Turn off the lights, shut the doors, nail the eviction notices up. The house of ideas has lost it's spark. Tired sad pathetically awful plots and stilted dialogue now roam the corridors of the X-Mansion. I wrote a piece on here a few weeks ago concerning Chris Claremont being put back onto the X-Books and what a dreadful error of judgement on Joe Quesada's part it was.

But I misunderestimated how badly the books would deteriorate in the trusty hands of Mr.C. and his cohort, the always reliably mediocre Chuck Austen. The dismantling of the best run on X-Men since the Age of Apocalypse continues apace; Claremont so far has managed to reverse Morrison's ongoing death of the human genome subplot, suddenly declared that GM's Magneto from the ' Planet X' Storyline was an imposter ( ??!!) and Chuck Austen has resurrected Xorn over in the companion 'uncanny' less title...sigh...and again, sigh...


How can Marvel even pretend for one minute that a return to tired scripting, cliched and hackneyed plots and apalling beyond belief dialogue will appeal to anyon besides the most anal-retentive fanboy hardcore lives in their room reader? Didn't we get away from this in the fan-closet approach a few years ago?

And how long will they let this puerile series of quality-less periodicals continue?

I'm voting with my wallet. Joss Wheedon's 'Astonishing' book is the only x-title worth reading right now.

Leafing thru Newsarama:

”Marvel has been good to me, and I’m very happy to continue the relationships I’ve enjoyed for thirty years,” the writer said in a press release. “Now, if I may shamelessly plug my own collaborator – wait ‘til you see the work Alan’s done on Uncanny! Lightning in a bottle! Wow!”


.... Claremont's scripts I have seen so far have been tired, stale, full of cliches and plot by numbers X-plotting and even the uber-talented Alan Davis's art looks rushed and the product of a weary jaundiced eye......



Editor in Chief, Joe Quesada, said in the same release: “I can’t imagine an X-Men Universe without Chris. The mark he’s made with his quality and longevity is awe-inspiring. To coin a phrase, he’s the best there is at what he does!”

....This is the same Joe Quesada who personally took Claremont off two x-books some four years ago as the readership complained so badly and claremont's plots were so behind the times; Claremont was great thirty years ago, now it's a sad spectacle of watching a once-innovative writer rehash plots that were old when he was at his peak and sadly pale by today's standards.


Dan Buckley said, “Chris is a symbol of stability, quality, talent and vision. He brings a continuity and style to the table that is unparalleled, and it was important to us that we make sure he’s welcome and comfortable as a valued member of the team we’re trying to build.”

...Stability- perhaps; Quality, not for a long time has his name been synonymous with anything remotely resembling quality; talent was once there but has been reported missing for some time now ; His continuity is hideously convoluted, his style is best described as stilted dialogue heavy with cardboard cutout characterizations and his vision only works in one direction: backwards. ...

And the thought of Claremont coming in after Morrison is just the worst idea I have ever heard. To make matters worse is Claremont making oblique references to some of the groundwork Morrison laid during his three year tenure on ' New X-Men' by dismissing them ...as in his comments in his first issue back on ' Uncanny X-Men' when he casts doubt upon the humanity dying out in the next few generations plot-line Morrison introduced.

Marvel has managed to get many things right in the last few years, but Claremont needs to go ASAP and let some fresh innovative writer come on board to keep the titles going in the right direction.

( Preface: comics piece ,for those of you who couldn't give a monkeys damn about comics,just skip to the next bit)



For every step forward, take three steps backwards.

Marvel has just launched it's new much hyped ' Reload' for the mutant family of books ( i.e, X-Men related). The reload mainly came about as Grant Morrisson left a few months ago and Joss Wheedon agreed to do a monthly book for at least a limited run. So Marvel decides to relaunch the franchise with a whole new look and new approach and a change in the amount of titles and in some cases, the actual titles themselves.

What Quesada and co. have authorised is essentially giving the core book ( Uncanny X-men) back to Chris Claremont ( initially accompanied by Alan Davis) and spinning off satellite books such as Claremont's own relaunch of Excalibur as a sideline book concerning Prof.Xavier's post-X-men efforts to get things achieved on his integration agenda. They have also relaunched The New Mutants ( vol II) as New X-men: X-men Academy ( ???).

Now, with the exceptions of Joss Wheedon and John Cassaday's Astonishing X-men title, the relaunch has been pretty dreadful so far. The two main problems so far are giving Claremont two titles and the overall backwards direction that the x- family titles have taken in the reload.

When Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely revamped the X-Universe a few years ago with New X-men, it was a huge change; in both story content, characterization and an overall new organically evolving approach to both story-telling and comic-books per se. Morrison took the X-men out of costumes and changed teh whole environment they were in. He revitalised the school outlook, did more work on characters than had been done since Scott Lobdell held the reins on Uncanny some years back , boosted sales through the roof and provided exciting, literate and forward thinking stories.

Now, for anyone coming after such a creator, it would be problematic. But to put Chris Claremont back on the titles is nothing short of disastrous. Claremont was a legned back in the 1970's when he brought the X-Men up from being second stringers to make them the stars of the Marvel show. But Claremont lost it somewhere around 1986 in terms of writing ability and/or enthusiasm. When Joe Quesada came on board as EIC, he gave Claremont another shot at writing the core X-titles, and ended up having to pull him off of them as Sales were slumping badly and readers were confused by Claremont's windy prose, dangling plotlines, limp characters and overall muddy writing. Quesada made up Xtreme-X-men to keep Claremont in the fold and to keep the audience who still enjoyed Claremont's horrendously lukewarm scripts.

And now, Claremont has been given two titles again. With no explanation from Quesada as to why it should be different this time. I tried the first issue of each of his titles and I got deja-vu. Suddenly I was back in the early- mid 1980's reading bland, recycled, unrealistic stilted and yawn-inducing pap. Horrible beyond belief. And the X-men have new costumes, explained in the story as necessary to show the general public that they're heroes. Hmmmm

If this is the best Marvel can come up with for their flagship franchise, then I fear that the house of ideas is rapidly becoming the shack of desperation. It will be interesting to see how long Claremont lasts on both titles and how long it will be before the X-line implodes upon itself again and the powers that be realize how quality writing is more important than several different titles.

So, my personal advice is to try Astonishing X-men by Wheedon and Cassady- excellent first issue and the always superb New X-Men: Academy ( could the title have been any more ugly and unwieldy? ) but as for the rest of the titles, send a message to marvel by not buying sub-standard crap. They'll soon learn when sales figures drop off so badly that they will try to buy Blue Devil off of DC to get some visibility.