Why X-Men: Grand design Is the X-Franchise’s Best Idea in a Decade 

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The X-Men, almost more than any other superheroes, are inextricably tied to a creator that made them a sensation. The Chris Claremont-led era is so huge, so famous, and so good, every single X-Men title or run since has responded to it in some way. Even characters and books that are somewhat divorced from the main X-Men continuity — like Magneto’s recent solo series, or

While impressive, it’s also inherently limiting, because to anyone trying to jump into the X-Men through consulting various guides, be they online here at CBR, elsewhere on the Internet, or in print, they’ll inevitably be pointed back to the Claremont-led era. And not every new reader likes or wants to dive into forty-plus year-old comics right away.

SDCC: Ed Piskor Reveals X-Men: Grand Design For Marvel

Which is why Marvel’s announcement at Comic-Con International that Hip Hop Family Tree cartoonist Ed Piskor is writing and drawing the upcoming miniseries

is the smartest thing the publisher has done for the franchise in at least a decade.

especially (which is available from Fantagraphics, and some older steps are available on Boing Boing) — as well as his Twitter, you know that Bronze Age 

comics are embedded in his creative DNA. That’s not unusual for creators his age; essentially every writer and artist working in comics today has encountered them at some point.

So the news that Piskor and Marvel have come together to tell a six-issue story, with each chapter covering a full decade of X-Men continuity, is welcome for three major reasons. Let’s tackle them in order, shall we?

The X-Men, Even In The Internet Age, Have The Biggest Barrier To Entry In Superhero Comics. 

as a child, has read his fair share of Wolverine comics, and lives for new episodes of Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men: The X-Men are the toughest characters in superhero comics to get into. Besides the fact that every post-Claremont run is touching on that era in some manner, there are constant events and roster turnovers. It seems like every new creative team introduces a new team of mutants or villains to call their own.

The sheer amount of mutants running around the Marvel Universe is so confusing that the publisher, in the form of a heartbroken and angry Scarlet Witch at the end of 2005’s 

event, literally de-powered nearly all but 198 mutants and kept it that way for a good long while. To make things even more confusing, the current era of the X-Men line began with the original five — Beast, Cyclops, Angel, Marvel Girl and Iceman — time traveling to the present day, where they’re currently running around.

and other resources on hand, this stuff is so, so hard to keep track of. (And I say that as someone who wrote about the entire 30+ year history of Transformers comics.) But now, anyone looking to get a sense of X-history without digging through Marvel Unlimited will be able to simply go straight to 

When the collected edition of this miniseries — which starts in December — eventually comes out, bookstores and comic shops would do well to stock it and talk it up as “a crash course on the X-Men.” That pitch sells itself.

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