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As the tryptophan works its way through my system after a series of turkey dinners, I hope everyone who celebrates it had a good Thanksgiving, and your holidays are off to a good start. As always, I spent my Thanksgiving with my family, and it was one of the largest gatherings we've had in some time.
With the year drawing to a close, I want to look back briefly, before moving forward to the future. What a year it's been: Grant Morrison finished off a critically acclaimed run on New X-Men, which I didn't care for. Chuck Austen is finally leaving. Chris Claremont returns to the core books, if not at the top of his game, then doing a damned fine showing of it, with Alan Davis back on Uncanny. Joss Whedon is putting out some absolutely amazing stories in Astonishing X-Men. And the X-Line bloated unimaginably to a huge amount, giving everyone and their grandmother a solo title for a little while. Oh yeah, and Rachel is back. Lots to be thankful for on the X-Front these days.
As is the norm for the X-Men, there was great changes, and for the first time in a long time, the line seems very strong, with mostly good stories being written. My only complaint over this is all the clutter we have now with 20 or so titles. The variety, however, is a nice thing to have sitting around.
Morrison may have gotten a lot of attention, and sales, but he never really got the X-Men. He remolded them into something completely new, and unrecognisable, with unrecognisable characters. This is fine for anyone new or relatively unfamiliar with the books, but for those of us who've followed them for years, much of it just seemed slight shades of wrong.
With Papa Claremont back heading the family, aided by Uncle Joss, the line is back to a strength it hasn't seen in ages. Even many of the subtitles have found their own voices and reasons for being, even if it's hard for them to be heard amidst the cacophony of other titles that have sprung up.
Moving towards the future, Claremont has kicked off a large-scale project looking at the family of X-Men, and their final days. In X-Men: The End, Chris and artist Sean Chen are working on an 18 part storyline, written in three six-part books, to tell the final story of the X-Men, set roughly 15 years from the eternal 'now' of the current comics.
With the first book drawing to a close this month, it seemed an appropriate topic to come upon as the year ends as well.
Chris is eschewing the easy answer of simply telling us whether or not Xavier's dream has been achieved, although I feel certain that will be touched upon in the future of the title. While that is indeed the core concept to which one would hope to see dealt with, the X-Men have grown beyond that in scope, touching on various themes over the years, and with many characters coming into the fold and moving on.
To properly pay credence to all of these people, and the fans, dictates the size and scope of this series, which currently is in need of a bit more focus. After five issues, the overall story here seems to be a bit vague. And I'm being charitable, since I'm otherwise enjoying it. What we have so far is dark rumblings in the background, and lots of fighting as we touch upon various corners of the X-Verse, it seems fairly linear, but the whole point remains a bit unclear as of yet. Chris seems to be crafting one giant adventure, so as to give screentime to every single X-Character out there. Fair enough, so long as it seems to go somewhere, and it gets there quickly enough to make sense. With the last issue of the first book about to hit the stands as of this writing, I'm hoping that things crystalize with that, and we can move forward with the next two chapters.
Sean Chen is turning in some very nice artwork for this as well, even though it seems to have grown a bit sketchier as the issues have gone on, and more and more characters have been brought in. He's doing a more than fair job with what he's being asked to do, however. With so much going on, is it possible that 18 issues could be too little space? Scary thought . . .
With the end of the X-Men being told, although the main stories will go on, and since this is the 75th Great X-Pectations falling as one year comes to a close, and with almost seven years of these under my belt, it feels like a good time to put a cap on this column.
As with everything when it comes to me, this isn't an ending, and something else will rise from the ashes. There've been other topics I've wanted to bring up from time to time, like the She-Hulk topic a few months ago, and have been reticent to do, since this is about all things X. I'm still going to be here with my cynical, acerbic wit, I'm just wanting - no, needing - to branch out and stem the occasional burn out that comes from talking about just the X-Men and friends.
So, I'll still be here, there will still be a high X-Content since that's the focus of my interests, and there will always be Rob Liefeld bashing, as long as he sticks around in the industry for me to point and laugh at.
It's been a long, strange trip, and we're just changing interstates. Buckle up tight.
Jason M. Bourgeois
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