rec.arts.comics.marvel.xbooks FAQ: Contents

[Kate the Short]

Archive-name: comics/xbooks/main-faq/contents
Posting-frequency: monthly
URL: http://users.rcn.com/kateshort/faqs/

-= REC.ARTS.COMICS.MARVEL.XBOOKS =-
Frequently Asked Questions
Part 0: Table of Contents

Version 2003.02, last updated November 2003
URL: http://users.rcn.com/kateshort/faqs/racmxFAQ/contents.html

------------------------------
Subject: Welcome!

Welcome to the rec.arts.comics.marvel.xbooks general FAQ! The page you
are currently reading includes the list of recent changes and the Table
of Contents for the entire FAQ. This FAQ is posted monthly to the
newsgroups rec.arts.comics.marvel.xbooks and rec.arts.comics.info.

The FAQ Keeper cheerfully accepts any corrections and suggestions! The
Keeper of the RACMX FAQs is Kate the Short (mailto:ra...@yahoo.com).

If your newsreader has a search/go-to command, you can quickly page
through this FAQ by searching for any of the Contents as spelled. A
plus sign in parentheses (+) indicates a change to the contents listed
since the last FAQ update.

------------------------------
Subject: Recent Changes (+)

ALL:

Part 1:
Updated list of X-Teams.
Updated list of starting points for back issue collections.
Updated definition of mutant.

Part 2:
Typo patrol.

Part 3:
Updated list of X-Men.
Updated classes at Xavier's.
Updated Professor X's legs.
Updated gay X-Men.
Updated Rogue/Gambit sex.
Updated Mystique family tree.

Part 5:
Updated whatever happened to everyone.

Part 6:
Updated Magneto's existence.
Updated Hellfire Club members list.
Updated Wolverine's origin.

Part 7:
Added secondary mutation / appearance change question.

Part 8:
Updated _X-Men_ cameos.
Added _X-Men 2_ information.
Updated credits.

------------------------------
Subject: Table of Contents (+)

Part 1:

PURPOSE/INTRO

NEW (OR RETURNING) READER INFORMATION
* The current list of X-Titles and Teams (+)
* Hints for picking up back issues and older storylines (+)

WHAT ARE THE X-BOOKS?
* Philosophical Meanderings and Inspirations
* What is a mutant? (+)

RACMX NEWSGROUP QUESTIONS
* Can you explain Paul O'Brien's review grading system?
* Why do all those annoying dinos keep on complaining about
the X-titles here? If they don't like the books, why do they
read them?
* What is this Kid Dynamo thing? Where can I find it?
* Where can I get scans of comic art? Why doesn't anybody post
pictures on the newsgroup?

COMMONLY USED ABBREVIATIONS AND TERMS

OTHER RACMXERS WHO MAY BE OF ASSISTANCE

Part 2:

HISTORY OF THE X-TEAMS AND X-TITLES
* The 1960s and 1970s: Early history
* The 1980s: An explosion of new titles
* The 1990s: Claremont's exit, mega-crossovers
* 2000 and beyond: New (and newer) directions

Part 3:

X-MEN COMIC BOOK QUESTIONS
* Who were the original X-Men? Who was the first X-Man? Who have
been X-Men? (+)
* How come Professor X has so much money?
* What classes does the Professor offer at his schools, anyway? (+)
* Wasn't there a title released in 1963 about a team of super-
powered misfits who banded together under some smart guy in a
wheelchair to fight against prejudice and the right to just be
yourself ... by DC Comics?
* When did Professor X start walking? Isn't he supposed to be in a
wheelchair? (+)
* Are there any gay X-Men? (+)
* Why do people hate the X-Men when they love the Avengers and the
Fantastic Four?
* Why can't Cyclops just wear contact lenses?
* Why doesn't Forge invent something that would neutralize powers
so mutants like Cyclops and Rogue can live normal lives? And how
can Rogue cut her hair, if she's invulnerable?
* Did Psylocke dye her hair? What about Rogue's stripe?
* I've got an idea! Why don't Rogue and Gambit use Leech so
they can have sex? Have they already had sex? (+)
* Is Rogue's inability to control her powers psychological in nature?
* Why does Rogue have claws? When did that happen?
* Was Rogue raped by the guards in the first Genosha storyline?
* What is the relationship between Mystique and Nightcrawler? Why
is Rogue involved in it, if she isn't blue? (+)

Part 4:

X-MEN COMIC BOOK QUESTIONS
* Why do so many people hate Scott Summers?
* How many Summerses are there, anyways?
- Simplified family tree
- The third Summers brother
- Timelost children
* What's the relationship between the Phoenix, Jean Grey,
Madelyne Pryor, and Rachel Summers?
- Is Maddie Pryor in Avengers Annual #10?
- Is Jean or Phoenix dead on the moon?
- When did Jean take the codename Phoenix? Is she Phoenix?
- Who's the Madelyne in X-Man?
- The problem with Excalibur #52
* What's the relationship between Cable, Stryfe, Ahab, and
Nate Grey?
- Cable and Stryfe
- Who's Ahab?
- Is Stryfe dead?
- What's the deal with Nate?

Part 5:

X-MEN COMIC BOOK QUESTIONS
* How old is Kitty Pryde? Jubilee? The rest of the X-Men?
* What are the names and ages of the Guthrie siblings? How
many of them are mutants?
* What happened to the New Mutants and X-Force kids? (+)
* What happened to Excalibur? (+)
* What happened to X-Factor? (+)
* What happened to Generation X? (+)
* What about everyone else? (+)

Part 6:

X-MEN COMIC BOOK QUESTIONS
* Is Magneto Jewish or Gypsy? Was Joseph Magneto? (+)
* What is the Hellfire Club? Who are its members? (+)
* What is the relationship between Wolverine and Sabretooth
supposed to be?
* Does Wolverine have any real memories anyway? How about
real bones?
* Who was Wolverine before he was Wolverine? Does he even
have a real name? (+)
* Wolverine can regularly regenerate himself from a drop of
blood, right?

Part 7:

X-MEN COMIC BOOK QUESTIONS
* Which X-Men haven't been mutants?
* What is the Siege Perilous?
* Why did the X-Men lose their invisibility to electronic
scanners?
* Psylocke, Revanche, Kwannon, Betsy Braddock ... help?
* When did Psylocke and Phoenix switch powers? Wasn't Psylocke
telepathically holding the Shadow King captive?
* When did the Beast turn blue and furry? Wasn't he unfurry
again for a while? When did he become a lion?
* How come other mutants seem to be changing their powers and
appearances? (+)
* Is Longshot Shatterstar's father?
* There's an External at my door. What does that mean? Should
I be concerned? Is it contagious?
* Who are the Twelve? Why are they important?
* Is Apocalypse dead?
* What is the Legacy Virus? Who's had it? Hasn't there been a
cure for a while?
* What is the Soulsword? Who has Magik's Soulsword now?
* Is the Malice who worked with the Marauders the same one
that appears in Fantastic Four now and then?
* Do you lose your mutant powers in the Savage Land? Where is
the Savage Land, anyway?
* What happens when the Blob meets the Juggernaut?

Part 8:

COMICS INDUSTRY QUESTIONS
* Why did Chris Claremont leave the X-titles? Why did Peter
David leave X-Factor?
* Are any Marvel staff reading racmx?
* What's a dangler? Is it related to a six month gap?
* What's a Claremontism?

X-MEN OTHER-MEDIA QUESTIONS
* How is _X-Men: The Movie_ different from the comics?
* What cameos are there in _X-Men: The Movie_? (+)
* What's new in _X-Men 2_? (+)
* What other movies or cartoons are there?

HISTORY OF THIS FAQ

CREDITS (+)

*** Continued in Part 1 ***

Compilation Copyright 2000-2003 by Katharine E. Hahn
SEND ADDITIONS / CHANGES / DEAD LINKS / MOVED LINKS / UPDATES TO:
Kate the Short, ra...@yahoo.com (mailto:ra...@yahoo.com)

--
Kate the Short * http://users.rcn.com/kateshort/

[Kate the Short]

Archive-name: comics/xbooks/main-faq/part1

Posting-frequency: monthly
URL: http://users.rcn.com/kateshort/faqs/

-= REC.ARTS.COMICS.MARVEL.XBOOKS =-
Frequently Asked Questions

Part 1

Version 2003.02, last updated November 2003

URL: http://users.rcn.com/kateshort/racmxFAQ/faq1.html

------------------------------
Subject: Table of Contents

Part 1:

PURPOSE/INTRO

NEW (OR RETURNING) READER INFORMATION
* The current list of X-Titles and Teams (+)
* Hints for picking up back issues and older storylines (+)

WHAT ARE THE X-BOOKS?
* Philosophical Meanderings and Inspirations
* What is a mutant? (+)

RACMX NEWSGROUP QUESTIONS
* Can you explain Paul O'Brien's review grading system?
* Why do all those annoying dinos keep on complaining about
the X-titles here? If they don't like the books, why do they
read them?
* What is this Kid Dynamo thing? Where can I find it?
* Where can I get scans of comic art? Why doesn't anybody post
pictures on the newsgroup?

COMMONLY USED ABBREVIATIONS AND TERMS

OTHER RACMXERS WHO MAY BE OF ASSISTANCE

------------------------------
Subject: PURPOSE/INTRO

This is the Frequently Asked Questions list for the Usenet newsgroup
rec.arts.comics.marvel.xbooks. FAQs for the rec.arts.comics groups in
general are posted regularly on rec.arts.comics.info. Not wanting to
flood the general rac.* FAQs with a huge amount of X-related subjects,
the FAQ keepers decided to start a number of separate FAQs, to be posted
as needed on rec.arts.comics.marvel.xbooks (racmx) itself.

Readers are still encouraged to read the main FAQs for the rac hierarchy
in rac.info. Newcomers should also read the many helpful articles in the
news.* hierarchy, especially those in news.newusers.questions. You
should also read the newsgroup news.announce.newusers before you start
posting regularly to the rac.* newsgroups.

X-title fans are energetic and creative people, and a number of them
have written their own FAQs or created their own webpages for topics
close to their hearts. You can find a list of those FAQs, pages, and
mailing lists on more specific subjects than these in the "Where Can I
Find It?" FAQ. Please note that almost all of the rac.* FAQs can be
found at the FAQ page: http://users.rcn.com/kateshort/faqs/.

Please note: Background information on the creators and the X-titles
editorial offices is based on over a decade's worth of interviews,
articles, and personal questions, and as such is not directly
attributed here. Now that some of Marvel's staff members are on Usenet,
they are welcomed to correct and amend any of the answers listed below.

------------------------------
Subject: NEW (OR RETURNING) READER INFORMATION

--- The current list of X-Titles and Teams (+)

The current published monthly titles which tell the stories of the
interacting genetic soap opera which is the X-Men are as follows:

* Uncanny X-Men: The original book; covers one main team of X-Men.
Team members include Angel (winged flight), Havok (energy blasts),
Husk (shape changing), Iceman (ice manipulation), Juggernaut
(unstoppable strength), Nightcrawler (teleportation), Northstar
(superspeed flight), and the book has occasionally featured
Jubilee, Polaris, and Chamber.

* New X-Men: The sequel and companion title to Uncanny X-Men.
Team members, mentored by Prof. Xavier (telepathy), include Beast
(strength and agility), Cyclops (eye blasts), former White Queen
Emma Frost (telepathy and diamond skin), Phoenix (telepathy and
telekinesis), and Wolverine (enhanced senses and self-healing).
The title often features students at Xavier's school, including
Angel, Beak, and Dust.

* X-Treme X-Men: A third core title; covers another set of X-Men.
Team members include Bishop (energy blasts), Storm (weather),
Sage (memory, analysis, and the ability to "see" others' potential
mutant powers), and Cannonball (flight from blasting power). The
title has also featured Rogue, Gambit, and Shadowcat.

* X-Statix: A team of corporate-sponsored mutants / celebrities.
Team members include Orphan (super senses, athleticism), Anarchist
(acidic sweat), Vivisector (bestial form), Phat (fat control and
strength), Dead Girl (corpse memory, spirit communication), Venus
Dee Milo (energy form and teleportation), El Guapo (skateboarding),
and Doop (pocket dimension storage, cameraman).

* New Mutants: Training the newest kids how to use their powers.
Teachers and mentors include Prof. Xavier (telepathy), Mirage
(brings desires/fears to life), and Karma (mind possession).

* Wolverine: Solo adventures with the world's most popular X-Man.

* Weapon X: Covert operations with former X-Men allies and villains.

* Deadpool/Cable: Team-up adventures featuring very odd teammates.

* Mystique: Solo adventures with the longtime X-Men nemesis.

* Exiles: Magik and friends time-hop through alternate dimensions.

* Ultimate X-Men: A hip, alternate version of the X-Men team.

* Unlimited: One-shot X-Men-related stories by various new creators.

Obviously, these popular mutants have been featured as main characters
or guest characters in quite a few former and current titles. Even in
earlier decades Marvel was crossover happy, so it can be safely assumed
that the X-Men have made guest appearances in probably every Marvel
comic. Those interested in collecting them all should track down Aardy
R. DeVarque's Annotated Index to X-Men Guest Appearances and Exhaustive
Completist's Supplemental X-Men Checklist, both of which can be found at
http://users.rcn.com/aardy/comics/index.html .

--- Hints for picking up back issues and older storylines (+)

There are two ways to get into reading the titles: starting with the
current crop of books, or starting with the origins of the characters.

If you're diving back in after a few years away, go to the core titles:
Uncanny X-Men, New X-Men, and X-Treme X-Men, which feature most of the
characters from the X-Men movie, cartoon, and older comics. Each of the
titles rebooted with a new creative team multiple times over the past
few years, so there are numerous good starting points. For New X-Men,
start with #114 or #127 (the "E is for Extinction" or "Riot at Xavier's"
storylines. For Uncanny, #410 is the reboot jumping-on point (the "Hope"
storyline). For X-Treme, either start with #1 or wait until #24. For
newer titles like X-Statix, Wolverine (restarted), and New Mutants (new
version), just start with issue #1 or the first collected edition.

Tons of color trade paperbacks (known as TPBs) exist that collect the
various storylines and crossovers from the various titles. If you missed
a few years, and don't want to spend the cash to pick up a title you
don't want to read, check out your local library. Many libraries have
purchased the droves of TPBs Marvel has issued since 2001, so your home
library may have some of them, and/or may be able to get them through
Inter-Library Loan. Just ask your local librarian--that person is there
to help.

If you're new to the X-Universe, the best way to learn who all these
people are and where they are coming from is from the back issues.
Essential Uncanny X-Men (only one volume) reprints issues 1-24 of the
original (Uncanny) X-Men in a large "phonebook-sized" black and white
paperback. The four volumes of Essential X-Men reprint Giant-Size
X-Men #1 and then Uncanny #94 through Uncanny #179, plus annuals through
Uncanny Annual #6. There are also three books of Essential Wolverine
reprints, which cover Wolverine #1 through #75 or thereabouts. Great
stuff for those just getting started. The Marvel Masterworks editions
also reprint early issues of X-Men in color, including #94-100, #101-110,
and 111-121, soon to be available through Barnes & Noble in TPB form.

Readers who left off before Giant-Size X-Men might appreciate the newer
stories in X-Men: The Hidden Years. Those stories are set during the
reprint years of the title. Although the title has been cancelled, you
should be able to find the issues in back issue bins. X-Men Classics and
X-Men: The Early Years reprinted old Uncanny issues, and are a cheap way
to pick up back issues without paying back issue prices (on the other
hand, you miss the letter columns, something desirable in back issues).

For the truly adventuresome, the book "Marvel: Five Decades of the
World's Greatest Comics" offers a large history of not just the teams
and the characters, but also the company itself. It's surprisingly
unbiased, considering Marvel's usually corporate jitteriness, but it is
expensive. Your local library may have a copy.

Above all else, be patient. The comics are based on over thirty years of
comic book history. A lot of that history is, unfortunately, somewhat
presumed knowledge to read the X-Men titles. You'll figure out what's
going on soon enough. In the meanwhile, enjoy the comics.

------------------------------
Subject: WHAT ARE THE X-BOOKS?

--- Philosophical Meanderings and Inspirations

The basic concept of the X-Men titles is the mutant. From the first
issue of X-Men, in 1963, the creators of the X-Titles have used the idea
of the mutant as an analogy to the civil rights movement. The thing that
made the idea so compelling in the comic book field, however, was that
the Marvel world's concept of the mutant had no single real-life
counterpart, and no limit of real-life analogs. Thus, while there are no
superhuman mutants being persecuted in our society, any reader can
identify with the feelings of persecution and alienation (no matter how
well-deserved :-). The plight of the Marvel Universe mutants can
therefore be compared to the black civil rights movement, the womens'
movement, religious persecution, gay rights, and so on.

There's a book that may have inspired the X-men: "Children of the Atom"
by Wilmar Shiras. Wilmar H. Shiras was born in Boston (1908) and raised
there, but she did not start writing until she moved to California.
"CotA" originally was a series of stories published in 1948-1950,
starting with the November 1948 issue of "Astounding Science Fiction."
In the installments, a teacher gathers a group of intellectually
advanced kids who otherwise would be outcasts. Here we see the roots of
a teacher or mentor dealing with kids who are, essentially, mutants. The
chapters were collected in a paperback under the title "Children of the
Atom" (Avon Publications, New York, NY, 1953). Tilman Stieve provided
a ton of background information on the text, which I've summarized:

The children's mutation was caused by an accident in a nuclear plant in
1958 (the Helium City facility was there to make "a new type of bomb")
in which all workers were fatally irradiated, dying within 2 years. The
main part of the story is apparently set in 1972. In the first chapter,
"In Hiding," we meet Peter Welles, a psychiatrist/psychologist for the
city schools of Oakley, California. Peter meets the first of these
super-intelligent mutants, 13-year-old Timothy Paul, after he is
consulted by Timothy's teacher, Miss Emily Page, who a long time earlier
was Peter Welles's teacher.

In the second chapter, "Opening Doors", Peter and Timothy begin to look
for other mutants (orphans of other workers at the plant). Among the
first to reply to their cryptic ad "Orphans, b c 59, i q three star
plus" is one Jay Worthington(!!!). Elsie Lambeth is found in an asylum
run by Dr. Mark Foxwell. Peter Welles begins to organize a school for
these super-intelligent "Wonder Children." Miss Page becomes their
teacher, and Dr. Foxwell helps. The third chapter, "New Foundations,"
continues the organization and recruitment. Students Jay Worthington and
Stella Oates appear for the first time. In the fourth chapter,
"Problems," more and more children are gathered at the school and the
teaching begins in earnest.

In the fifth chapter, "Children of the Atom", the school stuff
continues, but then Tommy Mundy, a TV preacher, begins to rant against
the "inhuman monsters" and the mortal danger the Children of the Atom
supposedly pose to mankind "hidden under the disguise of a school for
gifted children." (This is pretty close to Xavier's "gifted youngsters,"
and Mundy is a character not unlike the villain in "God Loves, Man
Kills.") An angry mob shows up at the gates, but it can be pacified,
partly because some of the kids, such as Timothy Paul, are known by the
locals and regarded as non-threatening. Tim Paul then says he wants to
return to grade school and has this rather interesting bit (considering
some of the problems the X-teams would go on to have) to say about the
sudden fears of ordinary citizens:

None of this would have happened if we had not cut ourselves off
from the world and from almost everybody in it. As long as we lived
like other kids, nobody hated us, nobody feared us, nobody was
against us. Some of you said, and the magazines and things said,
that I saved us from real trouble by talking to the crowd. But it
wasn't what I said or what I did, it was that somebody knew me.
Some of them knew Miss Page and some knew Dr. Welles. But if you
strangers to town, and the other strangers who will come, shut
yourselves up here and live inside this fence, nobody will know
you.

And so, in the end, they decide to rejoin the human race.

The "nobody hated us, nobody feared us" line above sounds a lot like
the X-Men concept of defending "a world that hates and fears them." Even
if Stan Lee and Jack Kirby weren't inspired by the book, the "Children
of the Atom" tagline has been used by multiple X-Men writers to refer to
mutants.

--- What is a mutant? (+)

The main focus of the X-titles is a specific type of character called a
mutant. Forget most of your basic biology when hearing the term "mutant"
applied to a Marvel comic, because the writers usually do. For Marvel
purposes, a mutant is a being who possesses a genetic structure not
present in his parents. While it's useless as a scientific definition
(otherwise, any "non-mutant" child would exactly resemble her parents,
like clones), it's mainly used as a tag for a specific group of
superhumans.

Really, the definition is a bit looser than that, since accurate biology
is usually not the top priority for the writers. For instance, Siryn, is
called a mutant, despite the fact that her powers are the same as those
of her father, Banshee. Some say that Siryn *is* a mutant, in that she
can talk and scream at the same time (it makes perfect sense if you know
the characters), but the main difficulty is bad writing, not bad genes.
The easier way to categorize mutants is to see whether have an active
"X-Factor", and that's really the main point of the whole definition.
You will see references stating that "a mutant has to have a different
power than his parents" in mutant comics, though, so it's mentioned here
just to get you acquainted with it.

So, what are mutants, exactly? They are superhuman because they were
born that way. They didn't need any gamma bomb blowing up, or spider
biting them, or magical formula recited. They're superhuman because
that's what they were born to be. They are mutants because of their X-
Factor. And what is an X-Factor? Read below, true believer!

The reason there are mutants on Earth comes from Marvel cosmology.
Large, alien gods, called Celestials (who some say are but the
incarnations of the dreams of Eternity), visit all planets that will
bear life, early in each planet's existance. They perform genetic
tinkering with the early lifeforms that will, if everything works out
right, leave the species with three distinct superhuman bloodlines:
Eternals (who never suffer random mutations), Deviants (who always
suffer mutations in each generation), and normal folks. In the "normal"
lifeforms, the Celestials left a genetic trigger. Some normals would
gain powers after exposure to odd "triggering" events (like the
Fantastic Four, the Hulk, or Spider-Man). Others could self-trigger when
exposed in the womb to sufficient background radiation. When it's self-
triggered, that genetic trigger is called the X-Factor.

Now the X-Factor only makes a mutant when it's self-triggered. Something
happens to it when it does so that it becomes different than the same
gene that allowed the Fantastic Four to gain their powers; mutants show
up on mutant detectors (which look for the unique signature of the X-
Factor), while Spider-Man doesn't. Mutants also give off unique brain
patterns due to the X-Factor that enable telepaths who know what to look
for (like Professor X) to detect mutants far more easily than normal
humans or non-mutant superheroes. Devices that nullify mutant powers by
negating the X-Factor are useless against non-mutants as well. On the
other hand, Ship (an old base of Apocalypse) had a force field around it
that would only open if it detected the X-Factor inside a visitor. So,
yes, mutants are different than the "normal" superhumans in a Marvel
comic. Aside from that, there's no real appreciable difference or
superiority for mutant superpowers over non-mutant ones. Prejudices,
however, still count most mutants as menaces and most non-mutant
superheroes as friendly (J. Jonah Jameson's views on Spider-Man
notwithstanding).

So, to sum up: A mutant in the X-Universe is anyone whose powers derive
from the mutant genetic X-Factor introduced into the human race by the
First Celestial Host during prehistory. Got it? Good!

------------------------------
Subject: RACMX NEWSGROUP QUESTIONS

These questions pertain more to the newsgroup than to the actual comics.

--- Can you explain Paul O'Brien's review grading system?

Here it is, in Paul's own words:

A+ - unequivocally recommended.
A - highly recommended.
A- - Could be better, but still recommended.
B+ - Worth a look.
B - Fine if you like that sort of thing.
B- - Passable.
C+ - Unsatisfactory, though not actively bad.
C - Badly flawed; for fans only.
C- - Bad; for completists only.
D+ - You'll wish you hadn't bought this book.
D - You'll wish you'd never even read this book.
D- - The creators wish they'd never even read this book.

It should be noted that the review grades vary depending on a number of
factors, including Paul's mood when reviewing the title. And no, there is
*no* grade of F. The UK grading system generally doesn't use F; work
that bad isn't accepted for a grade at all. Paul doesn't, hasn't, and
won't grade a book F. Perhaps a book so vile doesn't exist. If it does,
Paul certainly wouldn't bother to review it.

--- Why do all these annoying dinos keep on complaining about the

X-titles here? If they don't like the books, why do they read them?

The answer to this is as diverse as the fans it's asked to, and the
question usually comes up once every three months or so on the
newsgroup. Realizing that this answer is going to be hopelessly
generalized, most older X-fans still follow the book because of the
loyalty generated by Claremont during his original run. Many of them
grew to care about the characters in the book during his run, and out of
some sort of perverse curiosity, care deeply when they are mismanaged as
they are currently perceived to be.

Dropping the book, of course, would send the "message" to Marvel that
they no longer agree with the direction the X-titles are heading. On the
other hand, a feeling like "If you don't vote, you don't have the right
to complain" also comes over some of them. And every small bit of good
comics that sneaks through fuels their memories of how much they once
loved it, and keeps them around for more.

It may be that they're now grown up, and wouldn't have liked the
original Claremont stories if they were coming out now. It may be that
they're just following them out of curiosity, because a few comic books
aren't much to keep up on with a professional paycheck. They may even
prefer the stories as they are now. In any case, older X-fans who are
still reading the book should be assumed to be getting some form of
enjoyment from it, or else they would probably have dropped it long ago.

It should also be noted that there is one particular breed of dino, who
don't read any of the books, but feel qualified to post on racmx
because they were once big X-Men fans, and will happily fill in
information on the older comics and the characters that appeared in them
to the newer fans.

Finally, many of the dino population have good friends who post
regularly to racmx, and hang around to share in their virtual
community.

--- What is this Kid Dynamo thing? Where can I find it?

Kid Dynamo is a fan-fiction written by once-netter Connie Hirsch, which
deals with the New Mutants in the days just after Magneto took over the
School (right after New Mutants #52). A very good story by any
standards, most people who have read it have granted it automatic status
in official Marvel history, vastly preferring it to the eventual rise of
Cable and the appearance of X-Force, or at least delaying that
inevitable occurence by including Kid Dynamo.

You can find Kid Dynamo on the Fonts of Wisdom Bootleg page. The URL is
http://home.att.net/~lubakmetyk/bootleg.htm . The fanfic is very long,
by the way; 12 full-size chapters. It takes a while to read. It's worth
it. (You can also find it on the http://www.csua.berkeley.edu/~tsang/kd/
or http://ebonbird.tripod.com/kiddynamo.htm sites.)

--- Where can I get scans of comic art? Why doesn't anybody post
pictures on the newsgroup?

Well, besides the fact that it's illegal under copyright law to
republish other people's artwork without their permission....

While it's perfectly possible, and commonplace, to post scanned artwork
to Usenet, it's not always a nice thing to do. The main reason is that
some people like to read their newsgroups using an off-line newsreader,
which downloads all the articles (and attached binaries) at once and
lets them read the postings without being hooked up to a modem.
Obviously, it's an inconvenience for them to have to download several
megs of binary graphics images if they aren't looking for them.

If you're looking for comic art on Usenet, the newsgroup
alt.binaries.pictures.cartoons is the closest thing you're going to
find--but be forewarned that X-Men art very rarely, if ever, finds its
way onto that particular group. Outside of Usenet, the Where Can I Find
It? FAQ has a listing of web pages and ftp sites with digitized comic
artwork.

------------------------------
Subject: COMMONLY USED ABBREVIATIONS AND TERMS

Abbreviations for discussing the various titles are hardly standardized,
but if you need some the following are all serviceable and properly
behaved, well-suited to be inserted into any needful post:

AF = Alpha Flight
Excal = Excalibur
GenX = Generation X
NM = New Mutants
Ultimate / UltXM = Ultimate X-Men
Uncanny / UXM = Uncanny X-Men
XFac = X-Factor
XFor = X-Force
Unlim / XMU = X-Men Unlimited
X-Men / New XM = (New) X-Men
X-Treme / XXM = X-Treme X-Men

In general, the main confusion comes between Uncanny X-Men and X-Men.
Uncanny was originally called X-Men, then changed its title. Up until a
few years ago, Uncanny was just called "X-Men," there being no actual
title called "X-Men" to confuse it with. To make things even more fun,
X-Men was renamed New X-Men when X-Treme X-Men debuted. If you're
talking about Uncanny, use "Uncanny" or "UXM" consistently and clearly
in your post. Similarly, call New X-Men just "NXM," and call X-Treme
X-Men "X-Treme." You'll get used to it as you go along.

Another thing to remember is that xbooks is a newsgroup, while the X-
books are the comics. To help prevent confusion, this FAQ recommends
calling the comics X-titles, and calling the newsgroup racmx (pronounced
"rack-em-ex").

The Net is a place of lazy typists. Here, then, is a glossary of some
terms commonly used around the 'Net, as well as some more specific to
racmx:

* FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions. You're reading one. We hope you're
enjoying it.

* 616: This is an identifier from Alan Davis' stint on Excalibur.
Roma, in her role as the omniversal guardian, and the people
working under her adopted a numbering system for the multiple
parallel Earths that exist throughout crosstime. The mainstream
Marvel Universe and its associated continuity are numbered "616":
Earth 616, Captain Britain 616, and so forth. Often used when
comparing the mainstream Marvel continuity to that of alternate
timelines.

* AOA: Age of Apocalypse, Marvel's 1996 alternate-reality crossover
for the X-titles. You will sometimes see references to the AOA
versions of characters as AOA-Rogue or AOA-Jean.

* canon: A term taken from the humanities, meaning the approved
sources (or of them). The newsgroup considers only the comics and
the OHOTMUDE canon; other things like letters pages and Wizard
articles are considered enlightening but not Truth. Collectible
card games are considered extremely unreliable. Your milage may
vary, but that is racmx custom.

* Counter-X: A radical retooling of the titles X-Man, Generation X,
and X-Force that only lasted one year. Only X-Force survived, and
it was radically retooled a year later.

* dino: First used, puportedly, by the irascible Mike Ellis, "dino"
is a term that he supposedly borrowed from the mudding environment
of the Internet. It is now used as an identifier for X-readers who
feel more at home with X-titles the less grim, gritty, and pocket-
stuffed the costumes are.

* fanboy: One who must insanely consume all possible crossovers and
tie-ins to their dedicated icon, and who cannot accept that any
other comic company could be putting out characters as totally
cosmic as the ones they collect.

* DOFP or DOF*: Days of Future Past, and its related storylines Days
of Future Present, Days of Future Yet to Come, Days of Future
Tense, and Wolverine: Days of Future Past. The first DOFP was the
original (UXM #141-142), and it set up the others. DOFPresent was
an Annuals crossover, the next two were Excalibur stories, and the
last was a Wolverine limited series. All of them deal with a
dystopian future where Sentinels rule, and DOFP is where Rachel
Summers and the Hounds came from.

* IMHO: In My Humble (or Honest) Opinion

* IIRC: If I Recall Correctly

* LS: limited series, sometimes known as a mini-series.

* Lurker: An individual who reads the newsgroup, but for some reason
chooses not to post.

* nimbo: A person who is both a ninja and a bimbo. An invaluable term
in discussing any book drawn by Jim Lee.

* OHOTMU: Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. Once upon a time,
the OHOTMU was the penultimate source of Marvel trivia, history,
characters, and backgrounds. Unfortunately, its recent incarnation
skipped out on all the background stuff and just gave us fighting
stats, which sorely annoyed the old OHOTMU fans. The OHOTMU was the
Official Marvel guidebook on what characters could do what and why,
and is usually invoked as a reference to settle various arguments.
Very few long-time Marvel readers will accept the newest version of
the OHOTMU as more definitive than the older two, however. The
older one is also known as the OHOTMUDE (for Deluxe Edition).

* PAD: Peter A. David, writer of stuff, who was once the writer on
X-Factor (#70-#89). An infrequent poster on rac.misc, he no longer
hangs out on racmx.

* rac: rec.arts.comics, now broken into many smaller groups,
including rec.arts.comics.marvel.xbooks. Sometimes done as r.a.c.
"rac" is sometime used as an abbreviation of the term "rec.arts.
comics" in any instance; like "rac.marvel.xbooks". Often used the
same way as "rac.*", below. Newsgroups abbreviations are often
capitalized or not depending on the whim of the typist; "RAC" =
"rac" = "R.A.C.", for instance.

* rac.*: Used as a general abbreviation meaning "all of the
rec.arts.comics.* newsgroups".

* racmu: rec.arts.comics.marvel.universe, where Spiderman, FF, New
Warriors etc. belong.

* racmx: rec.arts.comics.marvel.xbooks.

* racx: Abbreviation of rec.arts.comics.xbooks, the original
incarnation of racmx.

* rac'ers: Netters who frequent any of the rac. groups.

* retcon: Short for "retroactive continuity." For the full story on
retcon, see the full rac.* FAQ, posted montly on rac.info. A retcon
is the act of a writer "squeezing" something into past storylines
when no evidence of it at all existed when those storylines were
written.

The best example of this in the X-titles is Cable. When Liefeld and
Simonson created Cable, he had never been seen, mentioned, or
listed in any Marvel comic before. Suddenly, he appeared, and every
mutant character who had been around forever was saying, "Ah,
Cable, haven't seen you around for a while." Well, duh, he hadn't
been invented yet. This mass infusion of history which had never
existed before is a classic retcon. racmx'ers also sometimes call
Jean Grey's "resurrection" in place of being Phoenix a retcon.

While "retcon" is usually used in a derisive, insulting sense, this
is more due to the fact that most retcons are the tools of
modestly-skilled writers working under deadline with an improper
grounding in continuity and thus end up being badly handled, as
opposed to any inherent fault in the idea of the retcon.

* troll: A newsgroup poster who posts trivial or inflammatory
material in order to irritate other posters and, hopefully, trick
them into making foolish spectacles of themselves. Avoid responding
to obvious trolls at all costs, no matter how tempting a target
they make themselves.

* xbooks: A common abbreviation of rec.arts.comics.marvel.xbooks. To
keep from being confused with the actual comics themselves,
racmxers are encouraged to refer to the newsgroup as racmx, and
the comics as the X-titles.

* X:TAS: A quick abbreviation for X-Men: the Animated Series. Can
also be used to set apart XTAS characters from their "normal" comic
counterparts: Rogue-TAS versus Rogue, for instance.

* YMMV: Your Mileage May Vary.

------------------------------
Subject: OTHER RACMXERS WHO MAY BE OF ASSISTANCE

Okay. You've tried ALL the above. You've gone through every site on the
net. You've even created your own, just to say you searched it. You've
posted your question to racmx, even, and you didn't get an answer
(well, actually, that isn't too surprising). What Can You Do?

You can do the last resort: emailing friendly netters! The following is
a list of racmxers who have, out of the goodness of their hearts, agreed
to be accessible net.help on any of the following topics. Please note
that the only payment these people are receiving is the warm glow of
seeing knowledge safely passed on, so please be polite and appreciative
of them. If you aren't, they'll stop answering questions. And we don't
want that.

Anyone who would like to be on this list can contact the FAQ keeper.
Please include an area of expertise that you'd be willing to field
questions on. And while it seems logical, please include your preferred
email address in your summary of your talents--you'll be surprised how
often this is forgotten. The listkeeper will tend to only put names here
that are recognized as netters who have been around long enough to know
that they know what they're talking about, but feel free to ask to be
put on. This is mainly to insure that any questioning newcomers won't
get shuffled off to some joker.

Here are the Friendly Folk, in their own (slightly edited) words:

* Kate the Short (ra...@yahoo.com) and Aardy R. DeVarque
(rgf...@yahoo.com)

I've been on the newsgroup since early 1993, and now keep all
of the FAQs for the newsgroup. Aardy is my husband, and he
has been around almost as long. He keeps the Exhaustive
Completist's Supplemental X-Men Checklist and Annotated Index
(that is, all appearances of X-men outside of X-titles,
one-shots, and limited series), though it hasn't been updated in
a number of months.

Our collection of X-titles is massive. We have complete runs of
Uncanny X-Men from Giant-Size #1 to the present (and many issues
from the original run), New Mutants, Excalibur, Generation X,
X-Force, X-Factor, (New) X-Men, X-Treme X-Men, and most of the
current-continuity X-titles, as well as a number of one-shots and
limited series. We've dropped Cable, Deadpool, and Wolverine. We
own tons of the old "crossover" issues and and cameo appearances
in other titles. Aardy's best for the research while I usually
deal with the internet resources.

* Chris R. Barry, aka 23yrold3yrold (cba...@pangea.ca)

My love of the X-Books and characters stems from it's history,
so I have a huge and rapidly expanding collection going back to
Giant Sized X-Men #1, though I've only been reading since 1997.
My books of choice are Uncanny X-Men, X-Men, Wolverine, Excalibur,
X-Force, X-Factor, Cable and Generation X. And X-Man just because.
In other words, the main stuff. I may not know the super-obscure,
but I got the mainstream history. Still gotta catch up on my New
Mutants back-issues, though....

* Dwayne MacKinnon (d...@freenet.carleton.ca)

This man loooooooooooves Alpha Flight. Nuff Said.

* Blair Maynard, aka Doody Family (dood...@esatclear.ie)

My very own special area of expertise is obscure Wolverine guest
appearances in other Marvel books and a heap of Wolvie-related
awful one-shots and mini-series. I also have a scary interest in
Scott Lobdell, as I have most of his run on the x-books. Also,
if you have AoA questions I should be able to answer them.

* Samy Merchi (sam...@mash.yok.utu.fi)

I'm proficient in all X-books published from 1975 to July 1999.
My favorite stuff includes anything by Claremont, the X-Men's
Australian period, Peter David's X-Factor, Claremont's New
Mutants and Fabian Nicieza's X-Force. All X-books are my areas
of expertise, but I'm especially knowledgeable with the New
Mutants, X-Force and Sunspot.

* Dan Miller (mill...@earthlink.net)

I *have*, readily available, several hundred issues of X-Men,
virtually complete from about six years back through about Davis'
run, plus back issues. Also, I've been on racmx for six years or
so and remember too much of what I've picked up. :)

* Paul O'Brien (pa...@esoterica.demon.co.uk)

I'm a total continuity geek, me. You name it, I probably
remember it. Unless it's something to do with the Brood, or
early X-Factor, or the insanely convoluted pre-X-Men history
of Wolverine. And don't even ask about Alpha Flight. Other
than that, there's a pretty good chance I know it...

*** Continued in Part 2 ***

[Kate the Short]

Archive-name: comics/xbooks/main-faq/part2

Posting-frequency: monthly
URL: http://users.rcn.com/kateshort/faqs/

-= REC.ARTS.COMICS.MARVEL.XBOOKS =-
Frequently Asked Questions

Part 2

Version 2003.02, last updated November 2003

URL: http://users.rcn.com/kateshort/faqs/racmxFAQ/faq2.html

------------------------------
Subject: Table of Contents

Part 2:

HISTORY OF THE X-TEAMS AND X-TITLES
* The 1960s and 1970s: Early history
* The 1980s: An explosion of new titles
* The 1990s: Claremont's exit, mega-crossovers
* 2000 and beyond: New (and newer) directions

------------------------------
Subject: A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE X-TEAMS AND X-TITLES

Please note: Background information on the creators and the X-titles
editorial offices is based on over a decade's worth of interviews,
articles, and personal questions, and as such is not directly
attributed here. Now that some of Marvel's staff members are on Usenet,
they are welcomed to correct and amend any of the answers listed below.

Individuals who are looking for more recent summaries of plots and
events would do well to visit Paul O'Brien's X-Axis Reviews website at
http://www.esoterica.demon.co.uk/ .

------------------------------
Subject: The 1960s and 1970s

In 1963 (our time, not Marvel time), Professor Charles Xavier gathered
together a group of five young mutants to help them train their powers.
He also hoped that they could help protect innocents from "evil
mutants," as well as do good deeds for the rest of humanity. This group
was called the X-Men, after the eXtra-powers that each member possessed
(the resemblance to Xavier's last name was not entirely coincidental).
This original team consisted of Cyclops (Scott Summers), Marvel Girl
(Jean Grey), Iceman (Bobby Drake), Angel (Warren Worthington III), and
the Beast (Hank McCoy). The book was written by Stan Lee and pencilled
by Jack Kirby. Magneto was the villain of the first issue, and his
fiendish plot was to terrorize a missile base to prove how tough he was.
Havok (Scott's brother Alex) and Polaris (Lorna Dane) were semi-regular
members who later joined the team. Mimic (Calvin Rankin) was briefly a
member, and Changeling pretended to be Professor Xavier for a while.

The original X-Men title was "cancelled" after 66 issues, due to low
readership. It became a reprint title, reprinting original stories it
had shown only a few years earlier, while the X-Men went to supporting
roles in titles like Amazing Adventures and Ka-Zar Quarterly.

This all changed with the introduction of the "new" X-Men in Giant-Size
X-Men #1, which came out in 1975. Written by Len Wein and penciled by
Dave Cockrum, it had the original team captured by the Living Island of
Krakoa, who manipulated Xavier into bringing together a second team of
mutants to help feed its unholy hunger: Nightcrawler (Kurt Wagner),
Wolverine (Logan), Banshee (Sean Cassidy), Storm (Ororo Munroe), Sunfire
(Shiro Yoshida), Colossus (Piotr Rasputin), and Thunderbird (John
Proudstar). This new team succeeded in rescuing the old heroes, and most
of the new recruits stayed on to form the team that would make the X-Men
comic book legends. The title restarted with X-Men #94, with Chris
Claremont taking over for a sixteen-year run as writer. Soon after,
Thunderbird died and Sunfire quit, while Angel, Jean, Iceman, Polaris,
and Havok left the team on good terms. Soon afterward, Jean Grey joined
the infamous shuttle mission and "died", and Phoenix entered the picture
in X-Men #101. X-Men became The Uncanny X-Men with issue #114.

------------------------------
Subject: The 1980s: An explosion of new titles

Kitty Pryde (of many names, notably Shadowcat) was introduced to the
team in UXM #129, just as the Hellfire Club intrigue and the Dark
Phoenix Saga were getting underway. The Phoenix Saga left Jean Grey
dead on the moon in UXM #137, which led to Cyclops' departure in #138
and Kitty (first called Sprite and Ariel) joining in #139. Cyclops
returned just in time to join the team in space for the Brood Saga,
UXM #161-167.

Around UXM #160, Claremont and then-editor Louise Jones (who was yet to
marry Walt Simonson), concieved a new title that would focus on the
school aspect of the X-Men, instead of the superheroics. Apparently
someone in Marvel had decided that there should be a companion book to
the X-Men, and Claremont was anxious to avoid what he called a "West
Coast X-Men" book.

This spinoff book had no title for a long time, until the creators
decided to use the term which they had just been using in their design
meetings for it: the New Mutants. This was also a tribute to the
Kirby/Lee X-Men, since the original name for that comic was going to be
"The Mutants," until someone convinced Stan Lee that not enough of the
buying public knew what mutants were to make it a sensible title.
Claremont was the writer of the New Mutants, and Bob McLeod was the
first penciler. The New Mutants debuted with Sunspot (Roberto DaCosta),
Wolfsbane (Rahne Sinclair), Psyche (Dani Moonstar), Karma (Xi'an Coy
Manh), and Cannonball (Sam Guthrie). They fought Donald Pierce, a
renegade member of the Hellfire Club, in their first appearance. Over
the years, they were joined by Magma (Amara Aquilla), Magik (Illyana
Rasputin, Colossus' sister), Cypher (Doug Ramsey), and Warlock (an
alien being, not to be confused with the cosmic superhero of the same
name). The title was cancelled and rebooted after issue #100.

Kitty Pryde was demoted to the New Mutants for a short while, but soon
rejoined the X-Men team as Shadowcat. Rogue joined the team in UXM #171,
and Phoenix II (Rachel Summers, daughter of an alternate Jean Grey) was
introduced in the late 180s of the title. Meanwhile, former X-Men team
members Angel, Beast, and Iceman all resurfaced in "The Defenders",
retitled "The New Defenders", for a couple of years. Cyclops, on his own
leave of absence, met and married Madelyne Pryor, who looked like Jean.
Together, they had a son, Nathan Christopher Charles Summers, who was
born in UXM #200 while the New Mutants and X-Men were in Asgard.

Around the time of UXM #200, a third team/title was introduced. These
would be mutants disguising themselves as humans to help fight mutant
hatred. Bob Layton was the writer and Jackson Guice was the penciler,
and the title was called X-Factor, after the genetic trait that the X-
Factor members would be hunting down. Heavily promoted in the Marvel
trade press, the original X-Factor consisted of Cyclops, Iceman, the
Beast, Angel, and Jean Grey. Marvel attempted suspense by keeping the
mysterious "fifth member" unrevealed, but since the four men were known
going in, it was obvious that they were going to resurrect Jean Grey for
the title. X-Factor found themselves bringing in Rusty Collins, a
pyrokinetic, in their first appearance. They, too, trained young
mutants, bringing in Tabitha Smith (of many codenames including
Meltdown) and others.

Soon after that, Chris Claremont came up with an idea that would prove
to be the bane of straightforward storytelling in the X-Titles: a
crossover. While crossovers were used in comics at that time (especially
at Marvel--see Secret Wars II), a multi-title crossover on the scale of
the Mutant Massacre (a title used in partial irony) was pretty new. In
it, X-Men Nightcrawler, Colossus, and Shadowcat were badly hurt, while
X-Factor member Angel lost his wings. Psylocke (Betsy Braddock), Dazzler
(Alison Blaire), Longshot, and Havok joined the X-Men in the following
months.

The Mutant Massacre crossover was so popular that the editor of the X-
Men, Ann Nocenti, decided to hold another one to help keep sales up
during the competitive summer months. Claremont agreed, and presented
the Fall of the Mutants--unique in that while it was a "crossover," none
of the characters of one book met the characters of the other two books.
However, the result was tons of bloodshed--Angel became Archangel, Doug
Ramsey was killed, and the team of X-Men, plus Madelyne Pryor, was
killed. Of course, Madelyne and the X-Men were resurrected, but were
invisible to scanners. They went to Australia and were joined by silent
teleporter Gateway.

With the interest in the X-titles remaining at a high level, Classic X-
Men was created to reprint the adventures of the "new" X-Men, beginning
with Giant-Size X-Men #1. Unlike most reprint books, Classic X-Men also
had up to four new pages inserted into the old story, sometimes not with
the most smooth of seams, written by Claremont and drawn by some current
artist, which would expand upon the old story. Each Classic X-Men also
had a brand new story that took place around the time of the reprint.
The first run of new stories in Classic X-Men were written by Claremont
and drawn by John Bolton. When the press of Claremont's writing didn't
give him time to write any more in Classic X-Men, a few other writers
were allowed to do some, but eventually Marvel removed the backup
stories (last backup: #44, the Rogue origin story) and the new "filler"
material, and retitled the book X-Men Classics, which reprinted
unaltered copies of Uncanny X-Men. This title was cancelled at #110
(which reprinted UXM #206).

For a long time, Chris Claremont opposed giving Wolverine a solo title.
Claremont feared that overexposure would ruin the mysterious nature of
his background which helped make him so popular (Marvel solved that
dilemma by making Wolverine's revealed past so confusing that nobody
could figure it out). A few Wolverine limited series came out, such as
"Wolverine" and "Kitty Pryde and Wolverine", but neither fulfilled the
thirst for more Wolverine stories. Wolverine finally got an ongoing
series, previewed in the new weekly comic, Marvel Comics Presents. In an
attempt to cut down the "fanboy" appeal, which Claremont feared was
driving requests for the title and would ruin its long-term prospects,
he deliberately set the popular mutant in an unpopular setting for young
fans--the exotic South Seas of Madripoor. Based more on old movies than
pop comics, Madripoor was both an attempt by Claremont to write the
character in a setting he found fun, as well as to confound the fanboys
who were just looking for "cool" action scenes. By putting Wolverine
into yet another personality, as "Patch," Claremont also could keep
mystery up around the mutant without revealing his ever-appealing "true
background."

By this time, X-Factor's hidden agenda of pretending to be mutant
hunters while actually saving mutants had been exposed. They were living
as just another mutant superhero team in Ship off the coast of New York.
At the same time, some of the X-Men who were separated during the Mutant
Massacre and Fall of the Mutants had moved to England and set themselves
up (with some established English heroes) as Excalibur. Chris Claremont
wrote and Alan Davis pencilled the book. The first members were Captain
Britain (Brian Braddock), Nightcrawler, Shadowcat, her dragon Lockheed,
Meggan, and Phoenix II, and they were challenged by Mojo's Warwolves in
their first appearance. The book was cancelled with #125.

Around this time, Claremont planned to do one last crossover that would
clear up a bunch of loose ends, finalize some old plot threads, get rid
of some old characters, and answer some old questions. It was called
Inferno, and was distinctive for how non-mutant titles worked themselves
into the story without being required reading (like Spider-Man's
appearances in Inferno). Basically, two demons teamed up with Madelyne
Pryor (who was revealed to be Sinister's clone of Jean Grey and called
herself the Goblyn Queen), and gathered babies for a sacrifice that
would allow them to take over the world. Scott and Maddie's son was one
of the babies. The X-Factor kids and the New Mutants teamed up to rescue
the babies, while X-Men and X-Factor met, saw the real true Jean Grey
was alive, and trounced Sinister.

Claremont hoped that Inferno would be so unwieldly that no one would
want another crossover. It didn't work. Inferno just made people want
more "X-overs". This meant more writers had to be called in, and it
increased the chance that artists and writers would mess up continuity
and otherwise have their quality of work suffer. Despite the fact that
crossovers end up producing lower quality work from all involved in the
stories, poorly-planned and ill-plotted crossovers continued for years.

After the events of Inferno, the team was "joined" by mall rat Jubilee
(Jubilation Lee). During various events, most of the team ended up going
through the Siege Perilous, which sent characters all over the world and
"resurrected" them in new situations (such as Havok as a military leader
in Genosha, Colossus as an artist in New York, Rogue split from the
Carol Danvers persona in the Savage Land, and Psylocke as an Asian
ninja). Poor Storm had been deaged by Nanny and thought dead, though she
ended up as a child thief with Gambit (Remy LeBeau) in New Orleans. A
short-term team of backup X-Men was formed on Muir Island with Legion,
Forge, Siryn, Banshee, and a few others. They went looking for the other
X-Men.

Shortly after this, Claremont was getting burned out on the X-titles. He
was writing most of the issues while working on novels, and he started
to fold under pressure from editorial influences as to what should be in
the X-titles (as well as his own recycling of old ideas). Wolverine and
New Mutants were the first books he resigned from. Wolverine was moved
to a variety of writers, eventually settling on Larry Hama for a long
stretch, while New Mutants was passed on to Louise Simonson.

Somewhere around here Rob Liefeld stepped in. He was brought over to New
Mutants because Marvel thought a young penciler might better relate to
young characters. Bob Harras, the editor of the X-titles (note that the
titles had grown large enough that a group editor was needed to keep
them all together) thought the title of "New Mutants" was oxymoronic on
a book approaching its one hundredth issue, and wanted a change in the
focus of the book to match the change of title. So, he put Rob Liefeld
on New Mutants as penciler, with Louise Simonson as writer. Cable was
introduced as their mysterious leader. Half of the team left. The
remainder was kidnapped by former X-Factor assistant Cameron Hodge and
taken to Genosha where they were put on trial.

This led to the X-Tinction Agenda, where all of the various characters
of X-Factor, X-Men, and New Mutants reconnected. Warlock was killed, the
kids were rescued, and everyone tried to figure out how they should
proceed. The New Mutants and X-Factor kids stayed with Cable (except
Wolfsbane), while the others contacted Xavier in space (where he'd been
since UXM #200). They soon fought the Shadow King, and again tried to
figure out what to do. So, around UXM #281 and X-Factor #71, there was a
massive reshuffling of teams.

------------------------------
Subject: The 1990s: Claremont's exit, mega-crossovers

Only a few months after the X-Tinction Agenda crossover, the New Mutants
title was replaced by X-Force, with Rob Liefeld as "plotter" and
penciler, and Fabian Nicieza as scripter. New characters Feral (Maria
Santos) and Shatterstar (Gaveedra 7/Ben Russell) and old character
Thunderbird (James Proudstar, brother of the original Thunderbird) had
shown up in the last issues of New Mutants, and helped to form the new
X-Force team. X-Force was perhaps best summarized by its main character,
the cyborg Cable. In the Marvel Universe, Cable stood for "taking the
fight" to the bad guys. In the real world, Cable stood for a change
towards action and fight-fests, as opposed to the usual slower-paced,
character-focused issues of Claremont. Young hordes of fans bought
X-Force with glee, making its first issue the highest shipping comic in
modern comic history up to that time. Both ideas proved to be spurious.
Cable ended up "taking the fight" to the villains about as often as the
X-Men did.

Debuting within months of X-Force, the new X-Men title (not the same as
Uncanny X-Men, which had been referred to in abbreviation as X-Men) was
created to further saturate the X-Men market, and, more importantly,
saturate the then fan-favorite art of X-Men artist Jim Lee (teamed up
with by-then co-star Chris Claremont). Five different covers were offered
to fanboys and speculators, who bought multiple copies.

Seeing the figures, the powers-that-be at Marvel decided that current
fans must be attracted more to art than writing, so they promoted a new
generation of young artists and emphasized many more merchanizing tie-ins,
emblazoned with the new art styles, that one could buy to "fit in" with
the X-Men experience, including t-shirts, posters, pins, and so on.
Unfortunately, the fan-favorite artists were not happy that they got
little to no return on their work when their art from an Uncanny X-Men
issue was reprinted on a poster or t-shirt. For these reasons, as well as
various claims of "creative control," the leading artists of the X-titles
left Marvel and founded Image Comics where, with complete legal control
over their new characters, they would make as much money as they could
over the merchandizing of their own creations.

Meanwhile, the preferred treatment of the artists over the other creative
staff caused stress among the creators. Fed up, Chris Claremont finally
left the titles with X-Men #3 and UXM #281. Claremont and other writers
(including New Mutants writer Louise Simonson) stated in interviews that
their main reasons for leaving were annoyance over the amount of editorial
nit-picking in their stories, and sense of powerlessness given the amount
of editorial favor for the artists as compared to the writers.

X-Men continued to sell, and Jim Lee stated in interviews that he had
plans for the title all the way up to issue #50, but before a year was up
he was already working at Image. This left Bob Harras in a pickle. He had
no artistic staff, and many of the writers who had been working for him
had already left the X-titles. To fill the creative gap on the main titles,
Harras recruited a bunch of new artists of varying ability, as well as two
Marvel in-house writers, Scott Lobdell and Fabian Nicieza (Fabian was also
an editor at Marvel, while Lobdell had a second career as a stand-up comic).

X-Men became a companion book of Uncanny X-Men. There were supposed to be
differences in members, purpose, and focus between the two books, but the
ongoing crossovers and Marvel's scrambling to cover the "X-odus" (as the
departure of the creative staff on the X-titles was called) made it
essentially a twice-monthly book coming out under two different titles.

X-Factor, meanwhile, had undergone yet another change of direction. It
lost the original members to the new X-Men title, and picked up a bunch
of mutants that had been lurking in the background of Marvel stories for
decades as their main characters: Havok, Polaris, Multiple Man (Jamie
Madrox), Wolfsbane, Strong Guy (Guido Carosella), and Forge. This "new"
X-Factor was well received due to the excellent work of the new creative
team of writer Peter David and penciler Larry Stroman. It was cancelled
and rebooted after issue #149.

When the X-Men animated series came out, Marvel, never slow to miss a
potential tie-in, put out the new title X-Men Adventures, which did
adaptations of the cartoon series. Since the cartoon series itself was
adapting three decades of X-stories, long-time X-readers tended to get
odd feelings of deja vu. It was later joined by the title Adventures of
the X-Men, which printed original stories based on cartoon continuity.
Both were later cancelled, as was the cartoon series, and X-Men: The
Manga" was created, publishing the same stories X-Men Adventures used
to publish. Plagued by lateness, it too was cancelled.

As part of Marvel's new marketing strategy, the Unlimited series of
books was brought out. The idea of the Unlimited books was to focus on
stories that would be more "character-based" than normal Marvel titles,
whatever that would mean, and would be told in just one oversized issue.
For a while, the title went to an anthology format, including three
short stories per issue.

Also around this time, Marvel came out with a group of titles that
shared a common theme: they were placed about 100 years ahead of
"normal" Marvel history. Called the 2099 series, they featured a bunch
of alternative future versions of Marvel standards, including Spider-Man
2099, Punisher 2099, and X-Men 2099. Aside from reverent mentions of
some of the older X-Men, however, X-Men 2099 rarely had anything to do
with the continuity of the "older" titles. After a few years, it too
was cancelled.

If nothing else, Marvel has always shown a rather strong interest in
keeping its old stories available to the public (maybe because it's
cheaper just reprinting the old stuff). The next X-title to appear was
in this vein: X-Men: The Early Years, which reprinted the original X-Men
series, from back in the 60s, while X-Men Classics continued to reprint
the "new" X-Men stories. It was cancelled after 19 issues. The book was
replaced by Professor Xavier and the X-Men, which retold the early tales
from a more modern viewpoint. It also was cancelled after a few issues.

Eagle-eyed FAQ-readers are no doubt seeing a familiar pattern here.

Various other crossovers and battles took place over the next few years.
Just after the reshuffling, Bishop appeared from the future, and joined
the X-Men team. X-Cutioner's Song featured the introduction of Stryfe
and the Legacy virus, and revealed Cable as Scott and Madelyne's son
returned from the future and the return of Apocalypse. (It was around
this time that Scott Summers and Jean Grey finally married.) Fatal
Attractions featured the death of a de-aged Magik, the return of
Magneto, and Colossus' choice to defect to Magneto's acolytes. It also
featured Magneto ripping the adamantium off of Wolverine's bones through
his skin. Xavier eventually mindwiped Magneto to stop him. It didn't
stop the Acolytes, though, as yet another crossover (this time between
Avengers and X-Men) called Blood Ties featured the kidnapping of
Quicksilver's daughter by Magneto Acolyte and impersonator Fabian
Cortez. The art was "kewl" and the events were extreme, but something
was still lacking.

The decision was made to make yet another title to expand on the X-Men
theme and return to the basic ideas of the old X-Men and the New
Mutants: teaching young mutants to both fit in the world as well as to
use their powers. The Phalanx Agenda crossover introduced the new cast
of young mutants, which eventually became Generation X. Scott Lobdell
wrote and Chris Bachalo pencilled this new title, which featured Banshee
and the White Queen (Emma Frost) teaching the younger generation of
mutants in Frost's Massachussetts Academy, now the "School for Gifted
Youngsters". Xavier finally changed the original X-mansion school to an
"Institute for Higher Learning." Generation X featured Jubilee
(Jubilation Lee), Husk (Paige Guthrie), M (Monet St. Croix), Skin
(Angelo Espinoza), Synch (Everett Thomas), and Chamber (Jonothon
Starsmore) as the first students, and they found themselves facing
Emplate in their first issue.

In summer 1994, as Generation X was just hitting the stands, the
greatest crossover of all was planned: the end of the universe! Age of
Apocalypse (AOA), and its lead-in, Legion Quest, tied it all together.
Due to a time-travel glitch, an alternate reality was created. In this
"World Without Xavier," Apocalypse was in charge, and Magneto led the
heroic opposition. All of the writers' (and some fans') fantasies came
true: Cyclops was a villain, Jean Grey and Wolverine were a couple,
Magneto and Rogue were married with a child, Doug Ramsey wasn't dead,
and Kitty and Colossus were married, to name a few. All of the comics
were retitled and renumbered (starting at #1). The casts were scrambled
as well, with X-Force becoming Gambit and the X-ternals as the most
extreme example. Through the machinations of all the books, the timeline
was restored to normal, with four AOA characters remaining in the "real"
timeline: X-Man (Nate Grey), Sugar Man, the AOA version of Beast, and
Holocaust. Nate Grey got his own title, X-Man, the only AOA title to
continue past the crossover itself. When AOA ended, numbering of the
other titles continued where it had left off.

The next mega-crossover was Onslaught. In that crossover, a psychic
construction with all of the worst parts of Xavier and Magneto decided
to try taking over the world. This crossover was different in that in
had a greater impact on the rest of the Marvel Universe than it did on
the X-Men themselves. Onslaught set up the reboots of Iron Man, the
Fantastic Four, the Avengers, and Captain America, and caused the
characters' (temporary) removal from the Marvel Universe. Rob Liefeld
had once again been courted to raise sales on those four titles, even
though Mark Waid's previous six months of work on Captain America had
turned the title into a solid seller. After Liefeld, Jim Lee, and others
finished their runs on the titles (Liefeld's being shorter than the
planned 12-issue run), the books were restarted with number 1 issues.
Meanwhile, Waid wrote some issues of the X-Men, adding Cannonball to the
team, but left soon after. A Magneto stand-in, Joseph, was briefly a
member, as was Quicksilver (Pietro Maximoff, Magneto's son).

Following Onslaught, the X-Men were on their own during the Operation:
Zero Tolerance crossover. As "Operation: Zero Tolerance" continued, Bob
Harras realized that things were not going well in the X-titles. On the
main front, Uncanny X-Men and X-Men writer Scott Lobdell was trying to
tank the story because he wanted the X-Men to lose and editor Mark
Powers refused to let them. At the same time, X-Factor was becoming a
mess of new characters, and Excalibur was going through writer cramps as
Warren Ellis left the book. So Harras acted to change things.

The first books to get the big treatment were the X-Men and Uncanny.
They were given to Joe Kelly and Steven T. Seagle, respectively, who
shook things up by adding three characters: Marrow (a terrorist),
Maggott (a South African), and Cecelia Reyes (a doctor). The book went
in some interesting directions, but their tenure lasted only eight months
since management decided that a new, different direction was in order.
Listening to complaints about the size of the X-Men team, a decree was
made that the book should have a team of 7 or 8: Wolverine, Storm, Marrow
and Rogue would stay on; Excalibur, which was rapidly losing sales, would
be closed down, and its main three characters--Shadowcat, Nightcrawler
and Colossus--would return. And then there was Gambit.

After decent sales on Gambit's mini series and letters asking for his
return after being unceremoniously dumped in the snow in Uncanny X-Men
#350 (after revealing his part in the Mutant Massacre), a solo book was
set to spring out of events in one of the down-time issues. Fabian Nicieza
returned from his editorial stint at Acclaim Comics to begin the writing
job on the title. (It was eventually cancelled with #26.)

With such upheaval--dissolution of a team book, retrenching on the two
core titles, Larry Hama leaving Generation X after dismal reception and
new writer Jay Faerber coming in with new ideas, and John Francis Moore
setting up X-Force in a new way--Harras turned to the remaining book:
X-Factor. Writer Howard Mackie and editor Frank Pittarese were asked to
come up with something radical. The result? X-Factor would halted at
#149 (after constantly promising a big payoff in issue #150) and Havok
would go to another universe where the rules were changed. This would
last for a year, and then Havok would return to take the team in a
different direction. Harras was ecstatic and he okayed the move. X-
Factor became Mutant X, a twelve issue maxi-series that was received so
positively, the book was continued. (Unfortunately, the positive start
soon turned negative, and the book was cancelled with #32.)

Back to the core titles. The drastic reduction of the X-Men's numbers,
combined with the addition of Marrow and the members from the defunct
Excalibur team, left everyone in a bit of a muddle. The Psi-War soon
stripped Jean Grey, Psylocke, and Cable of their telepathic powers. (Of
course, in typical Marvel fashion, the power losses lasted for only a
short time.) Seagle and Kelly came up with some very interesting plots,
but the two authors were soon replaced by Alan Davis, who was supposed
to come on for six issues only but stayed until a "full-time
replacement" could be found.

Davis was forced to do the "Rage Against the Machine" event immediately
after his second story arc. The story, leading to the annuals, launched
the M-Tech line: Warlock, Deathlok and X-51: Machine Man. Sales on the
three books were dismal. (Although Warlock was the most X-related, and
the best-written, Marvel held the cancellation on X-51 another month
thinking it possible to remarket that title as an X-book. Didn't work.)

Xavier was missing around this time, and the X-men went on a search for
him. Cerebro, who had been taken by Bastion earlier, was rampaging and
Xavier was hiding from the machine, not able to contact the X-Men.
During the "Search for Xavier," they found him. Joseph turned out to be
a copy of Magneto. After the battle with Magneto, Joseph died and Magneto
was given Genosha by the UN. Then came "The Shattering." Xavier felt
something was wrong, and dissolved the team. During "The Shattering," the
members of the teams went off on their own, to recover from the events of
O:ZT and the like.

It was during this ebb that Bishop returned home to the mansion and chose
to go his own separate way as well. Bishop: The Last X-Man #1 began in
"The Shattering," when he and Storm were alone in the mansion. Before he
could change his mind, he was whisked away. Bishop:TLXM chronicled the
tale of Bishop versus the Chronomancer (aka Fitzroy) in an alternate
future. While Bishop was somehow sucked back into continuity during the
Twelve storyline, he was whisked back to his own title soon afterward.
(Bishop returned home again in his title's final issue, #16.)

------------------------------
Subject: 2000 and beyond

Information on "The Twelve" had been around for eons. An entire question
in this FAQ centered around who the possible candidates were, based upon
a handful of Master Mold appearances. The only thing certain was that it
had to do with a future conflict with Apocolypse. People weren't even
sure whether the Twelve were all heroes, or included the major good guys
*and* bad guys of the fight with Apocalypse. Apocalypse, of course, was
trying to take over the world. He wanted to obtain the powers of the
twelve most powerful mutants. He was going to take over Nate Grey's body
as his new host, but Cyclops sacrificed himself and the two merged.
Soon after that, the X-Men lost their powers due to a plot by the High
Evolutionary and Sinister, and went their merry ways trying to live new
lives powerless. During this time, Professor Xavier went into space to
teach mutant Skrulls how to use their powers.

All of this was a setup for the return of the master X-Men writer, Chris
Claremont. Claremont had been an editor for Marvel for years, and rumors
were always circulating as to whether he would return and "rescue" the
titles from their poorly-written existence. So a new event was concocted
to bring him back and increase sales--X-Men Revolution! The two main books
would be given over to Claremont, while three of the other titles (X-Man,
Generation X, and X-Force) would be given to "plotmaster" Warren Ellis.
The books would all include a "six-month gap" during which all kinds of
"neat" changes would happen, allowing the new writers to take the teams in
plot-leaping directions. All of this was to take place shortly after the
release of the "X-Men" movie in July 2000.

The X-Men movie was a hit. It topped the box office and left some older
fans wanting to return to the titles. The excellent cast, including
Patrick Stewart as Xavier and Ian McKellan as Magneto, was paired with
nifty special effects to create a very enjoyable, albeit alternative,
version of the X-Men. Fans, and Marvel staff, hoped that the movie would
lead new readers into the newly-revamped books.

Chris Claremont took over the two main titles, with artistic help from
Leinil Francis Yu and Mark Morales on X-Men and Adam Kubert, Salvador
Larrocca, and Tim Townsend on Uncanny. His new plots, however, left a
lot to be desired. Some nifty points occurred, including the switch of
powers between Phoenix and Psylocke and the appearance of former foe
Tessa on the team, but most were not explained. New member Thunderbird
III (Neal Sharra) was introduced, and Cable joined the main ranks. The
big problem was that there were no logical, recognizable villains faced.
You see, Claremont and company felt that old villains like Magneto had
been beaten before, so a new group, the Neo, were introduced.

The Neo stories had many problems. The characters were supposed to be
very powerful, like mutant versions of mutants. A new step in evolution,
if you will. But their powers were tired, their motivations unexplained,
and their characters undefined. "I am ____!" became the standard of high
characterization for the Neo, the Goth, the Twisted Sisters, and the
like, all of whom were supposedly different groups. Shadowcat, who was
also given a major personality change, went missing. Nobody really
bothered to look for her. The same was true of other characters. And,
while the two titles were again supposed to be two books with two teams
and storylines, the state of perma-crossover left them effectively merged.

Meanwhile, Counter-X debuted in Generation X, X-Force, and X-Man. Warren
Ellis started out with some interesting ideas, but the stories generally
left fans divided. X-Man was revamped by Steven Grant and Ariel
Olivetti, and was generally the only success story. The change to Nate
Grey as a sort of shaman was a huge departure from the previous
conceptualization of the character. Loads of parallel-Earth stories
ensued, but the book had an increased fan base. Unfortunately, it was
cancelled with issue #75, at the end of its first year of Counter-X.

Brian Wood and Steve Pugh took over Generation X from Jay Faerber and
the Dodsons, and led off with a House of Correction storyline that had
huge gaping plot holes all through it. Luckily, later stories that
explained the death of Synch during the six month gap, and focused on
character development, were much better. However, at the end of the
first year of Counter-X stories, the title was cancelled with issue #75.

Ian Edginton and Whilce Portacio took over X-Force, the least successful
of the Counter-X revamps. The book, which had been interesting under the
run of John Francis Moore, had faltered. But the revamp, which stripped
the team to four characters and started out with a ludicrous story of
aliens taking over people in San Francisco, left characters with ugly
costumes, ugly faces, few lines, new powers, and murky colors. The book
was also late, late, late. Of all of the revamps, X-Force was the flop.

To tie in with the release of the movie, two new items debuted. X-Men:
Evolution was a cartoon featuring an alternate version of the X-Men. A
new Ultimate title, Ultimate X-Men, was also introduced, led by Mark
Millar and Adam Kubert. Like the movie, it featured black-leather-clad
X-Men in a team setting, though it was more like an alternate version
of X-Men #1. Neither seemed earth-shattering, though Ultimate was set
to be continuity-free (at least, compared with the main titles).

The shakeup that had begun with the new teams and titles and creators
was continued with the ascencion of Joe Quesada as the new Editor-in-
Chief after Bob Harras was fired. Many cancellations were announced,
including Generation X, X-Man, and Mutant X. Fabian Nicieza's well-done
Gambit was merged with Joe Harris' interesting Bishop (brought back to
our timeline for a joint miniseries), and both titles were cancelled.
John Byrne's nifty but slow X-Men: The Hidden Years, which was filling
in the gaps between (Uncanny) X-Men #66 and Giant-Size X-Men #1, was
announced as cancelled, but a write-in campaign and pressure from Byrne
meant that he had an extra issue or two to tie up loose threads.

Then came the restructurings and firings. Though Claremont's more recent
stories, dealing with the search for Destiny's diaries, seemed to give
more old-style characterization, he was released from the main books and
was given a third X-Men title to write. It was announced that the main
titles would be given over to Grant Morrison/Frank Quitely (X-Men) and
Joe Casey/Ian Churchill (Uncanny). Frank Tieri and Sean Chen took over
Wolverine with a back-to-basics approach (which translated into more
action). Popular Cable writer Robert Weinberg, working with Michael Ryan
and Andrew Pepoy, had given structure and intrigue back to that title,
but he was booted in favor of another writer. And in a bizarre twist, it
was announced that X-Force would be entirely revamped by Peter Milligan
and Mike Allred, and would feature a large team of all-new characters.

X-Men was renamed New X-Men as of issue #114, and Morrison and Quitely
introduced the scaled-down team of Cyclops, Phoenix, the White Queen,
Wolverine, and a newly-mutated Beast. They, along with Professor X,
reopened Xavier's school to a new group of students. Unfortunately,
Xavier had a twin sister, killed in the womb, that wanted to take over
his mind and ruin everything he'd worked for. A Chinese mutant, Xorn,
was introduced, as was a young winged mutant named Angel. The tone of
Morrison's New X-Men was distinct and unusual, and the book achieved
critical success, though some fans objected to new characterizations.

Uncanny X-Men was put in the hands of Casey and Churchill, who gathered
the team of (Arch)angel, Iceman, and Nightcrawler, added Chamber, and
included Wolverine for a few issues just for fun. The first few issues
focused on celebrity and family, as the team convinced Chamber that he
should join the team. After a visit to a mutant brothel, a mutant who
called herself Stacey X was added to the team. The Church of Humanity
was introduced as a threat. Sean Cassidy later showed up as the leader
of the European X-Corps, featuring former members of Generation X,
X-Factor, and Freedom Force (villains).

Meanwhile, Chris Claremont was shunted over to X-Treme X-Men, paired
with Salvador Larocca on art. He built a team using Storm, Bishop,
Rogue, Thunderbird, Sage, Beast, and Psylocke. Psylocke was killed
off by a villain named Vargas, and Beast's injuries and subsequent
"treatment" by Sage transferred him to the New X-Men team in a more
bestial state. Gambit rejoined the team, and two new characters were
introduced: Heather Cameron (Lifeguard), who could turn into whatever
form she needed, and her brother Davis (Slipstream), whose surfing-
teleportation powers were activated by Sage. Though the team was
supposedly formed to locate Destiny's diaries, a quest introduced in
X-Men #109, more of their efforts went towards battling organized crime
in Australia and Madripoor, and fighting off an alien invasion.

X-Force's makeover in the hands of Milligan and Allred was more of a
critical success. Almost all of the team featured in the first issue
was killed, and new team members quickly bit the dust after that,
until a more complex set of relationships developed between Orphan
and U-Go Girl and the newer team members. Conspiacies and corporate
links formed a backdrop to a unique set of characters, all trying to
figure out who they were while tentatively forming relationships
within a team that seemed unstable at best.

Cable was turned over to Tischman and Kordey, who took the character
in a more political real-world direction. Wolverine continued under
the hand of Frank Tieri, who seemed to believe that large, long
fight sequences were the epitome of characterization. Multiple Icons
miniseries were published, many of which seemed rather lame. One bright
spot was Judd Winnick's new Exiles title--a Quantum-Leap-inspired book
with a lot of light humor to it.

A mere year after the upheaval, the Marvel offices were at it again.
Quitely's slow pace meant that Ethan Van Sciver would become a regular
penciler on alternate arcs from Quitely on New X-Men. Low sales and odd
plots brought Chuck Austen in to replace Joe Casey on Uncanny, though
Casey's X-Corps idea became the X-Corporation in New X-Men and Uncanny.

Critical success X-Force was winning new fans, but older fans complained
about the bait-and-switch nature of the title, so it was relaunched with
the name X-Statix. To battle low sales, other titles were also renamed
and rebooted with #1 issues. Darko Macan became the new writer on Cable,
renamed Soldier X. Deadpool, a semi-X-related title, was renamed Agent X
and was written by Deadpool writer Gail Simone, with art by UDON Studios.
One new book, Weapon X, brought together a team of former X-Men allies
and foes (working for the government as a black ops team), and was
written by Frank Tieri with art by Georges Jeanty.

It is not clear if the relaunches and reboots will be successful, but it
is likely that Marvel will keep trying. At the very least, the new style
of the books means that there are finally three separate and distinct
core titles, and a number of supporting titles, that each have their own
team, purpose, style, and audience. Fans no longer felt compelled to buy
every issue of every title in order to keep track of what was going on.

*** Continued in Part 3 ***