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I'm going to assume that, as this is Barbelith, most of you are fans of New X-Men moreso than you are fans of the other X-titles. If you force a consistency, visual or otherwise, on the overall spread of mutant titles at Marvel, you can pretty much bet that most of Grant's ideas would probably lose out. While New X-Men is selling better than any other X-title, it is not out-selling all of the other titles combined, and the majority of X-titles seem to follow the superhero/costume trend. If Marvel were to come in and say "Okay, all of the X-titles need to be consistent," than you would find Grant's X-Men back in spandex.
If it weren't for the individual creativity the creators of each title were allowed, that Grant's X-Men would be nothing like they are. [In fact, Grant probably wouldn't have an X-Men title, at all. Nor would Peter Milligan.]
I don't read all of the X-titles. For a reason. Morrison's New X-Men and Milligan's X-Statix stand above them all because they are different from most of what has come before.
I'm not saying that the titles should exist in different "universes" so to speak, but I think each creator should have a certain amount of control over their individual comic. Otherwise, each writer would have to continuously check in with the others, or an overseeing editor or supervisor [who, most likely, would not be Grant Morrison] and the stories would become stale and convulated, as none of the writers would be allowed to do anything drastic [like Cassandra Nova, or the riot] or original without making sure all of the other writers are going to deal with it [and add their ideas and input] within the same time-frame.
Another downside to that route is that fans would suddenly find themselves having to buy each and every X-title, just to keep the story complete and straight. [Comic trends have tried this before... it was called the 1990's. The trend caused severe drop-offs in readerships because casual readers simply could not keep up with four Superman titles each month.]
[Grant's "manifesto" in the back of the first NXM trade talk about how NXM should be set up that casual readers can come in and read an arc or two without having to read every issue, so that the comic would be more accessible -especially to movie fans-. Regular readers would be rewarded with larger continual arcs that build characters, and such.]
As it stands, casual readers can pick up a single title, regularly or once in awhile, without being forced to buy every issue of every title without being too confused. If they are confused, they need to put the comic down, or pay closer attention.
"Serious" readers, as it were, should be able to handle the inconsistencies, or at least reconcile with them.
-Jared |
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