(And, no, for those of you who are thinking this, "professional" does not begin and end with getting paid to do what you do.)

So, however many changes he might go thru, none of them are "natural", so the Thing is not a mutant.

(I got to do my own little twist on this hoary old cliché in ALPHA FLIGHT, wherein I retroactively established that Northstar and Aurora had not known of each others existance prior to their first meeting. It was "the brother/sister I never knew I had" -- but the readers already knew, so it required no reality warping to pull it off.)



*Chris originally wanted Proteus to be Xavier's kid. "The son I never knew I had." I said no, since the book had already played the "relative you never knew I had" card with Scott and Alex. So Proteus became Moira's child by her first husband, not Xavier's bastard. (Of course, as was typical with Chris back then, when I left the book he went on to do all the stories I had said no to, in order. So Xavier eventually got that "unknown" offspring after all.)

(Magneto becoming a teacher at the School began as a joke, too.)

Xavier has a child?

There's a third Summers brother?

Things you miss when you no longer read a comic series.

....Any real job. That is, a job that expects work to be done in a timely fashion, and up to parr.

Summed up nicely. I have tremendous respect for guys like Swan and Kane who I assume always delivered professional calibre work without missing deadlines.

It seems that alot of so-called 'superstar' artists nowadays can't produce a book a month, even with abundant photo tracing and background assistants <g>.....

QUOTE: There's a third Summers brother?

What's even more convoluted about this...when it was decided to go this route, after a vague hint (Mr. Sinister making a mention to Scott about "...your brothers" with Scott picking up on the plural), Fabian Nicieza introduced a character (the unfortunately named Adam-X/X-Treme) with plenty of clues dropped in his appearances that he was the missing "Summers" brother (technically not a "Summers," though, being the offspring if D'Ken's having his way with Scott & Alex's mother).  But, the books seemed to just as quickly shy away from the "third Summers brother" concept, and Adam-X was dropped like a hot potato and never mentioned again.  When the concept was returned to again, a whole new character was created to fill the slot.

If people coming into comics did so with some experince in actually being professionals, no matter what the profession, the industry might be better served.

(And, no, for those of you who are thinking this, "professional" does not begin and end with getting paid to do what you do.)

***

 JB, thank you for saying that! As someone who is trying very hard to break into comics, I can truly say that the lack of professionalism I see around me is stunning. Huge crowds of people trying to "break in" with no idea what it means to really WORK! A year ago, after working a "real job" for 15 years, which I'm still working at in addition to writing, I decided to take shot at writing comics (before I get any older). Most of the people I see doing the same thing act like spoiled children.

 An editor at a small publisher recently gave me a monthly title to write (the first issue hasn't been published yet) and I'm very sad to see that he is actually surprised that 1. I get the work done quickly, without having to be reminded that a script is due. 2. I actually work far ahead of schedule, getting issues written far in advance of when he needs them done. 3. I communicate regularly, and in a professional manner. 4. That I'm wiling and very happy to constantly communicate with the artist and discuss anything that needs to be addressed.

 I don't know what everyone else is doing, but I can't imagine NOT treating it like "real work" even if I've not yet seen the finished product. I started treating it like a job long before it actually became one, and it seems to be working to my advantage.

 Meanwhile, I occasionally check out the message boards where writers, artists, etc. look for collaborators. Many of the ads they place are bursting with errors and badly formatted requests. If one cannot take the time to proofread an ad that is seeking out professional collaborators, how can one expect to be taken seriously?  

 I once mentioned this on such a forum. I asked how a writer can be taken seriously if he cannot seem to write an ad properly, how an artist can be trusted to interpret a story if his own writing makes him appear illiterate, and why I would possibly trust my own work to an editor who can't seem to bother checking his phrasing, spelling, etc.

  I was told to "lighten up."  

I bought the DOFP trade last year, read the issues for the first time. Not having an emotional/nostalgiac connection to those stories, it's easy for threads like this one to tarnish them. The biggest strike against them is Claremont's trademark diaharrea of the typewriter (and moments like Nightcrawler crying out, "WHY, GOD, WHY?").

And then you find out how John's painstaking attempts to keep everything neat and tidy were demolished by a few simple keystrokes by the writer (and the fact that later writers and fanboys couldn't leave well enough alone and had to keep tampering/revisting/rehashing the stories over and over again.

I can't even read the Dark Phoenix saga anymore without feeling a slight itch at the back of my mind, reminding me how often that tale's been mined to death over the years.

*** I can't even read the Dark Phoenix saga anymore without feeling a slight itch at the back of my mind, reminding me how often that tale's been mined to death over the years.

I agree. One of the cool aspects of being a comic book reader is the fact that I can appreciate Chris, John, and Terry's amazing run (revisiting my dusty back issues whenever I like) and pretend to myself that none of the crap since then ever happened. Denial, I'll admit <g>.

<<I can accept you are a
mutant. I can accept you're a mutant who was raised in an orphanage run by
a villian who met you 100yrs ago when you were time travelling. I can accept
you're married to a women who was thought dead but buried in a cocoon by
a cosmic force while that force took her place. but add a forgotten 3rd
brother, a psychic love affair, 2 kids from alternate futures, I just can't keep
up. >>

The affair is when they lost me.  I hear the latest is that Scott "choose" not to be able to control his optic blasts.  That may not constitute convaluted continuity, but I'd say it qualifies as contradicting continuity.


<<Xavier has a child?

There's a third Summers brother?

Things you miss when you no longer read a comic series.>>

You must have stopped a long time ago.  David Hallier, Xavier's son, was introduced in the 1980s.  IIRC, in the 20s of New Mutants.

From what I've read, the third Summers brother storyline that they actually did do was yet another example of character assassination, I mean development, from the House of Ideas.  This time Xavier was the target.