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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
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Posted: 13 December 2018 at 5:41pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply

Mutant became the default setting for lazy writers. Why worry about an origin when “mutant” covers it?
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Steve De Young
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Posted: 13 December 2018 at 5:45pm | IP Logged | 2 post reply

Claremont is doing a story set in the past.  He’s retelling the story as Scott having stayed with Maddy and Nathan.  With no explanation as of yet.  There are seeds that have been planted, though, with the time traveling teen Scott and Cable time traveling where they could rewrite the whole thing.


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Greg Kirkman
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Posted: 13 December 2018 at 5:51pm | IP Logged | 3 post reply

Mutant became the default setting for lazy writers. Why worry about an origin when “mutant” covers it?
+++++++

Of course, that was also Stan’s reason for doing a mutant team book to begin with! He’d run out of origin ideas! 

But, yeah, it went way out of control, once other writers came along. There’s probably a mutant on every street corner, in today’s Marvel.
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Brian Floyd
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Posted: 14 December 2018 at 12:17am | IP Logged | 4 post reply

Only way I see to salvage Cyclops, short of a reboot, would be to pull off something like SECRET INVASION. In other words, the Cyclops who has done all (or most) of this stupid crap is a fake, and the real one has been held prisoner or trapped in suspended animation somewhere.


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Rick Whiting
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Posted: 14 December 2018 at 1:29am | IP Logged | 5 post reply

The “just don’t mention it” approach is virtually impossible with the modern audience.

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This is why I'm a firm believer that the editors and creators should be upfront and blunt with the modern audience and tell them that they will ignore and retcon any past stories that either don't work,make sense,or has damaged the characters no matter how popular or critically acclaimed those past stories may have been. If the modern audience is so damn interested in the people behind these characters and all of the business and creative decisions behind the creative directions, then they should just be told why those past stories are being retconned and ignored and be told to either it accept it or don't buy the books.
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Rick Whiting
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Posted: 14 December 2018 at 1:42am | IP Logged | 6 post reply

Mutant became the default setting for lazy writers. Why worry about an origin when “mutant” covers it?

__________________________________


That must explain why Slott made every member of the Great Lakes Avengers a mutant.
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Michael Roberts
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Posted: 14 December 2018 at 2:54am | IP Logged | 7 post reply

This is why I'm a firm believer that the editors and creators should be upfront and blunt with the modern audience and tell them that they will ignore and retcon any past stories that either don't work,make sense,or has damaged the characters no matter how popular or critically acclaimed those past stories may have been.

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See, I'm not convinced the issue is the modern audience. The issue is the fans-turned-pro who have decided that they know what modern audiences want and try to dredge up every past story and build an event around it. The readers think these past stories are important because the writers keep telling them that it is. Just shrug it off and move on. It's how they got rid of the angel-resurrected, demon hunter Punisher with magical guns who discovered that the mob execution of his family was actually a part of an infernal ritual. Did anyone demand a miniseries to explain that away?



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Michael Roberts
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Posted: 14 December 2018 at 2:57am | IP Logged | 8 post reply

That must explain why Slott made every member of the Great Lakes Avengers a mutant.

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I think that was mostly just to make a Great Lakes X-Men joke.
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John Byrne
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Posted: 14 December 2018 at 11:45am | IP Logged | 9 post reply

I think that was mostly just to make a Great Lakes X-Men joke.

**

This must be some new use of the word "joke" with which I was not previously familiar.

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John Byrne
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Posted: 14 December 2018 at 11:50am | IP Logged | 10 post reply

But how can one avoid his history? It's one thing that Ben Grimm had an older brother... if you don't mention it again, so very few will notice. But how do you ignore what Scott Summers has been subjected to? I do not see it possible... although I don't say it's impossible either.

••

The trick--and forgive my phrasing here--is to ignore people who ask that kind of question. When I was working on FANTASTIC FOUR, I made not so much as a single reference to Ben and Reed having fought in WW2. Not even a whisper. Of course, there were fans who wrote in to complain, but try and find those comments in the letter column. Not there. And eventually, the complaints died down and faded away.

Not sure Marvel is capable of this, tho. There's too much fanboy-to-fanboy pandering. (And, yes, X-MEN ELSEWHEN could be interpreted as a kind of pandering--tho mostly I'm pandering to myself!)

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Mark Haslett
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Posted: 14 December 2018 at 12:09pm | IP Logged | 11 post reply

What do you call it when pandering to yourself is nearly indistinguishable from
pandering to the fans?

"A darned good idea for a comic book"?
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John Byrne
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Posted: 14 December 2018 at 12:35pm | IP Logged | 12 post reply

But should I remember never to give MYSELF what I think I want?
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