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Post by jason on Mar 15, 2024 23:12:11 GMT -5
Lets say Marvel decided against bringing back the X-Men in the 70s and just chalked it up as a relic of the 60s Marvel. Bear in mind that all of the characters created BEFORE the All New All Different Team still exist, as does Wolverine, but Colossus, Storm, Nightcrawler, etc and all the stuff that came after does not. Do the former X-Men characters still become popular? Do they eventually get their own books? Does Wolverine become a regular character in Marvel and break out without the X-Men connection? Things to make you think.
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Post by tarkintino on Mar 15, 2024 23:24:56 GMT -5
What if X-Men was never revived in the 70s Without the often self-overblown hysteria over the "new" X-Men, people would remember The Doom Patrol was the better "misfit" superhero team?
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Post by berkley on Mar 16, 2024 0:22:47 GMT -5
What if X-Men was never revived in the 70s Without the often self-overblown hysteria over the "new" X-Men, people would remember The Doom Patrol was the better "misfit" superhero team?
I dunno, even though for myself I didn't rate the '70s X-Men revival in the top rank of Marvel comics of the time, I did like it and more importantly it was hugely popular - and as far as I know, not because of any artificial hype or promotional campaign but just because a lot of fans really loved it. So I think Claremont and Cockrum and then Claremont and Byrne must have been doing something to attract all those fans.
So the question would appear to be, would or could they have done the same thing with the original characters? For me, as a Canadian reader, quite a bit of the immediate appeal of the '70s X-men was the international cast, and that would be largely missing from the original line-up, unless perhaps the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver were included. But then, I imagine that wouldn't be as big a factor for most American fans. Apart from nationality, were the original characters inherently less interesting than the new ones? I'd say probably yes, in some cases: Ice-Man always struck me as a dull visual design and Angel needed something besides just the power of flight to make him respectable in a superhero universe full of characters who can not only fly but do many other amazing things as well.But who knows, Claremont might have been able to introduce changes or developments to make them more attractive to fans, as he did with Jean Grey and Cyclops.
Anyway, without trying to think too hard about it, I'd guess that there's a good chance that Claremont, Cockrum, and Byrne would have been able to make the original X-Men a success, if not the huge fan-favourite their new X-Men ended up being. Many of the factors that led to the success of the revamped series would still be present if the old characters had been retained - many, but not all. So it comes down to which factors you think were most important to the popularity the series enjoyed for so many years. Creative team? Characters? Sheer luck or right time, right place? Something else altogether?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 16, 2024 0:59:57 GMT -5
Then maybe Incredible Hulk 181 would be affordable in high grade....Wolverine's debut would be as popular as Wendigo.
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Post by commond on Mar 16, 2024 4:31:59 GMT -5
I think the comic book world would be worse for it. It would change the trajectory of the industry completely, and personally, I may have never become a fan. I'm sure they would have revived the X-Men at some point as I can't think of too many comics that didn't get a revival at some point or another. Whether it would have been successful is anybody's guess. A lot would depend on the creative team, I imagine. I can't imagine Wolverine becoming popular unless he got hot on some other book. Claremont and Byrne may have worked together on another title like The Fantastic Four or the Avengers. Perhaps we would have gotten the Dark Sue Richards Saga or the Dark Scarlet Witch Saga.
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Post by james on Mar 16, 2024 4:48:40 GMT -5
How many of the characters would be members of the Avengers or Defenders during this time?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 16, 2024 7:55:25 GMT -5
One of the initially most compelling parts of the new X-Men was simply the "look", you couldn't get a better character/costume designer than Cockrum in the 70's (same with his Legion work). Even before you read any of the stories, his visual contributions with Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, even the short-lived Thunderbird, made this a title worth looking at with the inclusion of Wolverine being the icing on the cake. And even with the old team, Cockrum struck magic again with the Phoenix look for Jean. Let's not forget Banshee was in there for awhile as well who was a cool character, so there was some additional carryover beyond Scott (and eventually Jean).
I think some overhaul could have been done to the overall old team as well, someone like Cockrum could have probably updated their looks nicely as well. And the team composition could have been creative as well, other "later original era" characters could have been added, like Polaris would have been great I think. Beast is awesome, he was great in the Avengers during the 70's I thought.
So anything was possible in my mind in the hands of the right talent back then, I think it just happened to be you had a lot of creative horsepower with Claremont, Cockrum, Byrne, and let's not forget Terry Austin!
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Post by kirby101 on Mar 16, 2024 8:11:10 GMT -5
By the 80s, the X-Men and Mutants were the premiere books at Marvel. Without the new X-Men, the Bronze Age would have been completely different, with super heroes perhaps not surviving. It was the Xbooks that lead DC to revamp their titles. I doubt it would just be some other title that did what the X-Men did.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 16, 2024 8:28:15 GMT -5
By the 80s, the X-Men and Mutants were the premiere books at Marvel. Without the new X-Men, the Bronze Age would have been completely different, with super heroes perhaps not surviving. It was the Xbooks that lead DC to revamp their titles. I doubt it would just be some other title that did what the X-Men did. I feel like New Teen Titans was pretty critical for superheroes during that time as well, Wolfman has said they weren't influenced by X-Men. I feel like the time was right for a lot of change that was happening during the course of the Bronze Age, no doubt X-Men was a shining and yes very influential example of that, but I feel like it was going to happen no matter what with the advent of the direct market and lots of creators taking things next level.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 16, 2024 8:54:50 GMT -5
How many of the characters would be members of the Avengers or Defenders during this time? Here are my predictions by character: -Jean would have split up with Scott because he wasn't cool enough to keep their title popular. She joins Beast in the Avengers, the Phoenix and Dark Phoenix storylines still happen but in that title. -Angel is a Defender. -Iceman sometimes teams up with Spider-Man and a new lady called Firestar. -Scott goes off and wallows.
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Post by Calidore on Mar 16, 2024 9:53:59 GMT -5
How many of the characters would be members of the Avengers or Defenders during this time? Here are my predictions by character: -Jean would have split up with Scott because he wasn't cool enough to keep their title popular. She joins Beast in the Avengers, the Phoenix and Dark Phoenix storylines still happen but in that title. -Angel is a Defender. -Iceman sometimes teams up with Spider-Man and a new lady called Firestar. -Scott goes off and wallows.
I think Scott goes into construction, because he's used to working with I-beams.
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Post by spoon on Mar 16, 2024 11:23:42 GMT -5
The difficulty of a hypothetical is figuring out what's the sliding door moment that would allow the counterfactual to exist. There's cause and effect; it's not just like flipping a switch. I've been browsing through The X-Men Companion (a couple of books of interviews of creators published in the early 80s) as something informing my views.
One of the ingredients for the creation of the All-New, All-Different X-Men was that the series had been revived as a reprint series for several years and there were also several guest appearances by X-Men during the reprint era. Both were apparently received well enough to create interest in a revival, so does the history get massaged enough for the just a 60s relic scenario? "Just a relic" is an unusual assessment, because the X-Men were an existing thing in the early 70s, albeit in the reduced reprint and guest appearance capacity.
Also, Wolverine's creation according to Roy Thomas may partially have created because his pitch for an international team of X-Men was out there, so creating new characters who could might be used in that new series was encouraged.
So if relic means that X-Men never even had a period of reprints, than it would probably mean the team/characters would go the guest appearance route, but those appearances would be less frequent as there would be less interest among readers. If all past events happen and it's just at the end they don't decide to go with the pitch of a new series, then I think the X-Men continue to make guest appearances. They either get revived at a later date with the original members (but probably not Beast), Havok, and Polaris as potential members, with the possibility that Sunfire and/or Banshee get folder in. Or if were not allowed a revival of the series under the thought exercise, then after a while some of the characters may end up as Defenders or Avengers.
Also, keep in mind that the new X-Men weren't created out of whole cloth when the pitch started. A lot of it came from sketches that Dave Cockrum had been working on potentially to use for Legion of Super-Heroes or a LOSH spin-off. While Storm was a combination of elements from different characters, the visual for Nightcrawler was largely unchanged from work Cockrum did before he was assigned to X-Men. So at some point we'd probably get characters that had elements of those sketches in whatever series Cockrum is working on instead of X-Men.
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Post by Cei-U! on Mar 16, 2024 11:28:31 GMT -5
I feel like New Teen Titans was pretty critical for superheroes during that time as well, Wolfman has said they weren't influenced by X-Men. Wolfman's full of crap. If the X-Men reboot hadn't worked, DC would never have greenlit the Titans reboot.
Cei-U! I call bulls#!t!
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Post by jason on Mar 16, 2024 11:52:43 GMT -5
I can see them giving the characters solo stories in anthology books or mini-series to "test" if they could carry a series on their own.
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Post by james on Mar 16, 2024 15:02:16 GMT -5
It may have been answered but would Madelyn Pryor no longer exist? Would Wolverine not go through the numerous changes ?
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