The Birth Of The New X-Men
Considering the popularity of the X-Men nowadays, it's difficult to believe that by 1971, and after 66 issues, the X-Men weren't popular enough for Marvel to continue publishing new stories about them. Rather than cancel their book completely, however, Marvel started reprinting old stories, but continuing the numbering of the title. This continued for the next 3 1/2 years, from #67 to #93.
In 1974, Al Landau, Marvel's president, held a meeting with Stan Lee (who, by then, was Marvel's publisher) and Editor Roy Thomas. Landau had decided that Marvel needed a book with an international cast that they could export to the countries represented in the book.
Roy Thomas had been wanting to relaunch the X-Men, so he proposed that they create a new team of X-Men with characters from around the world. The idea was approved, and Thomas approached Mike Friedrich to be its writer, arranging to meet him at the Auto Pub in the General Motors building, a themed restaurant where the booths were styled like cars.
Friedrich doesn't recall much about that meeting, other than the idea was sold to him as an international team "like DC's Blackhawks." The idea was put on hiatus for a couple of months, and in the interim, Friedrich moved from New York to California. Then in September 1974, Roy Thomas left his position as Editor and was replaced by Len Wein. Friedrich discovered later that the project had moved forward without him, and was "pretty pissed-off that I'd been cut out of a writing assignment that I had helped create, but it hastened my transition over to running my own publishing company. Since starting Star*Reach was one of the smart career moves in my life, I've never had a regret. Len and Dave were totally responsible for the success that they enjoyed."
FIRST CAME WOLVERINE
Around the same time as Roy Thomas was trying to get the new X-Men off the ground, he had asked Len Wein to come up with a new villain to go up against the Hulk. He wanted the character to be Canadian and to be "short and mean." Thomas wanted to call him either Badger or Wolverine. Eventually, of course, he settled on the latter - much to Dave Cockrum's annoyance. "I resented his existence for a long time because I'd come up with a Wolverine and shown it to Roy before this Wolverine."
While they shared a name, Cockrum's Wolverine - one of a group of villains he'd come up with whilst working on the Legion of Super-Heroes at DC Comics - bore no resemblance to the character that John Romita would go on to design with Len Wein.
Wein had originally intended for Wolverine to be in his late teens - like the rest of the X-Men - and for the claws to be concealed in his gloves. As the character developed within the series, both of these ideas were dropped - he was an experienced military man, so clearly he could no longer be a teenager, and Cockrum would eventually come up with the idea that the claws were a part of Wolverine. "If the claws were in the gloves, then, in theory, anyone could have been Wolverine. So it made sense that they should be a part of him."
Len Wein knew about the plan for a new X-Men comic when he created Wolverine with John Romita, and he decided that he'd make him a mutant, so that he could be a part of the team, though he had no idea at that time that he'd end up writing the book.
But with Roy Thomas's departure, that's what happened; Wein became the Editor-in-Chief, and having been unaware of Mike Friedrich's previous involvement, he set about plotting - along with Dave Cockrum - what would become Giant Size X-Men #1.
A LEGION OF CHARACTERS
Dave Cockrum had recently started working for Marvel after a dispute at DC Comics. Whilst working on The Legion of Super-Heroes #200, he'd drawn a double-page spread that he was particularly proud of, showing the wedding of Bouncing Boy and Duo Damsel, and had requested that the artwork be returned to him. His editor, Murray Boltinoff, agreed, but when Carmine Infantino, who was then the Editorial Director, heard about it, he denied Cockrum's request. Cockrum decided to quit in protest, seeking work at Marvel Comics instead.
As well as his talent as an artist, Cockrum brought with him a huge array of character designs, many of whom for which he'd worked up detailed backgrounds. While he was working on The Legion of Super-Heroes, Cockrum had provided updated costumes for many of the characters. His editor, Murray Boltinoff, was somewhat conservative, so Cockrum hadn't been able to make all the changes he'd wanted to, but the Legion was starting to look a little more contemporary. As well as new costumes, Cockrum had created dozens of new characters - it was just something he loved to do.
Among those characters was a demonic-looking creature called Nightcrawler. Originally created to be an actual demon from Hell called Balshazaar, he later became a being from another dimension whose people were the source of the legends of demons. Cockrum offered him to Murray Boltinoff as a potential Legionnaire, but Boltinoff decided he looked too scary and turned him down. The Legion's loss was the X-Men's gain. Len Wein gave Nightcrawler his German background and Cockrum his swashbuckling personality, even having him disguise himself as Errol Flynn when in public, using his "image inducer."
.jpg)
A STORM BREWING
Cockrum's other characters included Typhoon, who could control the weather, the shape-shifting Black Cat, and a winged alien named Quetzal (whose face was based on Cockrum's cat, Sheba.) Cockrum decided that there had been too many cat-based superheroines (Marvel had recently launched The Cat, who then evolved into Tigra), but he loved the costume he'd designed for Black Cat, so Roy Thomas suggested that they give that character weather powers instead. Taking Quetzal's feline features, Black Cat's costume, and Typhoon's cape and powers, they created Storm.
The final touch was white hair, which Len Wein was concerned might make her look "like somebody's grandmother." "Trust me," said Cockrum, "she's not going to look like a grandmother!"
Colossus started life as a character that Dave Cockrum had created in college called Mr. Steel. He was included in the X-Men to be big and strong, but beyond that and being Russian, he didn't have much of a personality. When a reprint of Giant Size X-Men #1 required a back-up feature that showed Kitty Pryde giving Illyana Rasputin a tour of the X-Mansion, Cockrum needed to show Piotr's room, and decided to include an artist's easel with an unfinished painting. Thus, Colossus became the strongman "with the soul of a poet."
Len Wein had intended for Colossus to be the star of the new X-Men, much like Ben Grimm, The Thing, was in the Fantastic Four. He was given a primary coloured costume, and was featured prominently on many of the early covers. Once Chris Claremont took over as the writer, however, the focus shifted elsewhere, and Wolverine was the character who captured the imagination of the readers.
LAST IN, FIRST OUT
Thunderbird was "created to die" according to Len Wein. "Our theory was that this told the audience, "Don't get too complacent. In this book, anything can happen.""
Dave Cockrum later regretted this. "He was a great-looking character. But we presented him as an obnoxious loudmouth, and Wolverine was much better at that. Also, he was fast and strong and a tracker - all of which Wolverine could do."
Thunderbird died in only his second appearance, but as superheroes tend to do, he was subsequently resurrected.
EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW
The final members of the team were to be Sunfire, Cyclops, Marvel Girl and Banshee. Jean Grey would leave the team after their first adventure, but would return shortly after. Once again, it was Dave Cockrum who had the idea for upgrading her powers and giving her a new codename.
Banshee didn't get a redesign, but Cockrum drew him younger than he had previously been portrayed so that he fit in more with the team's age-group.
THE PLOT THICKENS
The plotting sessions for the first issue went on for several days, with contributions from whoever happened to be in the office at that time. Cockrum remembered he and Len Wein were joined by Scott Edelman, who was an Assistant Editor at the time, and Chris Claremont, who was Len's assistant, among others.
After at least one false start, the final plot was hammered out, and Dave Cockrum went to work on Giant Size X-Men #1. The plot was fairly simple; one by one, we're introduced to the new X-Men and given a display of their mutant abilities, then they're recruited by Professor X for an undisclosed mission. Once the team is assembled, they're informed that the original X-Men have gone missing on the island of Krakoa in the South Pacific, where they'd gone to investigate a powerful mutant. Cyclops, though, was able to escape and return to the X-Mansion. Once there, they discover that the island is the mutant, and it has imprisoned the original X-Men so it can feed off their mutant energies. It released Cyclops so that he would bring more mutants for it to feed from. Chris Claremont contributed the idea of Polaris using her magnetic powers to shoot Krakoa into space, which is how they defeat the island.
Gil Kane drew the main part of the cover of Giant Size X-Men #1, with the new X-Men bursting out of the page, and Dave Cockrum drew the original team reacting behind them. Kane misunderstood Wolverine's face mask though, eschewing the original version's whiskered motif for a black cowl, and extending the "ears." Dave Cockrum liked it so much, he kept the design.
By this time, word had gotten out into the fan community that Marvel were planning a relaunch of the X-Men. The book had never been a particularly strong seller, but clearly it had some die-hard fans. Letters of protest began to arrive at the office, the fans outraged that the old cast were being replaced, and even a couple of death threats were sent. Marie Severin drew this cartoon, showing Chris Claremont, Len Wein and Dave Cockrum being burned at the stake.
THE BEST LAID PLANS
The original plan was for the book to be a Giant Sized quarterly, and the second issue had already been plotted and drawn by the time the first issue hit the newsstands. However, with Marvel winding down their Giant Size issues, Len Wein decided to continue the new X-Men's adventures in the ongoing book, maintaining the original numbering. Therefore, his plot for Giant Size X-Men #2 was cut in half, and with the addition of a couple of new pages, it became X-Men #94 & 95. Chris Claremont provided the scripts for those two issues, over Wein's plots, and with his new responsibilities as Editor-in-Chief, Wein had to cut back on his writing assignments. The other book he was writing at that time was The Hulk, his all-time favourite character. "When push came to shove, I stayed with the book I loved."
Chris Claremont would go on to write the new X-Men for the next 17 years, helping to make it Marvel's biggest-selling title, and spawning numerous spin-offs along the way.
Asked if he ever regretted leaving the X-Men, Wein replied, "Tremendously! I didn't really regret it until the day Chris bought a plane with X-Men money, back in the heyday of big sales. That was the day I thought, "that was a big mistake on my part...""
The success of the comics led to the film franchise from 20th Century Fox, but neither Wein, Cockrum or Claremont received credit on any of the films. The only comic creators who received credit were Stan Lee and Jack Kirby for creating the X-Men, but after the first film, even their names were dropped from the credits, with Lee just listed as producer.
Comments
Post a Comment