Reader Mail
As we've mentioned before, there's way too much mail for us to answer in the shows, so we'll be answering some of it right here on the blog. As always, thanks for sending in your questions, and please keep shooting them over to tips@pulpsecret.com, call them in to 888-841-7549, or post a video response on YouTube!
Steve from Kansas City, MO states:
Let me start off by saying that I got into comics about 13 years ago right before the Age of Apocalypse storyline in the X-books. It was amazing. It was great to see a huge story arc that spanned many books. It was also a great strategy because after that, I was picking up over a dozen issues per month. You already answered mail about massive crossovers so this issue is not with that.Age of Apocalypse was a great storyline, and it gave us some great characters, like Blink, and um, Dark Beast. Okay, Blink. When dealing with this issue, I like to bring up Mutant Massacre. This was a crossover that had HUGE ramifications for the X-Universe. And even if things returned to normal, as they are wont to do in comics, there was a very long time where Kitty couldn't become solid; Colossus couldn't turn back from metal without great pain, and was delaing with having killed Riptide; and Nightcrawler couldn't bamf properly. Among other changes, including the decimation of the Morlocks. I feel like there's been a lot of tries to bring back the feel of that, including the House of M/Decimation storyline, which has created a huge change in the X-Universe.
After that event, each book went back to their normal issue-to-issue continuity as had been done for decades. They didn’t have 4, 6, or even 12 issue story arcs. Each issue built upon the one previous and sometimes led up to milestones every 25 issues or so. Nowadays, all the issues seem disconnected. One six-issue story arc seems totally unrelated to the next. As an example, two years ago in X-Men they had the Blood of Apocalypse storyline. Within six issues, they brought Apocalypse back from the dead and turned Gambit evil (and black). Apocalypse hasn’t been seen since (or even referenced) and now Gambit finally shows up in X-Men #200 back to his normal skin tone (with no explanation).
The worst of all was recently in Uncanny X-Men, there was a year-long 12-issue arc in space. If they wanted a massive story, it could have been wrapped up into four issues really. I basically wasted a year of comics and 36 bucks on that story for minimal payout.
The only X-title to not really use these arcs currently is X-Factor. New X-Men does a pretty good job as well. The rest of the Marvel Universe does story arcs. I understand these arcs make trades easier to publish but in my opinion, the comics should read more like a continuous soap opera instead of many disjointed mini-series’. What do you think?
HOWEVER. Here's the reason it doesn't mean as much: the storylines have been based in plot, not character. The ideas of Mutant Massacre were motivated by "How would sweet-natured Collossus deal with being pushed to the edge? What if he killed?" and the same for all the other characters. Messiah Complex, which is coming up very shortly, may return to that character-based plotting. We'll just have to see.
However, that doesn't completely answer your question... The answer is two-fold: Lord of the Rings; and You Can't Always Get What You Want. Lord of The Rings was a huge multi-part story, told over three movies. Though the novels existed forever, the movies have been hugely influential towards the direction of entertainment media. Coupled with the success of shows like Lost, we now know that peole can follow complex, multi-character stories. However, they also want to know (unlike The X-Files, say) that there is an end in sight. Lord of The Rings was successful in part because people knew what they signed on for.
So trickling down to comics, you get the same type of storyline. You know you've signed on for 12 issues of "X-Men in Space," and whether it's good or bad, because you know the length, you're more likely to collect all the issues. The publishers know that, and know that you're more likely to buy 12 issues in the hopes that the ending will pay off if it's sold as a 12 issue storyline, rather than 12 issues that don't have an ending in sight. So do yourself a favor... If you don't like a storyline, don't buy it. Or, wait until it's done, and pick it up in trades.
As for "You Can't Always Get What You Want," it means what it says... You say you want comics to be one way, and you mention that New X-Men and X-Factor are that way. You're never going to get six different titles by six different authors to read exactly like you want them to. So be happy that you have two titles that are written how you want them to be written (and I agree, both of those titles are excellent), and just don't pick up the other ones.
I know there's only one question today, but it was a long one. Stay tuned tomorrow, when I answer your questions succinctly, and to the point!
Speaking as a long time X-Men fan the thing I find most frustrating is the constant repetition of storylines. The guys were right, the best of the x-men always shines through between epic storylines, when they are just being themselves and not being concerned with saving xxxxxxx.