#X-men outback team

[cyavillaarts]

Outback X-Men

Wolverine - Rogue - Storm - Psylocke - Longshot - Dazzler - Havok - Colossus

[vertigoartgore]

Late 80's Outback era X-Men team banner by artist Marc Silvestri.

[rogueslove]

Underrated Friendship: Rogue & Gateway

When the team was in the Outback, Rogue was the only one to even try and communicate with Gateway. She recognized that just because someone was non-verbal that it didn't mean that they couldn't communicate:

Uncanny X-Men #230

Then, years later, the team finds themselves in the Outback once again, and you have this moment:

X-Treme X-Men Annual #1

[racefortheironthrone]

With how much focus she has received since the beginning of the Krakoa era, what are your thoughts on Storm ? And do you agree on the perception that she's becoming something of a Mary Sue?

I’m going to start with a mini-rant about the Mary Sue.

To the extent that there is any validity to the term at all, it is solely and exclusively within the realm of fanfiction. A Mary Sue is an OC (original character) whose supposed annoying omni-competence is really secondary to the main problem with the character, which is that they warp the narrative away from the main characters of the source material - Kirk and Spock or Picard and Data stop doing things that drive the plot, and instead just stand around asking "where's Poochie?"

Outside of fanfiction and in the realm of the media that gives rise to fanfiction, a prominent character who is incredibly talented and powerful and who makes the plot center around them is called a fucking protagonist - so no, Rey isn’t a Mary Sue, Carol Danvers isn’t a Mary Sue, Katniss Everdeen isn't a Mary Sue - none of them are Mary Sues and anyone who claims otherwise is showing that they have deep-seated Issues with female protagonists in their fiction.

Is Storm a Mary Sue?

Even if we weren't talking about the most prominent black woman character in fiction, I would consider this question pretty damn offensive, both because no one would ever ask this question about a male character and - in a franchise packed to the gills with hyper-powerful women who make the plots revolve around them and who even get the complementary Love Triangle - no one sends me asks about any of those (white) women.

But to answer your question: no, Storm is not a Mary Sue - she's the main character of the X-Men.

See, when Chris Claremont took over X-Men in 1975, he did so with a brand-new cast of characters, the so-called "All-New, All-Different X-Men." In no small part because they were far more diverse and more colorful than the O5 (suburban WASPs one and all), most of these characters would become break-out stars and the core of the X-Men from that day to this.

However, Claremont didn't vibe with all of the All-New X-Men equally: he had Sunfire quit the team (repeatedly), he killed off Thunderbird for shock value (a death that has only been reversed this last year), he would have killed off Wolverine if John Byrne hadn't stopped him (Claremont would later turn around on Logan once he worked out his voice), etc.

But one character that he vibed with right from the beginning was Ororo Monroe. From the very beginning, Claremont's Storm is the most powerful of the All-New X-Men, both in terms of her powers and in terms of her personality, being the only person who can face down Logan. At the same time, she's complicated by her struggles with crippling claustrophobia caused by the Suez Crisis-induced trauma of her childhood.

After a few years, Claremont tired of the African Nature Goddess routine and had Storm experience an almost total transformation that nonetheless was completely grounded in her character. Feeling overly limited by the total emotional control required of her powers, Ororo undergoes a subtextual lesbian awakening in Tokyo's underground punk scene and emerges out the other side a free spirit, leader of the X-Men, and Queen of the Morlocks.

In his most audacious move in LifeDeath I and II, Claremont had Storm lose her powers thanks to Forge's anti-mutant tech - and then defeat Cyclops in a duel for command of the X-Men without her powers - and then regain her powers in an epic cycle that saw the X-Men die and be reborn as outlaw heroes in the Australian Outback.

In sum, Storm was clearly Claremont's favorite character and, as a result had the most interesting character journey over his 16-year run on X-Men.

Storm in Krakoa

And then Storm basically lay fallow for almost thirty years. In no small part due to the pioneering work done by Claremont with this character, later writers were frankly too intimidated to touch the character and so starting in the 90s, Storm was increasingly sidelined in the comics in favor of the characters that were commercially "hot" at the time - Wolverine and Gambit, especially.

In the 2000s, the most significant thing to happen to Storm was her marriage to T'challa. While I think Reggie Hudlin had mostly good intentions with this decision - he wanted to create a black power couple at Marvel and thus put together Marvel's most prominent black man and black woman into a relationship - the result was to make Storm a supporting character in Black Panther comics, rather than a main character in X-Men comics.

I would argue that it is only recently with the advent of Al Ewing as a major writer in the X-office with S.W.O.R.D, X-Men Red, and Storm and the Brotherhood of Mutants that we've gotten a writer who's not afraid to write Storm as she deserves to be written - as the most powerful of the X-Men, the Regent of Arrako and the Voice of Sol, the standard-bearer of Magneto's legacy, and a woman trying to balance the demands of two planets and her own desires.

[heroesoath]

Piotr was stuck in his steel form the entire time the Outback X-Men team were together and yet every single member ( besides Ororo who sees him like a little brother ) thought about climbing him like a tree and I appreciate that. Piotr was giving Logan, Ali, Rogue, Longshot, Betsy AND Madelyne THOUGHTS.

[a-roguish-gambit]

Hey roughish!

I'm sure you've probably seen this glorious panel around lately.

And upon seeing this, it reminded me of how much I like seeing superheroes interacting and even being friendly with animals.

I don't know, seeing a superhero being a friend to animals is just a cherry on top.

And it reminded me of a project I'm currently working on.

It's called "Tales of the Fantastic Four", a fanfic series based around, well, The Fantastic Four.

The series will essentially focus on the globe-trotting (and sometimes planet/dimension-hopping) adventures of Marvel's First Family.

There's two things to note about the series.

It'll essentially be like Marvel's version of Batman: The Brave and the Bold, as just about every episode would see the family teaming up with another notable hero.

It's a massive love letter/homage to the pulp adventure genre, with many of the heroes the FF team-up representing different sub-genres of the genre and being inspired by different famous pulp heroes.

As for The X-Men, they'll be among the FF's most recurring allies.

Another thing to note about the series is that the Marvel characters will actually be based in different parts of the world.

Not only allowing for the globe-trotting adventures, but also just helping make the world feel much bigger.

Like, people have heavily criticized Marvel for keeping most their heroes in the same city.

Largely because it kinda makes the world feel somewhat smaller.

Plus, whenever one of those large-scale events come along, it usually focuses on just one or a few characters.

When it would make sense to bring in everyone else.

But here, there would actually be a good reason for that!

As for The X-Men in this regard, they've decided to split the Xavier Institute into two halves and relocated to different parts of the world.

The first half relocated to Australia.

And the second half relocated to Madripoor.

The reason why: they just wanted to continue their work in a more…..peaceful place.

The Australian school would be located in The Outback, not too far from both a local town and an Aboriginal village.

And the Madripoor school would be located in the jungle.

The Australian school would look like the traditional X-Mansion (except located in The Outback).

And the Madripoor school would closely resemble The Treehouse they had during the Krakoa Era.

I wanted the X-Men's new homes to showcase a respect for the natural world.

As in, they didn't have to clear any land to built said homes.

Speaking of which, The X-Men are back to The Blue Team and The Gold Team dynamic.

The Blue Team are the ones who run the Australian school, while The Gold Team runs the Madripoor school.

In terms of who makes up each team….

Blue Team:

-Cyclops (leader) -Wolverine -Rogue -Gambit -Psylocke -Beast -Jubilee -Morph -Xavier

Gold Team:

-Storm (leader) -Jean Grey -Nightcrawler -Colossus -Iceman -Angel (who's a female in this universe) -Bishop -Shadowcat (with Lockheed) -Emma Frost

The Blue Team would serve as a homage to the Australian adventures of the pulp genre, while The Gold Team would serve as a homage to the pirate genre.

Yeah, the Gold Team would essentially be The Marauders.

But the coolest thing about this series is that all of the heroes will have animal companions.

Because I said so!

In terms of the X-Men…..

The Blue Team have two in the form of a kangaroo named Jack and a crocodile named Dundee.

The same applies for The Gold Team as well, who have an orangutan named Eastwood and a female rhinoceros hornbill named Rampy.

I wanted to know out of the two teams, who do you think would be the best with animals in general?

I don't think either in particular as a team would be great with animals but I think Nightcrawler and Gambit specifically would be good with them. Personally I do not trust Emma Frost to take care of an animal. She just doesn't seem capable of it except for maybe a purse dog. She might care for a purse dog. Colossus, Wolverine, beast, Shadow cat, and Rogue I think also can do fairly good job with animals too but I think Gambit and Nightcrawler are the best. Cyclops is good with dogs but he doesn't understand wild animals well I don't think.

[jewishcissiekj]

idk what to call the uncanny x-men era right after the mutant massacre and a bit before the outback era but I do know there's nothing monogamous or heterosexual about this team

[badgirlshenanigans084]

My X-men jacket with all punch needle and hand embroidered patches! I made this for sdcc last year and ran out of time so I’m missing Dazzler and Longshot from the outback team. I’m planning to add them for Wondercon

[heckcareoxytwit]

Seeing Havok fall in battle at the hands of her doppelganger, Madelyne Pryor unleashes her rage that she freezes everyone (both her team and Orchis) in place. Carmen Cruz asks Gambit what can they do but he doesn't know yet. Meanwhile, Albert and Elsie-Dee slowly cut Zero's head off from the fleshy cyborg body because the robots are immune to Madelyne's magic/telekinesis. Madelyne falters as the doppelganger wants her to embrace the Mercy Crown and all of it’s potential for causing pain. She wants them to go from a solo act to a team-up. Traversing universes and kicking ass. Madelyne reaches for her and she reaches back, they hold hands until someone shouts out for them to stop. Madelyne sees a version of herself wearing the green jumpsuit from the Outback era in the 80s. Outback-Madelyne wants Madelyne to remember who she is, who she used to be. However, Madelyne Pryor sees right through it and calls out to Carmen as she is impressed with her shapeshifting skills and showing her courage in reaching out to her. Then, Madelyne Pryor kills her doppelganger with her scythe and takes her Mercy Crown back. Gambit helps Havok back on his feet. Havok is still in good shape, for a zombie or whatever he is.

Dark X-Men v2 #5, 2023

[laresearchette]

Monday, April 01, 2024 Canadian TV Listings (Times Eastern)

WHERE CAN I FIND THOSE PREMIERES?: VANDERPUMP VILLA (Disney + Star) THE SYNANON FIX (HBO Canada) 9:00pm

WHAT IS NOT PREMIERING IN CANADA TONIGHT?: 2024 iHeartRadio MUSIC AWARDS (FOX Feed) LOVERS AND LIARS (CW Feed) ALL AMERICAN (Premiering on April 08 on Showcase at 8:00pm)

NEW TO AMAZON PRIME CANADA/CBC GEM/CRAVE TV/DISNEY + STAR/NETFLIX CANADA:

AMAZON PRIME CANADA ALLAN QUATERMAIN & THE LOST CITY OF GOLD AT CLOSE RANGE BLAME IT ON RIO BLOODSPORT BREATHLESS BULLETPROOF MONK CASINO CLASS DARK BLUE DARK ANGEL DR. SEUSS’ THE CAT IN THE HAT EYE OF THE NEEDLE FLAWLESS FLESH+BLOOD HARLEY DAVIDSON AND THE MARLBORO MAN KOYAANISQATSI THE LAST WALTZ LOL: CHI RIDE E FUORI (Season 4) MOBY DICK NOT WITHOUT MY DAUGHTER THE PARTY ROLLING THUNDER TOP GEAR (Seasons 14-25) THE TRAIN VALLEY GIRL VAMPIRE’S KISS WARCRAFT WHITE NIGHT

CBC GEM DYLAN’S PLAYTIME ADVENTURES

CRAVE TV LITTLE JESUS THE SYNANON FIX (Season 1, Episode 1)

DISNEY + STAR VANDERPUMP VILLA (Three-Episode Premiere)

NETFLIX CANADA THE MAGIC PRANK SHOW WITH JUSTIN WILLMAN

CURLING (TSN/TSN5) 8:00am: LGT World Men's Curling Championship: Canada vs. Italy

NHL HOCKEY (SN) 7:00pm: Panthers vs. Leafs (SN Now) 9:00pm: Oilers vs. Blues (TSN3) 9:00pm: Kings vs. Jets

MLB BASEBALL (SN1) 8:00pm: Jays vs. Pirates (SN Now) 10:00pm: Giants vs. Dodgers

NBA BASKETBALL (SN Now) 8:00pm: Suns vs. Pelicans

MURDOCH MYSTERIES (CBC) 8:00pm: After a man dies in a drunken brawl at the Starbright Lounge, Murdoch's suspect is another detective.

WARDENS OF THE NORTH (Discovery Canada) 8:00pm (SERIES PREMIERE): Conservation officers crack down on boaters not complying with the law; a routine fishing patrol has officers tracking down over-the-limit anglers; a kayaker is reminded that lifejackets work best when worn, even when close to home.

SOCIAL MEDIA MURDERS (T&E) 8:00pm (SERIES PREMIERE): Alex Rodda, a 15-year-old teenager, is murdered by 18-year-old Matthew Mason in December 2019, six weeks after they first exchange messages via social media.

SECRETS IN THE ICE (Super Chanel Fuse) 8:00pm (SEASON PREMIERE): A grim discovery in a Swedish lake reveals ancient practices; in the Canadian Arctic, the fossil of a previously unknown mammal is found; bizarre ice formations in the Antarctic Ocean; a discovery off the east coast of Canada.

BELGRAVIA: THE NEXT CHAPTER (CBC) 9:00pm (SEASON FINALE): As Frederick grieves the loss of Clara, Enright receives a letter that pushes Frederick to confront his past; Clara and Davison adapt to life in the North, as Clara grapples with happy memories of home.

OUTBACK OPAL HUNTERS (Discovery Canada) 9:00pm (SEASON PREMIERE): The Bushmen bring in an explosives expert to blast through the toughest rock in Grawin; plus, a brand-new team brings cutting edge technology to the opal fields.

SPOOKED IRELAND (DTour) 9:00pm (SERIES PREMIERE): The team ventures to Charleville Castle, where they face a multitude of spirits who seem to have turned against the castle's current occupants by trapping them in cupboards and keeping them up at night with screams and singing.

EXPEDITION X (Discovery Canada) 10:00pm (SEASON PREMIERE): Phil and Jess explore the world's most haunted forest near the site of the Dracula legend and where Josh Gates had his most terrifying experience; during a night investigation, Jess finds herself being watched by someone or something sinister.

THE PLAYBOY MURDERS (Investigation Discovery) 10:00pm (SEASON PREMIERE): In the late '90s, Playboy twins Sandy and Mandy Bentley's fame soars until an affair with a Vegas High Roller leads to a fall from fame, stolen jewels, a shadowy buyer and a brutal double murder in the Hollywood hills.

MASTERCHEF AUSTRALIA (CTV Life) 10:00pm (SEASON PREMIERE): A group of 12 home cooks will compete with 12 former contestants.

MURDER AT MY DOOR WITH KYM MARSH (documentary) 10:00pm/11:00pm (SERIES PREMIERE): The story of 17-year-old Thomas Griffiths, who killed his girlfriend and arranged the crime scene to look like a suicide after she broke up with him. In Episode Two, 19-year-old Mundill Mahil lures a young TV executive to his death in an act of revenge following an attempted rape six months earlier.

[docgold13]

365 Marvel Comics Paper Cut-Out SuperHeroes - One Hero, Every Day, All Year…

Supporting Character Supplemental - Gateway

Little is known about the history and origins of the indigenous Australian identified only as Gateway.  A mutant, he possesses the power to create portals allowing instantaneous teleportation to anywhere in the world.  He sharpening his attention to create these portals by rapidly twirling a bullroarer.  At first it appeared as though Gateway could only create portals to places on earth, yet it was later revealed that these portal can also connect to other dimensions.    

Gateway had been forced into servitude by the villainous Reavers, a band of criminal cyborgs who utilized Gateway’s teleportation abilities to travel to remote locations to loot and pillage. The Reavers held him hostage by threatening to irretrievably destroy one of his people's sacred places, forcing his ancestral spirits to become demonically enslaved and walk forever lost in other-dimensional realm known as the Dreamtime.

The Reavers were eventually defeated by The X-Men who went on to take over the Reaver’s former base in the Australian outback.  Thankful toward the X-Men, Gate chose to aide the team, using his teleportation powers to transport them to and from missions.  

It has been intimated that Gateway my be the grandfather of the time-displaced X-Man known as Bishop.  Whether or not this is indeed the case remains a mystery.  The character first appeared in the pages of Uncanny X-men Vol. 1 #229 (1988).    

[farsight-the-char]

I hope RWBY Vol10 dedicates an episode to feelings jams and the characters having a good time. I hope Team RWBY go to a Mall, like X-men

(Uncanny X-men 244)

Just having a good time, fashion, and Mall. Weiss as Alison, Ruby as Betsy, Blake as Storm, Yang as Rogue

....

Something something, this being the Outback Era of X-men, Vacuo being Remnant’s Australia (thus outback).....

[vertigoartgore]

"I salute you, X-Men...magnificent though you were as heroes, all a person might wish to be, now you can do much more...because you have become legends !" (Roma's words from Uncanny X-Men #227).

The late 1987 Outback era X-Men team (following the ending of the "Fall of the Mutants" event) by Marc Silvestri and Dan Green (R.I.P.). An illustration published in Starlog's Comics Scene #1 for the article "X-Men X-Plosion - can Marvel's mutants survive ?" (spoiler:they did).

[kurt-wagner-official]

Post #119: Marvel Comics Presents issues 10-17 (Colossus and Longshot stories)

Normally, I don't read these anthology book because frankly it's just too much for me to handle, even the Christ Claremont ones, but I'm so starved for Ann Nocenti X-stuff that I'll make an exception for these two stories in Marvel Comics Presents. The first is called Colossus: God's Country, which was serialized over eight issues, and the second is a one-off Longshot story. These story is not on Marvel Unlimited, so I will be reading them on the high seas, don't tell anyone. I'm also just gonna read God's Country as one issue cause I'm lazy and it's short. Into the story! Peter is on vacation to America's heartland to find himself during the horrors of the Outback, and starts his quest to find America at a carnival. He makes some passive aggressive comments about a big news stand covered in porn, saying it's an abuse of free speech, and the guy starts shit talking the Soviets. This makes Peter angry, saying no one gets to judge his people, and he transforms and runs off. We cut to a family on a picnic; the son, Zackery, is playing soldier, fantasizing about killing crack dealers and squashing bugs that he pretends are enemy soldiers. His father is the adult, no longer harmless version of that, spouting Cold War propaganda for the whole family. His mother would rather avoid talking about all this unpleasant stuff. His maternal grandfather is a bit of a middle ground, trying to teach Zackery a more thoughtful approach to life and getting frustrated with his son in law. Peter, wandering around a field, thinks about how similar America and Russia are. The Soviets have very limited free speech and information, but the Americans have the news twisted and weaponized against them, so both countries are clueless and misinformed. Speaking of misinformation, Zack's grandfather is desperately trying to convince his son in law that global warming is real and Ronald Reagan is not helpful to this country, so Zack gets bored and wanders off. To him, the whole world is a game; he's a cool airforce pilot, flying around battling the ozone monsters. Until he runs into a group of men about to murder someone, who decide to kill him as a potential witness. While his family debates large scale politics, they're oblivious to what's happening nearby in these woods, as these men, who have superpowers, call their boss, an old man dressed in white named Alexander, who tells them to finish the job and kill the boy kindly. Peter runs into the family when they all hear Zack scream and rush over. Peter beats them up and gets the family out of there. The dad, Bruce, insists they go to the cops, but they seem to be in on it because they attack them and they must flee once again. They get back to their house, where Bruce starts babbling like a nut about defending his property, his wife, Roxanne, just wants to make everyone lunch, and the grandpa sits around offering advice. Peter begs them all to get away from here so he can handle the threat, but none of them will listen to a Russian. Bruce tells Peter that this country is great one because they have freedom, and Peter points out that he, a Vietnam Vet, lives with his family in a rundown farmhouse with no healthcare, whereas Peter's family at least had shelter and medicine. The people hunting them attack then, trapping grandpa in his car outside. Peter fights them off with the help of one of the team, who introduces herself as Number Six. She says they were a black ops CIA squad called the Cold Warriors hunting domestic terrorists that got so black ops they broke off from the government. She's fed up being part of this and wants to get the story out to the press, which is Alexander's greatest fear. Number Six says she'll stay here and keep the stalemate up between the Cold Warriors and the house if Peter will go take down Alexander.

Before he leaves, Bruce thanks him for protecting his family, and apologizes for how he's treated him. Peter goes off to Cold Warrior HQ and starts beating them up. He takes them down no trouble, and some of them start begging for him to kill them. Back at the house, one of the Warriors attacks and almost kills the Roxanne. Bruce starts getting paranoid again, gagging his wife when she starts having a mental breakdown and tying up Number Six, who he believes has betrayed them. The family's neighbors, who have been standing near the edge of the property being nosy, hear Roxanne scream and get cut off, but decide it's none of their business to report it. They'll stick around to hear the gossip though. Peter makes his way to Alexander, who gives him a monologue about how people don't want or deserve the truth. After he washes his hands, he agrees to go with Peter to be arrested. At the house, Bruce finally lets Number Six go when the Cold Warriors start attacking again. During the battle, the grandpa decides it's time to die, so he lays down and gives up. Peter stops the battle when he shows up with Alexander and makes him and his men turn themselves into the police, who have just arrived. Roxanne, who's spent the whole story denying everything that's happening, is the one to share the story with the press, and Bruce, who up till now has been single-mindedly defending his belief in America, lets his wife take the wheel and spill the beans. Number Six is finally free of Alexander and goes off to find her own way. Before he's taken away, Alexander tells Peter that none of this will see print and he'll be free soon. And that's how the story ends. I'll be honest, a lot of this flew over my head. Ann Nocenti has a masters degree in international relations and worked in journalism during the Cold War, and that shows in this story. I also just feel like her work is so hard to describe. The cadence of the dialogue, the word choices, the use of voiceover over art, it's so incredibly good. I will say, it was a bold choice to have a Soviet man on the X-Men and it's even bolder to have him defend the USSR in 1989. Although he doesn't do it as well as Nocenti does here, Claremont does seem very aware of that part of Peter. He doesn't mention Russia or communism by name much, but if you read into it that is very clearly the philosophy he's coming from. The X-Men are an inherently political concept, and although he's subtle about it, Peter's presence on the team and in their debates brings something pretty unique to the political table. He'll give up everything he has for the community of the X-Men, and he often treats them more like a collective and less like individuals, especially himself. I think this might be why he's struggled to be relevant in the franchise since his death and resurrection. In the eighties, he can be this foreign perspective on politics. In the nineties, around the fall of the USSR, he also loses faith in Xavier's dream and struggles to find a direction. It's mostly sub textual, but clearly part of that storyline is the loss of his homeland as he knew it. And then in the early 2000s, he finds a way to sacrifice himself for his entire people by curing the Legacy Virus. When he's brought back a few years later, Joss Whedon has no interest in the Soviet Union angle, and by the time another writer gets a hold of him, the USSR is no longer really relevant to the political discussions in the books. It's not like that's the only angle you can take with the character, because he's very interesting and has a lot of layers, but so much of the focus of the books in the years after Whedon was on the concepts and ethics of nations and global communities and politics, and the only thing he could add to those discussions is the USSR perspective, which at that point thanks to the way the timeline shifts towards the present fell when he was a little kid. So he's just a little more limited than some of his peers. Plus the whole thing with Whedon and Kitty, but I don't want to get into that. I think that's enough on this one.

Longshot: Dreamwalk is as far as I know the only time after the Longshot mini that Ann Nocenti has scripted the character. He's running around the outback racing a kangaroo when he almost trips over a man meditating. The man says he was dreamwalking, sleeping and astral projecting into his own mindscape. Longshot thinks it sounds neat, so that night he tries it. He falls asleep in the X-Men HQ and encounters a god of dreams, who looks like a hyena bird thing with nebulous, shifting form. They run around like children for a while, throwing things and wrecking the place, until the play fight gets a little too rough on the god's end and he knocks Longshot down the stairs. In real life, he's sleeping peacefully, but the whole place is really wrecked. And that's...the whole story. I have no idea what this means. I mean, it was cute. I love Longshot having silly weird adventures. If I have a takeaway from this, and from the Colossus story, it's to bring back Ann Nocenti. She did an X-Men Legends arc recently, but I want her on an ongoing book. I know people like Claremont and Peter David are tricky to bring back because their egos get in the way of working with the modern line, but Ann Nocenti in interviews has always struck me as very humble and clearly still very creative. She's written some cool creator owned stuff recently too! Put her on an Exiles or X-Statix book or something, give her Longshot, who nobody else wants to use, and let her go wild. I'd buy it. Not much else to say on that. Ann Nocenti is a genius.

[racefortheironthrone]

Hello, I don't know if you saw, but yesterday on YouTube they released a video on the next series of X-Men comics (From The Ashes) that's coming out this summer. It looks like they're just going back to the classic storyline of the X-Men fighting to protect a world that hates and fears them. What I liked about Krakoa was that instead of mutants just struggling to survive, it gave them a place of their own where they could thrive and reach their full potential. However, it seems like no matter what they do, the X-Men always get kicked back to square one.

Yeah, I saw that. I think it's a bit more complicated than "going back to the classic storyline of the X-Men fighting to protect a world that hates and fears them." (To a significant extent, that's just describing the basic premise for the X-Men for most of their publication history.)

Rather, I would describe From the Ashes as evocative of the post-Outback, pre-Blue Team/Gold Team period at the tail end of the Claremont run, but with an aesthetic that's inspired by both the 90s comics (which makes sense, with X-Men '97 only days away) and the Bendis era.

For example, I would describe a scenario in which there is no Xavier School and there are multiple teams spread out from Alaska to Chicago to New Orleans to New York all pursuing different strategies for fighting for mutantkind as "back to basics."

Scott's team based out of Alaska is a more classic mutant rescue team, but it's being led by a visibly older Magneto in an Xavier-like chair, so there's definitely aspects of the "Revolutionary" Cyclops era there too. Kate and Emma's more youth-outreach team is somewhat evocative of the New Mutants or Generation X or Academy X, but the Chicago setting is more reminiscent of Claremont's somewhat controversial Mekanix book. And god only knows what NYX or X-Force or X-Factor are going to be about.

That being said, I am immensely excited about the new creative team. Marjorie Liu aside, women are almost never given the chance to write flagship X-books and here we have both the superb Gail Simone and the equally talented Eve Ewing (who is the first black woman to write a flagship X-book). And Jed MacKay has more than proven in his Black Cat and Moon Knight and Doctor Strange books that he's got an incredible knack for taking classic characters in compelling new directions.

I know you might be concerned about the marketing pitch, but this is not a team that's going to churn out meaningless nostalgia-bait fluff rather than tell real stories.

[hakka84]

fuckyeaharchangel:

motherbox:

X-Factor prelim designs #3 by Bob Layton

INTERESTING TRIVIA: Jean Grey wasn’t originally announced as the 5th member of X-Factor. Alison Blaire aka Dazzler was the first choice until editorial decided at the very last minute to resurrect Jean Grey and retcon her death in the Dark Phoenix Saga (something Mr. Chris Claremont was not very happy about)! Dazzler, as we all know, went on to serve with the Outback team instead over in Uncanny X-Men.

I bet Claremont was pissed off. I remember hearing this story in Wizard or somewhere — I love Ali, but I am glad they brought Jean back. 

I am and I’m not, equally. I’m a big Dazzler fan but I’m also a massively huge fan of the Original Five team. Dazzler had some great established relationships with both Warren and Hank at the time, so I think she would have blended in nicely.

For me, though, the question really comes down to whether or not Jean should have been brought back from the Phoenix Saga at all. Claremont had fully intended this to be the end of Jean Grey’s story and her to not have ever been brought back. I think the story would have benefited from her not returning because it would have kept the integrity of the story AND it would have saved all of the convoluted character history (ie is Jean Phoenix or not, can she access the powers or not, and so many writers screwing this up). 

But on the other hand, there were a lot of great stories told in X-Factor as was (definitely within my top 3 favourite runs of all time) and I’m not sure it would have been the same without her! So…I think I’m on the fence about it still, as the pros and cons balance for ME.

What do you all think?

fuckyeaharchangel:

motherbox:

X-Factor prelim designs #3 by Bob Layton

INTERESTING TRIVIA: Jean Grey wasn’t originally announced as the 5th member of X-Factor. Alison Blaire aka Dazzler was the first choice until editorial decided at the very last minute to resurrect Jean Grey and retcon her death in the Dark Phoenix Saga (something Mr. Chris Claremont was not very happy about)! Dazzler, as we all know, went on to serve with the Outback team instead over in Uncanny X-Men.

I bet Claremont was pissed off. I remember hearing this story in Wizard or somewhere — I love Ali, but I am glad they brought Jean back. 

I am and I’m not, equally. I’m a big Dazzler fan but I’m also a massively huge fan of the Original Five team. Dazzler had some great established relationships with both Warren and Hank at the time, so I think she would have blended in nicely.

For me, though, the question really comes down to whether or not Jean should have been brought back from the Phoenix Saga at all. Claremont had fully intended this to be the end of Jean Grey’s story and her to not have ever been brought back. I think the story would have benefited from her not returning because it would have kept the integrity of the story AND it would have saved all of the convoluted character history (ie is Jean Phoenix or not, can she access the powers or not, and so many writers screwing this up). 

But on the other hand, there were a lot of great stories told in X-Factor as was (definitely within my top 3 favourite runs of all time) and I’m not sure it would have been the same without her! So…I think I’m on the fence about it still, as the pros and cons balance for ME.

What do you all think?