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Ms. Marvel is a very, very rare exception. For the most part, new characters don't really do all that well. Most audiences want to keep reading about the characters they grew up with, and they grew up with the characters created in the '60s and '70s. People aren't willing to get invested in new characters. Avengers Academy was a book full of new characters, and it was well-received, and no one cared. Avengers Initiative was full of new characters, and no one cared. New X-Men characters get created all the time, and no one cares.

If a character wasn't around by 1980, they are simply not allowed to matter. Readers refuse to give a shit about them.

As I've said so many times, nostalgia prevents new characters from getting a foothold. Everyone wants the characters they grew up with. That means, predominantly, straight white males, because most people reading comics grew up when straight white males were the only ones allowed to matter.

The "create new characters" argument is bunk, because Marvel does that. They do it all the damn time. And they gives pushes to existing characters. They do everything they're "supposed" to do. The things that people claim are the "right" way to do diversity (and I hate the idea that there's one "right" way to do diversity). They do that shit. And the people who say Marvel should do that completely and totally ignore it. They refuse to actually try the stuff that they say is the right way to do it. They say to create new characters, and then they refuse to read those new characters. They say to push existing characters, and then they refuse to read those existing characters. The only way Marvel can actually get anyone to read diverse books is to add diversity to the books people are already reading. Otherwise, a significant portion of the readership will simply never expose themselves to it.



A few other things I'd like to point out: Sexuality is a spectrum. It can be fluid for a lot of people. So it's actually entirely possible that Iceman leaned gay when he was younger, but repressed it so fully that he did essentially make himself straight. Not as a conscious thing, of course, but something that happened just the same. So it's entirely possible for Adult Iceman to remain straight. It's something that'll need to be explored, obviously, but it doesn't necessarily follow that Adult Iceman will be gay. It may even turn out that he is bisexual, either as a teen or as an adult. Even if Adult Iceman ends up being gay, I disagree that it invalidates any of his previous relationships, or prevents him from engaging in another straight relationship. There are gay people who fall in love with people of the opposite sex. If a writer wants to have Iceman hook up with whoever, then they can just have him say, "It turns out I'm bisexual." Easy. LGBT people won't be losing any representation that way, so most of them won't be terribly disappointed.

As for the idea that Marvel is "getting rid" of the X-Men: Nonsense. Ridiculous, paranoid nonsense. Marvel's not getting rid of them. There will still be X-Men books after Secret Wars, running right alongside Avengers and Spider-Man, in the same world.

I liked the original Age of Apocaylpse. I like Fabian Niceza as a writer. I hate Gerardo Sandoval's art. Two out of three is good enough for me. I'll pick this up.

There's an appeal because it's awesome. It's cute and fun and funny and adorable and just great. I'll be getting this. Skottie Young is always worth picking up.

In case you haven't heard, CBR is doing a poll of the Top 50 Female Comic Creators of All Time. I, for one, think this is great. It's very exciting. When CBR did the Top 100 Comic Creators a few months ago, I included Kelly Sue DeConnick and Jen Van Meter for writers, and Emma Rios and Stephanie Hans for artists, and I was disappointed at the fact that only two women made into the Top 100. I thought that was a real shame, because there are so many talented female creators, but because they never get the chance to do high-profile books, they get little appreciation.

So a poll dedicated to showing appreciation for female creators is great, and I look forward to seeing who makes it into the Top 50.

So here's a question: Who would be your top choices to take over Uncanny X-Men, and generally lead the new direction of the X-Men franchise?

My top choices would be G. Willow Wilson or Kelly Sue DeConnick. There are very few times where those two wouldn't be my top choices. But they'd be especially good choices for the X-Men franchise, for a couple reasons. First of all, the X-Men is built on strong women, so having a woman write it just makes sense. Second, the X-Men franchise is about an oppressed minority, and if there's one group who doesn't really understand oppression, it's straight white men. So why are they always the ones writing the franchise? Why not have someone who actually lives through discrimination on a daily basis? Wilson gets a double-dose, as a Muslim woman. She gets all the crap women have to live through, and she gets the added fun of the crap Muslims live through. (For example, when she was announced as the writer for Ms. Marvel, a popular criticism was that she used to write for a newspaper run by the Muslim Brotherhood. This was used to suggest that she actually approves of everything the Muslim Brotherhood does.) These are women who not only live with hate every day of their lives, but have chosen to actively fight against it.

So let's see that brought into the franchise that's built on fighting hate. G. Willow Wilson's Marvel-exclusive, so a flagship title makes sense. Why not Uncanny X-Men? It's doubtful, though. She's got Ms. Marvel and A-Force already, so a third title, and a flagship title at that, might be a bit much to expect. She may not be able to handle that. Of course, one option would be for her to step off A-Force, leaving it in Marguerite Bennett's hands.

KSD would be a great second-choice, but she's not Marvel-exclusive, and I doubt they'd give a flagship title to someone who's not even invited to the writer retreats. Of course, they could always sign her to an exclusive contract.

Since I'm not expecting it to be either of them, I guess my next three choices would be Simon Spurrier, Sam Humphries or Ales Kot.

I definitely think there needs to be a little more focus on the oppressed minority angle. Over the past couple years, the only X-titles that have really explored that at all have been Uncanny and All-New X-Men. Wolverine and the X-Men was more interested in "OMG wacky hijinks crazyLOL!!!1one" crap, at least under Aaron. Under Latour, it had no focus. X-Men has been fun adventures, and then Amazing X-Men has done the same.

The most recent volume of X-Force was mostly a deconstruction of the grim'n'gritty anti-hero, while previous volumes were mostly just grim'n'gritty anti-heroes. X-Men Legacy actually did delve quite a bit into the political angle, and was a solid book.

UXM and ANXM didn't really delve into the political stuff as much as I would've liked, given their basic premises. But they did do a whole lot more than pretty much any other X-title, all of which seemed to be more invested in straight superheroics.

My solution would probably be to make Uncanny X-Men the political book, X-Men the straight superhero book, New X-Men the student-oriented book. Maybe another volume of X-Force as the X-Force book. And maybe Amazing X-Men as a wild card book - each story has a different creative team, stories can last from a single issue to a full 5-issue arc, the creative teams can tell whatever kind of story they want using whichever characters they want.

And a few solos, of course.

I also still want a book focused on a new Mutant Town, focusing on the kinds of mutants who don't get to be X-Men and live in a big mansion in the suburbs. It would be cancelled immediately because no one would buy it but me.