The X-Men find themselves, perhaps almost always, on the precipice of great change. But right now they really TO DO they feel like they are on the brink of something new again. In the comics, after years rejuvenated by the Krakoan erathey are ready to reborn from the ashes tragedy once again. On the big screen, we’re ready to say goodbye to Fox X-Men era in Deadpool and Wolverine this summer. And on TV, mutants soar high with X-Men ’97it’s re-imagining of an animated classic.
On the contrary, there are so many parallels in 2024 with the turn of the 21st century, when Grant Morrison was preparing to write a new generation of X-Men comics with what would eventually become New X-Men in the summer of 2001. Alongside Frank Quitely and other artists, New X-Men boldly redefined what X-Men stories were for the modern era, further emboldened by the cultural moment the X-Men found themselves in. While the 90s were very good for the X-Men in terms of comic book sales for the most part – and of course you had ancillary support in wider culture thanks to the explosions of things like X-Men: The Animated Series and Jim Lee’s iconic trading cards – Mutants hit the mainstream even harder with the release of First of all X-Men movie In 2000.
The herald of a new era of superhero cinema, X-Men was, in Morrison’s eyes, both a nudge and a warning about what needed to change in the comics, so that they could try to match again the audiences the film had captivated. “Let’s target the general public. Let’s push books we can be proud of on every level. Books that kids will love for their kinetic, funky style, that middle schoolers will buy for the rebellious irony, and that adults will love for the entertainment, just like the movies and TV shows, just like when Stan (Lee) did it . ‘he!!!” Morrison wrote in his bible for New X-Men-which has been circulating online since a few years now, but becomes a particularly powerful read at the crossroads that Marvel’s mutants find themselves in in 2024, as a reboot of the comics looms and a future in Marvel’s vaunted cinematic universe looms. “I believe we have a rare opportunity to break down some self-imposed barriers and run screaming into the streets if we let loose a little and do work aimed at the general public, educated in the media, made up of children , adolescents and adults with disposable income. .”
In this part of the bible – including some early descriptions of story arcs and characters who would appear in the book, such as “Charlie argument in favor of a true 21st century. century vision of the X-Men, galvanized by the adoption of the fundamental concepts of the franchise and the characters of the film. “To do the X-Men Feeling fresh again, we need to take a closer, harder look at what’s wrong in this book and in the comics field in general,” they write in part. “The recent X-Men things have been written in an old-fashioned, overly dense style, and we need to significantly update, streamline, and demystify storytelling techniques to appeal to modern sensibilities.
It’s full of Morrison’s thoughts on what they thought worked and was worth revisiting in X-Men—designating Chris Claremont and John Byrne’s legendary run Giant size and eventually Strange X-Men in the late ’70s and early ’80s as a touchstone (“they had the freedom to create new material, reconceptualize the old stuff that still worked, and ignore the dated elements that had undermined the original series of its vitality) – and what had been left behind in the 90s. “Over the last decade, the trend at Marvel has been extremely conservative; comics like X-Men went from free, saturated pop to cautious, dubious retro,” Morrison argued. “…Comics have withdrawn into themselves and become as septic as a toenail… X-Meneven though it remained Marvel’s bestseller, had become a watchword for pure geekery before the film gave us another jolt of electroshock.
For Morrison, the film was a big part of what they wanted to bring to New X-Menthe cultural and aesthetic presence of . Beyond the sense of contemporary freshness that had defined the Claremont era of the franchise, mutant stories that still reflected these heroes less internally as superheroes, but as people of the modern world, were also important to them that X-Men It felt less like a superhero comic and more like a sci-fi epic, something that resonates in New X-Menthe final approach to things like the Sentinels or his hold over the Shi’ar Empire, but also how he split mutant culture into something distinct from humanity, both on a societal and evolutionary level. But above all? Morrison loved ideas behind these movie costumes.
“The movie was almost right: I think we should go for some hardcore motorcycle style exo-rubber uniforms, maybe military pants and wrestling style boots…the look is brutalist and military and I think that the X-Men should reflect that to remain the cutting edge of cool,” Morrison writes, before adding that no. All the design of the film totally worked for them. “I’d like to see some yellow in the panels or costume details – if only to avoid the dull black leather look of all movie superheroes – but it should be a pop yellow dayglo art, the kind worn by cyclists and bikers to be seen. .. X-Men is a soap opera about super-people in the same way as Dallas It was a soap opera about oil people. The oil was just a facade and an excuse to look good.
In hindsight, Morrison’s bold gamble paid off. Although not all aspects of their race are taken into account New X-Men Having escaped controversy, the book remains one of the definitive X-Men texts of the 21st century, an influence that is still felt in comics today – and elsewhere, in things like Deadpool and WolverineIt is using Cassandra NovaOr X-Men ’97the examination of the Genoshan genocide. As the as we see where Marvel Studios and Marvel Comics are taking mutantkind. evolution afterwards.
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