RecolleXtions 001

Baby, let's put the "sex" in "X"

For those of you who didn’t know -- and, these days, how could you possibly? -- I wrote the UNCANNY X-MEN series for Marvel Comics from 2001 to 2003. What follows is what I remember about how it all went down. Keep in mind, all memories are completely subjective, which means this is all from my specific and unique point of view. So here we go...

I guess I should kick things off by providing a little necessary context. In this case, it’s the very early days of the Bill Jemas/Joe Quesada era at Marvel Comics -- sometimes affectionately referred to as NuMarvel, circa the year 2000. Even with the benefit of hindsight, I can say it was an absolutely bizarre time to be a professional comicbook writer (which I was).

Out of personal, creative frustration, I’d already left the Bob Harras-era Marvel -- where I’d broken into the business three years earlier and had already written comicbooks like CABLE, INCREDIBLE HULK, DEATHLOK, X-MEN: CHILDREN OF THE ATOM and a fistful of other things -- when Jemas/Quesada took over. I was working at DC and Wildstorm by then, so I basically watched it happen from the outside. But I remember liking what Jemas had to say about Marvel’s end-of-the-millennium output, that -- aside from a few notable exceptions -- they’d disappeared too far up their own ass and were no longer telling dramatically coherent and, more importantly, emotionally resonant stories (something I’d also complained about when I worked there). I wanted comicbooks to have a bigger, wider audience, too… and I knew it was out there. So, if these brand-new big shots were going to try and do something about that, then more power to ‘em. There was certainly a feeling in the air that it was finally time to push the envelope a little bit, in terms of mainstream-targeted content.

I remember having a quick phone call with Bill Jemas early on, when he first got the job (and, I believe, before Quesada clawed his way into Bob Harras’ job). I’m not sure why he called. Maybe he was just touching base with current professionals who had just recently split from Marvel (to get their side of the story?). Maybe he’d seen me in WIZARD Magazine. Maybe not. Regardless, he seemed to know a bit of my work history. I remember him telling me, had he been there just a year or two earlier, when I was doing the X-MEN: CHILDREN OF THE ATOM mini-series (with legendary artist, Steve Rude), that project would’ve been incorporated into the kickoff of what would soon become the fabled Ultimate line. I directly related to Jemas my reasons for leaving Marvel -- because I’d gotten frustrated with the previous editorial culture -- and he assured me that his arrival would signal a definite change. And for the most part, once I did come back, he was as good as his word. I’m not sure if everyone had that experience with him (okay, I’m actually more certain that they didn’t). Other than that, I didn’t have much contact with Bill Jemas. I think, on some level, I knew better. It wasn’t a personal thing, I just think it’s never a good idea for creatives to get too chummy with upper management… unless you want to take their job (which I didn’t).

In any case, it was probably a few months later that I was hanging out with Grant Morrison during one of their many trips to sunny Los Angeles. We smoked out in my highly inappropriate (for LA) cargo van and they told me all about the pending X-gig -- which they’d just agreed to do -- and their plan for the series. It all sounded pretty goddamn exciting. Little did I know that, through luck and timing and a tiny bit of politicking (mostly by others on my behalf), I would end up on the other big X-title. But that’s exactly what happened. Where Grant would be writing the re-titled NEW X-MEN series (which they would often spell in e-mail correspondence as NEWXMEN)… I landed the UNCANNY X-MEN gig.

NEVER BEFORE REVEALED: in some of Grant’s initial discussions with Marvel, they posited simply replacing the “Uncanny” in what was still the core title with “New” (with Grant pointing out that “Uncanny” as a descriptor was completely outdated). So, Grant pitched that they would write the “adjectiveless” X-MEN series and I would end up being charged with writing NEW X-MEN. Can you imagine?! It certainly speaks to Grant’s generosity as a creative collaborator. Luckily, saner heads prevailed and the correct writers were matched with the correct series titles…

So, let me try and get out ahead of something here. It’s probably news to absolutely no one familiar with this run that, at the time, me and the X-Men were not exactly a natural fit. The truth is… I was never that much of a fan growing up. In retrospect, I was a John Byrne fan. I was a Paul Smith fan. I was an Alan Davis fan. Whenever those artists were drawing UNCANNY X-MEN, I would read it. Beyond that, I would still buy it, off and on, but it was never that much of a favorite. I was an AVENGERS kid. Not to mention, Chris Claremont had such an iron grip writing the title during the entirety of my formative years, just the idea of anyone else ever writing UNCANNY X-MEN was unfathomable (I think, if my count is correct, I was only the fifth writer to write that series in twenty-six years… of course, there’s probably been at least another dozen or so in the twenty years since me). So, when the gig came up, it wasn’t like I had a backlog of X-Men ideas percolating from childhood, ready to unleash upon the world. I had a few vague notions, but not a ton of passion for them (in retrospect, I think I’d kinda blown my wad on CHILDREN OF THE ATOM). But, even if I had been completely conscious of all that at the time, it wasn’t going to keep me from accepting the job when it was offered. Bottom line, it was a major career move for me. It’s not like I was getting offered any other big franchises (granted, I’d only recently landed the gig writing ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN for DC, so I guess I was kind of on a roll). In those days, if you wanted to be a full-time professional in the comicbook business, it was precisely the type of opportunity you had to take advantage of, if and when they ever came around.

And it certainly worked. Aside from the modest royalties the book still earned, it briefly placed me onto the so-called “A-list” of mainstream comicbook writers, which opened quite a few doors. So, y’know, no regrets. Because, I’ll tell you right here and now, being a writer* in the late 90’s/early 2000’s meant being at the very epicenter of the industry.

* So, a quick aside concerning that very brief, “writer-driven” era in mainstream comics. It was, at first, a reaction to the Image Comics aesthetic that dominated the early-to-mid 90’s (the emphasis being on flashy, attention-grabbing page layouts, less so on actual narrative and story logic). That, in turn, got tied to a lot of bad feelings in relation to the speculator boom/bust and, unfortunately, a lot of artists became the scapegoats for everything that was supposedly wrong with the business. Subsequently, the mainstream comicbook industry needed new “stars”, and writers -- no strangers to ego ourselves -- were happy to fill that vacuum. Especially a lot of the Vertigo writers, whose personalities were already starting to connect with mainstream pop culture, and were now getting jobs writing big superhero franchises. Additionally, even higher profile writers from other media like film and television -- Kevin Smith and JMS, to name just two from that period -- were being brought in, and became an important part of the sales marketing.

Interestingly, the final component that elevated writers of that era was the advent of the Internet, which started out as much more text-based (as opposed to graphics-based), so writers could take the early advantage, really shine and create effective online personas that could sometimes translate into higher sales. It was a perfect storm. I couldn’t say if it was better or worse, but I know I certainly benefited from it.

So back to being scouted as the writer on UNCANNY X-MEN. I assume they finally hired me precisely because I had positioned myself as something of a budding comicbook iconoclast. In those days, that was the brand I was building. Go figure. So, they didn’t need to push me to be provocative. And unlike my first Marvel go-round, there would be no editorial rewriting this time (as there had been during Bob Harras’ tenure, sometimes to a ridiculous degree). X-editor Mark Powers in particular was well aware of my gripes against the previous regime, so he was very hands off, in terms of any deep creative interaction. In other words, they gave me plenty of rope to hang myself with.

In fact, Grant and I had the kind of freedom that subsequent generations of WFH creators might have difficulty believing. We redesigned logos, we picked our casts, we worked with the artists to redesign the X-uniforms, we designed covers, we just put our personal stink all over those books. I think it was the first and last time that the actual creatives had that much control over what was then the highest selling franchise in the industry.

Like I said, I’d met and hung out with Grant a few years prior to either one of us landing our respective X-gigs, but I’d been reading their work and loving it long before that. So just getting to read their NEW X-MEN scripts before anyone else was one of the main perks of the job. Working alongside Grant was a breeze. Like I said already, they’re absolutely generous and open as a collaborator. Not that we really collaborated. But, let me be clear, that was mostly my choice. We communicated, and that was more than enough. If anything, I made damn sure to stay out of Grant’s way, because I was so completely enamored by what they were doing on NEW X-MEN and I didn’t want to risk diluting it in any way, shape or form with whatever bonehead ideas I was coming up with.

Grant had also coined a particularly effective term -- “superconsistency” -- as a way for both creators and readers to wrap their brains around what was then viewed as the unwieldy concept of long-term continuity (which, like me, Grant had an obvious love for while simultaneously acknowledging its limitations when treated too lazily). It was also a method of allowing our titles (as well as other books in the X-line) to comfortably co-exist while still doing their own things. It all sounded pretty goddamned great to me.

There was only one official creative meetup -- which was referred to as the "X-summit" -- before the launch. It was me, Grant, Frank Quitely and Ian Churchill being flown to NYC on Marvel’s dime, put up at what was then the New York Helmsley hotel, meeting up at the Marvel offices, putting in some face time with the editors at that time. Honestly, aside from the requisite WIZARD Magazine interview and photo shoot that we did for PR purposes, I was never clear on why we were even having this get-together, other than the purely social benefits. We simply informed editorial what we were going to do… and they mostly nodded and smiled and assumed we could execute our ideas. As a general hang, the four of us made the most of it, bombing around Manhattan in the freezing cold and slipping away from our Marvel handlers so we could, y'know, actually talk about stuff.

Ending up in the hotel bar after hours, things got a little strange. Grant already had their first year pretty much mapped out. I was still figuring things out (one could argue that I never did figure things out). But the wild ideas were still flying. If you look at the sketch above (from late 2000, on which I was working out the new logo and a subsequent cover design idea), you’ll see a joke pitch that reads “Xavier f***s a dude”. I forget if it was Grant or me who facetiously pitched that out as a so-called “wild idea” for the relaunch, but I remember laughing our asses off for about a half-hour over it.

During that same conversation, the idea for the X-Ranch -- a mutant brothel -- formed in my fevered brain and when I brought it up, the response from my fellow creators was… enthusiastic, to say the least. Mainly because none of them thought I'd actually go through with it. That was all the ammo I needed. It was like a dare... take the weirdest idea imaginable and actually write it into a top-selling franchise. I knew we were in a unique position where our editors weren't going to put up any significant roadblocks to whatever we came up with. Like I explained above, being fully entrenched in the "writer-driven" era of mainstream comics, we had a lot of power (again, probably much more so than any writers at Marvel or DC would ever be given today). So, I never thought twice about what was "appropriate" vs. what was "inappropriate". I just went for it.

(One thing I can tell you, it was never about being sexually provocative. Not completely, anyway. The X-Ranch as a concept -- and Stacy X as a character -- was meant to evoke a much bigger idea...)

Having said that, the X-books were consistently the highest selling books in the industry, and had been since the early ‘80’s. But as far as we were concerned, they were not sacred cows. In fact, we wanted to plug them directly into the mainstream currents of pop culture as much as possible. Personally, I was willing to do whatever it took. Sex, drugs and rock n’ roll were a lot closer to the zeitgeist than telling yet another story about another long, lost Summers brother or indulging in some other meaningless X-continuity porn (he said, unashamedly being a self-professed lover of that self-same continuity porn in many other areas).

Obviously, Jemas and Quesada weren’t afraid of a little controversy. They made their bones stirring up shit. I guess that gave us added license, too. Ultimately, I don’t think those two ever paid much attention to what I was doing, since Grant was obviously the marquee name and NEW X-MEN was undoubtedly going to be the big balls book.

One week from today… the actual run begins. God help us all.

But in the next newsletter, we’ll take a little peak behind the scenes of my return to the X-books, the new WEAPON X-MEN series.

Joe Casey

USA