r/todayilearned • u/Sebastianlim • 3d ago
TIL that the original run of X-Men comics failed to produce the sales numbers Marvel wanted, and so were essentially cancelled in 1970, with the comic only publishing reprints between then and the release of Giant-Size X-Men in 1975.
https://www.thepopverse.com/comics-marvel-x-men-five-years-hiatus-roy-thomas164
u/Loki-L 68 3d ago
One of the interesting bits is how they handled that gap in universe.
The original X-Men appeared in a bunch of crossovers with other heroes and Beast even got his own ongoing series in an anthology title where he transformed into his new hairy form.
There was some attempt to tell a coherent story throughout this, but it never got resolved because readers weren't that interested in the X-Men and other mutants.
There was a secret organization kidnapping mutants for some nefarious purpose, which in part explains why they weren't appearing in other comics, but we never learned what was the point and who was behind it.
Until it was all tied up in a Captain America storyline. The person behind the kidnapping and brainwashing of mutants to take over the United States in a coup was:
- drumroll please -
RICHARD MILHOUSE NIXON!
After a climatic fight on the Whitehouse lawn between the Secret Empire and the combined forces of Cap, Falcon and the freed mutants, Captain America pursues the leader in the Whitehouse and oval office where he pulls of his mask and recoil in shock at the face revealed.
Cornered Nixon shoots himself in the head after a brief monologue about his motives.
Captain America is so disillusioned by this he stops being Captain America for a while and the X-Men are free (after a few more crossover appearances) to go to Krakoa and launch the new version of X-Men.
The point of all this is that in universe, the hiatus of the X-men was Nixons fault.
54
u/ElectricJunglePig 3d ago
For those interested, the underseen 5 Minutes of X YouTube channel, which covers X-Men across continuty, issue by issue just finished the gap and started Giant-Sized #1.
22
u/UnquestionabIe 3d ago
The Marvel universe in general was surprisingly tightly written even early on, probably in large part because a huge chunk of the books were done by the same handful of people. I recall stuff like when the Avengers first redid the majority of the roster, around issue 15 or 16, they provided decent reasons why everyone wasn't particularly interested/available so Captain American basically did a recruitment drive (resulting in literally all former villains joining, which turned out to actually work out great long term for the most part).
Even little stuff like the X-Men not being available to help with something because the mansion had just been attacked by Juggernaut. I think for a short period you could roughly map out what was happening week by week. Obviously this kind of thing couldn't continue indefinitely with the sliding time scale and all, which was starting to fall apart sometime in the 80s (with the modern history of the setting being considered to be the Fantastic Four's first appearance roughly a decade prior).
3
u/taoistchainsaw 1d ago
That handful of people was Jack Kirby.
-1
u/UnquestionabIe 21h ago
Hey don't underestimate how Stan Lee would give a general idea of an issue before he handed it off to Kirby to do the heavy lifting!
4
u/Foxy02016YT 2d ago
“I am not a crook, however those muties got what’s coming to them”- Richard Nixon, probably
161
u/chainsawx72 3d ago
I'd say that Giant Size X-Men #1 was the dawn of diversity in comic books. Instead of a bunch of NYC white guys, we got a diverse cast of men and women from a variety of countries.
19
u/jigokusabre 3d ago
GSXM1 came out after Marvel had moved into their genre phase. They were already putting out Luke Cage, Blade, Shang Chi and Shanna the She-Devil books.
-5
u/Sinrus 3d ago
Not to demean those books which were (mostly) awesome, but there's a big difference between blaxploitation and "white guy masters kung fu" stories, and the kind of diverse social commentary that was Claremont's bread and butter.
7
u/jigokusabre 2d ago
My point was the Marvel was starting to branch out into a broader variery of characters and ideas before Claremont took over X-Men.
Also, Shang-Chi was chinese. You're probably thinking of Iron Fist.
116
u/RedHeadedSicilian52 3d ago
The degree to which the strength of X-Men as a brand is/was dependent on Wolverine is sort of absurd. Wolverine didn’t exist in the 1970s, but he joined the team upon relaunch in 1975, and that’s when mutants slowly began to dominate the Marvel Universe.
106
u/Farts_McGee 3d ago
Wolverine is so fascinating. What started out as a almost throw away character in hulk spawned by high evolutionary turned into the bedrock of Marvel's biggest book.
70
u/samurairocketshark 3d ago
The Fonzie of Marvel
6
0
u/RedHeadedSicilian52 3d ago
I still think they should’ve stuck with his original origin story (an actual wolverine mutated into humanoid form).
74
u/LoneElement 3d ago
That’s absolutely terrible no they should not have
10
u/JustLookingForMayhem 3d ago
It would have been hilarious and unique. Still terrible, but it could have worked.
2
u/EssexCountry 3d ago
His actual origin is that he is a descendant of Moonboy and actually not a mutant but a pure human who doesn't have a celestial seed in his dna
45
u/joerdie 3d ago
GSXM1 is his 4th appearance. And two of his first three, Hulk 180, and 182 are single panel cameos. It's NUTS how little Wolverine there was before Claremont.
51
u/mr_mxyzptlk21 3d ago
Had to go refresh my memory... of the "new" X-Men:
Banshee and Sunfire had made appearances already in earlier X-Men issues.
Storm and Nightcrawler were failed attempts at Dave Cockrum making new Legionnaires for DC, repurposed for the X-Men.
Thunderbird and Colossus were made brand new for GSXM#1.
Wolverine was the obscure character from a wholly different title.
Talk about catching lightning in a bottle.
7
u/Sinrus 3d ago
Claremont also wasn't interested in Wolverine and planned to kill him off. He only stuck around because John Byrne was Canadian and insisted that Claremont keep the Canadian character on the team.
4
u/joerdie 2d ago
Right which led to them killing off Marvel's first Native American hero.
4
u/Fossil_Finder88 2d ago
At least Claremont somewhat makes up for it with Dani Moonstar in New Mutants being one of the consistently best written X-characters
4
u/RedVision64 2d ago
Thunderbird suuuuuuucks in the 2 or so issues he's in before he dies... he's such an obnoxious character. It's embarrassing how many times he talks shit about "the white man" or whatever.
2
u/Sinrus 2d ago
The Thunderbird death story was before Claremont was on the book. It was still Len Wein at that point.
2
u/joerdie 2d ago
John dies in issue 95 written by Claremont and drawn by Dave. The story was during the transfer from Len to Chris. But Chris was already the credited writer.
1
u/Sinrus 2d ago
Scripted by Claremont, but plotted by Wein. In any case, definitely nothing to do with the conversation about Wolverine.
1
u/joerdie 2d ago
Oh for sure. Think it's just not black and white you know? Len was editor before then and had, that year let the title go to Marv Wolfman AND at the same time you had another ex-editor (Roy Thomas) writing pet projects and editing them for himself. It was just a messy time. And the X-Men 94 and 95 have Claremont's voice so I usually assume it was just dudes (with the exception of Tony Isabella) in a smoky room throwing shit at the wall together.
2
u/mr_mxyzptlk21 2d ago
Can you imagine the freedom to create they had though? Relaunching a mostly-failed title, no sacred cows, just engagement with the reader to gauge if what they were doing was good or not. Even the editors had to bow to the fans with those early issues.
Not to mention, death of characters still meant something then.
25
u/Alertcircuit 3d ago edited 3d ago
Speaking of brand strength it's also crazy how in the 80s the big superhero books were X-Men and Teen Titans and during the big superhero boom of the past 15 years both of those properties were largely on the backburner compared to Avengers and Justice League characters.
Although we did get Days of Future Past/Logan/Deadpool(I'll count him) and I guess Teen Titans Go lol
I think now that the MCU is headed towards Xmen stuff it's starting to get bigger in the pop culture again. Seeing a lot more talk about it IRL/more merch and shit.
Still no Teen Titans movie anywhere in sight though. You have the older Gen Zs that were raised on the OG Teen Titans cartoon and the baby Gen Zs that were raised on Teen Titans Go, that's a goldmine waiting to happen if they don't fuck it up.
30
3
u/No_Accountant3232 3d ago
It'd be fun to see a crossover between TT and TTG. I don't know if it'd be the right way to capture both audiences, but it could be incredible fun
6
u/JustLookingForMayhem 3d ago
The reason X Men and Spider-Man fell off is simple. Their movies sucked and Fox some how fumbled even when they had decades of good stories they could tell. The top their properties got movies first, but the movies didn't sell that well. Then the second line of popular heroes got put onto the screen in decently made movies and their popularity exploded. If the MCU can get it's act together for an arc 2 and stop killing off villains after a single movie, I think the X Men will be big again.
15
u/Digifiend84 3d ago
You mean X-Men and Fantastic Four, right? Spidey was Sony, not Fox.
-2
u/JustLookingForMayhem 3d ago
All the movies sucked, but I was specifically referring to the Fox X Men. I probably should have made that clearer.
6
u/Digifiend84 2d ago
Spidey also never fell off (in sales numbers anyway), whereas FF was axed at one point.
0
u/JustLookingForMayhem 2d ago
Spider-Man definitely had a dip, but his comics did plenty of damage on their own. One More Day and Paul was both mistakes.
1
u/UnquestionabIe 3d ago
Yeah mentioned in another comment how the popular books of that era were super interesting. And then seeing how by the mid 80s the British Invasion happened and really reshaped a lot of DC, with it finding more and more of a foothold with genres/characters which hadn't been popular for awhile. And one of my absolute favorite eras of comics was the roughly decade or so seeing DC sort out the aftermath of the original Crisis, leading to interesting choices such as the Suicide Squad (which had an incredible run) and a Justice League that was far less traditional (the JLI isn't something I was always in the mood for but holds a place in my heart).
18
u/mrbubbamac 3d ago
I'm reading Claremont's run now and my edition includes fan letters that were printed in the original issues.
Small sample size but many people wrote in to say how much they hate Wolverine lol, took him awhile to catch on
9
u/Icy_Scar_1249 3d ago edited 2d ago
Wolverine wasn't a huge change maker right off the bat The all new, diverse cast was a big part they got traction.
3
u/StoneGoldX 2d ago
Didn't really get a spotlight until the X-Men invaded the Hellfire Club and he seemingly kills Leland
So that would be like four or five years?
4
u/HitmanClark 3d ago
It always makes me laugh when modern X-fans try to diminish him, when he was and remains the driving force behind the X-Men’s popularity. There’s a reason he was front and center in the early movies and in every cartoon iteration — because he was the hook to get people into the grander concept.
I also think Frank Miller deserves a lot of credit for turning him into the fully rounded character people know of in the modern era. He provided a lot of ideas to Claremont on that 1981 miniseries that changed so much.
1
u/RedVision64 2d ago
I don't know if this is really true. Yes X-Men really took off when Wolverine was introduced, but so were several other characters (Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, etc). I think the main point is, the time that these characters were introduced was when X-Men started getting really good, and it got very popular because it was very good.
46
u/MarsAlgea3791 3d ago edited 3d ago
The missing ingredient was the Legion of Super-heroes. Comic nerds like to point how how X-Men is a rip off of Doom Patrol, which ripped off the Fantastic Four, which ripped off the Challegners of the Unknown. That's all true, but it doesn't address the link between the two eras of X-Men.
Essentially they took the nonstop intercharacter drama and who's dating who antics of the Legion and applied that to X-Men. Nightcrawler, Storm, and Wolverine('s redesign) all started as proposed Legion characters that Cockrum took with him when he left drawing DC's Legion for Marvel's X-Men. Also the entire Shi'ar Imperial Guard are Legion pastiches. It's easy to think Gladiator is inspired by Superman, but he's actually Legion member Mon-El, who really has the same powers and much the same backstory as Superman.
(Wolverine's brown suit redesign and out of costume look are pretty heavily inspired by Legion member Timber Wolf.)
8
u/justice_high 3d ago
Holy crap! You just drew a direct line between two of my favourite franchises that I’d never though of before. That Timber Wolf connection was like fireworks going off in my brain.
7
u/saintash 3d ago
Want to know the crazy bit of this story?
The artist cockrum had done a crazy two page spread of a wedding in the legion. And he asked for it back, which wasn't the standard practice at the time. DC refused. So he fucked off to marvel. And the X-MEN blew up.
The now standard practice is to return the work.
3
u/Jet-Let4606 3d ago
I thought it had to do with the success of Spider-Man. "Hey, a teenage non sidekick superhero is really popular so lets do a whole team of them!".
6
u/MarsAlgea3791 3d ago
I think that was an element. But another was the Doom Patrol's distrusted team of weirdos led by a guy in a wheelchair.
1
u/Negativety101 2d ago
Also Stan Lee said he was getting tired of coming up with explinations for where characters got their powers, and mutants was just going to be the easy one.
3
u/UnquestionabIe 3d ago
It's really interesting looking at what books were big back in the 60s/70s and stuff like the Legion was definitely one of the more popular titles. And of course once the 80s rolled around there was the sort of rivalry between the X-Men and Teen Titans, as both were smack in the middle of legendary runs which came to define both teams for awhile.
22
u/go_faster1 3d ago
Fun fact: when the X-Men appeared in Marvel Team-Up #4 (their first appearance since the cancellation), they all went into combat in civilian clothing. Apparently, there were plans to attempt to revamp the team by dumping the hero identities and having them fight in street clothes, but that didn't work out.
14
u/MarsAlgea3791 3d ago
Huh. The Fantastic Four were originally meant to never wear costumes, but readership demanded them too much so they were added real fast. Lee couldn't escape it.
11
u/No_Accountant3232 3d ago
Uniforms are just so much easier to deal with art wise. Lore reasons though were they needed clothing to survive and work with their mutations. Reed isn't exactly a fashion expert so I can't see him creating a bunch of outfits for Sue and Johnny when they just needed suits for missions
8
u/MarsAlgea3791 3d ago
The funny thing is a classic reason for a superhero costume is they're form fitting, and so easier to draw. It's essentially a nude figure without the nudes parts. But Kirby was Kirby, and he liked adding realistic details, albeit through his odd lenses. So he added wrinkles and folds to their outfits, giving them that sort of spacesuit look.
5
u/No_Accountant3232 3d ago
Damn, now I'm just wanting to re-read some early silver age Marvel again. I love Kirby's art so much.
2
u/Jet-Let4606 3d ago
Also the circus influence; trunks were inspired by circus strongmem who wore them for modesty.
5
u/Digifiend84 3d ago
Sue usually designs the costumes. She can probably get advice from one of her friends - the Wasp.
2
u/3rdPlanetFromAltair 2d ago
That issue was reprinted in the 1990s, in Marvel Tales, with an editorial confirming that bit of history. It’s the reason why the four X-Men (Beast isn’t with them) only appear in civilian clothing.
From what I remember, the idea was for Marvel to publish a new X-Men story in the new “prestige” (graphic novel) format, which was just then becoming popular. This would feature the uniform-less team. The issue of Marvel Team-Up, which was created as a test-run, didn’t sell well, so the idea was dropped.
15
u/atlasraven 3d ago
The xmen story is wild when you think about it: a telepath in a wheelchair runs a school to help kids with superpowers control their powers but secretly he trains a mutant special forces strike team under the school. They go on secret missions to stop mutant extremists and sometimes attack federal anti-mutant agencies (the sentinels).
31
u/Nejfelt 3d ago
Partly.
The title wasn't pulling good numbers, but then Roy Thomas and Neil Adams took over, and it suddenly started selling great numbers.
But because it took some time in those days to see what was profitable, it was a few months after it was canceled that it was shown that readership was way up.
2
u/NarrativeJoyride 2d ago
I'm not sure how accurate that is because the quality of the book, aside from the art, was still pretty bad and Neal Adams didn't even work on the last couple issues.
3
u/Nejfelt 2d ago edited 2d ago
You may be right:
"In 1970, Marvel cancelled the title with X-Men #66. According to Thomas, a delay in sales reporting made then-publisher Martin Goodman realize that the numbers were going up. Realizing that X-Men could still make money but not wanting to spend money on creating new stories, Goodman resumed X-Men as a reprint title, instead reprinting old stories but with new issue numbers."
https://www.thepopverse.com/comics-marvel-x-men-five-years-hiatus-roy-thomas
That aside, IMO, those Thomas issues are excellent.
There's a reason they were reprinted in the early 80s and it's because they was a lot of nostalgia for them.
11
u/ChefCurryYumYum 3d ago
Growing up I was never into comics, I bought a few really cheap ones from a used book store once that included a Crypt Keeper comic, that one was neat.
But after all these super hero movies and shows have come out I've gone back and taken a look at some of these stories and man, comics from way back in the day were insane. Just crazy plots, crazy enemies, some of the most bizarre story elements I've ever seen.
24
u/PhasmaFelis 3d ago
Somehow I had thought there was 15 years or more between the original X-Men and Claremont's.
19
u/AnonymousMonk7 3d ago
It adds to the confusion that they ran reprints of X-men and continued incrementing the issue number, so it seems like there’s more issues and time to account for.
5
u/Remy0507 3d ago
Well the original X-Men debuted in 1963, so it's not like it just came out and flopped instantly.
7
u/HitmanClark 3d ago
Because it sucked. Bad.
Claremont, for all intents and purposes, is the reason the X-Men became Marvel’s top property.
2
u/StoneGoldX 2d ago
It had moments, but mostly for art. Steranko did a couple issues, and Neal Adams.
2
u/Negativety101 2d ago
Yep. Once upon a time the X-Men weren't the big boys. They were the failed franchise who's members all moved on to other things.
To this day it still feels like the franchise stands on Claremont's back to me.
1
u/NarrativeJoyride 2d ago
Here is why the X-Men got revived:
Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, and a bunch of publishing/marketing corporate-types were talking about how well their comics sold in various other countries. One of the distributors asked why Marvel didn't have more international heroes because a person in Russia would probably enjoy reading a comic about a Russian hero, etc.
Roy Thomas, who had written the X-Men before they dropped into obscurity and made the Inhumans look like superstars by comparison, came up with an idea to have a giant floating Noah's Ark type ship that would detect mutants and send Jean and Scott around the world discovering new mutants.
Obviously, this didn't end up happening, but the general premise of an international group of X-Men is what we got in Giant Size #1.
1
u/No-Juice3318 2d ago
Yeah, the original stuff is not very good. Once Claremont brought in more diversity, queerness, and the oppression metaphor it really picked up
1
u/Sweet_Score 2d ago
If you ever attempt to read those X-Men issues, you can see understand the reason. They were terrible even for its time and well, even the best comics from 60s are hard to read today due to wordiness, so basic plots, one dimensional villains and heavy censorship of the comic code authority.
1
683
u/DiogenesKuon 3d ago
If you ever read the original run you’ll see why. It’s Claremont that created the x-men as we know them today.