198 Mutants...

GnosticAnubis · Posted: Thu Feb 02, 2006 9:23 pm Post subject: 198 Mutants...

*SPOILER ALERT*

Alright, so following the events of "House of M", the world mutant population has plummeted to a mere 198, with hundreds of thousands of mutants losing their powers. Many are, of course, apocryphal characters like Beak, Rictor, Jubilee, etc., but there are also some big names like Iceman, Magneto, and Quicksilver. As if that weren't bad enough, with mutants once more in the minority, anti-mutant groups are coming out of the woodwork.

So... what do we think about all this? Could the re-introduction of the anti-mutant threat revitalize the languishing X-book franchise, or will it be the final nail in the coffin?

GhostofMacbeth · Forum Member Joined: Sep 21, 2001 Posts: 613

I have seen it mentione dbut I really don't know. So far I haven't seen it play a big role in the books I read except for X-Factor, which is new. I honestly don't pick up that much else since they changed artists on Uncanny X-Men (I picked up a bunch of them because I liked the art of Stuart Immonen). I honestly have been so out of the loop for the rest of them because it was such a blurring pile of junk lately. It could be a good thing but I think it wil be a short lived thing rather than a big world changing crisis on infinite earth thing that seemed to last.

Josephus · Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2006 6:02 pm Post subject:

I have to agree with GhostofMacbeth here. I very much doubt that the whole "Decimation" effect is going to be permanent. I mean, come on... Magneto permanently becomes a normal man? He's been one of Marvel's biggest villains since the '60's... I feel sure they will bring him, and a whole lot of other characters, back sooner or later.

What the X-books need to invigorate them is good writers and fresh ideas. After years of giving the X-books a pass, I started reading X-Men when Grant Morrison came on as writer. And after he left, I found myself really enjoying Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men. What the books need is original talent to drive them... not gimmicky plotlines that try to ram the X-books down fandom's collective throats.

Just my 2 cents worth on the subject...

Ratteler · Forum Member Joined: Jun 10, 2002 Posts: 550 Location: NYC

We need Secret Wars III.

The Beyonder comes back and put the entire Marvel Universe back the way he (and We) remember it.

At this point, I honestly think of everything as an "Else World" or "What If". I'm really only following the Ultimates series from Marvel now. The last DC book I actually bothered with was Villians United, and that was mostly because I had very little referance for the DC villians.

In a way it reminds me of the fate of the Greek gods our super heroes parody. They truely died out when people stopped beliving in them. Isn't that exactly what's happening with the comic book industry. Book sales are at an all time low in spite of their most legendary properties making or matching box office records.

Also, the world has changed. Our real world villians are no longer "super powers" and the "Us Vs. them" paradign has broken down as we try to reach a co-operative new world order. Our biggest threat these days is either a guy hiding in a cave plotting some low budget attack, or the billionairs who buy our our public offices. Depending on your POV.

I think on some level we needed super heroes during the nuclear age because we needed to belive that some one would save us from a world full of destructive powers way out of our control.

Today kids just don't have that kind of fear and there is nothing to bind them emotionally to Super Heroes.

And to old farts like me it's like going back to your old school for a visit. Everything is smaller than you remember, you don't know anyone, and all your favorite teachers have been retired so long no one still working there even knows who there were.

You end up thumbing through a year book in some ones office to prove you were actually there and that you're not crazy.

Maybe that's what growing up is. Realizing that no matter what the menace is, no matter how great the danger, you're probably going to get through it and the world will keep on spinning, win or loose.

The mutants will all be back as soon as the new artist, writer, editor, or accountant with the bottom line, summons them back.

GnosticAnubis · Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2006 1:17 pm Post subject:

GhostofMacbeth · Forum Member Joined: Sep 21, 2001 Posts: 613

I really think they just need to focus on story rather than huge arcs that require 40 titles to make sense of it. I think comics are still relevant but they just have to be presented in a way that works. I hate most of the ultimate things because they don't work for me. I like the Ultimates, however. I think it is just because of the writing and art. Plus they didn't overtly go that far away from what I know.

Meatboy · Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2006 3:18 am Post subject: Re: 198 Mutants...

No more mutants= no more profit for Marvel.

This is exactly what is wrong at the former House of Ideas. No ideas... The 198 will never last nor will real lasting change in the MU. That would require continuity... something Marvel scoffs at. No more mutants, a new Spidey (which is really just a tweak of the Clone Spidey), the rumored Civil War, all this lacks direction and hence cannot have real emotional resonance. Marvel will continue to cater to the fad whims of the unwashed masses. Its amazing they sell as many books as they do.

X titles are still running (all in different directions, but still going) and soon all mutants will return to their powered selves. Too bad Marvel cannot drive the whole universe on one cohesive direction. Then titles like this might matter.

My two bits.

Khimaera · Forum Newbie Joined: Dec 09, 2005 Posts: 3

wow, hopefully this is just one of those marketing gimmicks like when superman dies, and then returns a year later. A marvel universe without mutants is pretty much gonna suck.

GnosticAnubis · Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 9:29 pm Post subject: Re: 198 Mutants...

You are mistaken. There are still mutants. It's just that the total population has been reduced to 198 (although this number is fluctuating, since Joss Whedon apparently didn't get the memo when he resurrected the Hellfire Club, and the writers of "New Mutants" seem to have created a couple of mutants to act as cannon fodder against Rev. Stryker's new anti-mutant cult.)

palmers · Forum Member Joined: Jun 07, 2002 Posts: 397

I think we do still need superheroes, it's just perhaps that those running the major companies don't know who "we" are. People generally aren't fanboys with a collector mentality, and that's who event-led hero-crowded comics are directed at. The industry needs to go back to Superman, back to the Marvel Age, and restore the connections between superheroes - who are the modern equivalent of the Classical gods and heroes - and ordinary people.

IMP.
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