Marvel culls mutants

[TheLe]

Marvel is culling their universe!

No More Mutants'
'House of M' and 'Decimation' Downsize the Marvel Universe

October 14, 2005

During a conference call discussing the post-House of M/Decimation event, Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada made no bones about the fact that he was happy that the result of this major Marvel event would be a drastic reduction in the number of mutants in the Marvel Universe. Quesada declared that he had placed a "moratorium" on the creation of new mutants (with the possible exception of a handful of new characters that were part of the House of M event and its immediate aftermath). Quesada also rejected the idea that mutants who bit the dust during the House of M and Decimation would be returning, stating unequivocally: "As long as I am EIC I am not bringing any of these (characters) back."

When asked by retailer Phil Boyle of Coliseum Comics if the entire House of M / Decimation event wasn't some sort of excuse to create more "X" books and further dilute the franchise, Quesada agreed that there had been too many mutants and too many X-books in the Marvel Universe. He noted that one of the elements that made the Marvel mutant characters psychologically compelling was the fact that they were part of a tiny, persecuted minority. The idea behind House of M and Decimation is to scale back the number and role of mutants in the current Marvel Universe to something similar to the Silver Age Marvel Universe. Quesada also noted that poor performing X-titles such as Nightcrawler and District X had been cancelled and that the purpose of the new approach to mutants in the Marvel Universe was to make the X-books more compelling and meaningful.


When queried about potential fan fatigue from too many "events" such as House of M, Spider-Man: The Other, and DC's Infinite Crisis, Quesada replied that it was definitely a concern, but that fans appeared to be voting in favor of "event" titles with their pocketbooks. He noted that Spider-Man: The Other was confined to just three Spider-Man titles and he maintained that Marvel did not try to prop up low-selling titles by making them key parts of crossover events. He also pointed out that the effects of the 95% reduction in the number of mutants in the Marvel Universe would be reflected through the line -- Wolverine will be the only mutant in The New Avengers and all the X-books, including Joss Whedon's popular Astonishing X-Men, will be affected by the House of M / Decimation events.

Full news here at ICV2.com.

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

About time they got rid of some of them. The proliferation of mutants in the MU was a major reason I turned from Marvel to DC for the majority of my comics reading.

So, who was killed in House of M? Any big names from way back, or just more recent characters?

 

[Umbran]

If they can't keep Colossus dead, ain't nobody staying dead, ever.

And the whole thing is just nonsense. If they want to cut back on Mighty Marvel Mutants, they don't have to kill them. They just have to stop writing stories about them! Exercise a little impulse control, for cryin' out loud! If you let them fade into the background, you don't have to come up with lame excuses for their return.

And they will return. They always return.

 

[Desdichado]

And the whole thing is just nonsense. If they want to cut back on Mighty Marvel Mutants, they don't have to kill them. They just have to stop writing stories about them! Exercise a little impulse control, for cryin' out loud! If you let them fade into the background, you don't have to come up with lame excuses for their return.

Quoted for troof. There are, what 6.5 billion people on the world? What's a few hundred mutant characters, then? Still a tiny minority.

 

[kitoy]

I don't have a problem with Marvel cutting down the number of mutants. I can agree with a lot of the rationalizations that Quesada is giving us, especially making the X-men a part of a small, persecuted minority. Being a mutant in the Marvel universe long ago lost the "gravitas" it used to have.

My problem is the method that they're using to bring this about. I'm not even talking about the plot or the story. If executed correctly, House of M could've been a wonderful, classic alternate reality story. Instead, House of M exhibits all of the worst traits of "Bendis-Bad" (as opposed to "Bendis-Good" a writer that I really admire and enjoy). You've got deconstructed story-telling so bad that nothing happens for entire issues or even multiple issues at times.

I picked up the first issue of House of M off the shelf, read it in the store, and put it right back down without buying it. This from a 20+ year fan of Marvel comics in general and the X-men in particular. I literally bought every X-book printed from the early '80s to the early 2000's. My interest in the X-men has been waning in recent years what with Grant Morrison's brilliant, but ultimately cold-hearted run and the absolute ineptitude of Chuck Austen. I found myself not buying X-men for the first time in decades. Now comes this overblown, overhyped, overwritten excuse for a crossover that may have finally severed my last tie to the X-men.

The shame of all this is that right next door, at DC, you have a perfect example of how to execute a company-wide crossover. In every way possible, Infinite Crisis beats House of M hands down. More happens in Infinite Crisis #1 than has happened in 7 issues of House of M. The back story has been researched better, the writing is better and the art is better. What else can I say?

Enough, I'll get off my soap box. There is still hope, I'll probably still buy Peter David's X-Factor and the New X-Men book featuring the kids, but my days of buying everything X-related are long gone.

 

[jasper]

again it only been since 1988 when they killed off the last batch.

 

[Lucky Number]

If they can't keep Colossus dead, ain't nobody staying dead, ever.

And the whole thing is just nonsense. If they want to cut back on Mighty Marvel Mutants, they don't have to kill them. They just have to stop writing stories about them! Exercise a little impulse control, for cryin' out loud! If you let them fade into the background, you don't have to come up with lame excuses for their return.

And they will return. They always return.

Hell, Bucky's back. Marvel has basically said they no longer have any solid rules, except the whims of the editors.

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

Hell, Bucky's back.

HUH? When did that happen?

 

[kitoy]

again it only been since 1988 when they killed off the last batch.

Actually, a whole bunch of them (a million? a couple million? 16 million? something like that ) got wiped out in Genosha by the mega-sentinels in Grant Morrison's first arc of New X-Men.

 

[WayneLigon]

HUH? When did that happen?

I think the jury is still out on whether or not this is the Bucky, since there have been a few of them, but in the Captain America plotlines running now it's been revealed that Bucky did not die but was badly injured. Missing his left arm, he was picked out of the North Sea by a Russian sub and taken back. Since Bucky was basically a trained assassin, they gave him a cybernetic arm, brainwashed him into becomming an assassin for their side. They keep him in suspended animation and every once in awhile unthaw him for some critical mission. Cap has just now seen him for the first time and is trying to get to the bottom of things.