Imagine: You are a brand new superhero comicbook reader. It is 2001. You saw X-Men in theatres the year before. You’re walking down the street. You pass by a comics shop, see a poster for the new X-Men comics by Joe Casey, Grant Morrison, Ian Churchill, and Frank Quitely. It’s maybe even a poster featuring Quitely’s take on the characters where they’re standing on the steps of a memorial for humanity, Xavier up front, the yellow of the Xs on their jackets brightening things up, Wolverine’s chest exposed even more than Emma Frost’s. Something about the image catches your eye, so you go in, and you ask for the X-Men comic from the poster. The guy behind the register says that that specific comic hasn’t started yet, but it’s launching aside another X-Men run, and the first issue of that comic just came out. He grabs you a copy of Uncanny X-Men #394 and the cover immediately seems somewhat familiar. You remember Wolverine and that redheaded woman must be... Jane? She was with the guy with the glasses. You pay your $2.25 USD ($3.50 in Canada!), take it home, and, later, give it a read.
Question: What do you, as this hypothetical reader, think about this comicbook?
Assumptions: You understand how to read comicbooks. You may have read some when you were a kid or you read newspaper comic strips. Basic comprehension of words, pictures, and the proper flow of the comic are not an issue. Your only experience with the X-Men, though, was the movie.
Answer 1: You enjoy it. The villain is a bit strange, but in a fun, energetic way. You like that the issue mostly focused on Cyclops, Wolverine, and Jean (her name is Jean, not Jane! you mentally chastise yourself) because you know those characters. The situation reminded you of the movie. The art made the characters look familiar and the way that things melted by the powers of Warp Savant was cool-looking. The blue guy with wings was kinda cool, too. If you remember, you may pick up another one.
Likelihood: Eh, maybe?
Answer 2: You don’t enjoy it. The villain is just an 18-year old punk trying to do what exactly? You like that the issue mostly focused on Cyclops, Wolverine, and Jean (her name is Jean, not Jane! you mentally chastise yourself) because you know those characters. The situation reminded you of the movie. The art, while fine, didn’t look like the poster in the window. Where was Professor X and Magneto? The bad guy mentioned Magneto, but wasn’t Magneto in this comicbook? Isn’t he the X-Men’s bad guy? And was the blue guy with wings the same blue guy in the poster? That one looked more like an animal. Can this guy turn himself into animals? Is that why he has wings? You probably won’t pick up another one.
Likelihood: More likely.
Solution: I’m finding it hard to put myself in this position. I’ve literally been reading comicbooks since before I could read. They were always there. But, setting aside comicbooks, I’m not sure I find it possible, myself, to enter into anything this fresh. Everything has some set expectation or point of reference. I can’t picture picking up something like a comicbook and treating it in this way, yet that’s precisely how people talk about them. And I know it happens because I’ve seen the anecdotes from retailers. People are just this uninformed walking into comicbook shops sometimes, doing so on a whim because they saw a poster and remembered a movie, and I don’t understand it. I don’t quite buy it. I’ve never seen the point of chasing that sort of person. It’s like hearing that, according to research, when people really liked a television show, they apparently only actually tuned in for one in three episodes. I don’t understand that mentality. And I’m not sure Joe Casey does either. Sure, he put on his ‘marketing hat’ to have Logan and Jean make out on the cover (and inside), but this doesn’t read like a comicbook aimed at new readers. It feels like that’s just a disguise or an excuse or a vague hope that he never believed possible. If this comicbook ever feels ‘phoned in’ or lacking, it’s in the conviction that it would ever convert some random person into being a steady reader of Uncanny X-Men. I don’t think Marvel ever did either. Do you know how I know? Flip through the issue and notice the big ads for New X-Men that aren’t there. Or the editorial pages hyping up this new era that also aren’t there. Nothing about this suggests that there’s a world of X-Men outside of this issue beyond the implication of the issue number and the tiny caption at the bottom of the last panel on the final page that says “next: poptopia” like that’s supposed to mean anything. The only people who would pick this up and understand what’s going on in the context outside of the actual issue are existing readers. That is the target audience, always. Always. The closest to a window into other comics outside of this one is the Bullpen Bulletins page that has a list of comics out the following week and four pages of unlettered art for X-Treme X-Men #1 (out the following week). No context, no indication of what relationship those X-Men have to these ones. This was never new-reader-friendly and it was never meant to be.
Conclusion: I was not capable.