Go now if you're still trying to keep it a secret, 'kay?
Still, it's been on the New York Daily News and CBR, Topless Robot and elsewhere.
Per Marvel Editor-in-Chief Axel Alonso, “He needed to be the casualty in this story. There’s no more oh-sh-- moment that you can bring than having a son killing his father.”
Per writer Brian Bendis, “He was this thing that was just floating around the X-books, with not the same amount of gravitas that he once had. I did point out that he would matter more in death.”
Per Executive Editor Tom Brevoort, “This is about as serious and lasting a death as you’re apt to get in one of these."
Maybe this is one of those things like seeing how the sausage is made, but the behind the scenes comments say more about the death of Professor Xavier than anything in that issue. I don't enjoy a lot of the big Marvel events lately, but I think it might be because they all seem to be written with a very similiar plot beat structure...like somebody gave the Marvel Architects a book on Writing for Screenplays 101. At that point in the story, someone had to die to show stakes are high. Professor X died to add some drama, and Marvel felt he was a character they could stand to lose, at least for a while. That's all.
I'm not a huge fan of the Professor, but he deserved better than merely being a cog in the crossover mill. Mixed that metaphor there, sorry. But it's also tough to care about his death, when Marvel doesn't seem to.
Still...sooner or later...
Anyway, couple of things: I'm not entirely sure Bishop or Cable are dead dead in current continuity. I think Forge is, but I didn't dig him up. I thought I had an old Toy Biz Thunderbird somewhere, too...and since this pushed it back, on Monday, a new Aqualad strip! See you then.
Funny caption Goo. And yeah, it didn't really surprise me when they decided to bump off Prof.X. Bendis has a point in that Xavier was pretty much a lame duck, a background character sitting on the sideline during Utopia and all that, but that's only because the writers put him there; he didn't do that to himself.
ReplyDeleteHe'll be back though in a few years you watch, with some contrived, stupid ret-con explanation.
It reminds me when Claremont wanted to kill Xavier during his run because he figured the real challenge lied with the X-Men carrying on without him since he taught them all he could at the time. If he had been killed off then, and stayed dead, then yeah, he really would have had more meaning dead than alive. Stupid Marvel.
Quite a lot of the opinion around, seems to be of the same mind. Marvel doesn't seem to give a flying fig about Xavier's death...so why should we? Which is rather sad really.
ReplyDeleteI guess we have reached the point where even the writers and editors know that the big "DEATH" scenes don't even matter anymore. I'd be more surprised if characters actually LIVED!
And that's rather sad.
Amen to that. If they don't care, and are super obvious about it, then why should we, and why should anyone, especially in this economy, spend our hard-earned money on their products?
ReplyDeleteIt's like what Batman said one time to one of Ra's Al Guhl's henchmen one, "Ypu can think I'm stupid, just done't talk to me like I am."