The Morrison Manifesto
Having just read through every X-MEN trade paperback available to humanity, I think I have a pretty clear idea of what works in this book and what doesn't. Here's what I think would be the most effective strategy for keeping old readers and, more importantly, for attracting a new contemporary audience.
1. In my opinion, and probably everyone else's too, the best work done on the book, the work which transformed the New X-MEN into Marvel's primary franchise was done by Chris Claremont and John Byrne between '77 and '80. Long after I'd ditched my comic book collection and started a punk rock band THIS was the one book I still followed because it was COOL. It's been fashionable to knock both creators in the intervening years and often with some justification but I defy anyone to read this run of X-MEN and not be impressed by the bravado and invention. Not only were both creators so far ahead of their game they were defining the rules of a whole NEW game (early Alan Moore is PURE Claremont and the reverberations of 'Days of Future Past' - with its depictions of the twilight days of the superheroes - are still echoing in too many books to mention) they had the freedom to create new material, reconceptualise the old stuff which still worked and ignoring the outmoded elements which had sapped the original X-MEN series of its vitality.
2. In the last decade or so, the tendency at Marvel has been intensely conservative; comics like the X-MEN have gone from freewheeling, overdriven pop to cautious, dodgy retro. What was dynamic becomes static - dead characters always return, nothing that happens really matters ultimately. The stage is never cleared for new creations to develop and grow. The comic has turned inwards and gone septic like a toenail. The only people reading are fan boys who don't count. The X-MEN, for all it was still Marvel's bestseller, had become a watchword for undiluted geekery before the movie gave us another electroshock jolt. And in the last decade, sales fell from millions to hundreds of thousands.
3. In the way that Claremont and Byrne did in the 80s and Jim Lee in the 90s we need to make the book COOL again. The movie has already done most of the work for us and there are MILLIONS of new potential readers out there for the taking: including the women who slavered over Hugh Jackman and who should be able to pick up THIS book and get the same sexy thrills from the comic book character (so no more blue and yellow spandex and Batman helmet. Why does Wolverine wear a helmet in the the same shape as his hair anyway? It just looks safdsff stupid now) We have to stop talking to the shrinking fan audience and re-engage the attention of the mainstream. Longtime fans will read the book and safdsff about it NO MATTER WHAT. We don't need to attract them, we need to make the book accessible to the real world audience. We need to get X-MEN and Marvel Comics in the news again, in the cool magazines and on TV. We need to recapture the college and the hipster audience because that audience is bigger than ever thanks to the movies and games, and thanks to things like 'Buffy' and 'The Matrix', the entire mainstream is pumped and primed to consume super-hero stories.
To make the X-MEN feel fresh once more, we need to take a closer, harsher look at what's not working in this book and the comics field in general. The recent X-MEN stuff has been written in an old-fashioned, overdense style for one, and we need to update, streamline and demystify the storytelling techniques considerably to appeal to modern sensibilities.
4. I think everyone agrees that we can no longer afford to be bogged down by 40 years of the most convoluted continuity in comics. This isn't the Ultimate line, however, and we have to find a way be faithful to the sprawling X-MEN mythos without being shackled by events in stories written thirty years ago, for a different world and a very different audience. My intention is to use the rich history of the X-MEN more as background window dressing and as a treasure trove of material we can recut for a new eager audience (in the same way Claremont and Byrne sifted out the best stuff from the original series and combined it with new material). Elements like the Savage Land or the Shi'Ar Empire will be reappraised, re-introduced and woven into the larger scale science fiction universe of the X-MEN in such a way that it will seem as though we're seeing these concepts for the first time). The movie wisely went sci-fi instead of trying to appease the superhero crowd and I think we must do the same. The X-MEN is not a story about superheroes but a story about the ongoing evolutionary struggle between good/new and bad/old. The X-MEN are every rebel teenager wanting to change the world and make it better. Humanity is every adult, clinging to the past, trying to destroy the future even as he places all his hopes there. The superhero aspect should be seen as only a small element in the vast potential of this franchise.
These stories will be accessible, punchy and modern. Each story arc should be like a movie or a TV miniseries depending on the focus - beginning middle and end, character development and resolution. Every time we start a new arc, every time we start a new issue in fact, we start fresh as if someone is picking up the book for the first time. The movie has made the characters familiar which helps us immensely. From here on in we shall strive to limit the cast to a handful of easily-recognisable figures.
5. If there are any really major outstanding questions left unanswered about our characters, let me know and I'll figure out a way to resolve them in future stories but for now, let's start with a fresh storyline, a completely different feel and allow people a chance to get to know the cast on the run again. That's how we play 'continuity' as we gently lay it to rest and replace it with er... 'superconsistency'. Everything you need to know will be explained in ANY given issue but long-time fans will be rewarded with extended character development and soap opera backstories. Think of the modular, accessible nature of storylines from the Buffy mythos which also have extended developmental arcs for longterm fans to follow. Same goes for the X-Files etc. The longer storylines in XMEN would play out over a year at most. No more decades-long unrevealed secrets. And no more need be said about Logan's origins.
6. We have to get back the kick-ass anything can happen feeling that made the Claremont/Byrne issues so monumental. This is a POP book, as essential as the new Eminem release or the latest Keanu movie. We can rejoin the culture here and the only way to do it is to drop '80s and '90s notions of who our audience should be. The only way to get back in there is to deliver the stuff the movies and the games CAN'T. And what the mainstream audience wants from us (and I've asked a lot of 'em) is raw imagination, ready-made characters, outrageous spectacle, storming angst and emotional drama. Beautiful people with incredible powers doing startling, diverting things!
7. GET RID OF THE COSTUMES. Let's ditch the spandex for the new century and get our heroes into something that wouldn't make you look like a safdsff if you wore it in the street. The movie had it almost right: I think we should go for hardcore bike style exo-rubber uniforms, maybe military pants and wrestling style boots. Whatever. A UNIFORM again. Youth culture looks are going uniform anyway. The look's brutalist and military and I think the X-MEN should reflect that to stay on the cutting edge of cool. Long leather coats with a big X on the back as our heroes get smarter, prouder and louder. Cyclops wearing ruby quartz contacts. I'd like to see some yellow in panelling or detailing on the costumes - if only to avoid the dull black leather look of every film superhero - but it should be pop art dayglo yellow, the kind cyclists and bikers wear to be seen. Let's discuss a new look. X-MEN is a soap opera about super-people in the same way that Dallas was a soap about oil people. The oil only provided window-dressing and an excuse to look great.
8. Let's aim for the big audiences. Let's push books we can be proud of on every level. Books that kids will dig for their sheer gee-whizz, kinetic strut, which college kids will buy for the rebel irony and adults will love for the distraction, just like the movies and the TV shows - just like when Stan was doin' it!!! I believe we have a rare opportunity to bust some self-imposed barriers and run screaming through the streets if we just cut loose a little and do work aimed at the mainstream, media-literate audience of kids, teenagers and adults with disposable income. Trust me. It’ll feel like nothing ever seen before but I intend to deliver the best, most faithful-to-the-concept X-MEN you could hope to imagine ….
9. And, a propos of nothing – I just read that the most enthusiastic supporters of Darwin’s evolutionary theory were a group of English scientists of the 1800’s who called themselves …. The X Club
