Marc Guggenheim covers for Brian Bendis and Scott Lobdell
During a CBR interview with Guggenheim, who's worked in both comics and movies, he told them:
This specific X-Men book is a unique one, because it has an all-female cast, which has been the mission statement of its run up to this point. It looks like you're keeping that intact -- how significant is that aspect of the book to you?All the writers after Claremont? Not all, I'm afraid. Brian Bendis certainly hasn't. Come to think of it, neither did Scott Lobdell. Whether in terms of strength or intelligence, those are two writers who certainly haven't done the X-women justice. But obviously, you couldn't expect Guggenheim to admit that.
What I love about the adjectiveless X-Men, as I guess I'm calling them now -- to me, they just happen to be X-Men, and they just happen to all be female. I think it's a testament to how the X-books have really always been written. Certainly, Chris Claremont set the tone -- he always wrote these incredibly strong female characters, and all the writers who have come after him have honored that tradition. Here we are several decades later, and it's completely possible to have an entire team constituted of only female members, and have it not feel forced, or not feel like a gimmick, because of course they're all X-Men, and of course they're all strong characters, because that's the way women have been written in the pages of the X-Men for literally hundreds of issues now.
Labels: dreadful writers, marvel comics, misogyny and racism, women of marvel, X-Men
