The Black Vortex : Thoughts

After reading the first 2 issues of the story arc, I can honestly say I don't like the story arc so far. It seems everyone will be influence by the Black Vortex. Kitty seems to be ok with stealing things with Star-Lord.

what are your thoughts. Do you like the story so far.

I didn't read it.

I'm just here to tell other people not too.

Make a statement, no more crossovers till the X-Men stories improve!

I think kitty agreed to steal the black vortex because she wants to destroy it. I think all those who are in favor of using it are the ones who are easy to be corrupted by power. it is slow paced and I'm just excited because i'm really scared of what they'll do with the o5. I couldn't care less with the guardians and carol danvers. I just wish they won't make jean kill scott

@koays: Agreed. Plus we certainly don't need another cosmic force out there. I mean isn't the Phoenix enough?!!!!

@hawk2916: Definitely. From what I've heard though its just a mirror that if you touch it gives you your cosmic potential and the only reason its being considered being used is because bad guys have used it.

It sounds cheap, but I won't critique until I read....

...and I won't read until X-Men books get better....so take that Marvel you have to earn your criticism!

@koays: lol that's the spirit!!

I actually started my x-men strike/abstinence after getting so pissed with the art of burning world. I haven't bought any comics but i downloaded digital copies for free. I promise to buy everything i missed if i get to like the ending of black vortex.

What bothers me though is how can someone have a cosmic potential if his or her body cant even contain what an omega level character can. I mean some omega levels even burn out when wielding great amounts of energy.

Also, Gamora said that she now has powers enough to take down Thanos. WOW!

1. I have see (see, don't read or buy) the first two issues of the crossover and I can confirm that is the plot.
2. It is exactly what I already do: no more Cyclops, no more All New X-Men, nothing Black Vortex and nothing Secret Wars.

Well after seeing Beast go through the Vorex my first thought was "Oh one of these deals...Temporary powers/change that won't h as very much if any impact down the line."

@koays: I am with you

I decided not to read it and I believe by some of these comments...

I was right

I fully believe this storyline just exists to remind people that Thanos is a big deal......because of the films. No real direction or purpose behind it.

From this point out I think it will just be better if everyone excepts the X-Men will continually be phased out bit by bit into a lesser role in the Marvel U. Marvels focus will be on their film franchises and the comics will just be subsidiary. It might just be one of the reasons Bendis is leaving the book in the first place.

The last several cross overs and events have stunk. Sounds like this is no different. Wake me when it's over. I'm disappointed though that ANXM 37 got moved after this event since I was hoping to get that issue and dump the series afterwards...

So far I think the story is OK and had an interesting premise. I'll continue reading it for now.

@ec2277: @awesomepersonFight the power man!

Your probably right about Thanos. I literally see nothing that the X-Men and GotG would have in common accept that the X-Men has a solid reader base and GotG could use some of those numbers to boost their prominence before they become a major player in the MCU.

I thinks its a cold hard fact that we as fans have been sort of denying or shrugging off for a while that X-Men doesn't register on Marvel's radar any more. They basically just throw the X-Men into events to increase the importance of them, and have little creative direction and editorial managment behind the majority of X-Men titles (as if some of the artwork that get by didn't make it obvious). It's easy to just chalk it up as just a low period that's fighting to get better for some people...which in a way it is.

I think right now, with Secret Wars approaching and a new direction for the entire company being promoted, it will be the moment where those of us in denial will either have to face the sad truth or rejoice that the mismanagement of the franchise was just a result of Bendis' creative style as lead writer and other coincidences mashing together. Either way....it's 2 months before we find out the undeniable truth about whether "Marvel Comics doesn't care about X-People".

@koays said:

1. There isn't nothing bad in do it, if they write good stories. The X-Men have a long tradition of space stories, so why don't write some stories also with the Guardians of the Galaxy? It's enough that the writer write good.
2. If I remember well, I wrote somewhere that the writers are using the various series only to join the various events that they have to sell us and I agree totally with you: in my opinion all this events, all this upset of the characters, of the teams, of the titles have also the purpose to hide an huge lack of creativity.
3. Marvel care about money and the events makes money because they sell better that the series. So… reread the point 2, please.

Obviously what I have said, isn't true only for the X-Men: you think about All New Captain America. Who is he? He is only the usual Falcon, that have changed name and costume. It is the properly way to relaunch a character?

I don't think the our current disappointment is fault of Bendis, but it is the result of an editorial strategy, that have in the will of amaze continously the readers, in order to try not to lose them, to create new series and to create the larger number of events, in order to keep high the sales.

In three years of All New X-Men we have seen happen all these things: we have seen an events with almost all the others x-titles (Battle of the Atom), we have seen two events with the Guardians of the Galaxy (the Trial of Jean Grey and Black Vortex), we have see start a new series (Cyclops) and we have see announce a possible Teen Jean solo series; we have see also a crossover with the Ultimate Spider Man and the Ultimate X-Men!

What is that if not a way to keep high or boost the sales of the various titles involved in that events/crossovers?

I repeat what I have written in the begin of this post: there isn't nothing bad in do it, because sell their books is the job of them. But they must write good stories, if they want that I buy their books.

So in my opinion it isn't only a Bendis' fault, because Bendis do what Marvel want he do.

Marvel wants increase the sales of Guardian of the Galaxy and Ultimate Spider Man?

Bendis write two crossover with the X-Men and start a love story between Starlord and Kitty.

The execution of the work is the Bendis' fault.

i didnt buy it either......i was looking forward to this but now im just might get cyclops12 and the last black vortex omega

oh by the way, black vortex alpha sold out and is going into reprint. also im still mad at marvel for making the trial of jean grey and it sucked

Honestly, I wouldn't really be all that paranoid about the X-Men getting phased out but, over the past several months or so, I have noticed a great number of promotional material not featuring any X-Men characters, and Marvel sort of making strides to to push any character that might feature in a film, like Ant Man or the Guardians into a spotlight.

Bendis is pretty high up at Marvel, I am just assuming at this point at one of their more recent creative meetings Disney heads probably delineated that "no movies...no franchise", and they probably took Bendis off or suggested he leave X-Men for a series that will be pushed to the A list.

I wouldn't be surprised if the meeting went just like that. I mean when a top title (which All New is whether we like it or not) crosses over with another franchise more then it does with it's own then you know somethings up. And considering Bendis wasn't just given GotG because they needed any ol' writer, i wouldn't be surprised if they gave him his marching orders sometime after BotA to focus on transferring readership.

I'm not of the mind that X-Men will be completely phased out, it's horribly bad business for them to do that. But considering we've got Inhuman covers with them stepping on the X-Men and crossovers where the X-Men play the baddies, while at the same time X-books are only just beginning to stabilize individually after spending most of 2013-14 being half@ssed....well I just think the franchise has been reduced to a tool for milking instead of something to be managed.

I almost feel bad complaining about it considering 3/4ths of the current X-books are on a big upswing....but i fear without someone taking advantage of Marvel's lack of interest, the books will head back downhill fast.

You know, people keep saying "thats a bad business idea", but, I don't buy that. A lot of people said the very same thing several years ago when there was an idea to bring the original X-men to the present as teenagers furthermore breaking an already pretty crazy continuity. A lot of people complained, and judging by these forums--still complain about it, yet, people still buy the books. My point being that Marvel will do whatever they want because there focus is always bringing in the new reader....the new reader they attract with their films and cartoons. They never really worry about older readers because they know the older ones may eventually stop reading a lot sooner.

Marvel doesn't make anywhere as much of a profit off of the niche of comic book readers as they do with the films and other merchandise. Also, as of last month, no X-Men title even broke the top ten in sales.....Star Wars did, Ant Man did, and I think maybe Thor, which is good for Marvel, because those are all film franchises they own.

True enough. No number one selling comicbook is ever going to bring in Avengers, GotG, or even Thor movie money to Marvel. But at the same time X-Men isn't a struggling property financially. It's books sell well, and it's movies have strong showings. It's still one of the most popular and well known comicbook franchises and is a household name.

While the X-Men films may not be in the hands of Marvel they do profit from them and own all other aspects of the property. To me the reason it's painted as such a bad business decision is because to have something so valuable and well established that you would have to go out of your way to damage and conceal it beyond recognition in order to take away it's value, is something that seems silly when you can profit from it without even making much effort. Brand name recognition is such a big part of business that to try to get rid of something you own that has it is kinda crazy.

That said, I wouldn't be surprised if they let the books flounder creatively and just hit the relaunch button every time sales took a stiff dive. Really we've seen by the little promotion they've gotten post-Marvel Now, that the books just sell because their X-Men and even books like Amazing which go months without anything of substance can continue to be printed just for titles sake. Though whether all out erasing or a lack of creative oversight is worse is up in the air.

It's over. Go DC. It isn't that much of a mess.

Ugh man. I replied earlier with a long, three paragraph or so response and in typical comicvine fashion it didn't post.....or got deleted or whatever--f*ck this website. Basically, the crux of my argument was that Marvel isn't catering to the X-fans anymore, it's catering to the droves of new readers that are coming in from the films. You only think them phasing the X-Men is a bad idea because you are fan of them, a newer reader drawn in from watching super heroes like Cap and Hulk on the big screen probably don't care about the X-Men, they want to see Cap and Iron Man. I am not saying they are going to get rid of the X-Men completely, just probably make them less important.

Man that post eater has gotten out of control... I have to copy all my longer post now before commenting...though it's funny how myself, adamtrmm, Hawk2916, ec2277, and now you were making critical statements about Bendis or Marvel when it happened.

Anyway, I agree basically. Clearly the X-Men aren't the focus especially while they have so much world building to do with Captain Marvel, GotG, Antman and other entities that aren't well known that will become important parts of the MCU. But my concern is more to what being out of focus means for the X-Men. Is it a lack of major roles in events and crossovers? Keeping the number of titles down? Or stopping the X-Men writers from embarking on major projects for the team? I mean they can focus on Carol Danvers all they want but getting her more relevant then X-Men are on average will be more work then doubling the X-Men's relevance and potential sales with an X-Event. And it's not like the X-Men movies don't bring a few readers on board as well...not the same level as MCU but noticeable.

We're obviously about to experience a regression, but my concern is with the form it will take. Whether it will be active sabotage or just refocusing on other things makes a difference. I mean playing background for MU events doesn't seem bad if it's in the same manor as the 00's, but if they're going to basically avoid anything to do with furthering the growth of the X-Men in their own little corner then that would be almost self destructive.

Conspiracies.

I would assume...and this is all conjecture of course, they will just reduce the number of X-books and not have the X-Men appear as much in line wide cross overs and maybe reduce the usage of guys like Wolverine, well after they bring him back to life... because you know they will in like a year or so.

I actually wouldn't mind if they slowed down and isolated the X-Men. Whenever somebody makes the obligatory "How would you do it" thread on these forums I always suggest 4, intertwining books with only 2 writers working on the 4 of them. Thats all you need really. The X-Men were allowed to flourish in the first place under Claremonts pen because they weren't exactly popular when they came back from cancellation. Perhaps, again, the X-Mens salvation could be born out of upheaval. The less popular it is the less you have editorial interfering and stuff like that...that is exactly why things in every form of media (like bands) are usually thought to better before they become real popular.....not as many cooks in the kitchen.

Here it goes....I hope this doesn't get erased :)

The "Wolverines" solicit makes it look like he'll be back by May...but really, guy with healing factor coming back to life. I doubt we'll even need a story arc for it.

To me it depends on how they slow it down. I'm all for isolation and with only 3-4 titles we could rebuild a lot of the X-Men internally, especially if it's a small cohesive creative team. They could even work 3 or 4 creators if they had a person who is specifically in charge and setting the tone, similarly to how Green Lantern as a franchise pretty much has all their books off on their own before bringing them all back together to tie in too the head writers story arc.

My only thing is that a lack of oversight seems to have been the problem with so many of the X-books recently. I mean the art is bad enough, but Latour's Wolverine and the X-Men and even Amazing at times were headache causing in their poorly written/lack of storylines. I also feel like Bendis' run would've done better had some of the other X-Books been their to support and further the story. I mean this may not be a problem if we get a pair of say Yost and Peter David who are competent...but i'd at least like some quality control if nothing else should Marvel decide to set the franchise adrift.

*also had to post this 3 times. The Conspiracy is real

I would prefer one writer actually. One writer with one vision. When you have to work with someone else it can get homogenized.

Story is all that matters. Have a goal to reach where you can build to it over the years, treat the characters like people instead of boring super heroes, flesh out the villains and supporting as much as you flesh out the main characters, and do new things and create new characters as time goes by. That is all I ask.....and as simple as it that is, it will likely never happen.

@cattlebattle: I'd prefer at least 2, though its mostly because I don't trust one person to write 4 distinct titles and I'm not willing to go down to 2 or 3.

We live in a short attention span era. Where too much development is a bad thing, because people want their books to be accessible or don't want to use up all their ideas or some other such nonsense. The truth is for whatever reason books are being released with simple gimmicks, and one focus and at the end of the storyline the book ends and is relaunched. We may never get a long thought through plot again that evolves and changes..... But here's to us hopers who keep on waiting for it. #teamdreamers

The Crap Vortex

Can someone tell me if Kitty and Starlord is finally a thing of the past?

Yeah, 1 author would likely get burned out doing 4 books. Its just a preference though it wouldn't be possible. If you have two writers and one starts slipping then the other writer might get dragged down with him, I have had to write things and collaborate with people in bands and stuff like that, I have seen it happen, collaboration can sometime be a bad thing as much as it is good. I feel like writing comics its more of a solo game. Look at the greatest runs of X-Men; Claremonts, Whedons.....those are examples of one guy doing what he wanted without worrying about someone else.

You know, people often say its the "short attention span" times we live in, but, I kind of disagree. Look at most of the shows that get lauded these days or over at least the last several years--shows like "Game of Thrones", "True Detective", animated shows like "Young Justice"...all of those shows had complicated character stuff, "slow burn" story lines, etc. In fact, I don't know if you watch Game of Thrones but that show is a penultimate example of what I am looking for. There is a character who starts off the series as the pretty much one of the main villains and as the show progresses, he becomes more redeemed to the point where you find yourself rooting for him.....treating the character like a real person and not just some cut out character, you know, what I am always going on about like a broken record.

I guess it's too much to ask to have stuff like that in comics these days. Well actually, there is stuff like that in comics series from independent publishers, I guess I mean stuff like that in X-books.

Lol Hey I totally get the one writer point as a guy who's tried to collaborate for novels and plays and failed. The two most irritating things can be mapping out an idea and having someone show up with a completely different interpretation of agreed upon plans and having to adjust to a weaker skill set when someone isn't bringing their A-game and you are. I mean for a recent example, Kyle & Yost came back and did a Wendigo Arc as their first work on Amazing...and while it wasn't horrible, the first 2 issues of the current arc with just Yost were better then the entire first arc. It's still early in their collaboration so we have to wait for Kyle to get a writer credit again to judge, but its noticeable change in quality. Idk, despite the examples given I feel like a team with good writers and a clear leader could do great. Like how the late 80's had Claremont leading the charge but X-Factor, Excalibur and New Mutants sort of had to keep in step with his pace and quality because he set the tone.

I do follow Game of Thrones and it's one of those very unique shows in that it's not torn apart and dissected at the end of every episode despite it's huge popularity. Likely do to it being an adaptation but yea, I guess I see your point in this. We'll never get a moment where Jubilee shows up and as the culmination to her last 4 years of story and development that was built on top of eachother we don't know whether she's going to join the bad guys or what.

With post schism X-Men, it's easy to see where things are going the moment they begin. If Jubilee is going to turn bad it's because some never before seen point was brought up in issue one of the new story arc and brought back as the "twist" in issue 5 so she can betray everyone. It has a comparable problem to what pro-wrestling fandoms have, in that if something happens on tv you'll have people figuring out who's going to beat who for the next 6 months of program because it's so simply written. But at the same time you take something like Young Justice which had 2 seasons of a mystery that went on for 5 years inuniverse, and had dozens of characters doing things that would piece together tiny parts of the puzzle for the series with little to no payoff until the season finales. It's takes too much attention to keep track of everything and everyone introduced which locks out all but the few that can hold on to follow it. It's almost the perfect example of Bendis' Uncanny style, because we got so little development of the main plot before it would interupted by a character piece or some other tie in.

I just feel like if writers could get back to delivering small but exciting moments on the way to their big drawn out plot we wouldnt have such a problem. But Marvel seems afraid to have too much going on at once in a single run with the possible exception of Hickman's Avengers who lead the brand. Maybe its because of new readers, maybe it's to sell more trades, but it basically gurantees long term readers will be punished by a lack of development

@koays: @cattlebattle: You are writing a lot of thing that I wanted highlight when i wrote about All New Captain America or when I talked about the Bunn's Magneto.

@ec2277: Lol I think we've gone into just about everything in this go...what do you mean with Magneto and All New Cap?

@koays: I don't remember where I talked about All New Cap, but it was a consideration about how Marvel has used the high-sounding title "All New Captain America" to relaunch the sales of Falcon, who instead is the same old character. In short they have did exactly what you have said this:

But a better example of this is "Spider Man and the X-Men": there isn't a real reason to make of Spider Man a teacher of the x-students, except the try to keep high the sales of the title, relaunching it with a new number 1 and using a famous character.

With regard to Bunn, I agree with you and Cattlebattle about Games of Throne and the "short attention span" and in my opinion his Magneto is a good synthesis among a story simply to read and a story with a good characterization of the character and with a properly development of the plot.

There would be some others things that I would like say about this:

but I must think over about how explain properly what I want say. For the time being I can say, I again agree with you two.

Is it me or Teen Jean looks different of what I thought she would??

Claremonts run is actually a prime example of my point; in the late 80s his control of the X-books started to slip and that is why he "killed" the X-Men and moved them to the outback, to isolate them from the other books, similarly, Excalibur, which he also wrote, was isolated, so he didn't have to have collaborate and have these other people tell him what to do. He was friends and still is good friends with Louise Simonson, who was writing X-Factor and New Mutants at the time, but he couldn't just tell her what to do, and her depictions of characters and story telling talent were nowhere near Claremonts level....hence why the late 80s and very early 90s X-Men is so mixed up and messy......because more than one person has control over the multiple series. That's why I prefer one writer.

Hey, the current state of pro wrestling's writing is not a good pallet to compare anything to these days, it's crap beyond crap :) Game of Thrones and Young Justice were just examples....as they both have good storytelling among multiple characters and are able to intertwine story lines among the episodes, and people love it. I don't think you are giving people enough credit. Look at the first season of Young Justice specifically, it had multiple plots among each character that tied into a larger picture.

I think its just basically as you say--that Marvel just wants to have the books accessible for new readers and not be too convoluted--which confuses me because I would figure convolution would prompt new readers to desperately seek out back issues spending more money.....I don't know.

@cattlebattle: Ahhh. I see the problem now. See you are thinking logically and that's why its such an issue. How dare you!! Lol

@ec2277: Ahh I see you now. I think a perfect example though of this rebranding was Superior Spider-man.

Unlike All New Cap and SMatX-Men, who are arguably just a relaunch to keep sales rolling with a flashy gimmick, Superior was a new direction for the entire Spider Line. But when it ended, rather then just retitle the book Amazing Spider-man, they closed the book and did a full relaunch. None of the story elements changed, Dan Slott didn't go anywhere different and all the characters were the same of of equal importance. But for the sake of sales and new readers.... "Amazing Spider-Man #1" was released.

And while i don't hate on the business strategy....as a fan it sort of takes me out of the story when I know that as soon as they feel the need to change gimmicks again the book will end. I mean All New X-Men is 100% crapbut it at least it went a bit beyond it's gimmick for 40 some issues.

@cattlebattle- I see what you mean with Claremont and Simonson, but I think looking at something like Inferno where multiple threads had to come together from 3 books a good team of writers can make a difference....especially given some of the convoluted things needed to pull off Maddie and Jean's tale. I mean that's one of the moments where if Claremont had written it alone, i don't think it would've turned out as "well" because Claremont would be alot colder in his approach.

I see your point with Young Justice though. Multiple character arcs and different characters furthering their own plotlines and each taking different things from a single event is something that most good eras of writing has and needs...especially on team books. Marvel's problem is that they weren't getting enough new people to watch their "Game Of Thrones" writing because people were hesitant to have to go back to season 1. So instead they figured they'd write at the level of Spongebob but still call it "Game of Thrones". Win/Win for the new readers who wanted to jump on..Lose/Lose for anyone who was enjoying actual plot.

@time: It's not the best story arc that I have read, but I think it will be better than AXIS (excuse me but it was bullshit). I found the X-Men cosmic potential really interesting, I would like to see Magik or Ororo being boosted.

Is it me or Bobby is a rock?? Haha

Woah, not to get off track here, but I think you are very wrong on this one.....if Claremont would have written every book in Inferno would have been infinitely better. The books he wrote, which were the main X-Men title and although it wasn't really a part of the crossover, Excalibur, had a story arc that dealt with it, both were very well written and tied up multiple plot lines that had been going on and had lots of substance and lasting effects. X-Factor and New Mutants, the books written by Simonson, were very vapid and really did nothing. X-Factor just punched monsters until they ran into the X-Men, which at that point was probably more steered by Claremont especially the issue where Jean and Madelyne face off, you can just tell that issue has Claremont all over it. New Mutants on the other hand, was just them punching monsters until Simonson writes Magik, would should have really been the centerpiece of the story arc, out of the New Mutants book because the character was probably too complicated for her to handle.....you don't even have to read the New Mutants Inferno tie ins and can still enjoy the crossover....which is sad seeing as Magik was the freaking ruler of Limbo, the very dimension that was melding with earth. The effects of Limbo are stunted by the X-Men an X-Factor in their book, the New Mutants were useless. I know this is off topic, but I couldn't resist. ;)

I think the X-Men offers up a jumping on point every ten years or so. Kind of like a subtle reboot. Schism seems to be the current place, so I guess that would be the "season 1" that readers would have to go back to. Of course, in a perfect world I would enjoy a solid continuing story throughout the decades where everything that happens means something and the characters have purpose would be nice, but, oh well.

I hate you, I really hate you: in order to comment what you have written, I should compare the italian comics to the american comics. But when I try to do that, I realize that I must give you a lot of explanation and so I miss every time the point.

Anyway what you have written, is exactly what I mean.

P.S. I hate you. :-D

Been very average so far

@ec2277: Lol I've tried to find things on Italian comics when you've brought them up before. It's just their doesn't seem to be much FAIR comparison when it comes to American style comics and other countries.

There's a much stronger emphasis on the business side of things with American comics then most other comparable mediums. Captain America is a brand and new readers need to be attracted to it, and it constantly needs to relevant and talked about even if it's just for something as cheap as a costume change or a "death". Where as other mediums are much more story driven. If your story is good then people will keep reading it. And when your done with your story it's usually over.

P.S.- The hate is always appreciated :D

@cattlebattle- Lol, I've got a series of threads i've been thinking on for the last few days about older Events like that, so i'll save most of my response for that. But to respond briefly, Claremont writing all of Inferno would've turned out a much better quality story, but what i meant by "not turned out as "well"" was that Claremont was getting darker and edgier around that time and i don't see him writing as happy an ending (if you can call what happened that) if he had soul control over the X-Frachise without having to be concerned with Simonson at that point. Of course i read the books long after they were released, but generally i get the feel that Claremont would've had a much darker ending given the levels it already hit.

I'd agree with the every 10 years reboot or team reset. It's just this time it feels like character writing took a crazy hit. I mean say what you will about Claremont to Lobdell taking a focus of off detail and putting it on action and shock, or Lobdell to Morrison taking it from shock and action to the mutant setting. But none of those transitions ever felt like they forgot to write them as characters. Idk maybe it's time for someone with a stronger eye for detail to sort of give us that period where things that happen to characters matter again.

They are two totally different thing, because they are written in order to satisfy very different taste. In fact the best sold american comic in Italy is Spider Man, which sold 12/15,000 copies monthly, while the italian comics sold among the 15,000 and the 200,000 copies every month.

In an interview Gabriele Dell'Otto said that he fight with Marvel one or two time every year, because Marvel offer him an exclusive agreement and more money, but he every time he answer: «I don't want more money, I want all the time I need to do a good work»; the last time Dell'Otto asked if they were talking the same language! LOL!

This idea of "less money but more time" is a constantly of our way to create a comic: we don't have a writer, a penciler and an inker to work on a comic, but a team of writer (6/7) and a team of artist (more than 15). So every writer and every artist have more time to write or drawn his story. Obviously the supervisor of the title have to do a great work of coordination and all the writer have to cooperate, to ensure that the stories are consistent with each other.

I agree. An example of that is the italian comic Tex, which sold every month 200,000 copies in Italy, 150,000 in Brazil (plus the sales in the rest of the world), it is over the 650 issues and it have never had a relaunch, a reboot, a movie, a cartoon…

Obviously it is a comics that can like to the people who love an old style western (I think it is a little boring), but it is well wrote, well drew and so the sales are always high.

This last answer is that I wanted point up: a good quality of the stories allow to keep high the sales, even without relaunch, reboot, events or upheavals.

[EDIT] This is a very interesting article: Marvel and DC sales figures, so I report an extract:

«WHY FANS MIGHT UNDERSTAND SALES BETTER THAN THE PROFESSIONAL

To the fans, the concept of sales is easy: good comics sell. They might not sell well at the time (depending on fashions, distribution, pricing and promotion), but if the comics are created for the long term market then the other factors will average out. Hence early Marvel comics can be sold again and again, in multiple formats, and spawn movies and merchandise, whereas new comics are instantly forgotten.

To professionals, sales are much more complicated. A business needs to make its money right now, and questions like fashion, distribution, pricing and promotion make decisions very complicated. Selling in multiple formats, difficulties in measurement, corporate strategies that may focus on certain brands, and the need for synergy with merchandise make the decisions even harder. To make things worse, the accountants who focus most on the numbers don't actually read the comics and may not understand readers, whereas the editors who know the readers and comics are distracted by the day to day chaos and politics of business. But over the long run all these things become less and less important. All profit is finally traced to people wanting to read the comics, sometimes decades after those comics were created.

So fans, if they look at the long term, have a clearer view of the forest while professionals are busy with the trees.»

This is the point!

The Sergio Bonelli Editore, which is the first italian publishing comics house (something like Marvel, DC and Image together), doesn't make movies, doesn't make merchandise, doesn't make cartoons. It make only comics and so it can't miss its focus on the sales.

The readers of Tex want some old style western stories?

Well Sergio Bonelli Editore prints old style western stories, but that stories are extremely well wrote and draft, in order to satisfy the old reader and seduce the new ones.

Generally a reader buy a comic for 5 years and then he drop it?

Well, Sergio Bonelli Editore prints comics with a simply continuity and stand alone stories, so every issue can be a perfect starting point to the new readers.

Instead in this moment Marvel is too focused on the short therm profit and so it makes a lot of events, relaunches continuously its titles, upsets everything. But in this way it isn't able to built a group of loyal new readers and lost the old ones.

Now I think to have make my point.

I hope not to have written a boring post, but I thought it could be interesting compare the Marvel editorial policy with the editorial policy of another company, in order to point up why Marvel is printing a lot of event, why relaunches continuously its titles and why prefer makes extensive use of others sales gimmicks: it is the most quickly way to increase the sales. Instead write good story is very slow, but in the long term is the best strategy, because it turn an occasional reader into a fan. Also the focus on Ant-man, Inhumans or Guardians of the Galaxy have an explanation in this strategy: it is a way to create interest above the titles, in order to take advantage of the movie. Moreover the X-Men are a consolidated franchise, very famous, that it has had a great exposure (movie, cartoon, games), so it might be difficult find new readers, because Marvel has already tried everything and so now try with something new. It can be something silly (Squirrel Girl), it can be something "ethnic" (Miss Marvel is a muslim), it can be a rediscovering of something old but almost unknown (Captain Marvel, Guardians of the Galaxy…), it can be something famous (Storm), it can be everything. It's enough it has the taste of the news and they try the try one's luck.

There is also another reason: if the sales of the single titles drop, it is possible try to contain the loss of profit selling more titles. Obviously it is better sell 200,000 copies monthly with only two title (for example X-Men and Uncanny X-Men) than 5 (All New X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, X-Men, Amazing X-Men, Wolverine/Spiderman and the X-Men), but sell 200,000 copies with 5 titles is better than sell 110,000 with two (All New X-Men and Uncanny X-Men).

Obviously I'm not saying that Sergio Bonelli Editore are right. It was only a comparison, I think useful to explain my thought.

P.S. I'm totally off topic. Sorry.

One of Claremonts skills along with being good with characters was that he was always able to keep up with the times. There were a lot of writers who were not able to evolve their silver age sensibilities into the 80s and likewise, writers in the 80's who couldn't keep up with the changing landscape into the late 80s/90s. Claremont wrote darker and edgier stories because it was popular to do so at the time.....don't forget, stuff like The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen all came out in the late 80s and were extremely popular at the time. I don't feel like Inferno had that dark of an ending.....I mean, Madelyne went insane and died, but in the end, she was redeemed. X-Factor found out the X-men were alive and they finally took care of the Marauders and Mr Sinister, who had been a dangling plot line for years as the Mutant Massacre was 4 years prior, so, while they weren't hanging around with a bunch of little bears and singing tribal songs in a Return of the Jedi fashion, there was still an air of closure to the whole thing.

Each writer has a different perspective and writes different characters differently, so I kind of disagree with what you say there. Some writers tend to write characters like Wolverine and Magneto differently to the point where at times they seem like different characters to what came before. Claremont wrote Wolverine as a very deep, virtuous character who had a huge arc over his run, Hama had a different, unrestrained take on the character, Lobdell wrote him to be kind of a lovable a-hole, I think Morrison was terrible at writing him, Whedon wrote him as any other witty, Whedon anti hero character. Characters can seem almost completely different sometimes when bounced around, concepts can too. A lot of time it can just be sort of tedious; one writer will spend two years developing one character and then the successor will either relegate that same character to wall paper because they don't like them, or write them completely differently as before.

I like how Storm has been written so far.

it's killing me, please tell me Kitty/Starlord is no more.

@dman1366: I've been informed, they had a fight but are still together

@trekgrey said:

Is it me or Teen Jean looks different of what I thought she would??

Yes she seems vaguely similar to Phoenix. But the color and some particulars are different.

Anyway I have glanced (glanced, don't buy or read) the third chapter of Black Vortex and I can say that now also the final pages of the Bendis' books are liar.

@koays: ugh it makes now sense. Why would she dump Bobby for being to childish, but then go for Starlord.