What will you do?

Hmmm.

I would try to engineer a way to avoid all the crossovers. Which probably means I would have to cobble together a group that no one is pushing too hard to use. No Wolverine, Storm, Cyclops, Phoenix, Colossus, Nightcrawler. Or find a way to have people able to use them but not cause my book to slide into crossover hell every three months.

I would NOT undo stuff, or dig too deeply to explain things. Instead, I would try to march forward while using the vast world the X-Men inhabit.

Sentinels? Hell yes. But no future dystopias. In fact, maybe I would have the team go to the future and find it to be a utopia. They would be so sure that there must be some flaw that they end up ruining things. Or do they? Ah time travel.

I would re-energize the Hellfire CLub and put them as the main baddies, and truly create a game of chess storyline that weaves in and out of the storyline for my three year run.

I would get migraines fighting with Editorial department to maintain my vision.

Oh, and a three-parter putting them against and with Alpha FLight to restore the team once and for all. That will be my final storyline, leading to my AF series.

Who's your artist?

Geez, who knows.

I wouldn't even know how to begin sorting through all the nonsense of the past 10 to 20 years. I guess I'd just go Grant Morrison style and say, "Fuck it" and go with the concepts and themes I find most interesting about the X-Men and just ignore the continuity albatross.

....have them all killed, once and for all, possibly in an explosion, and replaced with their original teenaged 1960's selves from a parallel universe (Earth-1966), including Professor X (this version of which was never in a wheelchair, and would lead them while they were on missions). They get to be 60's people living in the modern world, and I gleefully ignore everything else that has happened beforehand. They have the same DNA as their (now dead) predecessors, and simply 'inherit' their lives (which were secretive anyway, since they were mutant super heroes) and property, including the mansion in Westchester.

Continuity be damned: Magneto and the like would all be confounded by the fact that this fresh, young team of mutants simply had no memory of the intervening years. No more Mr. Sinister, Apocalypse, Externals, etc - no more "No More Mutants" - just escapist fun with the youthful nature of the characters being emphasized, along with their status as people who have travelled from the past and are now stranded in a different world, and a different era.

There could be some reference to certain things that happened in the past by other MU characters - but these guys would simply say "Well, that wasn't us" or "That was then, this is now" or "Dig these crazy fashions, Warren!" and so forth. They'd be young people discovering the modern world, and a lot less bogged down in their muddy past.

When I am Writer of X-Men I will...

also be the penciler.



(I was just going to ask someone to give me something to sketch. Thanks!)

… show how Charles Xavier was the Dell 60s' hero, Brain Boy.

Gee, I wish I had not misspelled my name on my drawing. That's embarrassing.

Was the Brain Boy comic any good? I know you have every issue, right?

I was going to point that out.

But I kind of liked "Flamboy." He can be one of my new X-Men.

Thanks, a-hole. Now I know how Byrne feels.

I would return Emma Frost to the villain that she is supposed to be. Frost tortured Storm and tried to kill the X-Men. No way they would accept her as a member. Besides, how many telepaths does the X-Men need? Phoenix, Xavier, Psylocke... that's should be enough.

I don't actually. I have the first one, from Four Color, and one or two of the other ones. I think
one issue was a repeat. The first issue was very good. Despite the name, "Brain Boy," they
played it seriously. I don't remember if they even called him Brain Boy in the comic. Might have
been a code name, if they used it. He did spy/espionage for the United Goverment, missions to
communist South American countries, etc.

He was probably too powerful.

That actually sounds pretty cool. I wonder who owns the rights now.

Wow. I didn't know that Dark Horse released a hard cover archive of Brain Boy in 2011.
I should look for that.

(Edit)-------
Found a unopened copy on eBay for $27. Ordered it. I'll let you know if it's as good
as I remember the first issue being. I'm sure the Gil Kane artwork helped. I think
Frank Springer did all of the other issues.

You're getting me excited for this. I might buy it as well. In Stock Trades has it for $28.99.

AND it's at AmazWan

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1595828168/?tag=imwan-20

With a "Look Inside."

Some reviews on Amazon were kind to it (as they remembered it from their childhood).
One critic really panned it as cookie cutter. So… I probably read the best story (and
with the Gil Kane artwork), and it declined afterwards.

Tell you what, Jay. Hold off buying it, and I'll send you this one once I'm done reading
it. I'll probably want to pick up all of the original issues eventually. Right now, though,
I just wanted to read them, and I have no time to dig through comics right now to see
which ones I have/have not.

Beachy, were you a fan of Thunder Agents?

My Dad had a few issues. I really wanted to like them more (especially since Ditko + Wood,
is one of my favorite pairings), but the few I read never clicked for me when I was a teen.

I might be more receptive to the work today. I nearly bought some of those DC Archives.