan vs. LSH Fan vs. LSH Fan cat fight" vibe from reading some of this discussion?

@chroom: Hey, in this alternate universe timeline, Nomad is still alive!

See, back before Bendis, Brubaker and their ilk ushered in the era of Single Issue Rip Offs (also known as “decompressed storytelling”), comic book writers wrote stories that included plots carrying over from issue to issue in an ongoing manner, similar to this thing called “real life.” So stories would not be wrapped up in trade-collectible, 6-issue “arcs” in which no real character development happens and the equivalent of one 1980s 22-page story is dragged over 100 pages of pretty pictures.

I hate to break up your one-man snarkfest, but I think most of us understand how serial comics work. The problem is that even by serial comic standards, Claremont dangled plotlines way too long. Some of his plotlines never got picked up and resolved until decades later, and often by other writers, which led to confusing and unsatisfying and stale resolutions. He also had a horrible tendency to come up with a plotline resolution that was okay-ed by one editor, just dangle it and never get around to using it because he was juggling too many subplots, then when he was finally ready to resolve the aforementioned plotline, the new editor would object to the resolution the previous editor agreed to (for example his original idea for Mystique to be a man and Nightcrawler's father), forcing him to keep dangling them further or reworking his resolutions until they became incomprehensible. Yet you would think after getting burned a few times from dangling plotlines from editorial regime to editorial regime he'd learn, he kept doing it throughout the decades and kept getting burned as a result.

T. - I'm not saying Claremont was perfect.

But also, note that you claim most of his problems came from editorial interference with his planned resolutions, not his own incompetence. Those diversions, as you noted, made the situation worse.

But really, at least those continuing narratives kept readers interested for a seemingly unending run of issues. Now, they come and go with each three-to-six issue creative team, or jump on every time a title is relaunched (what, every 6 months or so?) and then disappear again.

But also, note that you claim most of his problems came from editorial interference with his planned resolutions, not his own incompetence.

No, it is his own incompetence. He was a great writer at his peak, sure, but he had some annoying recurring flaws, and one of them was introducing a dangling plotline, and not touching it for a decade or more while he introduced 3 dozen more plotlines that he would also dangle for a decade or more. My point is that much of the editorial interference was totally avoidable. If I have an editor, and he okays a plot development, and I never end up using that approved plot development and instead create two dozen more unresolved plot developments, and I wait so long that a new editor with a new vision comes on board who now does not like the previously approved plot development, it's my own fault for waiting so long to use it. It's even worse in Claremont's case because given that he already worked out the resolution of the dangling plotline from the moment he came up with the story, he has even less reason to wait around. At least during the Harras post-Claremont era they were totally making it up as they went along and had no idea what the resolution of a storyline was going to be when they introduced a dangling plot, so at least they had an excuse for dragging it out. Claremont on the other hand knew his intended resolutions before he even introduced the mystery, so what excuse did he have for waiting two decades to finally get around to resolving them?

Chris Claremont used to have a question and answer forum here on CBR. On it, he would discuss with fans what his intended resolutions for his mystery plotlines were, and he would discuss the editorial interference that ruined his intended mystery. And a recurring them kept coming up. He'd introduce a mystery under certain editors and under certain editors-in-chief. He'd tell them his intended resolution, and they would approve it. Then he'd proceed to never make any moves on said resolution until a new editor in chief or new editor came onto the book. This new editor or editor in chief would now have different ideas on the direction and tone of the book and the resolution of the plotline. Sometimes it would even be the same editor or editor in chief, but as time went by this same editor or editor in chief now had new ideas and no longer agreed with Claremont's original idea.

Now I can understand if this happened once to a writer. Or even twice. But reading his forum, Claremont never seemed to learn. He got burned over and over and over again like this, but never seemed to learn that when a higher-up approves your idea, you should execute it within a reaasonable time before someone new with a new ideology is put in charge, or before that same editor changes his or her mind. It would be as if I was an employee and kept getting bosses to approve projects I propose, waiting years to ever execute the project, then acting surprised when the same boss, or the new management, no longer thinks my proposed project was a good idea. Even after Inferno, when he finally resolved a bunch of old plotlines in one fell swoop, he immediately reverted back to form and started introducing a couple dozen dangling storylines. This is why I don't consider him blame-free in the whole editorial interference thing, as much of it was avoidable if he just implements story ideas within a reasonable time from approval.

I remember an old Wizard article (late 90's) where Jim Lee interviewed Claremont and he said what his plans for the book were at the time of leaving.
Be interested to see if that's where he goes with this book, or if it's just new stories.

"Devin Grayson’s NIGHTWING?" "? Giving Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld HEROES REBORN for a year?"
BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

No offense, T, but it takes two to tango, and it's as much the editorial regime's fault for not doing their jobs and telling Chris when it was time to address the dangling subplots and should have blocked new subplots from being introduced until he resolved what he had planned prior. That's part of the editor's job, y'know.

A book by King Claremont that predates the horrible Grant Morrison run? Sounds like a winner to me.

Loved Claremonts run hated i mean really hated Morrison's run.

Thanks T, I hadn't heard of any of this about editorial interference playing a part in Claremont's sundry dangling plotlines.

Now that doesn't mean that I agree with you that plotlines should always be resolved. In fact, I hold quite the opposite view. I'd argue that the sheer number of unanswered questions in the X-Men series played a central role in its continuing success. Creating an air of mystery that appealed to a great many readers.

Sure I can see that from one angle, Claremont's writing can look slapdash (Kitty Pryde never once said, 'By the way, Wolverine/Rogue/Magneto, what is your real name?' or 'Where the hell have Stevie Hunter/Alexys Forrester/Rachel Summers gone?'), but that very same quality means that the series never got bogged down in details.

When DC attempted to ape Claremont's style with their Teen Titans and Outsiders series, they initially met with success. But as the runs continued and the writers began to feel obliged to resolve old plotlines, the stories lost impetus and became a slog. Eventually both series were cancelled.

From Nightcrawler's and Mystique's first meeting it was clear they were related in some way - how they were related wasn't clear, but did it need to be? A lot of writers would have given us a five part 'Who is Kurt Wagner?' saga that concluded with it being revealed that Nightcrawler was related to Mystique - Claremont knew that this would have been anti-climatic and have served no dramatic purpose, so he just let it dangle instead.

ps. If Claremont is starting from X-Men issue 3, does that mean all the Up-starts nonsense, which was going on at the same time in Uncanny X-Men will still be part of his continuity?

No offense, T, but it takes two to tango, and it’s as much the editorial regime’s fault for not doing their jobs and telling Chris when it was time to address the dangling subplots and should have blocked new subplots from being introduced until he resolved what he had planned prior. That’s part of the editor’s job, y’know.

I'm not excusing the editors, you're 100% right. And at times I do believe that happened. For example I think storylines like Fall of the Mutants and Inferno were editorially mandated house-cleaning sessions for unresolved storylines. Unfortunately when Bob Harras took over, one of his editorial policies was to never resolve any questions ever, as he thought answering any resolution would hurt the series.

When DC attempted to ape Claremont’s style with their Teen Titans and Outsiders series, they initially met with success. But as the runs continued and the writers began to feel obliged to resolve old plotlines, the stories lost impetus and became a slog. Eventually both series were cancelled.

I never read Outsiders, but I think New Teen Titans lost sales not because they resolved storylines but because it was a touchy-feely emo lifetime movie for most of its run. After a couple of dozen issues of seeing them whine their parents and insecurities, wring their hands, cry every other issue, act neurotic, hug it out all the time and out-angst even Marvel, it just got tiresome. I get it, they're a family, fine, so are the Fantastic Four. But the Fantastic Four also kick a whole lot of ass too in that classic Kirby slobberknocker and grand cosmic scale. That helps offset the soap opera aspects and the bickering and emo moments. With the Titans, they lost every fight, and never got a clean win over anyone. Usually a piece of rubble would fall on the bad guy or something from an explosion. I'm convinced that Titans sold well because it looked and felt like a Marvel book at first with the Perez art style and Wolfman dialogue and the angst and family vibe, but after being patient readers realized these guys were never going to score a clean win even against a guy like Deathstroke and got bored.

I re-read a couple of Titans comics not so long ago, and you are right, they were unbelieveably angsty - not that I thought so at the time.

I don't think it was "never scoring a clean win" that put readers off, but the opposite. Sales dropped when Wolfman started to wind up the various stories in long, cod epics - so we had Terra/Terminator four parter, followed by the Hive three parter, followed by the Trigon five parter, followed by the Brother Blood nine parter, and so on.

Under Claremont, the X-Men didn't score clean wins over Magneto, the Hellfire Club, Marauders or Reavers. Yet, it didn't seem to affect sales.

Hey, T.: "Slobberknocker" is my new word of the week. Thanks!

When DC attempted to ape Claremont’s style with their Teen Titans and Outsiders series, they initially met with success. But as the runs continued and the writers began to feel obliged to resolve old plot-lines, the stories lost impetus and became a slog. Eventually both series were canceled.

Teen Titans had a nice balance in the early going. Wolfman wrote, in essence, episodes of "The Real World" in tights and Perez drew amazing action sequences. When Perez left, all that was left the soap opera and the angst. As great as Eduardo Barreto was, he didn't bring the same quality to the title. Claremont had much better luck with the collaborators that followed Byrne. Paul Smith brought some buzz and a new sensibility to the X-Men. Romita, Jr., Silvestiri and Lee all generated buzz during their turns on the title. Even fill-ins like Art Adams made a mark.

The other weakness was that Wolfman and Perez had created a title about young people going out into the world by themselves for the first time. The cast was college aged at the beginning and they were dealing with those issues. As Wolfman aged them, the cast outgrew the theme of the title. None of the replacements were ever quite as interesting. Conversely, the X-Men is about a school. The older characters became teachers and Claremont always seemed to have a new student up his sleeve. It gave the title more breadth.

The criticism of "too little mystery" probably is valid with regard to Batman and the Outsiders. Mike W. Barr did a nice job drawing out some suspense around his fresh faces, but wrapped their backgrounds up neatly after a couple years. Those resolutions did take some of the dram out of the series. The bigger problem was the decision to remove Batman from the title. Batman was pretty much the straw that stirred the drink in BATO. He was clearly the boss, they all served at his pleasure and the extent to which the team rebelled was a huge source of dramatic conflict. Giffen and DeMatties used that dynamic to good effect in the Bwahaha Justice League, but Barr really pioneered it in BATO.

I blame Superman - There's a niechtze market.

Teen Titans had a nice balance in the early going. Wolfman wrote, in essence, episodes of “The Real World” in tights and Perez drew amazing action sequences. When Perez left, all that was left the soap opera and the angst. As great as Eduardo Barreto was, he didn’t bring the same quality to the title.

Nah, people always say this and I don't buy it. Barretto is a GREAT artist. It really bugs me how people have to downplay how great he is because they need to make excuses for why Teen Titans failed. Is Barretto really significantly worse than Cockrum's second run, Paul Smith, or JR JRs X-Men run in the 80s? Silvestri's 80s style?

Teen Titans was already slipping DURING Perez's run, and I think it jumped the shark at Judas Contract and the introduction of Jericho, who's aesthetic just pushed the wimp factor of an already wimpy team over the edge. This idea that the Titans absolutely needed Perez's art to stay strong when X-Men kept going on well Cockrum's 2nd run, Smith, JR JR and Silvestri, all of whom I think Barretto can truly hang with, just reaffirms my point that there was something subpar aboiut Wolfman's writing to Claremont's. To me, that was the fact that Claremont was more interested in writing a soap opera about low self-esteem wimps than a drama about a competent superteam.

Yes Perez drew amazing action sequences. But so did Barretto. And in those amazing action sequences by Perez and Barretto, unless the Titans were facing utter losers or nameless henchmen, you could be guaranteed they would get their asses handed to them or they'd scrape out a win by the skin of their teeth. By barretto's run, people were probably just tired of it. I know i was.

Under Claremont, the X-Men didn’t score clean wins over Magneto, the Hellfire Club, Marauders or Reavers. Yet, it didn’t seem to affect sales.

Yes, but not scoring a clean win against Magneto or Juggernaut is nowhere near as bad as a whole team of the Titans power level not being able to score a clean win against Brother Blood by himself or Deathstroke alone. Those guys wouild just punk them with ease while mocking them and not breaking a sweat. I couldn't even understand what that Brother Blood's power was, and he looked like a total ponce. Plus their human nonsuperhero supporting cast hung out with had guys like Terry Long, uber-douche. Compare that with an Alfred Pennyworth, J. Jonah Jameson or Wyatt Wingfoot. Even their supporting cast was wussy.

Sorry, the sentence two comments above should read "To me, that was the fact that WOLFMAN was more interested in writing a soap opera about low self-esteem wimps than a drama about a competent superteam.

[...] since Chris Claremont wrote X-Men #3 (the issue from which Claremont’s new X-book spins off): [...]

Chris Claremont returns to the xmen, without interverence as he got the last couple of times, excitites me as nothing has done in the last 18 years of me loving and reading comics. The whole revolution arc was cut short because the big guns at marvel suddenly thought that the comics should be like the movie. wich is sort of like, suddenly deciding that the empire strikes back should have been something like the black hole.( the black hole only being produced because of the succes of starwars ) Its a short term sell out. One that might make some good quick bucks but wich eventually destroys the product. And leaves you with a crippeld product not worth wat it once was.
I personnally love the recent stuff of mr. Claremont. He builds and builds , and develops momentum That's not something you can do in 5 isseus. it takes time, That is why his original run on the xmen is so spectecular. It's more then the sum of its parts.
I really dislike the crossovers, I'm more then willing to pay for a good product, not for a piece of crap designed to get money out of my wallet. How many times, can you upset everything and hang the fate of the world in the balance until it loses its effect? for me it came with operation zero. Onslaught had its silly moments but it was amusing.
I'm very glad that xmen foreever will be around, and i'm definitly in the niche its aimed at. I believe mr Claremont is the best comicwriter around. Even with the editor interferene he is able to craft stories that interest me more then all the rest out there. ( yep, i really liked new exiles, and definitly loved his FF run and extreme xmen and big hero 6 )
I really don't understand the negativ attutide towards his recent output ( the only thing i can think of is that his past xmen run was so good that he is judged be a different standerd. A higher standerd ) And if people don't want to read it fine. But if his fans, even if there not enough to make it the number 1 title, are presented with a product they like.... great. Enough x stories for all, but this will be the one i'll be buying, and i probably will not be the only one. If marvel can supply all its readers with i nice niche, there will be more books sold in total and everyone can read the incarnation they like instead of complaining and not bein satisfeid. I hope they keep there eye on the long term, look at the back catalouge of mr Clarmont still selling today, Even if it doesn't make that much money in the first place its something that will be around for years to come.
For the first time in years, i believe there not making a short term cashcow decision, but a long term cashcow decision and one that makes me happy. First time in years a can mean it when i say X-MEN... FOREVER!