Short version: AvX was a full-on heel turn whee the X-Men jeopardized the safety of the earth on a wish and a dream, and the Avengers were 100% unambiguously in the right from pretty much the first page.

W&TXM was a nominal co-flagship when Jason Aaron was writing it. But even then, the lighter tone was at odds with what people expected from a mainline X-Book. Post AvX the momentum shifted definitively to the two Bendis books.

The problem is systematic - not just something Bendis specifically did, but the accumulation of years' worth of bad decisions that add up to the current mess. I tried to get that across in the piece - if I didn't, that's on me.

Have you *seen* the publicity shots of Psylocke and Archangel's costumes?

At the tale end of Marjorie Liu's run on ASTONISHING X-MEN she wrote a story that began with all of Bobby Drake's ex-girlfriends getting together. Every relationship was ultimately unsatisfying and unconvincing. This was before Bendis' story came out, but it was a funny little bit of foreshadowing for Liu's story to…

I cannot argue with that logic.

Bleeding Cool is not a credible source for what color the sky is.

Your first point is fair. Part of my reasoning comes from discussions with retailer friends who have seen X-Men sales slide without having a central flagship with all the main characters in it. It has hurt the books publicly.

Jumping from what you say - which is true, except for the bit about the X-Men movies having fallen on hard times (which is a funny way to interpret DAYS OF FUTURE PAST'S $750 million worldwide gross) - to being able to read the minds of Marvel editorial who are fiendishly trying to sabotage the X-Men and punish…

I think he'd probably rather chew his own arm off . . .

If I'd had another 1000 words I might have gone into this - it's a big reason why the end of the Bendis run reads so poorly even though it was a 100% intentional decision.

If you're reading this -

Nah, I didn't read a lot of these until relatively recently and I quite liked the lot, and found stuff to enjoy throughout the run. Nostalgia ain't the culprit. There are some good books here - tho, maybe not good "STAR WARS" if you're used to the way the property is managed nowadays.

The books were released a few years before Gaiman's SANDMAN existed. Probably a reference to Go Nagai,the cartoonist who made DEVIL-MAN (among others). Martin was an "early adopter" in terms of manga influences, so it's a good bet.

Rereading the whole run for this article, I remember that letter specifically. I am glad you grew up, still, I had to admire the chutzpah required to slag off Williamson like that, and the editors' good humor about printing it.

They didn't have those back then. It wasn't until the late 90s that movies started to be "a thing" at the con.

Only 2,500 words, a lot to cover.

In this case it wasn't so much a case of having outtakes - my first draft was 500 or so words over the max. It wasn't necessarily a lot of factoids that got cut, just a gradual winnowing to try to fit the article in a length that didn't piss off my editors. There was a bit more preamble about the movie that I cut, for…

I reread Lippincott's post three times and I must admit that aside from asserting that Thomas takes more credit for SW coming to Marvel than is due, I am having trouble understanding exactly what many of his points are.

Pedant.