A number of years ago, when writer Jonathan Hickman was assigned to the X-franchise, there was only so much fuss being made over an overrated direction that saw Moira MacTaggart changed from a civilian co-star to yet another mutant, and Kitty Pryde turned bisexual, or totally lesbian. Now, according to Popverse, Hickman wasn’t so happy with what he worked upon at all, primarily because he couldn’t finish it:
When Marvel relaunched the X-Men franchise in 2019 with what became known as the Krakoa era of the comic book line, it was a significant shift for the property, both physically and intellectually, as all of mutantkind moved to a new island utopia and became a political force that had solved death. What was applauded at the time as a masterstroke by writer Jonathan Hickman has become, in retrospect, what he calls “the most disappointing creative experience” he’s ever had — and all because he had to walk away from the franchise midway through the story.
“I’ve said this multiple, multiple places at this point, I’m sure, private and public, but [X-Men] is the most disappointing creative experience that I’ve had because I didn’t finish the story that I set out to do, which is a cardinal sin and a total, total bummer,” Hickman said during his most recent appearance on the Off Panel podcast.
Hickman devised the entire Krakoa era framework of the X-Men franchise, and went on to write the core X-Men series that initially followed the launch titles, House of X and Powers of X (both also written by Hickman); within a couple of years, however, Hickman left the X-Men line with the four issue Inferno miniseries, seemingly happily. Now, it seems, he’s come to terms with admitting his frustration with what happened behind the scenes.
So it took several years to suddenly admit a direction with traces of wokeness was something he didn’t love writing? Wow. It sounds like what we have here is a liberal who decided it’s not good enough even for himself. And no matter what he says now, it’s unlikely he’ll ever apologize for his cheapest directions. Why, if the X-Men were otherwise confined to Krakoa island, isn’t that kind of cheap too?
Perhaps Mr. Hickman would do well to just stick with independent comics, and not litter mainstream superhero fare with his overrated ideas. Considering Marvel collapsed over 2 decades ago, why must overrated writers like him make things worse? A similar argument could be made about how the press, specialty or otherwise, fawned over House/Powers of X almost devoid of objectivity, and the worst part is, if Hickman’s storyline were produced now, they’d still go along and fluff-coat the news, no matter how pretentious it really could be. Retiring Marvel as a publisher would be a blessing at this point, and this news too, only enforces the belief it’s time for Marvel to quit the comics publishing business.
Originally published here.
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