I've thought about it and I spend a lot of time coming down on Marvel and DC Comics, so I want to talk about one of my favorite things they have ever done. Marvel's Ultimate line.
I started reading the Ultimates the first month it came out while I was working at a small comic shop and I immediately was hooked. The whole notion of restarting popular characters for modern day was great for someone who didn't know that much about most comic history t that point. It also gave writers a incredible freedom to recreate and imagine characters while still tying them to what made them interesting. I have never purchased a Captain America comic book, but I loved reading him in Mark Millar's 'Ultimates' and now 'Ultimate Comics presents Avengers.
The real goal for this idea was, of course, to bring in new readers. This is an argument I've had with my friends and acquaintances at my own local shop several time. The core idea was to have comics without so much back history to learn so new readers would feel it was more accessible. Now we are about a decade from when the first Ultimate title (Ultimate Spider-Man) was put out. Does this mean it's no longer relevant? I don't think so. It still brought in the readers who jumped on board with these titles, and I'm willing to bet a lot of the people who started with these books probably still appreciate that they are still around.
Of course it's not fair to mention the success of these books without saying who I think is responsible. The re-invention of characters has been thoroughly entertaining. I still credit Brian Michael Bendis with really bringing this offshoot Universe to life. Other authors (Warren Ellis and Robert Kirkman just to name a couple) came on and did fantastic jobs, but I always associate Bendis as the starting point.
Lately the Ultimate line has fallen on some hard times. Ultimate X-men and Fantastic Four have been put behind us. I have no idea why Jeff Loeb keeps getting more series since Ultimatum and Ultimates were so terrible.
I have renewed hope with Mark Millar putting out and Ultimate Avengers book. Warren Ellis impressed yet again with his 3 issue series about the Ultimate Armour Wars. Finally Brian Michael Bendis has even begun incorporating more X-Men and Fantastic characters in his Ultimate Comics presents Spider-Man comics.
As I look at the coming Batman Beyond mini series coming from DC, I decided to reflect on the role cartoons have played in guiding kids to popular comic characters and teams. Those who are old enough to remember Fox Kids afternoon lineup will know exactly what I mean.
Being a more recent comic fan I look back at the early 1990's as a sort of golden age for comic book cartoon shows. With things like animated X-Men, Spiderman's animated adventures, Batman the Animated Series and Superman animated again right on his heels.
These are all pretty big name characters with 30+ years of history for each one. Yet each one was shown to a new generation. The stories were well written and highly entertaining (more so early on, but we'll come back to that). Many of these stories were of course based on the more classic stories, but many of them also changed or improved things for the t.v. show. I don't think anything stands out more that the Batman the Animated series episode 'Heart of Ice' retelling the creation of Mr. Freeze.
The shows did have a few short comings as well. The use of ultra high tech looking laser weapons instead of guns in the marvel based shows by everyone was a little off putting. Gotham city being a place where you can find virtual reality technology but the police drive cars from the 50's and use zeppelins instead of helicopters.
Beyond all this, what truly made the shows great was the way they remained faithful to the source material. The X-Men cartoon may have had a different lineup than what originally started in the comics, but it was still about a group fighting for the dream of acceptance. It presented characters to us until they were familiar. Then the next time we went by a comic shop or a book store and saw more adventures with these characters we all enjoyed. If you were very lucky there was even a comic shop guy willing to give you the 'real' story behind each character and which rack to buy it off.
I've always been a little afraid of reading the X-Men. It's mainly due to the huge amount of history involved with them. The X-men have been around in some form since1963 and like most comics from that point they have a huge amount of back story, and rightfully they should. The X-men story just seems so much more complicated because of the rotating cast.
The X-men roster has been re-organized, re-started from scratch, shuffled and divided so many times even wikipedia can't keep up with them. People have switched sides from good mutants to bad with a surprising regularity. I have no idea who Gambit or Angel/ Arch Angel are really working for right now.
I'm the sort of person who really likes to know as much of a back story as possible for the books I read. With a lot of characters its incredibly easy to sum up a character's history and major motivations. Batman and his supporting cast can each have their major points explained pretty easily. I once asked an X-men fan to tell me what the whole story with Cyclops and Jean Grey exactly was, and he felt I wouldn't be able to understand it without a complicated chart.
I've read some of the stories, I was really impressed when I borrowed Joss Whedon's run. I even collected Warren Ellis' run because I've always been entertained by what he does. The main draw of these stories for me so far has been that they haven't largely addressed the teams complicated past.
Marvel does have a type of solution to this problem. There are the X-men Essential books available. Now you can even subscribe to their online service. Unfortunately both of these are a little costly when you look at the number of Essentials you would need to buy, or the amount of time you would spend online reading each individual issue. From my understanding Marvel hasn't put ever comic they've ever written online, so that's not even a good way to go about it.
Still, I have my own idea as to what would help people like me who want to like/ read more X-men but feel it would be too difficult. My own idea is to do a few issues as a limited series that tells the abridged history of each major x-men milestone and change that has happened. I realize a lot of that has happened on Wikipedia and so many other fansites, but it would be nice to have it come from the creators. Marvel can let us all know which stories are still in continuity, get the perspective of the artist and writer at the time putting in their notes as to why Beast turned blue, and whatever else is considered a major turning point. And if Marvel thinks this seems like a lot of work, imagine how we feel.
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