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I should post in this thread more...

aiptcomics.com/2023/09/18/x-men-monday-christos-gage-original-x-men/

"And surprise! X-Men Monday is proud to eXclusively announce Original X-Men #1, a one-shot written by Christos Gage and illustrated by Greg Land, starring the original five X-Men in an all-new, multiverse-spanning adventure for the X-Men’s 60th anniversary. You won’t be able to read this story until it goes on sale December 2023, but we’ve got the solicitation, Ryan Stegman’s cover, and plenty of artwork. First, that December solicitation."



ORIGINAL X-MEN #1

Written by Christos Gage
Art by Greg Land
Cover by Ryan Stegman

THE OG 5 ON AN ALL-NEW ADVENTURE!

Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Beast, Iceman and Angel – the first and greatest heroes to bear the X-Men name – once traveled into their own futures and reset the course of history. Now another multiversal mystery calls them forth. When the dust settles, one hero will remain, trapped in the world as we know it. With shocking surprise guests and heart-pounding twists and turns, Christos Gage and Greg Land kick off a story that will shake the whole MU!

AIPT: OK, onto Original X-Men. What’s the elevator pitch for this comic?

Christos: Essentially, the original X-Men are plucked from their era by an older Jean Grey, a.k.a. Phoenix, from a different timeline. This is a middle-aged Jean Grey who wasn’t replaced by the Phoenix Force; instead, she found a way to coexist peacefully with it. But now she’s become aware of a deadly danger on another Earth in the multiverse… a problem even the Phoenix can’t solve. Only the original X-Men can. Why? Because the problem IS them. On this world, the original X-Men grew up and took over the world, amassing tremendous power… so much that they’ll soon be turning their attention to other realities.

Old Lady Phoenix chose these particular original X-Men because they have already been to their future and met their adult selves (in the All-New X-Men series that began in 2012) so they have some experience with this sort of thing. It’s up to them to find a way to either convince their older selves that they’re making a horrible mistake or somehow defeat these far more powerful versions of them. Basically, it’s about your younger, idealistic self coming into conflict with your older, jaded self who’s made compromises and given up dreams in order to survive and do what they think is best, even if that means making hard choices along the way.



AIPT: Finally, the solicitation for Original X-Men #1 teases one of the X-Men trapped in the world as we know it and larger ramifications for the Marvel Universe. What can you share about the scope of this story beyond Original X-Men #1?

Christos: So there are definite ramifications beyond the one-shot. The story will continue. However, it’s kind of intentionally vague. I’m not promising it’s one of the original five X-Men… if they even survive this adventure… though I’m not saying it’s not! And that might be better phrased, “larger ramifications for the Marvel MULTIVERSE”…

[HASH]xmen60

The best thing about this series is the art. Vincenzo Carratù can draw anything. He's going to be a huge artist in the future. Java Tartaglia's colors are brilliant, maybe the best colorist Iceman has ever had. Unfortunately, they are mostly wasted on this story by Steve Orlando.

There is an emptiness to the story, I don't know how else to describe it. It's like cotton candy. It's colorful and sugary and it's puffed full of air. The total absence of not only thought balloons but also first person narration boxes that have become almost standard for Iceman stories over the decades serves to prevent the reader from getting inside Bobby's head. So most of what you get from him are a stream of bad jokes and worse puns with nothing underneath. There's a flashback that's sort of neat but isn't really accurate to either of the previous two, slightly disparate versions of his origin. Sina Grace made a point of showing the Drakes had moved 'a little further up the LIE' in his run and that's basically retconned here, although it could be another 'anomaly' with Iceman. Sometimes it's hard to tell the intentional 'mistakes' from the unintentional ones. There were some cool feats, but even hobbled, the foes weren't remotely a match for Iceman. The only real threat he is facing is overexertion which Bobby barely acknowledges and leaves Romeo fretting over him like a wife from an old movie wondering if her husband will make it home from the war. The whole health indicator-thing is needless and makes Bobby seem like a character in a video game.

The scene with Bobby and Romeo together reminds me of the joke, 'people use to wonder if they had been dating long enough to have sex, now they wonder if they have been having sex long enough to consider it dating.' Romeo is so crazy for Bobby a combination of his love and his powers literally brought Bobby back from the ether yet Bobby makes out with some random guy last issue. I've been told that is both 'an offensive portrayal of gays, how straight people see gays' and 'normal behavior in queer spaces'. Whatever. The only guy I liked that Iceman has been with is Judah and Bobby practically left him for dead to go make out with Daken.

Data pages were a waste of space and the time it took me to read them.

Romeo is basically holding Bobby together, except... we now see Bobby can transform back to human. That first part didn't make that much sense when it seemed Bobby was stuck in his Iceform, it makes even less sense when he can transform back to flesh and blood. This seems like yet another Marvel comic where various plot-points have to be met and conformed to and everything else just doesn't matter.

It's better than the first issue, which is some improvement. It's not actively bad, but it's not really good either. 5/10

I'm bringing this over from a conversation at CBR to keep from derailing a thread there...


So, in 1969 when Marvel canceled the X-Men due to low sales and sent the book into reprints, they concluded based on the letters they were getting to the letters page that Iceman was the most popular member of the X-Men. To that end they announced in their house magazine, Marvelmania #5 (January 1970), a new split book in the tradition of Amazing Adventures and Astonishing Tales that would feature Iceman and Dr. Strange. They brought Iceman in for a guest appearance in Amazing Spider-Man Vol 1 #92(an issue that helped inspire Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends) and the prevailing theory is that based off sales of that issue not being as good as they wanted, Marvel cancelled the planned book. A Dr. Strange short was done for the first issue and eventually was used in Marvel Feature #1, but the Iceman one has never seen print. Most likely, the Iceman/Dr. Strange book was cancelled because Marvel was moving away from the split book format, taking their existing split books and moving those characters into solos, and they weren't sure Iceman could handle a book solo. After all, if X-Men couldn't generate sufficient sales at the time with him in it, why would they think a solo would sell better with just him?


In 1975, Marvel was still receptive to an Iceman series, but still not a solo. Tony Isabella first pitched the book that would become the Champions as a buddy superhero comic modeled on 'Route 66', with just Iceman and The Angel. The book was green-lit - and then Editor Len Wein started making changes. Insisting that every group comic needed at least 5 members(guess he never heard of the Fantastic Four). One must be strong, one had to be a woman, and none could have their own comic; which precluded Tony Isabella from having Bill Foster(Black Goliath) join. This was changed to requiring at least one who had their own comic. Hercules was the strong guy, Black Widow was the female, and Ghost Rider had his own comic. Tony Isabella quickly grew frustrated with all the editorial intervention and having to write a book so different from what he planned so he left. The art was also not the best. The Champions eventually improved greatly under writer Bill Mantlo and artist John Byrne but it could not recover enough to avoid cancellation.

(W) Louise Simonson (A) Bernard Chang (CA) Amy Reeder
SUPERSTAR CREATORS TAKE JEAN GREY'S LEGACY TO FIERY NEW HEIGHTS! After the events of the Hellfire Gala, Jean's life is in shambles. Mutantkind is in dire straits - and there's nothing this founding X-Man can do. She'll have to save herself first. And that means looking into her past - for the moment when it all went wrong - in a desperate attempt to save her and all Krakoa's future. Legendary writer Louise Simonson returns to the X-Men with a story full of fan-favorite moments, heartrending revelations and pulse-pounding devastation!
Rated T+
In Shops: Aug 23, 2023