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I don't get it.

I mean, I get the joke in Comic Critics, and it's quite funny, but I don't get the point of X-Men Forever being published.

It exists because Chris Claremont has mysterious powers of persuasion, Omar.

That's right - I'm saying Chris Claremont is magic. SOMEBODY PLEASE PROVE ME WRONG.

I'll do it in two words

Sovereign Seven

No one ever said it was good magic...

I still don't get it.

eldritch magic.

As if the timelines and continuities of the Big Two comic companies aren't confusing enough.

It's the same kind of magic that made Spidey's marriage disappear.

Either that or Claremont has some photos of Quesada that he's been holding on to for just this sort of thing. Maybe the same photos that are allowing the Clone Saga to be retold?

@squashua: Woe was the day the dark wizard Claremont unlocked the arcane secrets of the Horrid Sovereign Seven Magicks.

@Ethan: I don't think Marvel's timeline's hard to follow - you just continually update the Marvel universe as being around 10-15 years old, and reframe the wars appropriately - except for Captain America. And Nick Fury. And Magneto, who went through some de/re-aging a while back. And Dr. Strange, who might be like 100 if I understand his entry on Marvel.com. Oh, and ignore everything Chris Claremont writes, because that's pretty much its own canon - he references nothing going on around him, and nobody references anything he's written since...well, since about 1992 or whenever "X-Men Forever" takes place...or doesn't, since...is that set in current times, or....

Crap. Okay, Ethan, looks like the Marvel Universe can be a little slippery, too.

Oh, right, the comic! Well done, guys, always happy to see a new installment.

I take the joke to be one of those "nature abhors a vacuum" things.

No.

It's a 'meta-commentary' - apparently the one thing a comic fan can't handle.
They are talking about life getting in the way, and then rip on x-men forever for the cheap laugh, whilst commenting that it's half-arsed.

Jeff, I would say that DC is the biggest offender, what with writing an "in-universe" reboot every few years. But they both (all) have alternate realities and rampant retcons.

Having an entire series based on what direction a series could have taken if the same writer kept going with it has sort of a niche audience, where even the big fans of the era will have to rack their brains to remember the status of the whole X-Men universe at the time.

I've read 2 issues of X-Men Forever.

I think there's a chance that Claremont might be remembering how he did it back then.

Claremont's magic is called Nostalgia.

Also:

I'd like to mention Jeff Loeb... Since someone will eventually.

I'm confused. I thought it was going to mock fans complaints about late books, but then started talking about Claremont's X-Men Forever.

I’m confused. I thought it was going to mock fans complaints about late books, but then started talking about Claremont’s X-Men Forever.

No, it's about them being behind*, and only doing a half-arsed joke instead.
Hence, the joke having nothing to do with anything.

*whether Brandon and Sean were or not is almost besides the point

Just like my post was a comment on people not being able to type coding into posts properly, by not typing the coding into my post properly... yeah... that's it.

I love the genuine anguish as he stares at the book.

Continuity only really gets confusing if you're obsessing over it. Otherwise, you basically know who the guys are and anything else you need to know (and some you don't) will be told to you quite painfully in the comic. Even Marvel books with recap pages seem to take great pleasure in recapitulating events recent or distant in long awkward dialogue and DC is even worse about it. X-men Forever though, eh, I think its awesome that it exists. Marvel will probably do fine with it and Clairemont gets to kill Wolverine or whatever he wants. Everyone's happy. Or another book gets cancelled. Do any of you guys really get confused about whether stuff happened to the main or ultimate/elseworld version?

Jeff, I would say that DC is the biggest offender, what with writing an “in-universe” reboot every few years. But they both (all) have alternate realities and rampant retcons.

But it's not 'let's get the guy who used to write it take it back to how he would have wrote it then'.
It's beyond continuity porn, this continuity prostitution.

Do any of you guys really get confused about whether stuff happened to the main or ultimate/elseworld version?

That's not why this gets mocked.
It gets mocked because it exists at all.