Marvel Comics’ X-Men relaunch From The Ashes isn’t even a year old, and already three of the major titles, X-Force, NYX, and X-Factor are getting canceled due to low sales.
Last year, Marvel Comics underwent an X-men line-wide reboot called From The Ashes after the Krakoa-era storylines failed to resonate with fans after Jonathan Hickman’s departure. Books were struggling as people hardly recognized the X-Men anymore, with writers focused on identity politics rather than promoting good stories that made sense within the X-Men.
Fans were worried when editor Tom Brevoort announced the relaunch on his X profile, voicing concern for Marvel potentially doubling down on the politics that have ruined several of their popular franchises.
Brevoort decided to virtue signal, boding ill for the X-Men franchise’s future in his passive-aggressive response to fans’ X-Men burnout, stating, “Well, this X-Men graphic sure brought people out in force. One reminder that I thought wouldn’t be necessary: express whatever opinion you like, but if you show up with homophobia or bigotry or hate speak of any sort, it’ll be an instant block.”
One fan furthered concern about leftist politics being central to the story, to which Brevoort implies it will be a focus of X-Men under his tenure. “It’s X-Men. The message is the premise,” Tom Brevoort tweeted.
Sure enough, Brevoort maintained his word and hired activists like Eve L. Ewing and Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly to write different projects. There have been a number of woke issues with the books that readers have balked at in X-Men, including turning Nightcrawler into a furry, Kitty Pryde into a lesbian, and in the case of books like NYX, the entire book is some preachy virtue signal that’s been unreadable.
NYX received its cancelation notice and writer Jackson Lanzing posted to X with a video “On the future of NYX, Giant-Size X-Men, and our favorite new mutant, Kamala Khan.”
In the video he says, "As has become readily apparent from the Marvel solicitations, NYX, the current book on the From The Ashes line over a Marvel is ending an issue 10. That's obviously really sad for a lot of reasons we've loved working on this book, we've loved telling stories about Kamala and Sophie and Laura and Anole and David and Julian and Synch and all of these other characters. It really is just been an honor to come in after the Krakoan era and tell a story about rebuilding your life, existing and surviving in a hostile world, and learning how to create home when the rest of the world just wants you to be gone. This is a story that's very personal to Collin and I.”
He continues, “It's a story that really means a lot to us and one that we've spent a lot of time putting our heart and souls into, and we're just so thankful to every person who took time to read it, who took time to engage with it, who told us what they loved or what they didn't. To every fan of Julian who spent the last eight months wondering if we knew what the hell we were doing thank you for sticking with us and for those who didn't, I hope you read as you read issue 8. In the meantime I just want you to know that issue 10 is not a cliffhanger ending, it is the ending of the book. We've known about this for a while, we've known that we can put a proper cap on it. And while we would have loved to have told more and more stories, I'm really proud we were to take all of the plots we'd written and give them a satisfying ending, All except for one."
Then Lanzing says, “Because starting in May on Free Comic Book Day and then pushing forward bringing Kamala Khan on into her own journey of mutantdom and mute acceptance in Giant Size X-Men. Now this series is going to run us through the entirety of X-Men history, from the All New All Different era to Dark Phoenix, to Age Of Apocalypse to House Of M and finally back to the present. Each with different artists on these oversized one shots.”
“It's really just an incredible canvas and an incredible opportunity to take Kamala on a journey she really deserves to go on, understanding the full extent of her mutant identity and the full extent of her ability to be an X-Man. Now it may look like we're running roughshod over X-history, but I love these books I love these stories, let me tell you we are not here to break our continuity apart. What we are really looking to do is to take this character we all love and show her what it means to be a mutant in the most spectacular and breathtaking way with some of the best artists in comics,” he continues.
Lanzing concludes, “Adam Kubert is leaving it all on the field here guys, I can't wait for you to see what he's doing. So to everybody who stuck with us on NYX. thank you so much. For anybody who never picked up NYX, I hope you'll join us on Giant Size X-Men. We're making it fully accessible to new readers, but I do think it's going to make you want to come back and rehread where this all started. So from the Hive Mind to you we're gonna keep working to tell great stories and bring you back to the comic shop every week"
It seems that Marvel is attempting to try to trick readers into getting into Lanzing and Kelly’s work with NYX by relabeling it Giant Size X-Men with an all-new #1 issue to see if they can parlay the book into something. It is of note that Marvel has not promised a series spinning out of this, however.
Meanwhile, on the CBR forums, Geoff Thorne responded letting people know X-Force is also getting canceled. "yeah. sadly… we're done at #10. Not sure why… You are going to learn a LOT about Sage next issue. And also have her mystery go deeper. it ain't going to be what anybody expects…. don't think this version off X-Force can come back (I had to make a LOT of changes to close it out on #10)… I will say, I was pretty burnt out on comics fandoms after Green Lantern. You folks and the larger X community (EVEN the ones who didn't much like our X-Force) reminded me why making super-hero comics is a worthwhile thing. Even though the money's crap. Still worthwhile. Decency in comics fandom? Who would have thought it was still possible? With the exception of a couple of YouTube channels, I didn't. So, I'm thanking all of you for bringing me back. I've got one more tidbit coming and, after that? We'll see. Two more to go. I think you're going to have a ball with them. We're certainly not limping off the field."
It is of note that he complains about the pay, as well as signaling he knows people didn’t like the book, yet also says he doesn’t know why it’s been canceled.
A third book people have loathed in this series is X-Factor. While there’s been no discussion about it, the sales, according to local comic shops, are in a similar boat as X-Force and NYX, making it appear as if this book is canceled as well.
With these announcements, one wonders how long Exceptional X-Men by Eve L. Ewing is going to last, as readers are equally frustrated by her mistreatment of the characters as they have been in these books.
What do you think of NYX, X-Factor, and X-Force getting canceled before even a year is up on an X-Men reboot? Leave a comment and let us know.
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... and to dust you shall return.
I cancelled them too. In 2008.