How long before DC reverses Morrisson's work?

[Dark Master]

Let's face it, the reaction to Final Crisis and Batman R.I.P has not been resoundingly positive.

It's seems like DC isn't even that supportive of him since most of the comics they are putting out seem to contradict his storylines.

Marvel it seems has done allot to reverse what he did with X-Men.

For me, he's always been more of a Dark Horse or Vertigo type writer.

I know the stuff he did early on in the JLA comic was well done and very well received.

I'm just wondering how long before DC just reverses the whole thing.

[Pixie_Solanas]

Let's face it, the reaction to Final Crisis and Batman R.I.P has not been resoundingly positive.

.

What major comic event has ever been met with resoundingly positive reaction?

[Ilash]

More to the point, while there has been some negative reaction to these two storylines, there has also been a large amount of overwhelmingly positive review as well. He's a polarizing writer but he has more than enough supporters for both Batman: RIP and Final Crisis to be really good sellers. Personally, I've been loving both and I know I'm not alone in this.

[1WEBHEAD]

What major comic event has ever been met with resoundingly positive reaction?

The Sinestro Corps War and Annihilation.

[Kelson]

Let's face it, the reaction to Final Crisis and Batman R.I.P has not been resoundingly positive.
...
I'm just wondering how long before DC just reverses the whole thing.

Well, first we have to see how these stories end. I mean, we don't even know for sure what state the DCU will be in after Final Crisis, and we're still speculating as to what "R.I.P." stands for.

[HeckBoy]

The Sinestro Corps War and Annihilation.Weird, who'd a thought that the cosmic stuff would be the best reviewed? It always seems like space stuff, although not hated, is always kinda ignored because it's too "far away" from the main setting of the Earth.

[Tanjint]

New X-Men over-all made money and had fans but it still set up a status quo that wasn't easy for Marvel to sit with/sicc their writers on and they reversed it all except the Jean/Emma/Cyclops stuff.

That said, it's less about how well-received the work is and more about how easy it is to work with the status quo Morrison is setting up.

That said, I think having Johns around helps Morrison's new wave so to speak be accessible....along with bringing 60's characters like the New Gods to the forefront, we got Johns bringing in barry and Hal.


That said, I don't think the status quo Morrison is setting up is as hard to work with as Marvel perceived the post-Morrison X-Men status quo to be.


also, according to Quesada, Morrison was expected to 'clean up his mess' so to speak and stay at Marvel a while and tinker with the status quo he had created a bit more but Morrison unexpectedly announced his return to DC at a con that surprised Quesada.

That said, say if Morrison replaced Bruce Wayne with Tim Drake or Grayson or whoever and then peaced the fuck out and left the company then obviously DC would have to reverse what he's set up.


But DC seems to be letting him do with Batman what Marvel is letting Brubaker do with Cap...telling his whole damn saga.

Give the character the ultimate send off. Replace them with a logical successor. bring them back by (in cap's case issue 50, in bat's case issue 700) the big anniversary ish in a blaze of glory.

Morrison will 'clean up his mess' before he leaves DC I think...but if he doesn't...expect everything to be reversed by the next Batman issue numbered a number divisible by 25.

-T

[Scrubz]

Morrison has stated in many interviews that his tenure on Batman indefinite. That said I think he will be around for awhile. Didio already mentioned in an interview that after Gaiman's two issue story in January, Morrison is coming back strong. This bodes well for fans of his Batman run. Those who expect simple stories from Batman will have to wait awhile. I personally hopes he stays on Batman at least 5 more years.

[brundlefly]

The Sinestro Corps War and Annihilation.

True, but just like with RIP and FC, even those events had their vocal detractors, as well. For instance, I remember the "Buy Pile" guy from this very site resoundingly slamming and nitpicking the Sinestro Corps War every month while it was going on.

(Of course, he was simultaneously praising the likes of Punisher War Journal and Salvation Run, so take from that what you will. :biggrin: )

[Tanjint]

Morrison has stated in many interviews that his tenure on Batman indefinite. That said I think he will be around for awhile. Didio already mentioned in an interview that after Gaiman's two issue story in January, Morrison is coming back strong. This bodes well for fans of his Batman run. Those who expect simple stories from Batman will have to wait awhile. I personally hopes he stays on Batman at least 5 more years.

agreed

-T

[carabas]

Weird, who'd a thought that the cosmic stuff would be the best reviewed? It always seems like space stuff, although not hated, is always kinda ignored because it's too "far away" from the main setting of the Earth.They won by default because the poor quality of other events running at the same time.

[carabas]

New X-Men over-all made money and had fans but it still set up a status quo that wasn't easy for Marvel to sit with/sicc their writers on and they reversed it all except the Jean/Emma/Cyclops stuff.

That said, it's less about how well-received the work is and more about how easy it is to work with the status quo Morrison is setting up.I think that part of at least the X-Men backpedalling, that just before Morrison left Marvel, publisher Bill Jemas was promoted away and replaced by Dan Buckley, who made Marvel into a lot more conservative company.

[Will.S]

I think DC is very much backing Morrison with Final Crisis and Batman RIP despite whatever negative opinion may be towards them because for one they aren't even close to being finished yet and two we don't know what will be the exact consequences of both events.

DC just has to worry about writers sabotaging their overall plans for certain characters or stories such as with Countdown and the various titles tied with those. To simply reverse Morrison's work right after it's done would be really petty and outright disastrous since that would make it seem as if they had no confidence in Morrison at all or have no real desire to take any risks whatsoever which both Morrison and Johns are doing.

[AbsurdistEmergence]

It seems that for the last few years, all the major creative changes or plots have been directed from Didio, Johns, Morrison, Rucka, etc. So I doubt they would reverse anything that happens because of Final Crisis or RIP, since they have probably been planning the future after both these major events and approve of them.

[Shypsi-Prime]

I have no problem with Batman R.I.P. but Final Crisis is a trainwreck. If you aren't a DC expert, I can't see you understanding all that is happening in FC.

[Kelson]

I have no problem with Batman R.I.P. but Final Crisis is a trainwreck. If you aren't a DC expert, I can't see you understanding all that is happening in FC.

Would you consider yourself a DC Expert, a DC newbie, or somewhere in between? Because I've seen several posts by people who have very little familiarity with DC, and they're following it fine.

I've come up with a theory (http://speedforce.org/2008/08/final-crisis-theory/) that in actuality, the more you know about DC going into Final Crisis, the harder it is to understand.

[IamtheRock3]

I doubt they reverse it

Cause I doubt the change only morrison idea. I probaly Dido and Geof as well

Dont think they would give morrison that much power.

[Bamf25]

But this is supposed to be FINAL CRISIS, they would never reverse that!! lol

[CBikle]

As long as Didio is running DC, FC will stay and I think he'll be around for awhile.

However, I suspect that there's enough anti-Morrisson sentiment with DC's old guard of writers and editors, that I wouldn't be surprised if elements of FC were ignored/jettisoned when/if Didio ever gets fired/promoted out of DC comics.

[Spiffy]

While we don't know for sure where Final Crisis will end, there certainly have been middlepoints that on their own insert quite controvertial componants into character's histories.

It could be argued that Superman, for example, chose Lois over the world. While we don't know yet what he's doing off world, at the very least we know he chose to sit in a hospital to help keep her alive while the world was falling to pieces. That mere "part" is interesting, true, but some might see it as a tarnishing of his legacy. And if it turns out that he accepted some kind of deal to save Lois, that doesn't involve him having a chance to come back and "fix" things, that dent will get even larger.

Now on to Batman. In FC only, not RIP for the sake of this. In FC what do we see of him so far? Basically that's he's easily been neutered. Sucker punched, metaphorically if not in actuality. This isn't the same kind of damage as Superman's legacy POTENTIALLY is taking, but a helpless Batman is certainly a weird image to leave persisting after a major event--assuming Batman's status quo doesn't change significantly.

Wonder Woman is easy. She's being made into her exact opposite, and presumably left with a legacy of murder and viscous brutality. The fact that it won't actually be her will driving things is a side matter--its the image we are left with that matters more.

Will this all necessitate a reboot? Possibly. But I admit its not sure thing. Because another way to deal with it would just be to ignore it. Have some lovely wrap up scene where Wonder Woman, as one example, is restored, and quite troubled, but then never mention it again in any other DC comic (or maybe just not the ones written by people other than Grant Morrison).

It would be the DC equivalent of a "pocket veto". Don't actually vote the thing down, just put it aside in hopes people will forget about it.

Who knows though?

[Babylon23]

I doubt Morrison's work will be reversed anytime soon. Unlike X-Men, he seems to be working very closely with Johns, Didio and others to develop an overall direction for the DCU. Plus he has the full backing of Didio.

Also, despite internet detractors, Final Crisis is still the top selling book for DC, with well over 100,000 copies per issue. Just because it's not selling as well as Secret Invasion, doesn't mean it isn't successful.

[Raker616]

Morrison isn't even selling as well as Infinite Crisis did, people can come up with all the excuses in the world but FC has been a flop and by this time next year it will be all reversed and forgotten.

[Will.S]

Morrison isn't even selling as well as Infinite Crisis did, people can come up with all the excuses in the world but FC has been a flop and by this time next year it will be all reversed and forgotten.FC is certainly not a flop from a sales standpoint since it's selling 100k+ and I doubt that will be reversed and forgotten. I mean for what reason really?

[jackdaw53]

Surely Grant can't be writing stuff that needs reversing? Surely there's precious few people can understand anything he writes. (I gave up reading any Grant M while ago. I don't which I was more afraid of... ploughing thru another indecipherable epic, or actually understanding some of it. After all if you understand it... it most likely means you're in trouble.)

[carabas]

I've come up with a theory (http://speedforce.org/2008/08/final-crisis-theory/) that in actuality, the more you know about DC going into Final Crisis, the harder it is to understand.I think it is a disease of the mind that plagues only a certain kind of comics fan. at least I have never heard about James Bond fans complaining they didn't get a film because they didn't know how this M person got her job, o which university Q attended.

Morrison isn't even selling as well as Infinite Crisis did, people can come up with all the excuses in the world but FC has been a flop and by this time next year it will be all reversed and forgotten.To some extent, I think what we're seeing is (hopefully) people finally getting sick and tired of evenst. Secret Invasion isn't performing as well as Civil War either.

Of course, having a truely awful series called Countdown To final Crisis that did not actually have much or anything to do with Final Crisis probably didn't help sales.

[Dard]

I've only seen two Final Crisis issues.
Personally I don't see why I should buy another issue. I guess I'm one of those who don't get it and it doesn't seem to be good enough for me to try to fully understand what this is all about or should be all about.

But so far I haven't seen anything that suggests to me that it would be reversed by DC. "Death of the New Gods", yes, but "Final Crisis"? No.
I was disappointed when Morrison's run at X-Men was mostly undone later, because the X-Men under Morrison was the last time I actually cared for any X-books. But at least I could understand why Marvel dropped so much of it.
With Final Crisis I couldn't. This isn't anything DC hasn't done plenty of yet. Okay, maybe they will reverse some of it. They did plenty of reversing in the past. But I don't think it would be because of Morrison and certainly not soon.

[Shypsi-Prime]

Would you consider yourself a DC Expert, a DC newbie, or somewhere in between? Because I've seen several posts by people who have very little familiarity with DC, and they're following it fine.

I've come up with a theory (http://speedforce.org/2008/08/final-crisis-theory/) that in actuality, the more you know about DC going into Final Crisis, the harder it is to understand.

Interesting. Well, I think I am either a newbie or in between. I follow Batman and Green Lantern. And Justice League (Unlimited) got me interested in the DC universe as a whole.

Maybe things will be tied together but I know nothing of Monitors, only some of multiple people from multiple earths (i.e.Superman-Prime), how the God-bullet works (just slightly confused) and quite a few of these characters I know nothing about.

Like I have said, I am trying to give FC and DC as a whole a chance.

EDIT: I just went to your website and read your theory.

I think I am this:
Medium DC knowledge: Gaps in knowledge are infuriating, feels the book is impenetrable.

[Superboy-Prime]

I've been reading Comics since 2004 and I in NO way find FC confusing, I'm just going along with the flow,The Book has been great so far.

The only reason the BOOk has gotten such a negative backslash was because of Countdown. DC's biggest mistake to date.


I dropped Countdown pretty damn early like 44 and I haven't even bothered with DOTNG.
and I still think FC kicks ass.

[NeoStar9X]

I have no problem with Batman R.I.P. but Final Crisis is a trainwreck. If you aren't a DC expert, I can't see you understanding all that is happening in FC.

That's not true at all. I'm far from a DC expert but when looking at Final Crisis by itself (haven't gotten #3 yet) I haven't had any trouble at all understanding what is taking place. Some characters are unknown but they are background ones. I think at times some people are looking for more connections, hidden items, instead of just taking Final Crisis by itself. Sure there is more history to the characters and knowing it might make things even better but I think that's a bonus and not a requirement to know and understand what is taking place at the moment.

Then again I didn't read Countdown or New Gods so perhaps that's why things aren't confusing for me.

[Superboy-Prime]

That's not true at all. I'm far from a DC expert but when looking at Final Crisis by itself (haven't gotten #3 yet) I haven't had any trouble at all understanding what is taking place. Some characters are unknown but they are background ones. I think at times some people are looking for more connections, hidden items, instead of just taking Final Crisis by itself. Sure there is more history to the characters and knowing it might make things even better but I think that's a bonus and not a requirement to know and understand what is taking place at the moment.

Then again I didn't read Countdown or New Gods so perhaps that's why things aren't confusing for me.


Even if you did read countdown and DOTNG, you can easily ignore them, since its pretty much a known fact you don't need them.


I agree that the book does have some unknown characters, the russian/german chick in issue 3. but thats it so far.

I honestly think people are complaing just for the sake of complaining and trolling.

IF you haven't been around DC for the past 4 years and just decided to jump on the final Crisis bandwagon, then you can expect to be confused and get lost to a small degree.

But even then Final Crisis by large doesn't need a direct lead in(unlike Secret Invasion). Everything that happened in the first issue was supposed to be a huge wtf surprise. unfortunately, DC completely f'ed it up and introduced that backlash to Final Crisis.

marketing for the event could've been better to. releasing some 7 soldiers tbp's would've helped.

I would honestly want an apology from Didio and Levitz.

[Darrell D.]

As long as Didio is running DC, FC will stay and I think he'll be around for awhile.

However, I suspect that there's enough anti-Morrisson sentiment with DC's old guard of writers and editors, that I wouldn't be surprised if elements of FC were ignored/jettisoned when/if Didio ever gets fired/promoted out of DC comics.

'Anti-Morrison sentiment?' I have not heard of this. Do you have some juicy rumors to share?

[Darrell D.]

Morrison isn't even selling as well as Infinite Crisis did, people can come up with all the excuses in the world but FC has been a flop and by this time next year it will be all reversed and forgotten.

Infinite Crisis was unreadable and had some ugly ass art (save for the Perez pages). But, it sold, so I guess it has that going for it.
Final Crisis is 3 issues in, and so far reads like a story and not an event. Which is good.

[OverMaster]

The Sinestro Corps War and Annihilation.

I guess you can count Batman: No Man's Land as well.

[Ghost Shark]

For someone who lost all interest in mutants around 1990, could someone please fill me in on Morrison's changes to X-MEN that were later reversed?

[K-DoG7p7]

Q: How long before DC reverses Morrisson's work?

A: I have a feeling he is going to do it himself.. at the end of the event..
such a thing is to big to keep out of the monthlies.. soo.. timetravel to reverse it all so it actually never happened...

[NeoStar9X]

Q: How long before DC reverses Morrisson's work?

A: I have a feeling he is going to do it himself.. at the end of the event..
such a thing is to big to keep out of the monthlies.. soo.. timetravel to reverse it all so it actually never happened...

Possible that once arcs are over things will be given a sort of Post-Final Crisis label and things just pick up from there. That's what was seemingly done in the Wildstorm universe where that Earth was just left in ruins. Gen13 and Stormwatch kept their number but new issues coming out are post the Numbers of the Beast event come with a World's End subtitle I think.

Keeping this out of the monthly titles, to let them continue what they are doing might be good. However timing is an issue. I hope Final Crisis ends at the same time the current arcs in other titles end. There doesn't seem to be a lot of talk about what is taking place around that time (save for Green Lantern but that's taking place in space and away from Earth so there is a bit more freedom there. The Superman event could very well be pre-Final Crisis too.).

[The Xenos]

How long until DC undoes what Morrison's been doing?

Gee. I think they've already been doing it for a while. They killed Orion twice in two different books before Morrison revealed that was the shocking opening of Final Crisis. Plus I have no idea how Batman RIP blends in with most of the other books. Hell, even the ones with RIP on the cover don't seem to be in the same universe.

[Tanjint]

'Anti-Morrison sentiment?' I have not heard of this. Do you have some juicy rumors to share?

I have sort of an example from the DC Nation panel at SDCC

Keith Giffen's Ambush Bug...or frankly anything that Keith Giffen writes these days, doesn't exactly sell like gangbusters despite him being a seasoned, funny, intelligent writer.

Throughout the panel he and DiDio kept trying to plug Ambush Bug. I remember at one point, someone asked JM Straczynski (a writer new to DC) if he had been reading Ambush Bug and he pretty much brushed it off, short of saying no, Almost immediately afterwards JMS lit up and said "Hey I was telling (forgot the name of the creator he mentioned here) the other day 'wouldn't it be cool if Grant Morrison wrote Ambush Bug?' how awesome would THAT be?"

and some people laughed cause it WOULD be insane, and the other half of us in the room were kinda not-laughing cause it felt kind of mean cause Giffen who IS writing Ambush Bug was RIGHT THERE. It felt kind of like a slight to him, like "whoah wouldn't it be awesome if some OTHER guy was writing Keith;s character? Then we'd buy and like it!"

and Giffen himself had a kind of awed look on his face like "HellO? I AM writing this book? That's not cool?"

Morrison very much takes from the old generation of writers (Kirby and Lee's galactic and grounded wealth of ideas clearly influences Morrison to this day) and he acknowledges it yet he is often heralded as this wealth of new craziness and brilliance. I can see how older DC writers can kind of feel glossed over in the shadow of this hippie guru comics genius when they've been putting in work for years.

To say nothing of how he likes to take the status quo and stuff it in a blender which can be interpreted as distancing the character from their original spirit and intent.

Long story short, it's easy to see how older-tier writers would like to reverse his work after he leaves for practical and personal reasons.


as for how Morrison changed x-men and how Marvel retconned it...He simply expanded upon the x-universe and Marvel created circumstances that promptly ignored all the new ground he broke:

1.Morrison establishes that current mutant reproductive rates would have mutants be the majority species on eath in like 16-32 years or something like that. He then proceeded to kill 16 million of them, but still reproductive rates were huge.


Marvel, after he left: had m-day leaving only a few hundred mutants with their powers and only one mutant(the baby in cable) born since.

2. Morrison established a whole mutant counterculture of bands, artists, art sects etc. also, similar to how big cities have china-towns, little italy etc. Morrison established a mutant-town in Marvel U's NYC.

Marvel: Only Peter David and to a lesser extent with Joss Whedon (and Maybe fraction/bru will play with this in san francisco) have really explored the mutant-town aspects of what Morrison established, largely because M-day wiped so many mutants out of existence.

3.Morrison had Magneto, grief-stricken and mentally torn apart by the genocide on Genosha, masquerade as a peaceful living star of a mutant known as Xorn for most of his run before being revealed as Magneto on the power-enhancing drug known as 'kick'. He kills Jean Grey with a lethal static shock and proceeds to be decapitated by wolverine.

Marvel: Jean is still dead (people are still turned on by the idea of Cyke/Emma though it's now boring the crap out of me "I'm a brilliant British bitch and I'm controlling your leader through sexual and possibly mental means...don't you hate and love me at the same time?" OKAY, we GET it. You kick ass and you wear nothing. I got it back in '82, can we move on? But that's just me...) though Magneto has been revived through relatively unexplained means. It's also been implied that the Magneto we saw in Morrison's run was NOT Magneto, that Xorn was a mutant he stole the identity of and there was a twin of him that was used for later stories and all kinds of other crap.

4. Morrison established a philosophical schism amongst mutants (those who believed in xavier/king jr ideals, those who believed in Magneto/malcolm x's) and a generational gap (young versus old) that affects people's prescriptions to those ideas and how responsible they want to be with their powers etc.. He also created a wealth of new cool characters like Beak, Angel(chick with moth wings) and Quentin Quire.

Marvel: some writers have toyed with this since, but in a very typical super-hero/villain way and not in the culturally sensitive and realistic way that Morrison was toying with it as. The cool weird moder realistically angsty characters Morrison came up with have been either sidelined into marginal claremont books like excalibur or new warriors and replaced with Whedonesque typical young mutant girl buffy-speaker asian kitty pryde knock-offs like armor and blindfold.

so some things were retconned, some things were just brushed aside, some things were ignored....the mutant books are good again but i can't help but wonder how cool it would have been to continue to explore the philosophical generational differences, the growing mutant population, mutant-town, mutant counterculture, morrison's characters etc.

so he left a workable interesting status quo....but it wasn't commercial, homogenized and close to the classic status quo enough for marvel to let it develop naturally, instead choosing a huge magic scarlet witch blanket solution.

I can see DC doing something similar...Morrison will leave a workable interesting status quo but it still won't be similar enough to the movies, or classic status quo for DC to let it develop.

-T

[Ghost Shark]

Thanks for that!

Sounds like Morrison's mutant world was more interesting than what it currently is. I can see the appeal of fewer mutants but, like Brand New Day, the execution was rather poor.

[Tanjint]

House of M was okay or even good imo especially when read in one sitting, but what Morrison was doing was just better.

-T

[Darrell D.]

I have sort of an example from the DC Nation panel at SDCC

Keith Giffen's Ambush Bug...or frankly anything that Keith Giffen writes these days, doesn't exactly sell like gangbusters despite him being a seasoned, funny, intelligent writer.

Throughout the panel he and DiDio kept trying to plug Ambush Bug. I remember at one point, someone asked JM Straczynski (a writer new to DC) if he had been reading Ambush Bug and he pretty much brushed it off, short of saying no, Almost immediately afterwards JMS lit up and said "Hey I was telling (forgot the name of the creator he mentioned here) the other day 'wouldn't it be cool if Grant Morrison wrote Ambush Bug?' how awesome would THAT be?"

and some people laughed cause it WOULD be insane, and the other half of us in the room were kinda not-laughing cause it felt kind of mean cause Giffen who IS writing Ambush Bug was RIGHT THERE. It felt kind of like a slight to him, like "whoah wouldn't it be awesome if some OTHER guy was writing Keith;s character? Then we'd buy and like it!"

and Giffen himself had a kind of awed look on his face like "HellO? I AM writing this book? That's not cool?"

Morrison very much takes from the old generation of writers (Kirby and Lee's galactic and grounded wealth of ideas clearly influences Morrison to this day) and he acknowledges it yet he is often heralded as this wealth of new craziness and brilliance. I can see how older DC writers can kind of feel glossed over in the shadow of this hippie guru comics genius when they've been putting in work for years.

To say nothing of how he likes to take the status quo and stuff it in a blender which can be interpreted as distancing the character from their original spirit and intent.

Long story short, it's easy to see how older-tier writers would like to reverse his work after he leaves for practical and personal reasons.


as for how Morrison changed x-men and how Marvel retconned it...He simply expanded upon the x-universe and Marvel created circumstances that promptly ignored all the new ground he broke:

1.Morrison establishes that current mutant reproductive rates would have mutants be the majority species on eath in like 16-32 years or something like that. He then proceeded to kill 16 million of them, but still reproductive rates were huge.


Marvel, after he left: had m-day leaving only a few hundred mutants with their powers and only one mutant(the baby in cable) born since.

2. Morrison established a whole mutant counterculture of bands, artists, art sects etc. also, similar to how big cities have china-towns, little italy etc. Morrison established a mutant-town in Marvel U's NYC.

Marvel: Only Peter David and to a lesser extent with Joss Whedon (and Maybe fraction/bru will play with this in san francisco) have really explored the mutant-town aspects of what Morrison established, largely because M-day wiped so many mutants out of existence.

3.Morrison had Magneto, grief-stricken and mentally torn apart by the genocide on Genosha, masquerade as a peaceful living star of a mutant known as Xorn for most of his run before being revealed as Magneto on the power-enhancing drug known as 'kick'. He kills Jean Grey with a lethal static shock and proceeds to be decapitated by wolverine.

Marvel: Jean is still dead (people are still turned on by the idea of Cyke/Emma though it's now boring the crap out of me "I'm a brilliant British bitch and I'm controlling your leader through sexual and possibly mental means...don't you hate and love me at the same time?" OKAY, we GET it. You kick ass and you wear nothing. I got it back in '82, can we move on? But that's just me...) though Magneto has been revived through relatively unexplained means. It's also been implied that the Magneto we saw in Morrison's run was NOT Magneto, that Xorn was a mutant he stole the identity of and there was a twin of him that was used for later stories and all kinds of other crap.

4. Morrison established a philosophical schism amongst mutants (those who believed in xavier/king jr ideals, those who believed in Magneto/malcolm x's) and a generational gap (young versus old) that affects people's prescriptions to those ideas and how responsible they want to be with their powers etc.. He also created a wealth of new cool characters like Beak, Angel(chick with moth wings) and Quentin Quire.

Marvel: some writers have toyed with this since, but in a very typical super-hero/villain way and not in the culturally sensitive and realistic way that Morrison was toying with it as. The cool weird moder realistically angsty characters Morrison came up with have been either sidelined into marginal claremont books like excalibur or new warriors and replaced with Whedonesque typical young mutant girl buffy-speaker asian kitty pryde knock-offs like armor and blindfold.

so some things were retconned, some things were just brushed aside, some things were ignored....the mutant books are good again but i can't help but wonder how cool it would have been to continue to explore the philosophical generational differences, the growing mutant population, mutant-town, mutant counterculture, morrison's characters etc.

so he left a workable interesting status quo....but it wasn't commercial, homogenized and close to the classic status quo enough for marvel to let it develop naturally, instead choosing a huge magic scarlet witch blanket solution.

I can see DC doing something similar...Morrison will leave a workable interesting status quo but it still won't be similar enough to the movies, or classic status quo for DC to let it develop.

-T

Interesting story from SDCC, thanks for that.
As for DC reversing what Morrison is doing, ala what Marvel did to Morrison..I just don't see it. Unless Morrison turns Batman gay or has Superman knock up Wonder Woman, I don't see DC destroying the good will they have with him.
I will say that when Morrison starting writing X-men , it was the first time I picked up that title in years. Years. He did so many good things with that book (the mutant culture aspect was something that the other writers seemed to just ignore) and was at the same time polarizing to the hardcore fans. 'No costumes, wahh!' 'Magneto is a good guy, not evil!' I was reading an old issue of Avengers that had Magneto in it..and he was a screaming loony. Crazy terrorist, sorry.

[pariah-1972]

I wouldn't honestly be surprised to see DC "reverse" or ignore his work since it doesn't seem like there is a whole lot of writers who can follow thru on what he has established.

I've also seen him not "tow the company" line when it has come to these two recent big events by saying in his interviews that some of the spin-offs or cross-overs to his stories are only for marketing purposes and don't actually tie in directly to his work.

I also think that he might be getting tired of playing in other peoples sandboxes especially when they don't respect his ideals enough to follow thru with them.
and he might go back to his more critically acclaimed independant type stuff where he is allowed to throw as much crazy ideals and stories around as possible and everyone eats it up.

[echopryme]

Personally, I have to admit that I'm ready for them to go.


I am extremely concerned lately with DC's direction and what that means for it's future as a company. It seems to me that EVERY writer at DC is trying it's best to re-visit the Silver Age. I mean EVERY writer. Even Winick is doing it to an extent. This is great if you liked the Silver Age, but I believe that its actually a big problem in disguise. Why? Because the Silver Age was a time when very few people took comics seriously. There are some great characters from that time, but also, there are some that just cannot be discussed seriously, even by Morrison and Johns. This is no way to get younger readers, and if companies don't start doing that, then there are problems coming.

We need someone to seriously look at Legends a little more, and Super Friends a little less.

[CBikle]

'Anti-Morrison sentiment?' I have not heard of this. Do you have some juicy rumors to share?

Nah, nothing concrete. It's really just a "vibe" I've gotten from comments that many (DC) writers and editors have made over time on message boards or in columns/interviews.

And that semi-infamous photo that showed Final Crisis #1 being used as a coaster by DC staffers at a bar.

[Raker616]

We need someone to seriously look at Legends a little more, and Super Friends a little less.

Read Justice and it shows that you can have both a serious comic and have the classic SA feel at the same time.

[pariah-1972]

Personally, I have to admit that I'm ready for them to go.


I am extremely concerned lately with DC's direction and what that means for it's future as a company. It seems to me that EVERY writer at DC is trying it's best to re-visit the Silver Age. I mean EVERY writer. Even Winick is doing it to an extent. This is great if you liked the Silver Age, but I believe that its actually a big problem in disguise. Why? Because the Silver Age was a time when very few people took comics seriously. There are some great characters from that time, but also, there are some that just cannot be discussed seriously, even by Morrison and Johns. This is no way to get younger readers, and if companies don't start doing that, then there are problems coming.

We need someone to seriously look at Legends a little more, and Super Friends a little less.It's probably more to do with nostalgia more than anything else really, i personally grew up with comics in 70's and 80's and that is more my tastes and influences music and comic book wise.

But there wasn't a whole lot of timeless comics written back then cause it wasn't taken seriously as an art form at all back then cept possibly Spider-man.

[Bruce Wayne Jr.]

Infinite Crisis was unreadable and had some ugly ass art (save for the Perez pages). But, it sold, so I guess it has that going for it.
Final Crisis is 3 issues in, and so far reads like a story and not an event. Which is good.

I've read Infinite Crisis three or four times. I guess it has that going for it. Not looking forward to rereading the first three issues of Final Crisis, and not too excited for the rest of it.

Which is pretty good, I guess.

[Tanjint]

i'd like to see that photo of the final crisis 1 coaster. never saw that.

also, i think Morrison should do all-star stuff with DC, and marvel knights out of continuity stuff with Marvel....and of course his creator-owned stuff but yeah mainstream universe stuff is always gonna have that level of editorial interference and reversability.

-T

[Tanjint]

i'd like to see that photo of the final crisis 1 coaster. never saw that.

also, i think Morrison should do all-star stuff with DC, and marvel knights out of continuity stuff with Marvel....and of course his creator-owned stuff but yeah mainstream universe stuff is always gonna have that level of editorial interference and reversability.

-T