I am a huge fan of the X-Students from the Academy X/New X-Men series (Hellion, Anole, Rockslide, Pixie, Prodigy, Surge, Mercury, Dust, etc...). Since their series' end, they've been placed solely in the background with little to no use in a story or book (with the exception of Pixie). New mutants are popping up all of the world. In a book about the school and its students, Wolverine and the X-Men, I hate how the focus of the book is placed upon a group of students who are completely dull. I'm trying to make a comparison from then to now... Back then, almost the entire student body was killed, now Wolverine (in the current issue) expresses feelings of not wanting a repeat basically (my interpretation). That being said, do you think another massacre would happen again?

I will never understand how Marvel thinks creating new X-kids in bunches, ensuring none of them get the proper screen time to develop, is somehow a good idea.

You could kill off 75% of the students created since 2000 and very few would miss them.

Some one quick! Find me a Purifier with a Rocket Launcher! I think i see the Five Lights......

@ApatheticAvenger said:

Eye Boy can vomit out of his eyeballs, clearly he needs to stick around.

Lolz.

90% of the mutants post 1980s. Seriously, theres only a few that I actually like.

@papad1992 said:

if a massacre happens again, which students would you like to see kick the bucket!? My choices would be:

Eye Boy, Sprite, Broo, Ernst, Primal, Velocidad, and Angel!

of these characters? I don't think I'd miss any of them especially.

AS A Followup to Avengers Arena. I suggest X-men Arena to slaughter a whole bunch of refuse that has built up. Although not sure 16 is enough might want to start with more and slaughter a bunch in the first fight

@Skaddix said:

AS A Followup to Avengers Arena. I suggest X-men Arena to slaughter a whole bunch of refuse that has built up. Although not sure 16 is enough might want to start with more and slaughter a bunch in the first fight

Really? Really?

what the hell happened to X-men fans? when did we become this blood thirsty?

Well this just killed my morning.

Seriously, who the hell created the character of Eye boy!?

@akbogert said:

Well this just killed my morning.

Agreed, honestly. I don't need random murder in my X-Men, heck not even in my X-Force (at least not the random part). Would I like to see some of the characters I enjoy more brought back to the forefront? Yes. For that to happen do I need characters that other people might legitimately enjoy killed off for my amusement? The answer is no. Really no...

Kill:

Eye Boy, Kid Gladiator, Hellion, Mercury, Indra, Match, and Graymalkin

^^ they're annoying, useless, and/or redundant in the shadow of a superior character.

@DarkDay said:

@akbogert said:

Well this just killed my morning.

Agreed, honestly. I don't need random murder in my X-Men, heck not even in my X-Force (at least not the random part). Would I like to see some of the characters I enjoy more brought back to the forefront? Yes. For that to happen do I need characters that other people might legitimately enjoy killed off for my amusement? The answer is no. Really no...

exactly.

@DarkDay said:

@akbogert said:

Well this just killed my morning.

Agreed, honestly. I don't need random murder in my X-Men, heck not even in my X-Force (at least not the random part). Would I like to see some of the characters I enjoy more brought back to the forefront? Yes. For that to happen do I need characters that other people might legitimately enjoy killed off for my amusement? The answer is no. Really no...

Wow really... Are u that pure of heart? Marvel keeps creating more and more characters... while the characters I, and others, love are being pushed farther into the background! Tell me u enjoy Idie, The Five Lights, Broo, etc... These are half@ss characters!

@judasnixon said:

Some one quick! Find me a Purifier with a Rocket Launcher! I think i see the Five Lights......

Haha...

@papad1992: Why, actually, yes, yes I am.

The bloodlust sickens me. There's no reason for it. Characters don't have to die so that other characters can have more prominent roles. Some of my and other people's favorite characters are being killed off in Avengers Arena right now, and someone in this thread said they wanted to see that followed up with a bigger roster. So yes, I take issue with it, but rather than say "oh yeah, well I hope your favorite characters get killed off too" I say "hey guys, this is stupid, let's stop killing characters off just because Marvel has difficulty giving fair exposure."

@papad1992 said:

@DarkDay said:

@akbogert said:

Well this just killed my morning.

Agreed, honestly. I don't need random murder in my X-Men, heck not even in my X-Force (at least not the random part). Would I like to see some of the characters I enjoy more brought back to the forefront? Yes. For that to happen do I need characters that other people might legitimately enjoy killed off for my amusement? The answer is no. Really no...

Wow really... Are u that pure of heart? Marvel keeps creating more and more characters... while the characters I, and others, love are being pushed farther into the background! Tell me u enjoy Idie, The Five Lights, Broo, etc... These are half@ss characters!

Actually I can say that yeah I do like Broo, I'm not a fan of the lights, but then that's more about meh characterization (or lack there of) in some cases than them just being horrible characters (also meh writing in general actually). Idie, I think is an interesting character conceptually. She has a power that I'm not really a big fan of, but using it creatively could get very cool, very fast, but her outlook on mutantcy is the main attraction for me. I'd be down to see where that goes and how a great number of classic X-vilians might take advantage of it or even how it would work out just left to fester. I'd point out however that all of these characters that you just mentioned they could just as easily become background dressing as the characters you feel have become background dressing and are unhappy with.

And let's be honest, if you're an X-Men fan in general, there is a pretty good chance that your favorite character, characters, group, what have you, have at one time or another been background dressing. I love Gambit. He's been there. I love Nightcrawler. He's been there. Dust, been and is there now. X-23, yep. Cyclops, yep. People need to remember that the X-Cast is massive, there isn't anyway possible for everyone's favorite character to be in the limelight at all times every time...(well unless it's Wolverine, but I don't think he's exactly benefited from that)and it's just something that readers have to come to terms with. The last time editorial thought that X-Men needed a character clean up we got "No More Mutants." So yeah, I'm a little gun shy about that particular wrench and clubbing the franchise over the head with it.

I'm of the opinion that new characters should be perfectly acceptable with the stipulation that they be done carefully, well thought out, and that writers know their X-history so that they might avoid the need for certain new characters when there are already established characters in X-lore that could just as easily fill a role that a new character was created simply for.

Edit: So my response is, we shouldn't have to have characters die just so that other characters get page time. It makes no sense at all, if anything we should just have all characters being written well and hopefully a Marvel that isn't afraid to experiment with character rosters or let writers take a shot at characters they really understand and like.

@akbogert said:

@papad1992: Why, actually, yes, yes I am.

The bloodlust sickens me. There's no reason for it. Characters don't have to die so that other characters can have more prominent roles. Some of my and other people's favorite characters are being killed off in Avengers Arena right now, and someone in this thread said they wanted to see that followed up with a bigger roster. So yes, I take issue with it, but rather than say "oh yeah, well I hope your favorite characters get killed off too" I say "hey guys, this is stupid, let's stop killing characters off just because Marvel has difficulty giving fair exposure."

The bloodlust sickens you... so don't read comic books. Avengers Area has a few rumors going around about its plot and reality so let's keep this about the X-Men... So what u are saying is that you'd rather have more and more characters be created and introduced, and keep pushing other characters farther into the background!?

@papad1992: No see, that's the problem. The fact that there are fans who think slaughtering heroes is fundamental to comic books is what sickens me. My favorite character is a mutant born from the X-Men comics and who's in Arena, so I'm not going to drop that, especially after someone went unchallenged earlier in the thread supporting that book and its aims. Letting characters fade to the periphery for a while achieves the same goal -- giving other characters a chance to shine -- without pointlessly pissing people off or curbstomping their emotions. If the universe suffers from character saturation, then there are other ways to handle it than genocide or firing line. If you really think that too many characters is the problem, then volunteer your favorites for the chopping block; not someone else's.

@DarkDay said:

@papad1992 said:

@DarkDay said:

@akbogert said:

Well this just killed my morning.

Agreed, honestly. I don't need random murder in my X-Men, heck not even in my X-Force (at least not the random part). Would I like to see some of the characters I enjoy more brought back to the forefront? Yes. For that to happen do I need characters that other people might legitimately enjoy killed off for my amusement? The answer is no. Really no...

Wow really... Are u that pure of heart? Marvel keeps creating more and more characters... while the characters I, and others, love are being pushed farther into the background! Tell me u enjoy Idie, The Five Lights, Broo, etc... These are half@ss characters!

Actually I can say that yeah I do like Broo, I'm not a fan of the lights, but then that's more about meh characterization (or lack there of) in some cases than them just being horrible characters (also meh writing in general actually). Idie, I think is an interesting character conceptually. She has a power that I'm not really a big fan of, but using it creatively could get very cool, very fast, but her outlook on mutantcy is the main attraction for me. I'd be down to see where that goes and how a great number of classic X-vilians might take advantage of it or even how it would work out just left to fester. I'd point out however that all of these characters that you just mentioned they could just as easily become background dressing as the characters you feel have become background dressing and are unhappy with.

And let's be honest, if you're an X-Men fan in general, there is a pretty good chance that your favorite character, characters, group, what have you, have at one time or another been background dressing. I love Gambit. He's been there. I love Nightcrawler. He's been there. Dust, been and is there now. X-23, yep. Cyclops, yep. People need to remember that the X-Cast is massive, there isn't anyway possible for everyone's favorite character to be in the limelight at all times every time...(well unless it's Wolverine, but I don't think he's exactly benefited from that)and it's just something that readers have to come to terms with. The last time editorial thought that X-Men needed a character clean up we got "No More Mutants." So yeah, I'm a little gun shy about that particular wrench and clubbing the franchise over the head with it.

I'm of the opinion that new characters should be perfectly acceptable with the stipulation that they be done carefully, well thought out, and that writers know their X-history so that they might avoid the need for certain new characters when there are already established characters in X-lore that could just as easily fill a role that a new character was created simply for.

Edit: So my response is, we shouldn't have to have characters die just so that other characters get page time. It makes no sense at all, if anything we should just have all characters being written well and hopefully a Marvel that isn't afraid to experiment with character rosters or let writers take a shot at characters they really understand and like.

All of the characters I mentioned in the original post have had their own team book basically since 2004. The only reason it was cancelled was story-wise: the disbandment of the X-Men till their move to San Fran. They've held their own successful book while these characters (Quentin Quire, Broo, Idie, Glob Herman, Eye Boy, Sprite, etc) are a big waste of space. When Wolverine and the X-Men was announced, the excitement of seeing characters from the New X-Men series be relevant again was joyous, but when revealed that they were the background characters my heart sunk and I dropped that book! I pick it up now and then and my reaction is always the same: dull and boring.

I've been an X-Man fan since the late 90s so I'm pretty well educated on my X-Men history and membership! I well aware that characters will always be in the background, and the way a story works based on the writer, but that's not what I'm talking about. If u had understood what I said, I was talking about the new X-Students (all of the new characters that have appeared as protagonists in Wolverine and the X-Men) with the addition of characters that were created years prior (Quentin Quire and Glob Herman) have a negative impact on the idea of X-Students. Have you read Academy X or New X-Men... they were extremely successful books based on characters that sparked real attention and liking. These characters are flat and transparent. Prodigy, Surge, Hellion, Mercury, Elixir, Dust, Rockslide, Anole, Gentle, Pixie, Armor, Loa, Trance, Indra, Match, Bling!, The Stepford Cuckoos, and Blindfold, those were characters, and the next class of X-Men, who had real depth and deep characterization because of the wonderful grooming writers and artists had put into them. Now, they are background characters in a lack-lusting series being neglected for these new characters... it just angers me! And the only way these characters were to be written well is if they were killed off by a mutant hating organization... rocket launcher anyone!?

@akbogert said:

@papad1992: No see, that's the problem. The fact that there are fans who think slaughtering heroes is fundamental to comic books is what sickens me. My favorite character is a mutant born from the X-Men comics and who's in Arena, so I'm not going to drop that, especially after someone went unchallenged earlier in the thread supporting that book and its aims. Letting characters fade to the periphery for a while achieves the same goal -- giving other characters a chance to shine -- without pointlessly pissing people off or curbstomping their emotions. If the universe suffers from character saturation, then there are other ways to handle it than genocide or firing line. If you really think that too many characters is the problem, then volunteer your favorites for the chopping block; not someone else's.

Wow... u are very convoluted! And giving characters a chance to shine is what I'm proclaiming, but characters that deserve the light. Not half@ss, transparent characters that are being introduced in favor for real in-depth characters that roam the hallways!

@DarkDay said:

@papad1992 said:

@DarkDay said:

@akbogert said:

Well this just killed my morning.

Agreed, honestly. I don't need random murder in my X-Men, heck not even in my X-Force (at least not the random part). Would I like to see some of the characters I enjoy more brought back to the forefront? Yes. For that to happen do I need characters that other people might legitimately enjoy killed off for my amusement? The answer is no. Really no...

Wow really... Are u that pure of heart? Marvel keeps creating more and more characters... while the characters I, and others, love are being pushed farther into the background! Tell me u enjoy Idie, The Five Lights, Broo, etc... These are half@ss characters!

Actually I can say that yeah I do like Broo, I'm not a fan of the lights, but then that's more about meh characterization (or lack there of) in some cases than them just being horrible characters (also meh writing in general actually). Idie, I think is an interesting character conceptually. She has a power that I'm not really a big fan of, but using it creatively could get very cool, very fast, but her outlook on mutantcy is the main attraction for me. I'd be down to see where that goes and how a great number of classic X-vilians might take advantage of it or even how it would work out just left to fester. I'd point out however that all of these characters that you just mentioned they could just as easily become background dressing as the characters you feel have become background dressing and are unhappy with.

And let's be honest, if you're an X-Men fan in general, there is a pretty good chance that your favorite character, characters, group, what have you, have at one time or another been background dressing. I love Gambit. He's been there. I love Nightcrawler. He's been there. Dust, been and is there now. X-23, yep. Cyclops, yep. People need to remember that the X-Cast is massive, there isn't anyway possible for everyone's favorite character to be in the limelight at all times every time...(well unless it's Wolverine, but I don't think he's exactly benefited from that)and it's just something that readers have to come to terms with. The last time editorial thought that X-Men needed a character clean up we got "No More Mutants." So yeah, I'm a little gun shy about that particular wrench and clubbing the franchise over the head with it.

I'm of the opinion that new characters should be perfectly acceptable with the stipulation that they be done carefully, well thought out, and that writers know their X-history so that they might avoid the need for certain new characters when there are already established characters in X-lore that could just as easily fill a role that a new character was created simply for.

Edit: So my response is, we shouldn't have to have characters die just so that other characters get page time. It makes no sense at all, if anything we should just have all characters being written well and hopefully a Marvel that isn't afraid to experiment with character rosters or let writers take a shot at characters they really understand and like.

I definitely agree with all of this! I don't think killing off characters is going to solve the problems with having such a large cast and I agree that many X-Men characters in the past have become background characters over the years. The best thing to do is to have each comic book actually focus on a different group of characters, not have the same characters appear in every book. But unfortunately, Marvel seems to be afraid of taking such chances just so all the characters can get the spotlight, especially the New X-Men.

@Rabbitearsblog said:

@DarkDay said:

I definitely agree with all of this! I don't think killing off characters is going to solve the problems with having such a large cast and I agree that many X-Men characters in the past have become background characters over the years. The best thing to do is to have each comic book actually focus on a different group of characters, not have the same characters appear in every book. But unfortunately, Marvel seems to be afraid of taking such chances just so all the characters can get the spotlight, especially the New X-Men.

Thank you Switzerland... Who else would love to see the students from the New X-Men series break off into their own book!?

@papad1992: There was nothing remotely convoluted about what I just said. I don't think characters should have to die, certainly not in such a meaningless way. I think it's extremely convenient for people who support killing to name other people's favorites, classify them as meaningless or transparent, and then classify the characters they like as too meaningful to be part of the killing. And see how quickly it turns against you, too. You listed Hellion, Mercury, Indra, & Match as "real characters" being neglected in the background. Yet "Hellion, Mercury, Indra, & Match" made someone else's list as "annoying, useless, and/or redundant in the shadow of a superior character." Your definition of worth keeping around or interesting is someone else's definition of the exact opposite.

Attacking other people's preferences comes back to bite you every time. If you support slaughtering characters on the basis that you don't like them, you're sooner or later going to have characters you love being sacrificed because others don't like them. It's all so pointless.

@papad1992 said:

@DarkDay said:

@papad1992 said:

@DarkDay said:

@akbogert said:

Well this just killed my morning.

Agreed, honestly. I don't need random murder in my X-Men, heck not even in my X-Force (at least not the random part). Would I like to see some of the characters I enjoy more brought back to the forefront? Yes. For that to happen do I need characters that other people might legitimately enjoy killed off for my amusement? The answer is no. Really no...

Wow really... Are u that pure of heart? Marvel keeps creating more and more characters... while the characters I, and others, love are being pushed farther into the background! Tell me u enjoy Idie, The Five Lights, Broo, etc... These are half@ss characters!

Actually I can say that yeah I do like Broo, I'm not a fan of the lights, but then that's more about meh characterization (or lack there of) in some cases than them just being horrible characters (also meh writing in general actually). Idie, I think is an interesting character conceptually. She has a power that I'm not really a big fan of, but using it creatively could get very cool, very fast, but her outlook on mutantcy is the main attraction for me. I'd be down to see where that goes and how a great number of classic X-vilians might take advantage of it or even how it would work out just left to fester. I'd point out however that all of these characters that you just mentioned they could just as easily become background dressing as the characters you feel have become background dressing and are unhappy with.

And let's be honest, if you're an X-Men fan in general, there is a pretty good chance that your favorite character, characters, group, what have you, have at one time or another been background dressing. I love Gambit. He's been there. I love Nightcrawler. He's been there. Dust, been and is there now. X-23, yep. Cyclops, yep. People need to remember that the X-Cast is massive, there isn't anyway possible for everyone's favorite character to be in the limelight at all times every time...(well unless it's Wolverine, but I don't think he's exactly benefited from that)and it's just something that readers have to come to terms with. The last time editorial thought that X-Men needed a character clean up we got "No More Mutants." So yeah, I'm a little gun shy about that particular wrench and clubbing the franchise over the head with it.

I'm of the opinion that new characters should be perfectly acceptable with the stipulation that they be done carefully, well thought out, and that writers know their X-history so that they might avoid the need for certain new characters when there are already established characters in X-lore that could just as easily fill a role that a new character was created simply for.

Edit: So my response is, we shouldn't have to have characters die just so that other characters get page time. It makes no sense at all, if anything we should just have all characters being written well and hopefully a Marvel that isn't afraid to experiment with character rosters or let writers take a shot at characters they really understand and like.

All of the characters I mentioned in the original post have had their own team book basically since 2004. The only reason it was cancelled was story-wise: the disbandment of the X-Men till their move to San Fran. They've held their own successful book while these characters (Quentin Quire, Broo, Idie, Glob Herman, Eye Boy, Sprite, etc) are a big waste of space. When Wolverine and the X-Men was announced, the excitement of seeing characters from the New X-Men series be relevant again was joyous, but when revealed that they were the background characters my heart sunk and I dropped that book! I pick it up now and then and my reaction is always the same: dull and boring.

I've been an X-Man fan since the late 90s so I'm pretty well educated on my X-Men history and membership! I well aware that characters will always be in the background, and the way a story works based on the writer, but that's not what I'm talking about. If u had understood what I said, I was talking about the new X-Students (all of the new characters that have appeared as protagonists in Wolverine and the X-Men) with the addition of characters that were created years prior (Quentin Quire and Glob Herman) have a negative impact on the idea of X-Students. Have you read Academy X or New X-Men... they were extremely successful books based on characters that sparked real attention and liking. These characters are flat and transparent. Prodigy, Surge, Hellion, Mercury, Elixir, Dust, Rockslide, Anole, Gentle, Pixie, Armor, Loa, Trance, Indra, Match, Bling!, The Stepford Cuckoos, and Blindfold, those were characters, and the next class of X-Men, who had real depth and deep characterization because of the wonderful grooming writers and artists had put into them. Now, they are background characters in a lack-lusting series being neglected for these new characters... it just angers me! And the only way these characters were to be written well is if they were killed off by a mutant hating organization... rocket launcher anyone!?

I've read all the titles you pointed out and if you read my response you'll know that I addressed what you said. And I even pointed out how that the same characters you like and would like to see back in the spotlight are going to get their chance because...as I pointed out, that's just how it goes. New characters or not the wheel never stops turning, characters that were focus before are no longer focus as the writers change or the company directions change, so if you don't like the characters now, I say give it a few months and look again.

As for killing them off, what would be the point? If you don't like them, fine, but that doesn't mean that absolutely no one else likes the characters that you dislike. You think they lack depth, fine, but someone is going to disagree with you or they're going to point out to you like I did that there are redeemable qualities in those characters that they would like to see explored or expanded upon.

Let's look at it this way, I like Cypher. Not everyone does. I found his power and its applications interesting and the thing with Warlock, while weird a interesting happening for his character and the concept of the Technarchy. So Cypher dies. A lot of people would have been glad to see him gone forever. Then Necrosha happened and he returned and his power is being used in even more unique and interesting ways. So what does that say? He was a horrible character? Or is it perhaps given a chance and a decent writer, he could be more than a joke punchline?

I'm not saying that new characters should be created ad nauseum, but what I am saying is that characters should just be throwaway either. Because while you may or may not like the character there are always others that don't feel as you do.

@papad1992 said:

@Rabbitearsblog said:

@DarkDay said:

I definitely agree with all of this! I don't think killing off characters is going to solve the problems with having such a large cast and I agree that many X-Men characters in the past have become background characters over the years. The best thing to do is to have each comic book actually focus on a different group of characters, not have the same characters appear in every book. But unfortunately, Marvel seems to be afraid of taking such chances just so all the characters can get the spotlight, especially the New X-Men.

Thank you Switzerland... Who else would love to see the students from the New X-Men series break off into their own book!?

I'd love that, but then I'd also enjoy the NYX cast starting their own X-book and us having a look at mutants that aren't in the X-Men's social stratosphere.

@akbogert said:

@papad1992: There was nothing remotely convoluted about what I just said. I don't think characters should have to die, certainly not in such a meaningless way. I think it's extremely convenient for people who support killing to name other people's favorites, classify them as meaningless or transparent, and then classify the characters they like as too meaningful to be part of the killing. And see how quickly it turns against you, too. You listed Hellion, Mercury, Indra, & Match as "real characters" being neglected in the background. Yet "Hellion, Mercury, Indra, & Match" made someone else's list as "annoying, useless, and/or redundant in the shadow of a superior character." Your definition of worth keeping around or interesting is someone else's definition of the exact opposite.

Attacking other people's preferences comes back to bite you every time. If you support slaughtering characters on the basis that you don't like them, you're sooner or later going to have characters you love being sacrificed because others don't like them. It's all so pointless.

Listen pal... this thread wasn't aimed towards you, regarded you, or any of your favorite characters... this thread was about me not liking the way the concept of X-Students is being taken. So stop making this about you and your personal favorites and get off your extremely high horse! What makes you think I support killing... HOW DARE YOU!!! This is a fictional matter, regarding fictional characters, so unless you have anything constructive to say, goodbye.

@papad1992: There are plenty of people who have real emotional responses to fictional characters. I don't really understand what you're trying to say by mentioning that we're talking about fiction.

I also don't understand what you are getting out of what I'm saying, but it clearly isn't what I'm trying to say. You asked "which students would you like to see kick the bucket?" Later, in response to another commenter, you rattled off a list of characters you find interesting and are angry they are in the background -- ignoring the fact that someone else answered your "which students would you like to see kick the bucket" question with half the characters you want in the spotlight. I simply pointed out the danger of assuming that the characters you like are safe from Marvel's "cleaning house" tactics.

"What makes you think I support killing?" The fact that you specifically asked "which students would you like to see kick the bucket?"

@DarkDay said:

@papad1992 said:

@DarkDay said:

@papad1992 said:

@DarkDay said:

@akbogert said:

Well this just killed my morning.

Agreed, honestly. I don't need random murder in my X-Men, heck not even in my X-Force (at least not the random part). Would I like to see some of the characters I enjoy more brought back to the forefront? Yes. For that to happen do I need characters that other people might legitimately enjoy killed off for my amusement? The answer is no. Really no...

Wow really... Are u that pure of heart? Marvel keeps creating more and more characters... while the characters I, and others, love are being pushed farther into the background! Tell me u enjoy Idie, The Five Lights, Broo, etc... These are half@ss characters!

Actually I can say that yeah I do like Broo, I'm not a fan of the lights, but then that's more about meh characterization (or lack there of) in some cases than them just being horrible characters (also meh writing in general actually). Idie, I think is an interesting character conceptually. She has a power that I'm not really a big fan of, but using it creatively could get very cool, very fast, but her outlook on mutantcy is the main attraction for me. I'd be down to see where that goes and how a great number of classic X-vilians might take advantage of it or even how it would work out just left to fester. I'd point out however that all of these characters that you just mentioned they could just as easily become background dressing as the characters you feel have become background dressing and are unhappy with.

And let's be honest, if you're an X-Men fan in general, there is a pretty good chance that your favorite character, characters, group, what have you, have at one time or another been background dressing. I love Gambit. He's been there. I love Nightcrawler. He's been there. Dust, been and is there now. X-23, yep. Cyclops, yep. People need to remember that the X-Cast is massive, there isn't anyway possible for everyone's favorite character to be in the limelight at all times every time...(well unless it's Wolverine, but I don't think he's exactly benefited from that)and it's just something that readers have to come to terms with. The last time editorial thought that X-Men needed a character clean up we got "No More Mutants." So yeah, I'm a little gun shy about that particular wrench and clubbing the franchise over the head with it.

I'm of the opinion that new characters should be perfectly acceptable with the stipulation that they be done carefully, well thought out, and that writers know their X-history so that they might avoid the need for certain new characters when there are already established characters in X-lore that could just as easily fill a role that a new character was created simply for.

Edit: So my response is, we shouldn't have to have characters die just so that other characters get page time. It makes no sense at all, if anything we should just have all characters being written well and hopefully a Marvel that isn't afraid to experiment with character rosters or let writers take a shot at characters they really understand and like.

All of the characters I mentioned in the original post have had their own team book basically since 2004. The only reason it was cancelled was story-wise: the disbandment of the X-Men till their move to San Fran. They've held their own successful book while these characters (Quentin Quire, Broo, Idie, Glob Herman, Eye Boy, Sprite, etc) are a big waste of space. When Wolverine and the X-Men was announced, the excitement of seeing characters from the New X-Men series be relevant again was joyous, but when revealed that they were the background characters my heart sunk and I dropped that book! I pick it up now and then and my reaction is always the same: dull and boring.

I've been an X-Man fan since the late 90s so I'm pretty well educated on my X-Men history and membership! I well aware that characters will always be in the background, and the way a story works based on the writer, but that's not what I'm talking about. If u had understood what I said, I was talking about the new X-Students (all of the new characters that have appeared as protagonists in Wolverine and the X-Men) with the addition of characters that were created years prior (Quentin Quire and Glob Herman) have a negative impact on the idea of X-Students. Have you read Academy X or New X-Men... they were extremely successful books based on characters that sparked real attention and liking. These characters are flat and transparent. Prodigy, Surge, Hellion, Mercury, Elixir, Dust, Rockslide, Anole, Gentle, Pixie, Armor, Loa, Trance, Indra, Match, Bling!, The Stepford Cuckoos, and Blindfold, those were characters, and the next class of X-Men, who had real depth and deep characterization because of the wonderful grooming writers and artists had put into them. Now, they are background characters in a lack-lusting series being neglected for these new characters... it just angers me! And the only way these characters were to be written well is if they were killed off by a mutant hating organization... rocket launcher anyone!?

I've read all the titles you pointed out and if you read my response you'll know that I addressed what you said. And I even pointed out how that the same characters you like and would like to see back in the spotlight are going to get their chance because...as I pointed out, that's just how it goes. New characters or not the wheel never stops turning, characters that were focus before are no longer focus as the writers change or the company directions change, so if you don't like the characters now, I say give it a few months and look again.

As for killing them off, what would be the point? If you don't like them, fine, but that doesn't mean that absolutely no one else likes the characters that you dislike. You think they lack depth, fine, but someone is going to disagree with you or they're going to point out to you like I did that there are redeemable qualities in those characters that they would like to see explored or expanded upon.

Let's look at it this way, I like Cypher. Not everyone does. I found his power and its applications interesting and the thing with Warlock, while weird a interesting happening for his character and the concept of the Technarchy. So Cypher dies. A lot of people would have been glad to see him gone forever. Then Necrosha happened and he returned and his power is being used in even more unique and interesting ways. So what does that say? He was a horrible character? Or is it perhaps given a chance and a decent writer, he could be more than a joke punchline?

I'm not saying that new characters should be created ad nauseum, but what I am saying is that characters should just be throwaway either. Because while you may or may not like the character there are always others that don't feel as you do.

That wheel hasn't turned towards those group of characters in a long while! I told you I've read Wolverine and the X-Men on/off since it began and my reaction to it was always meh/dull/boring. I don't care that someone else's favorites are so and so... I was pointing out my concerns with the way the students are handled and how none of the deeply developed characters are being displayed in the lime light. What redeemable qualities!? Thus far, the new characters' powers are meh, their appearances are meh, and their personalities are meh... producing an overly-meh character!

And I like Cypher too. But he was created in the 80s and revived in the 2010s so of course writers from then couldn't have fathomed ideas and concepts that have been produced today regarding his character!

@akbogert said:

@papad1992: There are plenty of people who have real emotional responses to fictional characters. I don't really understand what you're trying to say by mentioning that we're talking about fiction.

I also don't understand what you are getting out of what I'm saying, but it clearly isn't what I'm trying to say. You asked "which students would you like to see kick the bucket?" Later, in response to another commenter, you rattled off a list of characters you find interesting and are angry they are in the background -- ignoring the fact that someone else answered your "which students would you like to see kick the bucket" question with half the characters you want in the spotlight. I simply pointed out the danger of assuming that the characters you like are safe from Marvel's "cleaning house" tactics.

"What makes you think I support killing?" The fact that you specifically asked "which students would you like to see kick the bucket?"

Again, we are talking about fiction again... this was a little comparison from the New X-Men series in which half the student body was killed, I was wondering upon which characters would users like to see out of the spot light!

@papad1992 said:

@akbogert said:

@papad1992: There are plenty of people who have real emotional responses to fictional characters. I don't really understand what you're trying to say by mentioning that we're talking about fiction.

I also don't understand what you are getting out of what I'm saying, but it clearly isn't what I'm trying to say. You asked "which students would you like to see kick the bucket?" Later, in response to another commenter, you rattled off a list of characters you find interesting and are angry they are in the background -- ignoring the fact that someone else answered your "which students would you like to see kick the bucket" question with half the characters you want in the spotlight. I simply pointed out the danger of assuming that the characters you like are safe from Marvel's "cleaning house" tactics.

"What makes you think I support killing?" The fact that you specifically asked "which students would you like to see kick the bucket?"

Again, we are talking about fiction again... this was a little comparison from the New X-Men series in which half the student body was killed, I was wondering upon which characters would users like to see out of the spot light!

Again, I don't know when or where it was suggested that we weren't talking about fiction. I have never stopped talking about fiction. That certainly doesn't make anything I've said irrelevant.

I appreciate a desire to see other characters focused on and developed. I appreciate even that some characters currently being focused on may be less interesting or original than other characters which are not being focused on. But you're the one who phrased the question as "kick the bucket," which means death. Had you asked which characters would you like to see focused on again, or which characters do you think are less deserving of the spotlight, then the entire tone of this thread would have been different. But you specifically phrased your original post so that it ended with a question of killing, and that's what I and others objected to.

For what it's worth, my favorite character is X-23, who was in New X-Men. Yeah, I know, she had her own solo stuff. I recognize she has had more spotlight than other characters. But that doesn't mean she deserves to die. She could fade to the periphery without all that. And just because I love X-23, that doesn't mean I don't want to see other characters from, say, New X-Men get an ongoing or take a bigger role in something. There's no mutual exclusivity here.

The crucial misunderstanding here is that what I'm objecting to isn't your point that X-Students should be better handled and rotated, or that some really cool characters have been in the background for too long. What I'm objecting to is the idea that "another massacre" would in any way be a good thing.

@akbogert said:

@papad1992 said:

@akbogert said:

@papad1992: There are plenty of people who have real emotional responses to fictional characters. I don't really understand what you're trying to say by mentioning that we're talking about fiction.

I also don't understand what you are getting out of what I'm saying, but it clearly isn't what I'm trying to say. You asked "which students would you like to see kick the bucket?" Later, in response to another commenter, you rattled off a list of characters you find interesting and are angry they are in the background -- ignoring the fact that someone else answered your "which students would you like to see kick the bucket" question with half the characters you want in the spotlight. I simply pointed out the danger of assuming that the characters you like are safe from Marvel's "cleaning house" tactics.

"What makes you think I support killing?" The fact that you specifically asked "which students would you like to see kick the bucket?"

Again, we are talking about fiction again... this was a little comparison from the New X-Men series in which half the student body was killed, I was wondering upon which characters would users like to see out of the spot light!

Again, I don't know when or where it was suggested that we weren't talking about fiction. I have never stopped talking about fiction. That certainly doesn't make anything I've said irrelevant.

I appreciate a desire to see other characters focused on and developed. I appreciate even that some characters currently being focused on may be less interesting or original than other characters which are not being focused on. But you're the one who phrased the question as "kick the bucket," which means death. Had you asked which characters would you like to see focused on again, or which characters do you think are less deserving of the spotlight, then the entire tone of this thread would have been different. But you specifically phrased your original post so that it ended with a question of killing, and that's what I and others objected to.

For what it's worth, my favorite character is X-23, who was in New X-Men. Yeah, I know, she had her own solo stuff. I recognize she has had more spotlight than other characters. But that doesn't mean she deserves to die. She could fade to the periphery without all that. And just because I love X-23, that doesn't mean I don't want to see other characters from, say, New X-Men get an ongoing or take a bigger role in something. There's no mutual exclusivity here.

The crucial misunderstanding here is that what I'm objecting to isn't your point that X-Students should be better handled and rotated, or that some really cool characters have been in the background for too long. What I'm objecting to is the idea that "another massacre" would in any way be a good thing.

My point about declaring this fiction is how you stated that I support killing with no regards to your statement... that's a horrible statement to make!! That's why I kept referring to this as fiction, to make the statement less disheartening. And did you see the list I made of characters that I don't like... contrasting to the characters that I'd love to see more of in the lime light!? Basically all of the New X-Men characters (Prodigy, Surge, Hellion, Mercury, Elixir, Dust, X-23, Rockslide, Anole, Gentle, Pixie, Armor, Loa, Trance, Indra, Match, Bling!, The Stepford Cuckoos, and Blindfold) are the characters that I'd love to see in the spotlight!

@papad1992: I did see that. And I'd love to see many of them in the spotlight as well. Did you see one of the first comments, where someone else said they wanted four of those characters to die because they're uninteresting? My point is simply that killing off characters you don't find interesting isn't a good way to make room for the ones you do; sooner or later, characters you like will be on someone else's kill list. Better that none of the characters are killed off, and Marvel finds creative ways to cycle different characters in and out of the background that don't involve senseless death.

@akbogert said:

@papad1992: I did see that. And I'd love to see many of them in the spotlight as well. Did you see one of the first comments, where someone else said they wanted four of those characters to die because they're uninteresting? My point is simply that killing off characters you don't find interesting isn't a good way to make room for the ones you do; sooner or later, characters you like will be on someone else's kill list. Better that none of the characters are killed off, and Marvel finds creative ways to cycle different characters in and out of the background that don't involve senseless death.

But that way will never happen... we are talking about Marvel here!! But who cares, I'm done talking about this.

@ApatheticAvenger said:

Eye Boy can vomit out of his eyeballs, clearly he needs to stick around.

Thought he vomited onto his eyeballs?

Anyway, Marvel's welcome to kill all JGSHL save for Hellion, Elixir, Dust, Surge, Anole, Stepford Cuckoos, Loa, Rockslide, Genesis, Mercury, Gentle, No- Girl and Armour. I suppose Match, Pixie, Trance and Indra should be left alive too.

@John Valentine said:

@ApatheticAvenger said:

Eye Boy can vomit out of his eyeballs, clearly he needs to stick around.

Thought he vomited onto his eyeballs?

Anyway, Marvel's welcome to kill all JGSHL save for Hellion, Elixir, Dust, Surge, Anole, Stepford Cuckoos, Loa, Rockslide, Genesis, Mercury, Gentle, No- Girl and Armour. I suppose Match, Pixie, Trance and Indra should be left alive too.

QFT.

But I think I'd let them keep Transonic after all the effort Namor went to, only seems fair.

@Backflip said:

@John Valentine said:

@ApatheticAvenger said:

Eye Boy can vomit out of his eyeballs, clearly he needs to stick around.

Thought he vomited onto his eyeballs?

Anyway, Marvel's welcome to kill all JGSHL save for Hellion, Elixir, Dust, Surge, Anole, Stepford Cuckoos, Loa, Rockslide, Genesis, Mercury, Gentle, No- Girl and Armour. I suppose Match, Pixie, Trance and Indra should be left alive too.

QFT.

But I think I'd let them keep Transonic after all the effort Namor went to, only seems fair.

Broo should be brutally killed, too. Oya driven mad, the last we see of her is running into the Savage Land wilderness. Quire should have his powers taken from him and be left brain-damaged, but with the memory of what he used to be capable of. Eye-Boy and Sprite disintegrated.

Glob Herman.... Haven't thought up of a suitable death for this vile character.

@John Valentine said:

@Backflip said:

@John Valentine said:

@ApatheticAvenger said:

Eye Boy can vomit out of his eyeballs, clearly he needs to stick around.

Thought he vomited onto his eyeballs?

Anyway, Marvel's welcome to kill all JGSHL save for Hellion, Elixir, Dust, Surge, Anole, Stepford Cuckoos, Loa, Rockslide, Genesis, Mercury, Gentle, No- Girl and Armour. I suppose Match, Pixie, Trance and Indra should be left alive too.

QFT.

But I think I'd let them keep Transonic after all the effort Namor went to, only seems fair.

Broo should be brutally killed, too. Oya driven mad, the last we see of her is running into the Savage Land wilderness. Quire should have his powers taken from him and be left brain-damaged, but with the memory of what he used to be capable of. Eye-Boy and Sprite disintegrated.

Glob Herman.... Haven't thought up of a suitable death for this vile character.

Quire hasn't been interesting or relevant since Endsong. Wish Wolverine had just gutted him in Schism. Eyeboy deserves something worse for quite possibly being the worst 'new mutant' ever conceived. He's up their with Arm Fall off Boy and Codpiece as literal embarrassments to the genre.

I can't belive Glob has lasted since Grant Morrison's run. To see so many useful, interesting characters fall to the way side and him get kept around just cause he's interesting wallpaper is disgusting :P

Personally I'd take Oya being taken over by like Shadow King, cause you know, he's always had a penchant for ethnic minorities. (Karma, Psylocke, Storm, hell even Farouk). That would really be a suitable end to her.

No, murdering random characters just cause you don't like em? f*ck off. every character is going to be somebody's favorite, for example i absolutely love broo, hellion, glob herman, quentin quire, pixie, dust, kid gladiator etc...

@tahmidk said:

No, murdering random characters just cause you don't like em? fuck off. every character is going to be somebody's favorite, for example i absolutely love broo, hellion, glob herman, quentin quire, pixie, dust, kid gladiator etc...

No, murdering characters because they're terrible and distract from the development of better characters.

oh, smegg, where to begin..

First off, I loved the characters from New X-men, Anole, Rockslide, Dust, and that bunch, and I would love to see them come back into the spotlight, in WatX-men, or another book that could just be about them. Either way, that would be really sweet.

Secondly, though, I don't think Aaron's latest batch of background characters need to die to achieve this. Yeah, other than Quentin (and maybe Glob), I really don't care much for this class, but killing them all would just be another massacre story, which, in and of itself would add nothing new. We've seen it before. The X-men have been sporadically culling characters in quantity since the mid 80's; sometimes there's a good story attached, and sometimes there isn't, and if the only justification is to clean the slate, there are less destructive ways to do so.

Thirdly, I'd like to make a point about the original New Mutants. By the end of their original series, most of these characters were sent off to writer's limbo, many of them for up to a decade, and Why? because they were unpopular. And it would be almost twenty years before they got their own series again. To me, they were just background characters from when I read X-men classics, so I didn't miss them, but the young/new X-men were just background characters from Astonishing the first time I saw them, and I eventually came to really like them. My point is that it would have been a shame and a waste to kill these characters off just because they were unpopular. Actually, isn't that what they did to Cypher? Exactly.

Ultimately, there's no reason whatsoever to think that killing off one group of characters will do any good for another group, and if it's not in the service of a good story, there's no reason to do it at all.

@akbogert said:

@papad1992: I did see that. And I'd love to see many of them in the spotlight as well. Did you see one of the first comments, where someone else said they wanted four of those characters to die because they're uninteresting? My point is simply that killing off characters you don't find interesting isn't a good way to make room for the ones you do; sooner or later, characters you like will be on someone else's kill list. Better that none of the characters are killed off, and Marvel finds creative ways to cycle different characters in and out of the background that don't involve senseless death.

@tahmidk said:

No, murdering random characters just cause you don't like em? fuck off. every character is going to be somebody's favorite, for example i absolutely love broo, hellion, glob herman, quentin quire, pixie, dust, kid gladiator etc...

@papad1992:

This is pretty much my opinion as distilled as it's going to get. I wasn't talking about Cypher in terms of when he was created, I used him as an example of someones favorite character getting killed off just because he didn't come up on someone's cool list. Also the age in which he was brought back doesn't have a whole lot of baring on something like this, or if it does, not as much as having a competent and creative writer breathing new life into him. You can be frustrated, I'm not saying that you should be completely happy with X-comics as they are today, I'm not telling you what characters you should or shouldn't like, however I am telling you that kill every character you don't like is a horrible idea and that invariably with that horrible idea you stomp on someone else in the same way that you feel that you are being stomped on.

@DarkDay: well put.

@papad1992 said:

@DarkDay said:

@akbogert said:

Well this just killed my morning.

Agreed, honestly. I don't need random murder in my X-Men, heck not even in my X-Force (at least not the random part). Would I like to see some of the characters I enjoy more brought back to the forefront? Yes. For that to happen do I need characters that other people might legitimately enjoy killed off for my amusement? The answer is no. Really no...

Wow really... Are u that pure of heart? Marvel keeps creating more and more characters... while the characters I, and others, love are being pushed farther into the background! Tell me u enjoy Idie, The Five Lights, Broo, etc... These are half@ss characters!

LOL tell me how Hellion, Mercury, and the one-liner gang aren't half-baked retreads? The Five Lights had crappy powers, but were extremely well-written, especially Idie who aptly portrayed self-hatred to a heartbreaking climax (Aaron isn't doing her any favors, however).

Don't be a hater because those characters quite rightfully got pushed into the background! lolololol

The only "New X-Men" character that is really worth anything is Rockslide (and AXM's Blindfold), but Rocky can even be argued to be a slightly upgraded Strong Guy.

@Selina_Sublime: though I can't really argue with your summation of them, I actually like the new X-men characters, in general, and the five lights too (though I still don't like Hope), and I'd like to see more of all of them, really.

but it just goes to show that every X-character speaks to somebody, and that's why it sucks to kill them for no reason.

@dangallant984 said:

Hellion's mistreatment is all Crosta's fault!

@Selina_Sublime said:

LOL tell me how Hellion, Mercury, and the one-liner gang aren't half-baked retreads? The Five Lights had crappy powers, but were extremely well-written, especially Idie who aptly portrayed self-hatred to a heartbreaking climax (Aaron isn't doing her any favors, however).

Don't be a hater because those characters quite rightfully got pushed into the background! lolololol

The only "New X-Men" character that is really worth anything is Rockslide (and AXM's Blindfold), but Rocky can even be argued to be a slightly upgraded Strong Guy.

Lol, you think the 5 lights were well-written? Okay.

@John Valentine said:

@dangallant984 said:

Hellion's mistreatment is all Crosta's fault!

whatever! Crosta's mistreatment was Trance's fault!!

@dangallant984 said:

@John Valentine said:

@dangallant984 said:

Hellion's mistreatment is all Crosta's fault!

whatever! Crosta's mistreatment was Trance's fault!!

I think all of this just stems back to Ernst.

@John Valentine: OMG!! YOU DID NOT JUST SAY THAT!! I LUVZ ERNST FTW!!