Classic EBI: Drawing the X-Card
Another classic EBI for you guys -- this time going back to April 2, 2003. Grant Morrison's New X-Men was all the rage, and I realized, as I was writing, what it reminded me of...
Drawing the X-Card
It took the X-Men becoming something other than the X-Men to get me reading them again.
I was that rare comic reader in the late 80s and early 90s who never really was a major X-Men fan. For the most part, I read the book when it crossed over with X-Factor, which then starred Xavier’s original five students. I was then, and still am, far more enamored of Scott, Jean, Hank, Warren and Bobby than all of the Logans and Stacys and Remys and Whatever Xorn’s Real Name Is that have come since. (The Beast is Marvel’s second-most underused character right after the Thing.)
Then came the “Muir Island Saga,” in which my X-Factor dissolved and the members rejoined the X-Men, so I started picking up those now-two books for a few months.
Then Bishop showed up. Bishop showed up and every logic circuit in my brain exploded and I groaned, “Aw geez, not another time-travelling enigma from a future that may or may not ever exist trying to solve a mystery that may or may not ever be resolved. Most likely ‘may not,’ considering that these characters have been around for almost 30 years and Cyclops is still unsure as to the exact number of his siblings.” And that’s when I dropped the books, vowing not to read them again until they genuinely were something cool. (I had a similar policy regarding Spider-Man, clones and, ultimately, J. Michael Straczynski.)
So what was it that finally got me to add an X-title to my pull list again after all those years? Let’s hear the chorus, folks -- Grant Morrison.
When he took over the re-Christened “New X-Men,” the book became something really different, something that didn’t feel like any X-book I’d ever read, and I mean that in a good way. However, it did feel like something, and I struggled for nearly two years to determine out what.
Then last week, I figured it out.
I wonder, I mean I really wonder, if Mr. Morrison is a fan of George R.R. Martin.
Martin is a novelist, a fantasy and sci-fi writer and author of the novella that inspired the upcoming Image comic The Hedge Knight. But he’s also the creator of perhaps the most viable and vibrant superhero universe that didn’t start life on a comic book page -- his Wild Card series.
This series consists of 16 “mosaic novels” (essentially, collections of short stories by various authors that link together into one meta-story, not unlike a heck of a lot of comic book epics). In this universe, a few years after World War II a bomb exploded in the skies above New York City, blanketing the Earth in the extraterrestrial “Wild Card” virus.
For those who caught the virus, there were three possible outcomes: 90 percent of them died. This is drawing a “Black Queen.” Nine percent of them experienced some sort of physical mutation -- growing flippers or tusks or scales or something that immediately marked them as a freak. These were the “Jokers.” Only a select few, that last one percent, drew an “Ace” -- superpowers without an obvious physical deformity.
Sounding familiar yet?
Now I’m not suggesting here that Morrison set out to ape Martin’s universe -- it’s not at all uncommon for different writers to have similar ideas. (This is coming from a guy who’s still peeved at Rob Liefeld for using the name Knightmare before I had a chance.) However, after I discovered Martin’s books, I realized that this is very close to what the world of the X-Men has become under Grant Morrison.
In the old days of Mutantdom, the Stan Lee and Jack Kirby days, being a mutant seemed pretty cool to me -- you got super powers without the hassle of getting struck by lightning or caught in a gamma bomb explosion or anything potentially messy like that. Even for those rare mutants who did have an obvious physical change, it was usually something... well... dashing. Wings, for instance, or blue fuzz and a tail. For every Blob, you had a half-dozen Angels and Nightcrawlers. (Heck, the latter was often portrayed as the bounding adventurer in those days, just looking for a swash to buckle.)
That changed when Morrison started writing. All of a sudden, we were seeing the real freaks -- guys with beaks or jelly for flesh. Kids who turned into vapor and a dude with a star in his head. For the first time ever, we were getting the impression that guys like Scott Summers and Bobby Drake were, in fact, the lucky ones -- the “aces,” to use Wild Card terminology -- and that it was probably a lot more likely for a mutant to wind up with broccoli for hair than the claws and stubble that were just bound to attract the chicks.
And the potential for disaster with a mutant power makes things a lot more interesting.
I never really bought the whole “protecting a world that fears and hates them” jazz, to be frank. It probably made sense when the Stan whipped up these characters in the 60s, but in today’s uber-Politically Correct society it seems to me that people who can read minds or teleport wouldn’t be outcasts. They’d be celebrities! They’d be John Edward and Michael Jordan! (Well... maybe Dennis Rodman.) They’d have talk shows and endorsements and get ghost writers to whip up quickie autobiographies! They’d...
Well, in essence, they would be exactly what Peter Milligan and Mike Allred turned X-Force into, which is why when they took over I began reading that title for the first time ever.
Suddenly, where there had previously been no X-books I cared for, there were several. And how did it happen? In Morrison’s case, by taking that central X-premise and altering the universe so that it made sense: people wouldn’t really shun someone because he can make playing cards explode, but a giant blue cat-man? That’s freaky.
In the other case, they took that same central premise and threw it out, showing the old view of mutantkind in a way more believable.
And in both cases, we wound up with really good comics.
New X-Men. X-Statix. I can read X-Universe books again.
And I can read Wild Card universe books, too. Heck, I’ve only read the first one so far, I’ve still got 15 to go. IBooks has reprinted the first several volumes in this series -- if you dig what Morrison is doing, check out what Martin and his co-conspirators have been up to since 1986.
Blake M. Petit is the author of a the novels, Other People’s Heroes and The Beginner and the regular Think About It column right here. If he were a mutant, he would be Non Sequiter, he with the power to transform random connections in his super-brain into an entire column. He’d probably grow tusks. E-mail him at BlakeP@comixtreme.com.
Drawing the X-Card
It took the X-Men becoming something other than the X-Men to get me reading them again.
I was that rare comic reader in the late 80s and early 90s who never really was a major X-Men fan. For the most part, I read the book when it crossed over with X-Factor, which then starred Xavier’s original five students. I was then, and still am, far more enamored of Scott, Jean, Hank, Warren and Bobby than all of the Logans and Stacys and Remys and Whatever Xorn’s Real Name Is that have come since. (The Beast is Marvel’s second-most underused character right after the Thing.)
Then came the “Muir Island Saga,” in which my X-Factor dissolved and the members rejoined the X-Men, so I started picking up those now-two books for a few months.
Then Bishop showed up. Bishop showed up and every logic circuit in my brain exploded and I groaned, “Aw geez, not another time-travelling enigma from a future that may or may not ever exist trying to solve a mystery that may or may not ever be resolved. Most likely ‘may not,’ considering that these characters have been around for almost 30 years and Cyclops is still unsure as to the exact number of his siblings.” And that’s when I dropped the books, vowing not to read them again until they genuinely were something cool. (I had a similar policy regarding Spider-Man, clones and, ultimately, J. Michael Straczynski.)
So what was it that finally got me to add an X-title to my pull list again after all those years? Let’s hear the chorus, folks -- Grant Morrison.
When he took over the re-Christened “New X-Men,” the book became something really different, something that didn’t feel like any X-book I’d ever read, and I mean that in a good way. However, it did feel like something, and I struggled for nearly two years to determine out what.
Then last week, I figured it out.
I wonder, I mean I really wonder, if Mr. Morrison is a fan of George R.R. Martin.
Martin is a novelist, a fantasy and sci-fi writer and author of the novella that inspired the upcoming Image comic The Hedge Knight. But he’s also the creator of perhaps the most viable and vibrant superhero universe that didn’t start life on a comic book page -- his Wild Card series.
This series consists of 16 “mosaic novels” (essentially, collections of short stories by various authors that link together into one meta-story, not unlike a heck of a lot of comic book epics). In this universe, a few years after World War II a bomb exploded in the skies above New York City, blanketing the Earth in the extraterrestrial “Wild Card” virus.
For those who caught the virus, there were three possible outcomes: 90 percent of them died. This is drawing a “Black Queen.” Nine percent of them experienced some sort of physical mutation -- growing flippers or tusks or scales or something that immediately marked them as a freak. These were the “Jokers.” Only a select few, that last one percent, drew an “Ace” -- superpowers without an obvious physical deformity.
Sounding familiar yet?
Now I’m not suggesting here that Morrison set out to ape Martin’s universe -- it’s not at all uncommon for different writers to have similar ideas. (This is coming from a guy who’s still peeved at Rob Liefeld for using the name Knightmare before I had a chance.) However, after I discovered Martin’s books, I realized that this is very close to what the world of the X-Men has become under Grant Morrison.
In the old days of Mutantdom, the Stan Lee and Jack Kirby days, being a mutant seemed pretty cool to me -- you got super powers without the hassle of getting struck by lightning or caught in a gamma bomb explosion or anything potentially messy like that. Even for those rare mutants who did have an obvious physical change, it was usually something... well... dashing. Wings, for instance, or blue fuzz and a tail. For every Blob, you had a half-dozen Angels and Nightcrawlers. (Heck, the latter was often portrayed as the bounding adventurer in those days, just looking for a swash to buckle.)
That changed when Morrison started writing. All of a sudden, we were seeing the real freaks -- guys with beaks or jelly for flesh. Kids who turned into vapor and a dude with a star in his head. For the first time ever, we were getting the impression that guys like Scott Summers and Bobby Drake were, in fact, the lucky ones -- the “aces,” to use Wild Card terminology -- and that it was probably a lot more likely for a mutant to wind up with broccoli for hair than the claws and stubble that were just bound to attract the chicks.
And the potential for disaster with a mutant power makes things a lot more interesting.
I never really bought the whole “protecting a world that fears and hates them” jazz, to be frank. It probably made sense when the Stan whipped up these characters in the 60s, but in today’s uber-Politically Correct society it seems to me that people who can read minds or teleport wouldn’t be outcasts. They’d be celebrities! They’d be John Edward and Michael Jordan! (Well... maybe Dennis Rodman.) They’d have talk shows and endorsements and get ghost writers to whip up quickie autobiographies! They’d...
Well, in essence, they would be exactly what Peter Milligan and Mike Allred turned X-Force into, which is why when they took over I began reading that title for the first time ever.
Suddenly, where there had previously been no X-books I cared for, there were several. And how did it happen? In Morrison’s case, by taking that central X-premise and altering the universe so that it made sense: people wouldn’t really shun someone because he can make playing cards explode, but a giant blue cat-man? That’s freaky.
In the other case, they took that same central premise and threw it out, showing the old view of mutantkind in a way more believable.
And in both cases, we wound up with really good comics.
New X-Men. X-Statix. I can read X-Universe books again.
And I can read Wild Card universe books, too. Heck, I’ve only read the first one so far, I’ve still got 15 to go. IBooks has reprinted the first several volumes in this series -- if you dig what Morrison is doing, check out what Martin and his co-conspirators have been up to since 1986.
Blake M. Petit is the author of a the novels, Other People’s Heroes and The Beginner and the regular Think About It column right here. If he were a mutant, he would be Non Sequiter, he with the power to transform random connections in his super-brain into an entire column. He’d probably grow tusks. E-mail him at BlakeP@comixtreme.com.