Young X-Men, a retrospective

Come along, Sherman, we're taking the Wayback Machine to learn about some history in honor of this week's launch of Young X-Men.

What, you don't get that reference? Way to make me feel old.

The "next generation of X-Men" has been (more often than not) a staple of the X-Franchise since Chris Claremont and Bob McLeod introduced the New Mutants in Marvel Graphic Novel #4 back in 1982. That team consisted of Cannonball, Mirage, Karma, Sunspot and Wolfsbane - who, along with other well-known members Magik, Cypher, Warlock and Magma - are the usual guide to the genre. If a "young team" debuts, usually it will at some point reference this group - and if the solicitations are a guide, Young X-Men will be no different.

The X-Men was launched as five teenagers learning at a school for mutants, though as produced by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (no offense intended) they hardly acted like students or even teenagers, save for needing Professor X to bail them out of situations. It wasn't long before the group "graduated" and later writers used them specifically as a super-hero team. When Len Wein and Dave Cockrum relaunched the team in 1975, the new X-Men were all adults, several of them heroes in their own right. Chris Claremont's run focused on the team's interactions with one another rather than learning in the school environment.

So it was no real surprise when the second book was launched, in part carried by the mass popularity of Uncanny X-Men. But the New Mutants weren't just different faces going through the motions - the stories were more light hearted (in some cases) and the characters were likable in their own respect - not simply because they wore an X on their belts.

But through the late 80s and into the start of the 90s, the New Mutants got swept up by the grittier times, signalled by creator Rob Liefeld's introduction of Cable to the book. Before long, most of the core cast was gone (save for Cannonball and latecomer Boom Boom) and in their places were a team of the era - X-Force. With that, the younger class book was gone, though X-Force would never quite be able to shake that label.

Three years later, in 1994, the Phalanx Covenant kicked off leading directly to the launching of Generation X - the next "next generation of X-Men". This title moved the official Xavier school out of the X-Mansion to Emma Frost's Massachusetts Academy, formerly the school of her Hellions (arch-nemeses of the original New Mutants). The title took X-Men mainstays Jubilee, Banshee and the no-longer-evil Emma Frost and added a sprinkle of new characters such as Skin, M, Chamber, Synch and Husk (sister of Cannonball) as well as some others. The title never really caught on and changed its identity several times as it floundered in the X-World before being quietly put down just before Grant Morrison started his heralded New X-Men run.

With the end of Generation X, Morrison moved the proper school back to Professor Xavier's mansion and made the mutant student body substantially larger than had ever been attempted in an X-Men title (Generation X had opened the school to human students at one point). With this came an opportunity to focus on some of the students, so Nunzio DeFillipis and Christina Weir launched New Mutants under Marvel's ill-fated Tsunami line. In this new title, the students learned from the faculty of X-Men characters - focused mainly on original New Mutant Mirage. However, the book seemed to be pushed awkwardly away from its original aim (Magma and Wolfsbane were originally hinted to be important members of the cast, but never really joined) and the book was retitled after 13 issues to New X-Men: Academy X.

It was here that DeFillipis and Weir hit their stride. In an effort to take the X-Men back into the superhero realm, New X-Men split the students into squads, each advised by a member of the faculty. The title focused on two teams - the New Mutants (Wind Dancer, Wallflower, Prodigy, Elixir, Surge and Icarus) and the Hellions (Hellion, Dust, Wither, Rockslide, Mercury and Tag) with background characters filling out a part of the student body. Like New Mutants, though, this book was more into the interactions of the characters rather than fighting bad guys. But that was fine. The book had a lot of strong characters, and when the Hellions got their own mini-series, it was a great read.

During Decimation in which the X-Line was shaken up, New X-Men was pulled from DeFillipis and Weir and given to the duo of Chris Yost and Craig Kyle. As evidenced by my thoughts on X-Force, these two are hit and miss with me. They took the happiness completely out of the book, and made it a sludge through pure misery. Five members of the two main teams were written out, with three of them getting killed. Almost the entire supporting cast was killed off in a single issue. The book literally became about the characters wondering when they were going to get killed. With that in mind, you can see why X-Force is a much better device for them. To their credit, I did like their characterization of some of these kids, and they made X-23 into an enjoyable character, which is something I never would have imagined when she was a personality-lacking wild child in Chris Claremont's Uncanny X-Men.

After Messiah CompleX, New X-Men stopped being solicited, with no explanation as to why the book was seemingly getting the axe. Like me, many fans greatly loved the characters (they seemed to have more of a following than the Generation X kids at the time) and wanted more of them. So we get a new issue #1 with Young X-Men and a title that, according to solicitations, looks to be a child army of mutants. I'm not quite sure about that, but I'll look into that on Friday after people have had a chance to look over the book.

To me, the younger team has not really worked too well lately. It's possible - it was none with New Mutants in the 80s - but no one has really managed to recapture the magic and hit the balance between teenage interaction and superhero stories. As of late, it's been specifically one or the other, and it doesn't look like Young X-Men will change this. But of course, in four years they'll revamp the theme and try again.

It's time to kill it off, so to say.

You may recall my rant after the first issue of the new X-Force came out. After expressing concerns for the first issue and the premise as a whole, I finished up with the line, "[O]nly one issue’s come out thus far. I’ll keep getting it to see where it goes ..."

Turns out I was lying. Two issues into X-Force and I'm getting out.

The more I look at it, the more I think that I stuck with Kyle and Yost through New X-Men for so long because I enjoyed the characters (created by Nunzio DeFillipis and Christina Weir) and the premise. Yeah, it started off dark after M-Day - and for all sense and purpose, it should have - but surely the youth book would get lighter and happier like it used to be. Nope - instead we got death after death after death to the point where you really stopped caring anymore. In their first six issues, the writers' death count hit double digits. They didn't get through a single arc without at some point leaving a character dead/dying at the end of a cliffhanger. It was the drawing point of the book.

So now that the 'youth' aspect is gone, Kyle and Yost get to keep the 'death' part, and use less-than-appropriate characters to crank it up to 11. Three of the book's cast (thus far) of four have claws, the other has twin knives. They're good for stabbing. Stab, stab, stabby stab, stab. After two issues of stabbing and killing with a very weak plot basis (Cyclops is all for this against Emma Frost's wishes?) I've had enough. Turns out that if I don't enjoy a title enough, I will actually drop it. Hell, New Excalibur lasted four issues before I realized I wasn't going to keep paying for it.

To pull off an extreme-violence book, you need to back it up with well-done storytelling. Garth Ennis has been doing this forever with his Punisher series. Sure, there's a lot of gruesome violence, but it's a compelling read as well. X-Force lacks the latter. It's violence for violence sake - that's the premise of the title, and for me, that's rubbish - and finally I've decided to put my money where my mouth is - or more like back in my pocket and quit buying stuff I don't like.

So X-Force's spot will go to Captain Britain and MI: 13, which I am very interested in. After all, it can't be as bad as New Excalibur, right?

Five points to think about:

Here are five quick thoughts off of my head to spur some thought in yours.

1. The Iron Man movie will not be big enough to launch a second series and countless minis.
2. Wonder Woman needs a costume change. Sure, her look is iconic but the character would benefit from having a more conservative outfit in the "world of men".
3. At least one Wolverine series will be cancelled within a year. My money's on First Class.
4. One of the three new X-Books (Young X-Men, X-Force, Cable) will not make it to issue #20.
5. People have gotten over One More Day well before Casey's countdown has finished.

X-Force

The first of three shiny new books for the X-Men line, X-Force hit the shelves yesterday (Cable debuts in March and Young X-Men follows in April). The new title, written by former New X-Men writers Craig Kyle and Chris Yost, has been heavily hyped since before the start of Messiah CompleX. Hell, a big chunk of the story served as a preview of X-Force. So the title finally debuts, albeit a week late. So how was it? Was it worth the hype? Well, no – not really.

The theme of the book is quite simple: after Messiah CompleX (and apparently all the events leading up to it) Cyclops has decided that desperate times call for desperate measures and has put together a team that will get the job done with a sense of finality. In a nutshell, it’s a killing squad. This plays right up Kyle and Yost’s alley (as they have great trouble getting through a story without killing someone) and it also gives another opportunity for a Wolverine-headlined book (as if Wolverine, Wolverine Origins, the upcoming Wolverine: First Class and countless mini-series weren’t enough). So okay – it’s new for the franchise, and in theory it could work.

The problem here is the execution. X-Force was basically thrown at readers during Messiah CompleX to hunt down and apparently take out Cable. It really didn’t work then, as they had no evidence that Cable had caused anything, save have possession of the baby, yet Cyclops still gave the "any means necessary" order. The lineup was strange as well – Wolverine and X-23 – being the bloodthirsty animals they are – fit. Warpath, Caliban and Hepzibah were odd, but could possibly work (even though Caliban apparently was just there as cannon fodder). Wolfsbane was about as ill a fit as you could get. In no form of the character could you justify having her there. So X-Force spent Messiah as more of a tracker group than an "any means necessary" group.

X-Force opens with a look into Wolverine’s thoughts. I’m not going to go into his point of having never been to Colorado (Really? Wolverine?), but it’s supposed to be a big deal that X-Force disbanded after Caliban died. That’s right, a team that had been together for one mission – and obviously not very long, since Caliban and Hepzibah were members – and it’s a big deal that they’ve split.

Then Cyclops makes the point that Emma doesn’t know he’s doing this, which makes me scratch my head. Emma Frost is the 2nd most powerful telepath in the world, and she shares a bed with Cyclops – can see into his subconscious – yet he’s hiding this. And what for? Emma is amongst the more cold-blooded members of the team. She was the one that first brought up offing the Scarlet Witch at the beginning of House of M. She was the one who broke Cassandra Nova’s neck. Why would she not go fully with the idea of permanently removing villains who pose a threat to herself and her students? The tone of "secret missions" is set for no particular reason besides that it seems cool.

So the team gets back together – sans Hepzibah who’s not even mentioned – and off they go on their mission against the Purifiers, who have apparently infiltrated SHIELD to get the head of Bastion – something I’m going to have to wait and see on. The issue has the apparently obligatory heavy-blood fight (complete with blades through the face, for good measure) and it ends with the overused Kyle/Yost device of making it look like someone gets killed for the cliffhanger. We’ve seen this too many times to really even matter anymore.

There are three things beyond the details of the issue itself that concerns me about this book. First are the comparisons to the original X-Force series launched by Rob Liefeld back in 1991. Obviously I have strong doubts about this, but I don’t think it’s fair to argue that it shouldn’t be called X-Force because it doesn’t have the same premise as the original. Hell, the original lost the original premise within 20 issues. The "Cable makes soldiers out of the New Mutants" bit ended when Cable vanished after X-Cutioner’s Song and they began setting their own place in the world. Yet, that Liefeld concept is what I keep reading about. This is not going to be that – quit trying to think that it should be. It’s actually the third appropriate use of the title – the second being when Warren Ellis took the book on in 2000.

My second concern is the book’s art, courtesy of Clayton Crain. Don’t misunderstand me on this one – I think the art’s flat-out gorgeous. But with such wonderful art usually comes long delays in a book. Take examples from Jim Lee on All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder, whichever Kubert is working on Action Comics or Bryan Hitch on Ultimates. I’m not familiar with Crain, so perhaps he’s above the mold on this one, and I certainly hope so. The book’s art is amazing and definitely a drawing point.

Finally, I’m concerned about the premise of the title. The "desperate times call for desperate measures" idea is somewhat new to the X-Men mythos, especially taken to the level that it seems to be here. However, how long can you really draw this premise out? Surely, some villains will have to be killed to give the book some sort of credibility, yet does that mean all X-Men villains will be hunted as the book continues? How can you justify them being X-Force worthy? If they all are, then why bother with X-Men at all? Will new villains be created just to be killed? This seems like much more of a mini/maxi series premise than an ongoing. I can see two or three story arcs coming out before the title begins to drag.

So go ahead and give this title a try if you like the premise and enjoy great art. I’m obviously not optimistic about it, but hey, only one issue’s come out thus far. I’ll keep getting it to see where it goes – and hopefully many of my concerns are unfounded.

Countdown to Messiah Complex

With the X-Men mega event Messiah Complex right around the corner, the ongoing titles are winding down and preparing for action. While things are simmering, it's a good time to look back and see how we got to this point, and where it may be going.

So all through the month of October, from now until the Messiah Complex one-shot hits the shelves on October 31, the Comicdom Wrecks! resident X-Men junkie (me) will be going through all the storylines that have gone on from M-Day to this point in all four of the relevant titles - Uncanny X-Men, X-Men, X-Factor, and New X-Men. We may even add in a relevant storyline or two here and there (Avengers: Disassembled and The Collective).

When Messiah Complex hits the shelves, you'll be up to date on all (relevant) things X, so stay tuned!

Top and Bottom of the Pile: 7-18-2007

TOP: Justice League of America #11
The concept of an issue of nothing but dialog between Red Arrow and Vixen may not be appealing at first, but with the level of drama created by Brad Meltzer and guest artist Gene Ha, this issue is without a doubt the best comic I've read in months. It adds appreciation to two overlooked characters (the only one more so would probably be Black Lightning) and makes a fantastic read of a bridging issue between two story arcs. For more, check out my comments on the issue coming this weekend.


BOTTOM: New X-Men #40
New X-Men continues through the grisly motions that have become disturbingly common for this book. Only this time, they're in Limbo, so the kids and be killed multiple times, hopefully satisfying Craig Kyle and Chris Yost's bloodlust enough for them to possibly make it through the next arc without killing anybody! It's nice to see the other students getting the spotlight, but the ridiculously dark tone needs to lighten up and quick. Also, how many newer readers are going to remember Amanda Sefton, a character who really hasn't been in mainstream focus since she was a side-character in Uncanny X-Men back in the 80s? Yeah, she was in late Excalibur stories, but it wasn't canceled because a ton of people were reading it.


The Rest of the Pile: Ultimate Spider-Man #111, All Flash #1, World War Hulk #2, World War Hulk: X-Men #2

New X-Men: Mercury Falling (33-36)

I wanted to congratulate Craig Kyle and Chris Yost for making it through an entire story without killing anybody, but then I remembered Mammomax. I'm sure someone's going to miss him.

After making it through a series of depressing stories meant to pull the new team together, we're treated to a story about X-23. Sure, it's got Mercury's name in the title, but this is the X-23 show. Surprisingly, I've grown to like X-23 (something I never would have said when Claremont had her in Uncanny), but that's largely because her creators are writing her. I've heard both of her mini-series (also written by Yost and Kyle) are also quite good. Good thing to get a character with a very shaky premise (a Wolverine clone, for crying out loud) over in the minds of fans.

However, it can't be forgotten that this is not a book about X-23. It's about the New X-Men. While Hellion gets a featured role in the story (setting up to be X-23's main man probably had something to do with it) and Mercury plays the damsel in distress, Rockslide, Surge, Elixir, and Dust do practically nothing through the entire story. Of course, this is just one story. As long as the X-23 and Friends show doesn't continue on, the book will be fine.

The tie-in to William Stryker seemed to be weak. If scientists are going to breed horrible monsters using a mutant's power, and they just happen to be in X-23's origin, then run with that. No need to tie it in to the previous story. Again, I hope this doesn't lead to a habit in this title. If it does, it may have been a better plan to keep Stryker alive at the close of the previous story.

Since all my complaints are about the possible future, I'd have to say this book is doing quite well right now. Of course, the next story looks to be bringing back the long-dead Illyana Rasputin (see my earlier rant on death in comics), so we'll see how that one goes. As for now, though, good stuff.