X-Men - Part 5

[BoredGuy]

Sorry, honestly forgot where i saw it...

bleeding cool has it:
http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/05...day-morning-new-x-men-to-superhero-cup-cakes/

Does seem unlikely that they'd have a New X-Men and an All New X-Men at the same time though

 

[Havok83]

Thanks!

 

[TheCorpulent1]

They're in the midst of the Hell on Earth War arc, and all of the hell-lords were attempting to kill Tier, Wolfsbane's son, as it was foretold in some kind of prophecy that whoever would, would rule all of hell and the earth. The group has been protecting him, and when they faced Pluto and his minions, M took Pluto on by herself, and he struck her so hard, that it caused some kind of brain injury that was slowly killing her. Layla knew about it from her future knowledge and Darwin could sense it from his leftover powers from when he copied Hela. Strong Guy returned in the arc too, as an ally of Jezebel, daughter of Mephisto, who was trying to stop the whole war from happening, and M attacked him directly, with the past between them making her think that he was there to fight and she just wanted to beat him to the punch, and during the fight he could even see she was slowing down and wanted to stop until she pissed him off and he hauled off and decked her but not even that hard like he said, but it was enough to kill her because of the previous injury.

It's also worth noting that Layla resurrected Guido from death a while back, and her power supposedly works by bringing a person back without their soul. So Guido may not entirely be Guido at the moment.

 

[Mad Ones]

Clay Mann is one of the best artists in Marvel. He should be on a team book. And that cast is completely neglected right now, so this book would be welcomed. I'd rather someone else write it, but I don't really believe this anyway.

 

[Specter313]

Clay Mann is one of the best artists in Marvel. He should be on a team book. And that cast is completely neglected right now, so a team book is needed. I'd rather someone else write it. I don't really believe this anyway.

Clay is currently the main artist on Gambit's solo, if you're interested.

 

[Mad Ones]

He's fantastic on Gambit! But I wouldn't mind seeing him draw a bigger variety of characters on another book. His Gambit and Rogue are great though.

 

[JewishHobbit]

I SO want this to happen it isn't funny. I don't even care who the creative team is. I just want a book staring these characters.

 

[Havok83]

It's also worth noting that Layla resurrected Guido from death a while back, and her power supposedly works by bringing a person back without their soul. So Guido may not entirely be Guido at the moment.

She has powers? I didnt think there was anything to her once it was revealed that her "clairvoyancy" amounted to her remembering what her future self told her

 

[Specter313]

She has powers? I didnt think there was anything to her once it was revealed that her "clairvoyancy" amounted to her remembering what her future self told her

Her mutant powers allow her to resurrect the dead, but the only come back minus their soul. That's how Trevor Fitzroy became evil when Jamie and Layla went to the future.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Although she resurrected Jamie too (sort of) and Guido was pretty normal for a long time (a bit listless and disengaged from things, perhaps, but not outright evil), so who the hell really knows at this point?

 

[JewishHobbit]

That was also something that really took me out of that book. Her simply having the powers of the Butterfly Effect was simple and awesome. David convoluting what was previously a very interesting character just killed her for me. Honestly, that reveal was the last time I consistently enjoyed the book. I tried to stick with it but finally just gave up. I miss the characters but not the book.

While I'm glad people really like it, I was glad when I heard it was ending. I'd give it another shot if someone else relaunched it. If not that, then I hope the characters get used elsewhere.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I don't know, I disagree that Layla was interesting before. Bendis gave her really, really, really vague powers to serve one purpose in House of M and then tossed her away. Peter David pretty much had to invent her whole characterization himself, so I can't really fault him for shifting her powers around to something more tangible that he could work with.

And as nice as it sounds to have the characters turn up elsewhere, I have a feeling they're just going to languish in obscurity. David built a really strange cast of castoffs and nobodies, for the most part. It worked so well because they were all characters you could see happily existing on the fringes and not wanting to get any closer to the "real" X-stuff.

 

[JewishHobbit]

I don't know, I disagree that Layla was interesting before. Bendis gave her really, really, really vague powers to serve one purpose in House of M and then tossed her away. Peter David pretty much had to invent her whole characterization himself, so I can't really fault him for shifting her powers around to something more tangible that he could work with.

Oh, no. I agree that Bendis did a crappy job with her. But Peter David started off with her being a but obscure in her powers. He first hinted at the Butterfly Effect, which is what everyone thought it was, and then he shifted to what we ended up having 50 issues later. I actually wrote her as a supporting character in a season of the Marvel RPG and the Butterfly Effect power was awesome to play with. I just hated what it turned into.

And as nice as it sounds to have the characters turn up elsewhere, I have a feeling they're just going to languish in obscurity. David built a really strange cast of castoffs and nobodies, for the most part. It worked so well because they were all characters you could see happily existing on the fringes and not wanting to get any closer to the "real" X-stuff.

Their status when the title started is what really drew me to the book. I loved all the characters and their histories, and the fact that David brushed them of was great. And I feel like he's really shined a light on them, and the fact that the book's had a steady audience (though low for Marvel) should tell Marvel that people like these characters.

I can see some of them going away, like Darwin, Strong Guy, and Layla... but I feel that at least Madrox, Rictor, Shatterstar, and M should show up somewhere. Maybe Longshot. David's kinda redefined all of their characters and made people love them.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I'd love to see Madrox turn up somewhere. His powers alone make him too great a character to leave aside, but they did just that for a while before David brought him back a few years ago.

 

[JewishHobbit]

Prior to David's series Madrox wasn't much of a character. He really only had character development in maybe 3 stories of X-Factor volume 1 (issues 71-75, issue 92 I think when he contracts the virus, and the issues leading up to his death in issue 100). He was pretty much just the mutant who made copies of himself.

Now, after the Madrox mini and David's long X-Factor run... he's a fully fleshed out, multi-layered character. People can really play with him now. I'd LOVE to see him get his own book, more like the Madrox mini, but if not that then one of the X-books.

Heck, I'd like to see him grow beyond the X-Books. Have him join Heroes for Hire with Luke and Iron Fist or something.

OH MY GOD I LOVE THAT IDEA!!!!

I was typing as I was thinking and that just fell out.

SLOTT! GET SOMEONE ON THAT!

 

[JewishHobbit]

Heh, I just tweeted the request to Bendis

 

[Donnie Darko]

I think I would like X-Factor back as a government team. One idea I had was to give them a "Suicide Squad" type angle where the government is basically blackmailing them into working for them as an elite task force. It could be mutants with sketchy pasts, villains-turned-heroes, mutants who did anything perceived as "bad" during AvX, etc.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

That's kind of what Uncanny X-Men is, only without the government oversight. They're the renegade mutants being all dangerous and living on the edge and whatever.

 

[Anubis]

Heh, I just tweeted the request to Bendis

That was dumb. Bendis would ignore all the character development PAD made and just do whatevs. Shame on you!

 

[JewishHobbit]

Nah. Madrox isn't a difficult character to "get" like others he's messed up in the past. He redefined Luke, created Jessica, and stepped up his game on Danny in his last few years on New Avengers. He has those three down. Madrox is very much a definitive street-level character, and those are what Bendis excels at. His humor is in the same vein as how Bendis always portrayed Luke and Danny, and his powers are impossible to screw up.

Personally, I think Bendis writing Madrox as a street level character would feel more legit than Peter David writing Madrox in some magical hellish story. That's part of why I dropped X-Factor. I felt like David was shoehorning Madrox and the others into this supernatural plot and it didn't feel authentic. I gave it until Rahne went looking for her son and that's about all I could take. To me, David messed it all up by then and probably should have left the title after Madrox got back from the future with issue 50. And his run peaked just prior to Messiah Complex with the Isolationist story (issue 24 I think), which was about the end of the detective run without it being tainted by time travel and supernatural stuff (though I did like the time travel stuff... I'm a sucker for the Summers Rebellion period).

Bendis writing Madrox as a street level detective would be taking him back to what made him work, and I'm ALL for that.

 

[Anubis]

Yeah, the opposite of everything you say is awesome.

 

[MMMMM...Pancakes]

Interesting that you guys are talking about X-Factor/Madrox as I was thinking about it earlier and came in here to ask if there were any plans for these characters after Peter David's run ends. Good timing.

 

[Donnie Darko]

That's kind of what Uncanny X-Men is, only without the government oversight. They're the renegade mutants being all dangerous and living on the edge and whatever.

Well, I guess I meant less "living on the edge" and more trying to get rid of the "red in their ledger." Also, no Bachalo allowed.

 

[Havok83]

Bachalo will likely be gone by the end of the year anyway. He tends to help get new runs started and then moves on rather quickly

 

[Manic]

re: Layla's powers

I get the impression that David fully intended for Layla's powers to always be the whole butterfly effect thing (and maybe also the resurrection stuff, because she did bring that dead butterfly back as a kid). There are several times in the earlier issues where it's clear that she's seeing multiple futures and trying to get a specific outcome.

But then Messiah Complex happened, and I think editors made David get rid of her. Having a precog around who could see where everything was going was going to create a huge plot hole in the whole Mutant Messiah thing; if Layla knew who the baby was and what she would do, why wouldn't she use her influence to create the best possible outcome? They also remembered to nix Destiny's Diaries before bringing Cable and Hope back from the future. I think if Blindfold's precognitive abilities didn't seem to be restricted to the immediate future, they'd have killed her off.

I also remember an interview with Peter David a while back, right around the time Adult Layla first popped up. He said something about how the editor didn't want to let him bring her back at first, but he had to tell the editor where he was going with her return. Then BLAM, when that particular arc finished, we got that scene where Adult Layla gave Kid Layla her memories to explain why she knew the future.