Why Can't Marvel Keep An Ongoing X-Title With Young Mutants?

[marvell2100]

First there was New Mutants. Then came Generation X. After that, we had New X-Men: Academy X. Finally, there was Young X-Men(Am I missing any?). All of these books seemed to be very popular, had lots of fan interest and some very good creative teams and characters. So why is it that Marvel can't seem to keep these titles going? Is it sales? Are they too geared toward younger readers for the older fans? Or is it something else? I wish I knew because enjoyed all of these books and many other readers seem to like them and the characters as well.

[$5 Milkshake]

First there was New Mutants. Then came Generation X. After that, we had New X-Men: Academy X. Finally, there was Young X-Men(Am I missing any?). All of these books seemed to be very popular, had lots of fan interest and some very good creative teams and characters. So why is it that Marvel can't seem to keep these titles going? Is it sales? Are they too geared toward younger readers for the older fans? Or is it something else? I wish I knew because enjoyed all of these books and many other readers seem to like them and the characters as well.

I think part of it is just the nature of having a young cast. Since young characters stay "Young" in comics past when they should, its easy to see how editorial can worry about those characters losing their target audience. So to keep the illusion of young, they tend to go New.

[gorthon616]

I think the need to reboot the teen books is a matter of changing generations. Teen culture changes quickly, whereas the super-hero buying crowd is much more consistent in what they like. What sold to kids one day may not sell the next day. There is just an inherent fickleness to them.

GRANDPA: One day he took a handkerchief and wrapped up his few possessions -- some tarnished bronze coins, as small bone that he had carved into the shape of a small bone, a thin wooden finger-ring his mother had left him...

CELESTE: A small bone that he had what?

GRANDPA: Carved into the shape of a small bone.

CELESTE: But it was a small bone already.

GRANDPA: He carved it into the shape of a different small bone, all right? Look, Celeste, this is what happened, okay? Do I ask you to explain Michael Jackson lyrics?

CELESTE: I don't like Michael Jackson any more. Only dweebs and kids listen to Michael Jackson.

GRANDPA: Last week, you liked Michael Jackson, this week you don't like Michael Jackson. So what am I? A mind reader?

[darknessatnoon]

Young readers are more prone to shop lift comics, therefore they aren't as profitable a market as adults.

[Jake V]

Despite what you read on the board, the people who buy comics at the very least want to see the iconic X-Men in an X-Men book. Fill up a comic with characters barely anyone has heard of (or brand new characters) is a recipe for a cancelled comic.

The vast majority of comic book readers don't care about new characters and will choose not to read books that are full of them.

[marvell2100]

I think part of it is just the nature of having a young cast. Since young characters stay "Young" in comics past when they should, its easy to see how editorial can worry about those characters losing their target audience. So to keep the illusion of young, they tend to go New.

They could always move the kids on to other books as they got older and bring in fresh faces. That's what I thought Academy X would be doing and to some extent Generation X. I think it may have more to do with the harder edge of the Marvel books lately and it could be making it harder to craft a teen book.

[$5 Milkshake]

They could always move the kids on to other books as they got older and bring in fresh faces. That's what I thought Academy X would be doing and to some extent Generation X. I think it may have more to do with the harder edge of the Marvel books lately and it could be making it harder to craft a teen book.

They could (And do), but they wouldn't necessarily want to keep with the old series name/number. A relaunch or new series brings in more sales.

[marvell2100]

Young readers are more prone to shop lift comics, therefore they aren't as profitable a market as adults.

Like adult shoplifters leave tips behind when they shoplift.

[gorthon616]

Despite what you read on the board, the people who buy comics at the very least want to see the iconic X-Men in an X-Men book. Fill up a comic with characters barely anyone has heard of (or brand new characters) is a recipe for a cancelled comic.

That's only partly true. The staple comic crowd probably won't be as interested in non-iconic characters, but new readers and especially teenage fans would be more likely to pick up a teen superhero book than one with more iconic characters.

[Jake V]

That's only partly true. The staple comic crowd probably won't be as interested in non-iconic characters, but new readers and especially teenage fans would be more likely to pick up a teen superhero book than one with more iconic characters.

That assumes that there are teenage fans in numbers that would offset the apathy of the rest of the fans.

There aren't.

(But I suppose I should have used words like "most" or "majority" in my first paragraph.)

[AdamYJ]

Generally, there seems to be a new group of young mutants every decade. The current group has changed internally about a million times, but it essentially stems back to the same very large group.

It basically stems from the fact that characters who were once new, young and fresh end up becoming old and familiar. The "youthful" stories they ran through start to feel like old hat. I think there's essentially a shelf-life for the young mutant books. You get to the point where it feels like they should "grow up" already. However, that very rarely happens in any satisfactory way.

[marvell2100]

Generally, there seems to be a new group of young mutants every decade. The current group has changed internally about a million times, but it essentially stems back to the same very large group.

It basically stems from the fact that characters who were once new, young and fresh end up becoming old and familiar. The "youthful" stories they ran through start to feel like old hat. I think there's essentially a shelf-life for the young mutant books. You get to the point where it feels like they should "grow up" already. However, that very rarely happens in any satisfactory way.

That's why I believe a book like Academy X was created in the first place. It would allow for the growth and maturation of the characters enabling them to move on while still introducing younger characters to step in and fill roles.

[Petes Pants]

Despite what you read on the board, the people who buy comics at the very least want to see the iconic X-Men in an X-Men book. Fill up a comic with characters barely anyone has heard of (or brand new characters) is a recipe for a cancelled comic.

The vast majority of comic book readers don't care about new characters and will choose not to read books that are full of them.

This is sort of like saying that no one should make independent films because all people want to see is brainless blockbusters.

[BBeeryan]

Young readers are more prone to shop lift comics, therefore they aren't as profitable a market as adults.

LMAO:biggrin: I'm having a hard time figuring out if that was serious or sarcasm. Dn@n, you slay me.

[gorthon616]

That assumes that there are teenage fans in numbers that would offset the apathy of the rest of the fans.

There aren't.

(But I suppose I should have used words like "most" or "majority" in my first paragraph.)

I'm not saying that they would be great in number, but clearly if they are writing a teen mutant book they are trying to tap that market. Otherwise, like you say, why wouldn't they just put out the icons?

The rest of fans is a sort of staple market base that doesn't really expand based on product. For the most part, most comics are just fighting between themselves for the same readers. But the teen books are trying to tap into a group of readers outside of that (in addition to some within that).

Saying that they don't sell as well as the iconic books doesn't explain why they have shifting line-ups and why there constantly needs to be a "new" group of new mutants. They could just toss out the same "new" mutants over again. Aging is one of the easier things to fudge.

They just need to revamp it stylistically frequently because what sells to teen changes frequently (irregardless of how big that market is)

[AdamYJ]

That's why I believe a book like Academy X was created in the first place. It would allow for the growth and maturation of the characters enabling them to move on while still introducing younger characters to step in and fill roles.

Well, the current crop of young mutants tend to suffer from the ever-changing X-Men status quo.

[Jake V]

This is sort of like saying that no one should make independent films because all people want to see is brainless blockbusters.

The question was "why do the junior x-men titles always fail?" and this is the answer. Not enough people read them.

If Marvel wants to continue to produce comics with a limited audience it's their business. No one's saying they shouldn't.

[gorthon616]

That's why I believe a book like Academy X was created in the first place. It would allow for the growth and maturation of the characters enabling them to move on while still introducing younger characters to step in and fill roles.

I got into Academy X and New X-Men at the tail end of its run with Yost and have backed tracked to the original series so I'm not sure if the timing would properly coincide with it, but from my reading it seemed like it was going for "Harry Potter arrives at the Xavier Institute." New Mutant versus Hellions aka Griffindor's versus Slytherins. etc etc

[Jake V]

I'm not saying that they would be great in number, but clearly if they are writing a teen mutant book they are trying to tap that market. Otherwise, like you say, why wouldn't they just put out the icons?

The rest of fans is a sort of staple market base that doesn't really expand based on product. For the most part, most comics are just fighting between themselves for the same readers. But the teen books are trying to tap into a group of readers outside of that (in addition to some within that).

Saying that they don't sell as well as the iconic books doesn't explain why they have shifting line-ups and why there constantly needs to be a "new" group of new mutants. They could just toss out the same "new" mutants over again. Aging is one of the easier things to fudge.

They just need to revamp it stylistically frequently because what sells to teen changes frequently (irregardless of how big that market is)
Do you think Young X-Men would have lasted longer than 12 issues if they had decided to revamp the book at around #8? Earlier?

[marvell2100]

Oh god, it really isn't that complicated.

Marvel is run by a bunch of apes, methinks.

They seem to forget what a teenager is.

For one, teenagers have SO MUCH crap they're going thru, let alone having to deal with having wacky superpowers and having to defend themselves. The stories could write themselves.

But instead they kill trees to publish some dumb isht like "YOUNG X-MEN" which has nothing to do with any sort of teenage experience anywhere.

I could wipe my ass with young x-men and it would read better.

While I'm not well read on Young X-Men, I do know that New Mutants and Gen X focused alot on teen issues so I can't agree that that was the case with those titles.

[Omega Alpha]

Well, for one thing, New Mutants and New X-men could probably have continued if it wasn't for changes across the board. Sales were good.

But anyway, the point of pretty much every teenage superhero book (Runaways may be the exception) is for the teenagers eventually leave the youth team and join the big leagues, or the senior team. They are books meant to end at some point in the future, which can't be said about X-men or Avengers.

[Joe Franklin]

If you are going to launch a new X-title without Wolverine in it, you better have a huge name writer/artist combo, if you want it to last.

[Prodigy55]

I don't know why they cancel them honestly.

They are always fun to read, especially New X-Men (Academy X and the K&Y run) and Generation X.

Maybe Marvel cancels them because their original fans have grown up and they want to pull in younger fans so they start a new youth group.

[SayOcean]

The New Mutants basically lasted around 200 issues...id say thats a success...and maybe marvel should have better writers and less sh!tty non continuity stoires.....less whiny would be good to

[Prodigy55]

New Mutants was proper evolution into X-Force and the characters grew realistically.

Generation X went to shit after one of them died.

New X-Men was on the right path as it showed the entire school slim down to a small group, then slim down again to a proper team with the other students as minor recurring characters. When they should have slimed the team down again (just a team, not as many minor student roles) for the YXM series, they somehow messed up and chose all the wrong characters and the series died.

I believe they would do well to continue Young X-Men with the actual New X-Men team.

[The Black Guardian]

I think part of it is just the nature of having a young cast. Since young characters stay "Young" in comics past when they should, its easy to see how editorial can worry about those characters losing their target audience. So to keep the illusion of young, they tend to go New.
Generally, there seems to be a new group of young mutants every decade. The current group has changed internally about a million times, but it essentially stems back to the same very large group.

It basically stems from the fact that characters who were once new, young and fresh end up becoming old and familiar. The "youthful" stories they ran through start to feel like old hat. I think there's essentially a shelf-life for the young mutant books. You get to the point where it feels like they should "grow up" already. However, that very rarely happens in any satisfactory way.
Well, the current crop of young mutants tend to suffer from the ever-changing X-Men status quo.
Agreed with most of this. The fact that the market has been shrinking doesn't help things, either.
Well, for one thing, New Mutants and New X-men could probably have continued if it wasn't for changes across the board. Sales were good.

But anyway, the point of pretty much every teenage superhero book (Runaways may be the exception) is for the teenagers eventually leave the youth team and join the big leagues, or the senior team. They are books meant to end at some point in the future, which can't be said about X-men or Avengers.
Where the characters are concerned, it doesn't help that in the X-Books the teen characters are basically moving towards a dead end. The senior teams have been fairly locked for decades. At least with the Avengers, there is a gradual/cyclical changing of the guard. I wish this wasn't the case.
If you are going to launch a new X-title without Wolverine in it, you better have a huge name writer/artist combo, if you want it to last.
Which is part of what made New X-Men great. X-23 was a compromise that worked, being part Wolverine and part teen (not saying that's all she is, so Laura fans don't snikt me; I'm one of you).

[podmark]

If you are going to launch a new X-title without Wolverine in it, you better have a huge name writer/artist combo, if you want it to last.

Wolverine and the X-Kids?

[Peter F.]

Wolverine and the X-Kids?

As long as Wolverine is only there to sit and look pretty on the covers and doesn't take up too much panel space I'll buy it.

[Pro]

New Mutants was doing just fine.

It was when they got Liefld on board and switched the title to X-force that things went downhill.

No one is interested in reading about second rate New Mutants.
Give us back the originals.

[Nagacore]

Marvel keeps up the cycle of introducing, cancelling and rebooting its youth franchises for the same reason DC insists on rebooting the Legion: Continuity scares new readers. If Marvel introduced a new series featuring the original Generation X or the fan favourite New Mutants they’re less likely to capture the coveted teenaged demographic than Prodigy and his peers.

Peter David might be the greatest authority on the purpose of teenaged series. When responding to Dido’s criticism of Young Justice not selling, David replied that Young Justice wasn’t supposed to draw big numbers but attract younger readers to DC. New Mutants and Academy X had the same purpose. Older readers weren’t supposed to be enthralled by the superficial love lives of high schools students, but to their key audience the characters seemed real making the series virtual crack. I knew many young readers who could tell me the plot points of Academy X but knew nothing about Batman, X-Men or Spiderman because the series was designed for them. It wasn’t until the New X-Men era did the series introduce more action driven plots but kept the teenaged elements. If you read the Comix Fan FAQ pages with DeFilippis and Weir, you’d see how hell bent Marvel was on making New Mutants both teenaged and reader friendly. The creators were barred from excessive violence (At least two scenes were removed) and swearing including “Damn” on one occasion.

Although the internet community voiced its objection Marvel cancelled New X-Men to emphasize the new status quo. Where Decimation preached Mutanity as is an endangered species, Divided We Stand’s love letter to the 90s era vigilante and black ops with Cable and X-Force respectively tells the audience “We’re all Grown up”. The world’s changed too much for stories like “Will others accept an openly gay Victor?” to have the same impact.


The New Mutants basically lasted around 200 issues...id say thats a success...and maybe marvel should have better writers and less sh!tty non continuity stoires.....less whiny would be good to

The industry’s changed too much to take the length of New Mutants (volume 1) and deem it the measuring stick for a successful series. For one thing, economics (disposable income), accessibility and the cost books determine how we measure success. In the Silver Age, for instance, a flagship series sold 300,000 copies per month and mega-arcs sold half a million. Today a successful secondary series sells between 100,000 and 50,000 copies.

[yanapryde]

New Mutants was doing just fine.

It was when they got Liefld on board and switched the title to X-force that things went downhill.

No one is interested in reading about second rate New Mutants.
Give us back the originals.

Word. Progressive murder of a good thing.
They killed Doug.
They youth-en-ized Illyana, THEN killed her.
Replaced them with trash.
Then formed X-Force.
Boo and Hiss.
I hope the alleged New Mutants title that is rumoring about winds up being good.

[vagg3liz]

What i really fail to understand is why no one has addressed the fact that most comics get canceled when they don't sell well, and they don't sell well when they aren't any good!! And, regarding Young X-Men at least, it just plain sucks!!! You had what was the best book in the x-line, New X-Men that is, and decided to revamp it to give it a sales boost, to change the creative team without getting complaints about fixing what wasn't broken and to give the time to C&C to move on to X-Force! Now you have the best x-book in X-Force and Young X-Men gets canceled! It's plain logic gyus, it's always about the people behind the books!!! (Well, except for Loeb and Claremont, that i fail to understand why they're still allowed to write! I mean, their writing should be illegal!!!

[Ryan W]

They do it because no one wants to write teenagers forever, or if they do and are doing a fine job, they then want to make the characters grow up and grow into themselves in a book, and then how ever will younger readers identify with them? :rolleyes:

I have the entire run of Generation X including annuals, ashcans, and one-shots and I loved every moment of it (except the Ellis years). To me, those were well-written teens. Nunzio and Christina's run on New Mutants/New X-Men: Academy X was also the freshest and most realistic take on teens in a comic I've experienced in a few years. Between that and the first half of Runaways young characters finally had a presence in Marvel . . . For a bit.

[Nagacore]

What i really fail to understand is why no one has addressed the fact that most comics get canceled when they don't sell well, and they don't sell well when they aren't any good!! And, regarding Young X-Men at least, it just plain sucks!!! You had what was the best book in the x-line, New X-Men that is, and decided to revamp it to give it a sales boost, to change the creative team without getting complaints about fixing what wasn't broken and to give the time to C&C to move on to X-Force! Now you have the best x-book in X-Force and Young X-Men gets canceled! It's plain logic gyus, it's always about the people behind the books!!! (Well, except for Loeb and Claremont, that i fail to understand why they're still allowed to write! I mean, their writing should be illegal!!!

No one’s addressed the relationship between sales and quality because awful series can, and have, sold out. In Writing for Comics David said Wolverine and Spiderman will always sell despite a creator’s (lack thereof) talent, experience or consistency. Furthermore, with the enough star power you can create a breakout star in minutes. Lobes’ books are panned by critics and fans but Hulks’ broken the top five for almost a year.

You’re also forgetting the ‘sleeper’ books those with a devoted following for the series’ quality or a specific character but never capture a mainstream audience. Manhunter’s the popular example but there’s Runaways, She-Hulk, and Spidergirl.

[podmark]

What i really fail to understand is why no one has addressed the fact that most comics get canceled when they don't sell well, and they don't sell well when they aren't any good!! And, regarding Young X-Men at least, it just plain sucks!!! You had what was the best book in the x-line, New X-Men that is, and decided to revamp it to give it a sales boost, to change the creative team without getting complaints about fixing what wasn't broken and to give the time to C&C to move on to X-Force! Now you have the best x-book in X-Force and Young X-Men gets canceled! It's plain logic gyus, it's always about the people behind the books!!! (Well, except for Loeb and Claremont, that i fail to understand why they're still allowed to write! I mean, their writing should be illegal!!!

You have to remember that C&C were moving to X-Force and leaving New X-Men of their own volition. They wanted to do X-Force, and they were ready to leave New X-Men. And really why would Marvel stop them, X-Force had far more potential to sell.

Losing the writers by itself doesn't explain why Marvel canceled the book though. When Bendis left Mighty they brought in Slott, when Ellis left Tbolts they brought in Diggle. The new status quo probably played into it, but I do wonder why exactly they went that route.

[The Lucky One]

It comes down to two things: the finite number of X-teams the comic-buying market will support, and the discrepancy in aging between the real world and the Marvel universe.

As others have pointed out, because comic characters age so much slower than we do, they don't stay "new" for very long. To a kid who started reading comics in 1999, Generation X isn't "new" -- except for the fact that they go to school, they're not any more new than the original X-Men to that particular fan. Every fan tends to like the class that was "new" when they started reading because they can identify with them, but fans grow up faster than characters... when you're in college and the team who were high schoolers when you started reading five years ago are still high schoolers, you may still like them, but you can't really identify anymore. And since new fans are always coming in, at some point they have to "graduate" and make way for another new class, which you'll resent because dammit, who are these new punks stealing face time from my favorites?

Which leads to the second problem, the fact that fans can only afford so many X-titles. The original and All-New X-Men aren't going anywhere because they have name recognition... good for them. But that's two teams worth of characters right there. Have another one or two books for the fringe characters (X-Factor, Excalibur) and you're pushing maximum capacity. With every new class there's a law of diminishing returns, because after graduation they either have to die or go somewhere, and it's limbo for most of them. The most popular ones (Cannonball, Wolfsbane, M, X-23) may get snatched up for main books, but there just isn't room for most. M-Day didn't help because it didn't depower any main characters. And since your characters aren't aging, there's only so much time crunching that can occur. The original X-Men are in their late 20s/early 30s. Colossus, Nightcrawler, Rogue et al are in their mid 20s. The New Mutants are the early 20s. Generation X are the late teens/very early 20s, and the New X-Men are the early to mid teens. Fine. But what happens when Marvel wants to launch another class in a few years? The other characters aren't getting much older, so inevitably the most recent classes will have to go on the back burner. It sucks, but that's the way of things.

-D

[Blade X]

First there was New Mutants. Then came Generation X. After that, we had New X-Men: Academy X. Finally, there was Young X-Men(Am I missing any?). All of these books seemed to be very popular, had lots of fan interest and some very good creative teams and characters. So why is it that Marvel can't seem to keep these titles going? Is it sales? Are they too geared toward younger readers for the older fans? Or is it something else? I wish I knew because enjoyed all of these books and many other readers seem to like them and the characters as well.

Because (a) the editors and/or writers make the stupid mistake/decision to "age" the teen mutants into adults in order to appeal to the shrinking and aging (and in some cases, anal retentive) fan base and (b) there are just too many damn X-books telling the same types of stories..

[AdamYJ]

What i really fail to understand is why no one has addressed the fact that most comics get canceled when they don't sell well, and they don't sell well when they aren't any good!! And, regarding Young X-Men at least, it just plain sucks!!! You had what was the best book in the x-line, New X-Men that is, and decided to revamp it to give it a sales boost, to change the creative team without getting complaints about fixing what wasn't broken and to give the time to C&C to move on to X-Force! Now you have the best x-book in X-Force and Young X-Men gets canceled! It's plain logic gyus, it's always about the people behind the books!!! (Well, except for Loeb and Claremont, that i fail to understand why they're still allowed to write! I mean, their writing should be illegal!!!

Y'know, I didn't like New X-Men under C&C. It was just so dark and depressing. Young X-Men has its dark moments, but it's not as bad as New X-Men was.

[jarrod]

The constant relaunching doesn't help. Clearly.

This also goes british teams and crosstime teams.

[Prodigy55]

I believe they just made a mistake with Young X-Men's cast.

It would still be going strong if it was still New X-Men characters.

[darknessatnoon]

I'm glad they closed the school. No more shelf-paper characters. Now, when they want to create a new mutant, they put some thought into it (viz., Greymalkin, Ink and Cipher).

[marvell2100]

I think titles like New Mutants, Generation X, and Academy X were titles that could have survived the growth and maturation of the characters because all were set up to allow young characters to be introduced on a continual basis. New characters were always being introduced in the other X-books and people had no problem with that. I still say that it's the overall darker edge that Marvel currently has tha makes it harder to do teen books. I don't think that it's because older readers couldn't relate because some of those characters remind us of when we were younger and some of the choices and/or mistakes that we made growing up.

[gorthon616]

Do you think Young X-Men would have lasted longer than 12 issues if they had decided to revamp the book at around #8? Earlier?

I think Young X-Men would have lasted longer if they left it as New X-Men. The problem with Young X-Men is that it just plain sucked. I'm not sure what you are getting at. When I said "frequently" I didn't mean in a matter of months (though entirely possible), but after a certain age the people don't undergo as dramatic a change in taste as they do when they are teenagers. For instance, when I was a kid the big thing (I guess) was Friends or maybe Dawson's Creek. The next seemed more Harry Potter and the rise of the Manga book. Currently, there is that whole damnable Twilight vampire thing. However, if you were if you had been in your late 20's for the past couple of decades you're tastes wouldn't have changed as dramatically as that.

The original post predicated that the series referenced was successful and focusing on a brand new team of (mostly at least) new mutants. Young X-Men pretty much fails on that first point and isn't even really that strong on the second one.

[Ryan W]

Now, when they want to create a new mutant, they put some thought into it (viz., Greymalkin, Ink and Cipher).

. . .

You say thought, I say Mary Sue.

[darknessatnoon]

. . .

You say thought, I say Mary Sue.

Excuse me, but was the Virgin Mary not a Mary Sue? Yet people still worship her.

[Maestro]

Every X-Men book needs Wolverine if they want to do good. That's a fact