Are the X-men books becoming more separated from the rest of the MU?

[The Fury]

Although, a few many months back during House of M and Decimation, the mutants were very closely connected to the MU and events affecting the MU, it could be said that the X-men and associated teams are in a world of their own.

Recent stories and books have outlined how closed the X-men universe is in itself. From big events such as Annhilation and Civil War down to the characters themselves. The X-men universe could nearly be separate from the MU (616) and it would hardly change a thing.

Civil War is a big example at the moment, Superheroes are not allowed to fight crime without registering first. But the X-men being under guard (crapply I might add) are exempt from this? If the X-men use their powers in anyway to save another person's fight or to do something heroic in any mannor they are breaking the law. Now fair enough that Brubaker's team isn't even on Earth at the moment so ignore them. But the rest of them are using powers like in the US doing heroic things all the time. The X-men should play as big part in it as every other hero. Just becuase they are now 'rare' and being watched by Sentinels which are mostly crap at their jobs does not mean they should be ignored. Fair enough they are all technically Registered, but are they working for SHIELD? But instead the X-men get a separate book, which so far I am finding hard to connect to Civil War principle, I mean 2 people who are on the Registers side are not even reisdents in the US.

Next to Annihilation. The huge space event that effects mostly all cosmic Empires and character...I say mostly beucase it odd ignores a huge Empire becuase one of the X-books are using them. The Shi'Ar are sitting watching the combined forces of the Skrulls and Krees and many other nations get their butts handed to them by an invading force bent of killing everything. But it's okay, they'll wait and see what happens or until they are on our doorstep killing them. Odd that. Of course becuase of the story currently in Uncanny X-men with the 57th Summers brother on his crybaby rampage, they get mentioned in name only, they are going to be used to fill out a story of a single character only created becuase of an long abandoned story in X-men books. Gladiator has made more appearences in other MU books then X-men but he'll stay put.

The characters them selves rarely make appearences in other MU books (Except Wolverine). To my memory in recent books not one non X-men character has appeared in the X-men books and while i do not read all of the rest of the MU books, not many appear there either..oh except the Watcher...that was cool. Now you might say that they don't need to, true they don't. But it seems odd that they cross paths far less then the rest of the MU.

Of course the villians of the X-men are probably worse, except Magneto, the X-men villains never really appear in any other books, but this seems to be a common factor in most books recently, Villains are stickign to their main foe. But then Apocalypse, the truely great world threat has faced the Avengers how many times? Not many if any. Sinister always keep himself to himself and the X-men as well, I guess he's too obsessed with the genetics of mutants to care about Hulk or Cap A.

Of course then there is Astonishing X-men...so selfcontained not even the other X-men appear in it.

Personally I'm getting annoyed by it. Years ago Beast, Iceman and Angel joined other teams but it seems to me that now if they appeared on other teams people would argue against it, Marvel Editors might say no and to keep them in the X-men. Storm may have moved on for a crappy storyline, but that's about it.

Any thoughts?

[Hi-Fi]

I think they are a little separated from the rest of the MU, yes. And, personally, I'm all for it.

I love the fact that the X-Universe has its own characters and its own continuity (kinda).

[Beast]

I don't really think so. It goes back and forth of course, depending on the event. We've seen that they've been trying to get more interaction going between the X-Books and the rest of the MU. Like Emma's appearance in Civil War and Ms. Marvel's in New X-Men. And the Avengers just recently helped battle Apocalypse in Adjectiveless. We also have X-Men: Civil War which is showing the impact of the SHRA on the X-Men. Yes for the most part the X-Men are out of Civil War, but that's because they're already retroactively registered due to O*N*E's presence. That's why a Sentinel has to accompany them when they go on missions.

[Hi-Fi]

I do think Rogue should fight the Avengers again and OWN them like she did before!




Just because.

[Toboe]

I think they are a little separated from the rest of the MU, yes. And, personally, I'm all for it.

I love the fact that the X-Universe has its own characters and its own continuity (kinda).

Yeah, me too. Although like Beast said, it goes back and forth.
Besides, there's the fact that right now both the Adjectiveless and Astonishing X-Men are under attack at their own mansion, not really going to do the super hero thing all over the city.
An there's Civil War: X-Men to link them (sort of) to the events of the Civil War after all.

[The Fury]

I love the fact that the X-Universe has its own characters and its own continuity (kinda).
But the Avengers have their own character and villaind and continuity. But that doesn't keep itself to itself. Writers in the MU comics seem to make an effort to use a wide range of characters.

The rest of the MU villains seem to be connected to many other characters, the only villain that is connected to the X-men from ouside the X-men line of villains is maybe Doom on a few occastions and Viper.

[Beast]

I do think Rogue should fight the Avengers again and OWN them like she did before!




Just because.
Rogue will be squaring off with Ms. Marvel again in Ms. Marvel #9.

Beast will co-star. Giggity, giggity, giggity! :D

[The Fury]

I don't really think so. It goes back and forth of course, depending on the event. We've seen that they've been trying to get more interaction going between the X-Books and the rest of the MU. Like Emma's appearance in Civil War and Ms. Marvel's in New X-Men. And the Avengers just recently helped battle Apocalypse in Adjectiveless. We also have X-Men: Civil War which is showing the impact of the SHRA on the X-Men. Yes for the most part the X-Men are out of Civil War, but that's because they're already retroactively registered due to O*N*E's presence. That's why a Sentinel has to accompany them when they go on missions.
Emma's appearce to tell Tony why they weren't getting involved? I doubt we'll see them again in it.

Ms Marvel's appearce in New X-men was nice, I give that. and maybe the Avenger in X-men but that wasn;t great.

what is SHRA? i've been reading X-men: Civil War and except for a few mentions of the law, it seems to me that the book really does need it to be a book. The Sentinels have been accompanying the X-men for a while not becuase of Civil War.

[The Fury]

Rogue will be squaring off with Ms. Marvel again in Ms. Marvel #9.

Beast will co-star. Giggity, giggity, giggity! :D
Good.

2 down, 15 to go.

[Beast]

SHRA = Superhero Registration Act.

And yes, the Sentinels have been accompanying the X-Men for a while. But that's why the government hasn't twisted arms for the X-Men to choose sides. The have them on a tight leash already with the Sentinels, and know that if they push them too much, they'll surely side with Cappy's group.

[The Fury]

SHRA = Superhero Registration Act.

And yes, the Sentinels have been accompanying the X-Men for a while. But that's why the government hasn't twisted arms for the X-Men to choose sides. The have them on a tight leash already with the Sentinels, and know that if they push them too much, they'll surely side with Cappy's group.
Yes, as they should be. The X-men have let the Sentinels step in and control things and they are oddly happy to let them.

The Sentinels are bad at doing theirs jobs though, letting Xavier and his crew escape as well as Cyclops and co. They are already pusing too hard and personally I'm surprised some of the X-men haven't tried to leave already. these are guys who feared Sentinels all their lives and are now happy to let them watch over them.

[Hi-Fi]

Rogue will be squaring off with Ms. Marvel again in Ms. Marvel #9.

Beast will co-star. Giggity, giggity, giggity! :D

I hope Beast takes Rogue's side and not that tramp's.

[Hi-Fi]

I hope Beast takes Rogue's side and not that tramp's.

Ok. Maybe I should change my avatar again. It's clearly having an effect on me. I actually really like Ms. Marvel.

[Beast]

I hope Beast takes Rogue's side and not that tramp's.
I'm hoping he tries to talk both of them down. :)

[The Sword Is Drawn]

Since the early 90s, very deliberately and purposefully, the X-title have been bracketed in their own sub-universe of Marvel's line. They are considered to be a line within themselves, with line wide crossover opportunities - something that most of the standard Marvel Heroes books couldn't even attempt.

Does this work? Often? Yes, to a degree. Although never perfectly.

I mean storylines that caused such widespread change such as The Phalanx Covenant's swamping of entire cities in Phalanx circuitry or Bastion herding up mutants with bio-sentinels during Zero Tolerance probably should have been noticed greater by the general Marvel Universe - but by and large they didn't really encrouch on any of the set up for the other Marvel Universe titles.

So it was mostly workable...

But take Grant Morrison's run on New X-Men. That was an example of of a writer only looking at the X-Men in the context of their own 'universe' and ignoring how things could effect the Marvel Universe in general.

Morrison's choice to ramp up the steady numbers of mutant births from what had pretty much been a level amount for 30 years by a comically high 75% or so did cause problems.

Not for the X-books. Oh no. They were fine. But the Marvel Universe?

Marvel's sttrongest selling point has always been setting it's stories in front of a real world landscape. It's based to the template of the real USA, UK, Europe, Asia. Sure places like Madripoor or Wakanda aren't real, but they're in the minority.

And in a 'real' world setting the concept of the odd mutant child being born, once in a while, isn't too impossible a belief to suspend in the context. and extra few million of them, overnight, kind of is...:rolleyes:

If you went by Morrison's new numbers there were going to be several mutants pretty much in every town across the globe. And they were increasingly more weird and wacky lookin', too.

What about all those other marvel titles that didn't have anything to do with mutants? Was it relevent to feature regular mutant characters? No. But the bottom line was that this shift made it a heck of a lot harder to pretend they weren't supposed to be there, in crowd shots, or storylines, across the whole brand.

Big problem.

I don't mind the X-Titles being kind of self-contained. Sometimes it allows a level of interaction between the titles which is really excellent.

Just as long as writer remember that it's not totally self contained. It's an invisible boundary. And what they create within it will always spill beyond that line.

[Mikl C]

I hope Beast takes Rogue's side and not that tramp's.

:( You make me sad with that sentence.

[Young Avenger]

Best is going to be a supporting character in the upcoming Wonder Man mini. Iron Man was in New X-Men #26, Spider-Man appeared in X-Factor #8, The Astonishing X-Men team had a crossover with Runaways in Free Comic Book Day, Nightcrawler was in the Spider-Man/Blackcat: The Evil That Men Do mini, Iceman and Firestar was in the Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends one-shot. Meltdown is in Nextwave. Plenty of X-Men are making appearances outside of X-books.

[The Sword Is Drawn]

Best is going to be a supporting character in the upcoming Wonder Man mini. Iron Man was in New X-Men #26, Spider-Man appeared in X-Factor #8, The Astonishing X-Men team had a crossover with Runaways in Free Comic Book Day, Nightcrawler was in the Spider-Man/Blackcat: The Evil That Men Do mini, Iceman and Firestar was in the Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends one-shot. Meltdown is in Nextwave. Plenty of X-Men are making appearances outside of X-books.

True, but I think were talking more about the level of acknowledgement here, rather than simply guest appearances. Everybody singing from the same hymn sheet rather than ad-libbing there own tune every few bars.

[Hi-Fi]

:( You make me sad with that sentence.

I took it back right after!:eek:

[DDM]

I hope Beast takes Rogue's side and not that tramp's.

Beast served with Carol Danvers in her original Ms. Marvel guise from The Avengers #183-200 & The Avengers Annual #10. Hank may be torn because he also served with Rogue from X-Men #1-present (second series). Hank would be a good mediator between Rogue & Ms. Marvel though...

[Mikl C]

I do think Rogue should fight the Avengers again and OWN them like she did before!




Just because.

Oh that would be beyond sweet. And this time she should burn their unconscious bodies! LOL.

[The Fury]

Best is going to be a supporting character in the upcoming Wonder Man mini. Iron Man was in New X-Men #26, Spider-Man appeared in X-Factor #8, The Astonishing X-Men team had a crossover with Runaways in Free Comic Book Day, Nightcrawler was in the Spider-Man/Blackcat: The Evil That Men Do mini, Iceman and Firestar was in the Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends one-shot. Meltdown is in Nextwave. Plenty of X-Men are making appearances outside of X-books.
Appearences sure but not dominant ones. Beast has to be a supporting character in Wonderman mini, it would be stupid without. Most of them are more to acknowledge they are there not to enforce the story.

[foxfire]

Since the early 90s, very deliberately and purposefully, the X-title have been bracketed in their own sub-universe of Marvel's line. They are considered to be a line within themselves, with line wide crossover opportunities - something that most of the standard Marvel Heroes books couldn't even attempt.

Does this work? Often? Yes, to a degree. Although never perfectly.

I mean storylines that caused such widespread change such as The Phalanx Covenant's swamping of entire cities in Phalanx circuitry or Bastion herding up mutants with bio-sentinels during Zero Tolerance probably should have been noticed greater by the general Marvel Universe - but by and large they didn't really encrouch on any of the set up for the other Marvel Universe titles.

So it was mostly workable...

But take Grant Morrison's run on New X-Men. That was an example of of a writer only looking at the X-Men in the context of their own 'universe' and ignoring how things could effect the Marvel Universe in general.

Morrison's choice to ramp up the steady numbers of mutant births from what had pretty much been a level amount for 30 years by a comically high 75% or so did cause problems.

Not for the X-books. Oh no. They were fine. But the Marvel Universe?

Marvel's sttrongest selling point has always been setting it's stories in front of a real world landscape. It's based to the template of the real USA, UK, Europe, Asia. Sure places like Madripoor or Wakanda aren't real, but they're in the minority.

And in a 'real' world setting the concept of the odd mutant child being born, once in a while, isn't too impossible a belief to suspend in the context. and extra few million of them, overnight, kind of is...:rolleyes:

If you went by Morrison's new numbers there were going to be several mutants pretty much in every town across the globe. And they were increasingly more weird and wacky lookin', too.

What about all those other marvel titles that didn't have anything to do with mutants? Was it relevent to feature regular mutant characters? No. But the bottom line was that this shift made it a heck of a lot harder to pretend they weren't supposed to be there, in crowd shots, or storylines, across the whole brand.

Big problem.

I don't mind the X-Titles being kind of self-contained. Sometimes it allows a level of interaction between the titles which is really excellent.

Just as long as writer remember that it's not totally self contained. It's an invisible boundary. And what they create within it will always spill beyond that line.
I totally agree. After the 16 million mutants died in E for Extinction, that was about half of the mutant population, meaning there was about 30 million in the world. That means roughly 1 in 200 people at the time was a mutant... still a small minority, but a number that would have MUCH more ramifications than were shown if that many superpowered beings were running around. Forget just the X-Men appearing in other titles, EVERY title should have had other mutants :D

[The Sword Is Drawn]

I totally agree. After the 16 million mutants died in E for Extinction, that was about half of the mutant population, meaning there was about 30 million in the world. That means roughly 1 in 200 people at the time was a mutant... still a small minority, but a number that would have MUCH more ramifications than were shown if that many superpowered beings were running around. Forget just the X-Men appearing in other titles, EVERY title should have had other mutants :D

Exactly. And that really wouldn't have worked.

I could have seen it working out easier with other comics brands. I think Dc could have pulled it off. But not Marvel.

[Mikl C]

Meh. That happens with every comic though. The Kang War pretty much decimated the world in avengers yet wasn't featured AT ALL in anoy other marvel books at the time. the hey?

[The Fury]

Meh. That happens with every comic though. The Kang War pretty much decimated the world in avengers yet wasn't featured AT ALL in anoy other marvel books at the time. the hey?
True, but that was an Avengers event, like Xorneto was for the X-men. But it's odd when Marvel do 2 crossovers in one year and bigs aspects are left out, one mini for Civil War and near total ignoring an entire Empire for Annhilation becuase of the other stories in X-men books.

[sbo]

Rogue will be squaring off with Ms. Marvel again in Ms. Marvel #9.

Beast will co-star. Giggity, giggity, giggity! :D

If Rogue doesn't get back her superstrength and invulnearbility as a result of this fight I'm going to be pissed!

I'd like to see some other villains take on the x-men. I'd like to see Doc Ock, Abomination, Absorbing Man or Titania duke it out with them.

[Hi-Fi]

I'd like to see some other villains take on the x-men. I'd like to see Doc Ock, Abomination, Absorbing Man or Titania duke it out with them.

I'm completely against that.

Let's not forget that mutants are outcasts in the Marvel society. Letting them isolated from the rest of the MU just increases the feel that they're fighting a fight of their own. I think this is the way it should always be.

[The Fury]

I'm completely against that.

Let's not forget that mutants are outcasts in the Marvel society. Letting them isolated from the rest of the MU just increases the feel that they're fighting a fight of their own. I think this is the way it should always be.
It still can be, but some interaction with villains that are not usually theirs is probably a good thing.

Okay so to me Doc Ock doens;t make sense but Abomination picking a fight with Juggs might not go amis and Absorbing Man has fought Dazzler in the past and could be used well, depwending on the situation.

Some villains have never really had interaction with the X-men, not that they'd need to maybe but Kang for one, guy from the future, always trying to get the Avegners..so apparently the X-men don't exist in his future I guess. Apocalypse has a history with him..but not the X-men.

[The Sword Is Drawn]

I'm completely against that.

Let's not forget that mutants are outcasts in the Marvel society. Letting them isolated from the rest of the MU just increases the feel that they're fighting a fight of their own. I think this is the way it should always be.

it wasn't the way they were created, formulated or even operated up until the very late 80s though. Up until the mass satelite title expansions of the 90s the X-Men were still just another band of Marvel characters, with their own unique quirk. Crossovers such as Inferno were so far from only related to the Uncanny, X-Factor and New Mutants.

Inferno featured pretty much every book from Marvel line. Spider-man. Daredevil.

Heck, Excalibur had nothing to do with New York, but the team still travelled over from Britain to be part of it!

I don't mind non-mutant characters appearing as long as it's relevent to the story - and not just, 'Oh! hey! Look who I've just bumped into!'.

You know...:rolleyes:

[The Sword Is Drawn]

It still can be, but some interaction with villains that are not usually theirs is probably a good thing.

Okay so to me Doc Ock doens;t make sense but Abomination picking a fight with Juggs might not go amis and Absorbing Man has fought Dazzler in the past and could be used well, depwending on the situation.

Some villains have never really had interaction with the X-men, not that they'd need to maybe but Kang for one, guy from the future, always trying to get the Avegners..so apparently the X-men don't exist in his future I guess. Apocalypse has a history with him..but not the X-men.

I still live for the day they finally explain how/why Kang was involved with/responsible for The Mastermind Computer taking over Otherworld in Excalibur vol2, and why Widget was with him...

[DDM]

I'm completely against that.

Let's not forget that mutants are outcasts in the Marvel society. Letting them isolated from the rest of the MU just increases the feel that they're fighting a fight of their own. I think this is the way it should always be.


Even going bacl when Storm, Colossus, Thunderbird, & Nightcrawler debuted in Giant Size X-Men #1, the X-Men have fought other villains associated with other teams such as Count Nefaria, an Avengers villain, in Uncanny X-Men #94-95 when the team's second adventure lead to the untimely demise of Thunderbird.

Kulan Gath, a Conan villain--who first appears in modern times in Marvel Team-Up #79--fought the X-Men in Uncanny X-Men #190-191. Kulan Gath has a history with Selene, the Black Queen of the Hellfire Club also revealed to show Selene is truly ancient--not hyperbole when she speaks of being old when mankind was young--to show she is not to be trifled with.

I think isolating the X-Men is a negative since they are part of the greater whole of the Marvel Universe. A reference to an important event may be needed to show the Marvel Universe is not fractured. And sometimes another team's villain can add enough spice to change the dynamic of the story such as the Mandarin, an Iron Man foe, who is used with the Hand, primarily a Daredevil foe, to subvert Psylocke into their assassin from Uncanny X-Men #256-258.

[Tommy]

And in a 'real' world setting the concept of the odd mutant child being born, once in a while, isn't too impossible a belief to suspend in the context. and extra few million of them, overnight, kind of is...:rolleyes:
That is extremely wrong.

Having about 16 mutants in the world all of whom live in the United States (the 60's) is not realistic at all.

Having 20-30 mutants (about one per continent) all of whom move to the United States (the 70's) is not realistic at all.

Having 100,000 mutants 90% of whom live either under New York or off the coast of Africa (the 80's) still is not realistic.

Now having sixteen million out of over six billion people be born mutants is VERY realistic. That would put it in the company of a very small portion of the population with genetic quirks. Only 0.2% of the population would have a mutation. It also retroactively creates a world where mutants are something that should be feared. While significantly smaller than other groups that served as scapegoats, there are still enough in existence to justify the paranoia of mutants.

Not to mention that Genosha and the Morlocks popped up into existence. You can't fault Morrison for it with out thinking that those were odious additions. Actually far worse since Morrison jumped the number of mutants world wide, while Claremont just jumped them in two very specific locations, which is FAR less realistic.

[Beast]

That is extremely wrong.

Having about 16 mutants in the world all of whom live in the United States (the 60's) is not realistic at all.

Having 20-30 mutants (about one per continent) all of whom move to the United States (the 70's) is not realistic at all.

Having 100,000 mutants 90% of whom live either under New York or off the coast of Africa (the 80's) still is not realistic.

Now having sixteen million out of over six billion people be born mutants is VERY realistic. That would put it in the company of a very small portion of the population with genetic quirks. Only 0.2% of the population would have a mutation. It also retroactively creates a world where mutants are something that should be feared. While significantly smaller than other groups that served as scapegoats, there are still enough in existence to justify the paranoia of mutants.

Not to mention that Genosha and the Morlocks popped up into existence. You can't fault Morrison for it with out thinking that those were odious additions. Actually far worse since Morrison jumped the number of mutants world wide, while Claremont just jumped them in two very specific locations, which is FAR less realistic.
1. 1960's - There was more than just 16 mutants in the world. Don't be absurd. And not all of them lived in the United States at the time either, Sunfire for instance. In fact the reason that they didn't run into more was because Roy Thomas I believe, didn't want to create new characters for his run. Just because they didn't encounter a mutant every time they were out in publid doesn't mean there were only a handful in existance.

2. 1970's/1980's - There was more than 20-30 mutants in the world, again you're being absurd. And not all of them moved to the united states. However many countries had population control methods that ensured mutants weren't born, or were destroyed/imprisoned when they reached maturity. Just look at X-Factor, there was a prison in Russia for mutants. There was also the Soviet Super Soldiers who were mutants working for the Russian Government, etc. Just because they don't show every mutant on panel, doesn't mean there's only 20-30 mutants in the world. That's sloppy ass logic.

And no, the numbers Morrison established were not realistic. Especially with Marvel time. You don't jump from Mutants being fairly rare to there being 32 million of them in roughly 12 years or so. Especially when a number of these mutants were adults, who suddenly appeared out of nowhere and make little sense. And no, having such a massive number doesn't retroactively make them something to be feared. They were feared because anyone could be a mutant, not because there were so many of them. It didn't take a scientific accident to create them, it was genetics at work. It's been explained time and again, and people still beat the numbers thing.

You can fault Morrison a great deal in the mutant numbers. The massive boost doesn't make logical sense with what we've seen over the years in the X-Books. Even with the half-assed explaination of a 'Mutant Baby Boom' most of these numbers would have already been around when the X-Men were formed.

[Tommy]

Now as far as the question goes… the X-books (in my opinion) became ghettoized sometime early into the Claremont run. Chris Claremont was notoriously territorial of the X-men.

If you read the pre-Claremont stories then you get to see the X-men having regular interaction with the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, Spider-Man and so on. However once Claremont started in the X-men became a house unto themselves. With the notable exceptions being those books Claremont also had a stake in (Ms. Marvel being the prime example). Which is rather sad since one of my favorite issues was X-men annual where they teamed up with the Fantastic Four.

After the line explosion into New Mutants and X-Factor everything just got more secluded as cross overs and team ups didn’t need to leave the house. It eventually reached its peak in the 90’s when there were many many X-books. And with the exception of Onslaught (which was intended to be an X-book only cross over anyway) the X-men we completely inward focused.

Really my favorite example of this is when Xavier was shot with future technology and they decide not to contact Reed Richards or Tony Stark.

Personally I think the X-men work best with in the confines of the Marvel Universe. People like the Fantastic Four and the Avengers prove that co-operation between humans and metahumans is possible, thus providing inspiration for the dream.

[Tommy]

1. 1960's - There was more than just 16 mutants in the world. Don't be absurd. And not all of them lived in the United States at the time either. Just because they didn't encounter a mutant every time they were out in publid doesn't mean there were only a handful in existance.
When the sentinels were rounding people up there were only about 16 of them. But what you are saying is that there were more mutants existing than where shown.

2. 1970's - There was more than 20-30 mutants in the world, again you're being absurd. And not all of them moved to the united states. However many countries had population control methods that ensured mutants weren't born, or were destroyed/imprisoned when they reached maturity.
No, I am just adding the new mutants Xavier found to the old ones the sentinels found. But I am glad you agree that there were more mutants in existence than where shown.

And no, the numbers Morrison established were not realistic. Especially with Marvel time. You don't jump from Mutants being fairly rare to there being 32 million of them in roughly 12 years or so. Especially when a number of these mutants were adults, who suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
And here you go off the rails. At first you comment was we didn't see them, but they existed, now you are claiming that we didn't see them so they don't exist. Really no one ever took the time out to count the number of mutants, except for the sentinels and they found about sixteen of them. So there is nothing to say that there were not sixteen million of them the whole time.

The Morlocks and Genosha appeared out of nowhere, I might add. And once more it is far less realistic to have two places on the planet with huge numbers than an equal distribution.

And no, having such a massive number doesn't retroactively make them something to be feared. They were feared because anyone could be a mutant, not because there were so many of them. It didn't take a scientific accident to create them, it was genetics at work.
You are wrong. Having two few mutants means that almost no one is going to ever meet a mutant. No one is going to know a mutant. Mutants would not be a fact of life for almost the entire planet. Thus there is no reason for the big "Mutants will take over" paranoia that has run through the X-books over the years. There are simply not enough of them to make them a threat in that capacity.


You can fault Morrison a great deal in the mutant numbers. The massive boost doesn't make logical sense with what we've seen over the years in the X-Books. Even with the half-assed explaination of a 'Mutant Baby Boom' most of these numbers would have already been around when the X-Men were formed.
No. It makes perfect sense with what we saw from the public through out the entire run of X-men, plus it makes more sense than the existence of Genosha and the Morlocks. And as you stated already mutants existed that were not shown.

[Beast]

Now as far as the question goes… the X-books (in my opinion) became ghettoized sometime early into the Claremont run. Chris Claremont was notoriously territorial of the X-men.

If you read the pre-Claremont stories then you get to see the X-men having regular interaction with the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, Spider-Man and so on. However once Claremont started in the X-men became a house unto themselves. With the notable exceptions being those books Claremont also had a stake in (Ms. Marvel being the prime example). Which is rather sad since one of my favorite issues was X-men annual where they teamed up with the Fantastic Four.

After the line explosion into New Mutants and X-Factor everything just got more secluded as cross overs and team ups didn’t need to leave the house. It eventually reached its peak in the 90’s when there were many many X-books. And with the exception of Onslaught (which was intended to be an X-book only cross over anyway) the X-men we completely inward focused.

Really my favorite example of this is when Xavier was shot with future technology and they decide not to contact Reed Richards or Tony Stark.

Personally I think the X-men work best with in the confines of the Marvel Universe. People like the Fantastic Four and the Avengers prove that co-operation between humans and metahumans is possible, thus providing inspiration for the dream.
You're wrong on that count. There wasn't a great deal of interaction in the original 66 issues. There was a couple issues with the Avengers, a couple with the FF, and a couple with Spider-Man. For the most part they were more sandboxed at the time. With Claremont's run there was a lot of crossing over with other books and characters. Beast who'd moved onto the Avengers showed up a few times. The Fantastic Four were part of a major crossover X-Men/Fantastic Four right after the Mutant Massacre. Not to mention the X-Men's appearances in numerous other books like Iron Fist, etc. You really need to read Uncanny X-Men #1-#66, because you're incorrect.

[Tommy]

You're wrong on that count. There wasn't a great deal of interaction in the original 66 issues. There was a couple issues with the Avengers, a couple with the FF, and a couple with Spider-Man. For the most part they were more sandboxed at the time. With Claremont's run there was a lot of crossing over with other books and characters. Beast who'd moved onto the Avengers showed up a few times. The Fantastic Four were part of a major crossover X-Men/Fantastic Four right after the Mutant Massacre. Not to mention the X-Men's appearances in numerous other books like Iron Fist, etc. You really need to read Uncanny X-Men #1-#66, because you're incorrect.
Nope. I am correct. Over the course of the 66 issues and the space before Giant Sized X-men they fought Ironman villians, Namor, Kazar, the Stranger, fought against and teamed up with the Fantastic Four, fought the Avengers, had run ins with Spider-man and so on. Magneto would fight the Avengers and the Fantastic Four.

Beast had been moved to the Avengers prior to Claremont's run, and yet was a founding memeber so bound to show up occasonaly. Iron fist was written by Claremont (which I spacifically mentioned as being an exemption). And are you refering to Days of Future Present as the Fantastic Four cross over? Becouse that would seperate a full nine annuals between it and the team up in annual five.

[X-Factor]

I'm completely against that.

Let's not forget that mutants are outcasts in the Marvel society. Letting them isolated from the rest of the MU just increases the feel that they're fighting a fight of their own. I think this is the way it should always be.

I completely agree with this statement.

I think Decimation was an attempt to make it that it will be harder for the X-Men to have their own universe, but personally I like seeing it separated. It doesn't derail from my enjoyment of Marvel Universe titles nor does it to my passion for the X-titles.

[The Sword Is Drawn]

Tommy I think you misunderstand a lot in your comments on mutant numbers here.

Nobody is saying there weren't more than 16 mutants in early Uncanny, or in early Claremont. The problem is that in order for Morrison's number's to add up, there would have to have been many, many, many times the number of known mutants than there were during the Stan Lee/Roy Thomas Era and the first decade that Claremont was on Uncanny also.

That was not possible.

If there had been cerebro would have read them. It was naive for Morrison to have introduced a boom in the number of Adult Mutants so unbelieably far beyond any recorded numbers, literally millions beyond those recorded by cerebro during the previous decades.

Any concept of a mutant 'baby boom' simply would not take effect for another few decades real time. Morrison simply fast-tracked this, without thinking of the long-term effects, or the logic of what had come before. There is no way in hell it added up.

Yes, his run was largely well-written and enjoyable, and a lot of people have chosen to see him as some kind of saviour for the X-men. But the bottom line is that as soon as Morrison f**ked off to DC his failure to think through things exactly like this have proved to cause big problems for both Marvel and the X-men. They were visible towards the end of his run, but glaringly obvious after he left.

[Kid Kamikaze10]

Hey, this is ironic. I made this exact thread plenty of monts ago. :D

But seriously, I think the X-Men being separate from the rest of the MU is a problem, much more than the Bat-titles are to the DCU. For the company, as The Fury has said, it causes a bit of inconsistances (just like the Bat-titles). But it worse on the X-Men themselves. They get put in this invisible box of story potential. They barely leave the X-titles, and for some, that's seriously not good.

This is because some characters have either used up all their potential/writers don't know what to do with them (Gambit on the first one, Jean and Havok on the second), or they just don't fit in the X-Titles anymore (once again, Jean is a great example of this).

Just look at Ultimate X-Men. It works fine even when the rest of the universe interacts with them.

[The Fury]

This is because some characters have either used up all their potential/writers don't know what to do with them (Gambit on the first one, Jean and Havok on the second), or they just don't fit in the X-Titles anymore (once again, Jean is a great example of this).
Might not be related to what you are saying here, but thinking of Jean Grey, there is one thing that would never happen nowadays when years ago it might have seemed normal.

Jean Grey's ressurection I feel would in today's books never happen outside of the X-men books, years ago Marvel were more then happy to let it happen in Fantastic Four, with the Avengers finding her. But becuase of how closed the books seem, I wouldn;t put it past Marvel to only ever have her ressurected now in an X-book.

[The Sword Is Drawn]

Might not be related to what you are saying here, but thinking of Jean Grey, there is one thing that would never happen nowadays when years ago it might have seemed normal.

Jean Grey's ressurection I feel would in today's books never happen outside of the X-men books, years ago Marvel were more then happy to let it happen in Fantastic Four, with the Avengers finding her. But becuase of how closed the books seem, I wouldn;t put it past Marvel to only ever have her ressurected now in an X-book.

I think it would perhaps be possible within New Avengers - but only if Wolverine was broken away from the X-Men proper, and paired with Jean.

[d newton]

And no, the numbers Morrison established were not realistic. Especially with Marvel time. You don't jump from Mutants being fairly rare to there being 32 million of them in roughly 12 years or so. Especially when a number of these mutants were adults, who suddenly appeared out of nowhere and make little sense. And no, having such a massive number doesn't retroactively make them something to be feared. They were feared because anyone could be a mutant, not because there were so many of them. It didn't take a scientific accident to create them, it was genetics at work. It's been explained time and again, and people still beat the numbers thing. You can fault Morrison a great deal in the mutant numbers.

Nobody is saying there weren't more than 16 mutants in early Uncanny, or in early Claremont. The problem is that in order for Morrison's number's to add up, there would have to have been many, many, many times the number of known mutants than there were during the Stan Lee/Roy Thomas Era and the first decade that Claremont was on Uncanny also.

That was not possible.

If there had been, Cerebro would have read them. It was naive for Morrison to have introduced a boom in the number of Adult Mutants so unbelieably far beyond any recorded numbers, literally millions beyond those recorded by cerebro during the previous decades.

Any concept of a mutant 'baby boom' simply would not take effect for another few decades real time. Morrison simply fast-tracked this, without thinking of the long-term effects, or the logic of what had come before. There is no way in heck it added up.
Where did the "12 years" bit come from? The X-Men have been around since 1963 which was 38 years before Morrison took over the title.

[The Sword Is Drawn]

Where did the "12 years" bit come from? The X-Men have been around since 1963 which was 38 years before Morrison took over the title.

12 years 'Marvel Time'. Marvel comics don't work in real time. The original X-Men for example have aged between 10 and 15 years since Uncanny began.

[Zombienorthstar]

And no, the numbers Morrison established were not realistic. Especially with Marvel time. You don't jump from Mutants being fairly rare to there being 32 million of them in roughly 12 years or so. Especially when a number of these mutants were adults, who suddenly appeared out of nowhere and make little sense. And no, having such a massive number doesn't retroactively make them something to be feared. They were feared because anyone could be a mutant, not because there were so many of them. It didn't take a scientific accident to create them, it was genetics at work. It's been explained time and again, and people still beat the numbers thing.
.


But we never knew how many mutants exsisted before...it was only when the X-Men truley became more of an international presence that they all came out of the woodwork.

At present the X-Men are a ridculously small a number...too small to consider mutants 'a problem'...16 million on an international scale is nothing...barely a blip on the radar.

[The Sword Is Drawn]

But we never knew how many mutants exsisted before...it was only when the X-Men truley became more of an international presence that they all came out of the woodwork.

At present the X-Men are a ridculously small a number...too small to consider mutants 'a problem'...16 million on an international scale is nothing...barely a blip on the radar.

There were refrences across the years to the number of mutants Cerebro could see. They were never referred to in numbers THIS high.

They are a 'problem' because nobody knew what caused mutants. Kids were just born wth the powers, that their parents did not have. Any parent could give birth to a mutant. It was something to genuinely fear.

And all it would take was a few powerful mutants to bring about the destruction of a nation.

That was threat enough.

Morrison's magical mountain sized spike in numbers simply clashed with all that had come before, both in inferrence, direct numbers, and long term trends from 30 years of writing.

[Beast]

12 years 'Marvel Time'. Marvel comics don't work in real time. The original X-Men for example have aged between 10 and 15 years since Uncanny began.
Exactly. We finally got a firm number in The Thing #8, the Fantastic Four's flight happened 13 years ago. So the X-Men have now been around roughly the same ammount of time. So the idea of 32 million mutants suddenly popping up in such a short time frame makes no sense.

[Zombienorthstar]

Exactly. We finally got a firm number in The Thing #8, the Fantastic Four's flight happened 13 years ago. So the X-Men have now been around roughly the same ammount of time. So the idea of 32 million mutants suddenly popping up in such a short time frame makes no sense.


I know Brubaker said the downfall of D'Ken happened ten years ago.

[Beast]

I know Brubaker said the downfall of D'Ken happened ten years ago.
That's fairly consistant then. Because we've heard the originals were together around 3 years.

[Zombienorthstar]

That's fairly consistant then. Because we've heard the originals were together around 3 years.


We know Marvel time has sped up recently...with Nunzio and Christinas students being at the school for about eighteen months...as they has two field days...which was an annual event.

[DDM]

Now as far as the question goes… the X-books (in my opinion) became ghettoized sometime early into the Claremont run. Chris Claremont was notoriously territorial of the X-men.

If you read the pre-Claremont stories then you get to see the X-men having regular interaction with the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, Spider-Man and so on. However once Claremont started in the X-men became a house unto themselves. With the notable exceptions being those books Claremont also had a stake in (Ms. Marvel being the prime example). Which is rather sad since one of my favorite issues was X-men annual where they teamed up with the Fantastic Four.

Why did Spider-Man make a cameo in Uncanny X-Men #123?. Jean Grey's roommate, Misty Knight, appears throughout early Uncanny X-Men #105, 118-119 helping the X-Men & Sunfire defeat Moses Magnum, a Power Man villain. The X-Men also guest starred in Power Man & Iron Fist #56-57 to fight the Living Monolith inbetween Uncanny X-Men #121-122. Jo Duffy wrote Power Man & Iron Fist--not Claremont.

The Morlocks were introduced to show not all mutants wanted to be pretty super-heroes; they simply wanted to be left alone from the normal humans.

Chris Claremont wrote Ms. Marvel & had a stake in the character development of Carol Danvers. He wisely intergrated her in X-Men & turned her into Binary. He also further developed Rogue because other writers were not writing her correctly (other writers believed Rogue to be a 40 year old woman when she is a 17 year old teenager).

After the line explosion into New Mutants and X-Factor everything just got more secluded as cross overs and team ups didn’t need to leave the house. It eventually reached its peak in the 90’s when there were many many X-books. And with the exception of Onslaught (which was intended to be an X-book only cross over anyway) the X-men we completely inward focused.

Yet X-Factor had numerous guest appearances in Iron Man Annual #8 & Fantastic Four. During the "Fall of the Mutants" & "Inferno," the Fantastic Four & The Avengers played roles dealing with the demons from Limbo in NYC. Famine tried to take out American's Bredbasket in Captain America. Pestilence was killed in Power Pack #35 (simultanously shown in X-Factor #25). Excalibur guest starred in Thor. How is these examples of isolation?

[Beast]

Thank you DDM. I'll echo what he said. ;)

[foxfire]

16 million on an international scale is nothing...barely a blip on the radar.
Seriously? :confused: 32 million potentially superpowered beings isn't a problem? OK, probably 31 million of them were mutants because they had 12 fingers, or and two heads, or something. But even discounting them, we have thousands or a million or two mutants with all sorts of powers... weather manipulators, reality alterers (although those are very rare), telepaths and telekinetics, guys walking around capable of starting fires or ice flows, or capable of lifting 100 tons or running 500 miles per hour or shooting ray beams from their eyes or hands or whatever. That's WAAAAY too many beings to just randomly pop up out of nowhere and not have a major international affect. The FF and Avengers would never have time for their own stories because they would always be too busy chasing after the thousands and thousands of stray mutants running around. That's why the total mutant population never should have got above say a million or something... sure that might cut down on the "mutant culture" aspect that Morrison and others have written about, but it makes the impact of mutants more realistic.

[X-Factor]

Real time, math, and the X-Men do not mix.

[The Sword Is Drawn]

Real time, math, and the X-Men do not mix.

Not properly, no. But there is an understood and accepted rule of thumb for this, which the majority of editors and writers have adhered to in order to keep things running consistently.

Morrison was not one of them.

[d newton]

12 years 'Marvel Time'. Marvel comics don't work in real time. The original X-Men for example have aged between 10 and 15 years since Uncanny began.
So you're saying 1 writer can't bring in thousands of mutants for a three issue story arc for other writers to build on 12 years after the original team first showed up in the comics?

[Novaya Havoc]

If Rogue doesn't get back her superstrength and invulnearbility as a result of this fight I'm going to be pissed!

I'd like to see some other villains take on the x-men. I'd like to see Doc Ock, Abomination, Absorbing Man or Titania duke it out with them.

Dazzler duked it out with 3/4ths of them. Why? Because she's pimptacular.

Anyway...

I always thought the XU WAS separated from the greater MU. To me, they have been for just about forever, aside from requisite, bi-annual MU crossover event.

Maybe I just missed something.

[Beast]

So you're saying 1 writer can't bring in thousands of mutants for a three issue story arc for other writers to build on 12 years after the original team first showed up in the comics?
There were already thousands. 32 million, no.

[Nunzio DeFilippis]

We know Marvel time has sped up recently...with Nunzio and Christinas students being at the school for about eighteen months...as they has two field days...which was an annual event.

Field days were not annual events. They were regular events, with the scores tallied for a year end trophy presentation.

From Our Issue 1 (of Academy X) to Issue 15 was one school year, with the first arc starting the year, and Issue 15 having the prizegiving (with the Field Day trophy going to the Hellions) - the Hellions mini and the Yearbook came right after the prizegiving, still part of that school year. Issues 16-19 were House of M, occuring around the same time, then being reset by Wanda and droppign events back around where they left off in Yearbook & Hellions.

So, as we wrote it, from NXM:AX 1-19 (plus the Yearbook) covers 1 school year.

[The Sword Is Drawn]

Well, there you go. Right from the horse's mouth. So I guess that clears up that particular point.

Not that I'm accusing Mr DeFilippis of being a horse, you understand. :D

That does actually make a lot of sense.