The Four Color Media Monitor

Laughing Place announced Marvel's publishing a special to commemorate 3 decades since the decidedly overrated X-Men crossover, Age of Apocalypse, and there may be a followup to it awaiting release:

Marvel Comics has announced a special one-shot to commemorate the 30th anniversary of one of the most ambitious and beloved comic book events of the 1990s, Age of Apocalypse! [...]

This release serves as a perfect entry point for new readers and a nostalgic trip for longtime fans, just ahead of the upcoming Age of Revelation event and the sequel series X-Men of Apocalypse by Jeph Loeb and Simone Di Meo.

Oh, and Loeb, one of the most overrated writers with a resume that could be described as all style but no substance is involved in this would-be party. Personally, I don't see what's so great about a whole big, inflated What If? storyline, that does little more than explore an alternate timeline where Magneto becomes leader of the X-Men instead of Charles Xavier. Loeb himself wrote at least a few of DC's most overrated tales in the early 2000s, like a Batman story called Hush, and then went on to work in TV and film, not unlike a few other scribes of his sort (Allen Heinberg, in example), and what truly did he do for comicdom, whether serious or just simple escapism? Almost nothing much, and it's unlikely he'll do so now. And the way Age of Apocalypse was built at the expense of Xavier's son with Gabrielle Haller, Daniel, was also quite insulting to the intellect.

A writer at Comic Watch is gushing over this news, along with the prelude titled Legion Quest, and says:

Charles Xavier died in 1995, and everything changed. Every X book came to a screeching halt. Nothing quite like this had happened before, and X-Men fans collectively shouted, “WTF!” Thirty years have passed, and Age of Apocalypse still reigns as one of the best and most memorable X events ever. For me it remains the gold standard of all comic book events. So what better time than the 30th anniversary to review, gush over, critique, and otherwise talk about Age of Apocalypse?

Well I'm sorry, but there was nothing much memorable about stories like these at the time, which only served to demonstrate how merit was on the decline even then. This is exactly what some won't admit went wrong in the 1990s, because to certain PC advocates, the only problem is productions like the Marvel Swimsuit Specials. Also note how they don't admit Scott Lobdell was a mediocre writer with few stories in his portfolio that were any good, and if memory serves, he hasn't worked on X-Men books since 2001, though of course, he's mostly retired now.

Here's some more from Comic Watch, sugarcoating the switch of sides:

Magneto was not the only one to switch sides, of course. A few villains ended up on the side of the angels–the biggest and most surprising being Sabretooth. The writers didn’t really neuter him, though. He’s still a “kill first, no questions later” kind of guy. X-Men Alpha also offers a look at three wild cards. Logan and Jean are off on their own, working with the humans in Europe, independent of the X-Men. And Angel runs a club and is loyal mostly to money and personal safety. But the big surprises are all the characters reimagined as villains.

The most shocking change isn’t even a hero that turned evil in Age of Apocalypse. Instead, it’s a villain who became strangely reasonable–at least relative to the original timeline. Sinister is by no means on some kind of redemptive journey in Age of Apocalypse, but he also isn’t out to see the world destroyed–something Apocalypse himself has no problem with.

Sinister has also taken on a kind of father figure role with Scott Summers. As evil mutant henchmen vying for control of Apocalypse’s empire go, Sinister really isn’t so bad.

The Summers brothers going bad is somehow not surprising. Sinister is connected to Scott’s past. And even in the mid-90s, Alex is already written as a jerk with a sometimes dubious moral compass. The fun factor in the Summers’ switch in loyalties is the dynamic of Alex being above Scott in the chain of command. Age of Apocalypse was and still is one of the very few times that Scott isn’t in charge (discounting Xavier’s presence as he almost never led in the field). Yet even here, Scott’s self-righteous streak remains intact.

Factor X and Gambit and the X-Ternals feature still more good guys gone bad. The final count of heroes turned villains is much higher than the reverse. With more backstory there could be an interesting nature vs. nurture discussion to be had. There’s something of that here with Sinister and Scott. But in most cases the writers don’t go that deep.

Then there’s McCoy. No original timeline hero became as truly evil as he did. At first a Hank McCoy who experiments on and tortures living people seems implausible if not impossible. But with only a few moments’ thought it becomes believable. The real Hank McCoy experimented on himself, after all–that’s how he became blue and furry in the first place. As Legion Quest drew to a close, Hank ruminated on how he had devoted his life to science, viewing it as the solution to all problems. The only difference between the two McCoys is a sense of morality (and the original timeline version even by this point had made a few dubious choices). In any case, morality is not something that the Age of Apocalypse has in abundance.

Seriously, I don't find it appealing how this storyline made it look like villains as bad as Sabretooth and Sinister are goodies, while X-Men like Cyclops and Havok are the baddies. And it goes without saying that to use Alex's characterization as justification for this overrated tommyrot is disgraceful. Again, this was little more than a widely protracted What If? storyline that could've been explored in just 2 issues of such an anthology, yet they interrupted everything for at least 3 months just for this insult to the intellect? Also, if morality is lacking here, surely something hasn't gone wrong?

It's terrible how some of the most questionable storylines often end up being those reexplored in later years, like the Phoenix Saga. Stories like those ruined Jean Grey as a character, and Age of Apocalypse is no better. Why is this being celebrated in retrospect, but not the 1994 wedding of Jean and Scott? Why not even Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson's wedding? It's a disgrace how alternate timelines exploring how goodies are portrayed as villains seem to interest modern writers and editors far more, because all that did is obscure why heroism is a far preferable vision. If there's any X-Men storyline I'd rather avoid, if and when it's reprinted in Epic Collection archives, Age of Apocalypse would surely make a good example for skipping. It was a waste of paper 3 decades ago, and remains so even now.

Labels: bad editors, dreadful writers, golden calf of death, golden calf of villainy, history, marvel comics, msm propaganda, violence, X-Men