Lower Decks

A few weeks ago, I wrote a review for the latest X-Men film, which for brevity’s sake we’re going to call, simply, ‘Wolverine,’ and in its I touched on the earlier three films, which I generally consider to be some of the best superhero films to have been made. I imagine I might have a higher opinion of them if Marvel Comics could bother to live up to the hype that persists in the publishing world, which has, more than anything, bolstered the modern success of the House of Ideas.

Recently, there was yet another shake-up (and this doesn’t even get into the effect of Dark Reign, that isn’t only beginning to be felt with the mutant population) that reorganized, or rather, reshuffled the titles currently being published. Problem is, from an outsider’s perspective, nothing really changed, and the basic mandate of pretty much doing nothing at all (except killing/maiming Professor X and disbanding/reforming the team yet again) was maintained. The last time anyone did anything of note was when Joss Whedon launched ‘Astonishing X-Men,’ which, uh, resurrected Colossus. But the last time anyone told a meaningful mutant tale was ‘House of M,’ when the Scarlet Witch made the population impotent…which had no real impact on any ongoing title.

I don’t really get why X-Men writers can’t seem to write anything serious about the things that make the X-Men, well, the X-Men. You know, the things the films spent a little time examining, what made the comics so popular thirty years ago. Maybe it’s just Marvel being Marvel, being reluctant to tell any story that goes anywhere beyond the surface of things, comfortable in its own mythology (but such blanket statements must not be mistaken for suggesting Marvel doesn’t publish anything worth reading, because it does). Grant Morrison was the last writer willing to dip below the surface, but hey, he’s a DC man through and through these days. Think that’s a mistake?

The only time I regularly followed the X-Men was doing the early ’90s, but not in the comics, but with the classic cartoon series, which chronicled the best of the stories that had come before, which is basically what the later ‘Justice League’ cartoons did. They weren’t cashing in on a craze or a film, but rather telling good stories with good characters. Is that really so hard?

Rhetorical question. So when the films debuted, it was somewhat astonishing that they were basically able to maintain the same premise. A few years ago, I did actually start reading some of the comics, dabbling in ‘Ultimate X-Men,’ Ed Brubaker’s ‘Uncanny X-Men,’ and Peter David’s ‘X-Factor.’ Of the three, ‘X-Factor’ was easiest to read on a regular basis, but it never really seemed essential to do so – it was a matter of convenience I called the Borders Bin while I was writing ‘The Quarter Bin’ at Paperback Reader.com (basically reading comics on break). Some time later, I read a little of “Messiah CompleX,” which is pretty much the story that brought us to where the X-Men are today.

But don’t tell me how exactly that happened. Cable, who was always a bit of a directionless mutant from the future, ended up being charged with doing the ‘Children of Men’ shepherding of the first mutant born since ‘House of M,’ but, like I said, the story sort of spiraled into irrelevance. Cable got another shot at his own series (hey, at one point, the dude actually sort of had two, so it’s not as if he hasn’t been popular enough to support one), which continued that role, but the rest of the X-Men were already busy rebooting, and I lost all interest. The last time I read an X-Men comic, one of the teams was reorientating in L.A, I think. Eventually, Wolverine, to bring us back full circle, was refocused into one of the Avengers books.

Now, Wolverine is certainly fascinating, and he’s the most distinctive mutant that Marvel has come up with, and he’s basically the Batman of the X-Men set, but the film he starred in this summer, as I also suggested in that review, is indicative of everything that the X-Men and Marvel in general have been doing wrong. “Old Man Logan,” a story arc that’s almost finished up, was his own personal “Days of the Future Past,” a sort of canonical tale that speaks to the character and his circumstances perfectly, but in a way Marvel doesn’t have to worry about actually changing anything. If the company wanted to expand his or anyone else’s popularity (and, perchance, extend the popularity of the whole line once all those fans the first of the modern relaunches, ‘X-Men #1,’ initiated, finally stop being so influential), that would be an excellent way to go, without repudiating outright the policies of the recent past.