Small question: From your description of Cable's series, it sounds like we won't be seeing the time-displaced Young Cable around. Should we assume he went back to his time period?
I know I'm a minority but I've always disliked Cable until he was replaced with the younger version. I know I'm probably never seeing him again but that's cool. Costs less that way.
FINALLY! Someone else who can't stand Gambit. If you dislike Colossus too it'll be a trifecta. I don't dislike Peter with the fire that I do Cable and Gambit but he is just so boring. No one's much tried since Claremont to even remedy that after nothing in the first ten years stuck or worked to make him interesting.
Gambit, Cable, and Bishop are what I call Christmas Trees: writers just keep more and more crap on them hoping to make them interesting but only turn them into overblown characters that take longer and long to explain/introduce. Gambit is the worst in this regard: the goofy costume, the glowing eyes, the thieves guild, the wife, the silly power. It just never ends with him. As for Colossus, I agree he's boring. If he hadn't been introduced in GS 1 he would have been forgotten long ago.
I was going to comment that he did at the end of his series, but then I remembered that he reappeared in X-Men right before the last Hellfire Gala and I don't know if that was ever addressed
How many writers can fit inside your office and still have enough room to write comfortably? I know people are increasingly back to the office these days, but wouldn't it be more efficient to allow them to write from home?
Has there ever been a Bone-Mangler or a Stealinator? 'Cause now I want to see them in print. Comics often start with throwaway bad guys and the last two or three pages of their fight with Our Hero. Why waste a Constrictor or Vulture when you can toss Bone-Mangler and The Stealinator at them?
I agree with all of your guidelines. I am hoping that I might have imparted some of them to you when you were an intern as all of those rules were passed to me from Larry Hama, Archie Goodwin, Mark Gruenwald and Tom DeFalco. Larry had a way of getting right to the point of rules for the medium. OIf course some can be bent here and there once one know HOW to do it correctly...somethung else Larry was really good at pointing out when it DIDN'T and was able to show you how to fix it.
My question is about iceman, he wasn't in any book this whole year literally he basically dissapeared for a year, so my question is how gonna be 2025 for him, is he established in an ongoing series, is he gonna be in the next issues of exceptional that are yet to come 5'6'7, is he gonna be doing something important next year or at least something
I know it is a wait and see question and probably repetitive sorry for that but could you respond with tease without giving spoilers pls, out of my favs he's the only one that I'm not getting much so far
Naming the characters is a great rule, especially in the X-Books where it seems the X-Men are named by caption on the splash page but the villains rarely are. But a big downvote for Claremonting the powers. His restating of the obvious was one of the most annoying features of his run, since he always (over)used the same phrases to do so. In this case the better rule is "Show, don't tell."
Tom, thanks for the writer guidelines. I have a personal goal in 2025 to write some comics scripts, partially for myself, partially to see if I can actually sell anything professionally. I've "known" these guidelines from years of comics writing, but it's great to see these spelled out in a document that I can put into Notion (my personal wiki) to come back to.
I know there are great books for writers and artists looking to learn how to create comics- How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way, Will Eisner's books, Bendis's book, the book by Van Lente and Pak, Scott McCloud's books...is there anything else either targeted at comics writers or fiction writers that you recommend?
The backup story thing is unfortunately valid - I remember a year or two ago when every other issue of an ordinarily $3.99 book had a random backup that I didn't read and ended up feeling ripped off, so I can feel that.
Question about the next releases (and one that may annoy): Why no Legacy number for Cable? Is it because this is a miniseries and not something ongoing?
And on a different note - I also just read your blog post about the best Doctor Who stories of the classic era, which made me wonder: If Marvel again ever had the license for Doctor Who, would you want to be involved or editing it, or is that something too sacred to touch?
It’s funny to me that Wiccan’s powers immediately accomplish #2 of your guidelines, “CLAREMONT” THE POWERS, by nature of him announcing his reality warping verbally. Feels almost like Heinberg cleverly gave himself one less thing to worry about! Do you have any interesting memories involving Heinberg creating Wiccan’s powers or other writers approaching them over the years?
Hey Tom. Was recently reminded that a lot of fans think that the Marvel Universe has some sort of official time increment, like 4 years in real time equals 1 year in Marvel time. I tend to think it's not really at all official. It's not like you're all going to come in one day and say "well, time for the characters to start getting gray, it's been 4 x X years since 1960". Can you confirm or deny?
Santa is recognized by Chuck using Cerebro as a mutant, but Santa is also known to change his appearance to fit into local traditions. So maybe he’s not (just) a mutant, but something else entirely?
Tom, random question inspired by your appearance on Eating the Fantastic... What's your fan and/or pro preference: JLA & JSA on the same Earth or different Earths?
So were the backups considered a failure? Or were the complainers offset by others who were drawn in by the backup? Or is there no real way to tell? I've always been inclined to try/not drop a more expensive book if it has a backup, as long as it compliments the main feature. Recent issues of Batman and Nightwing being a perfect example.
I read exceptional x-men last issue and I have two question
Is Emma gonna be getting a pov issue or the same spotlight that is kitty having right now
And how about iceman I'm kinda lost about his place in the book is he just there for this issue, is he gonna be in the book next issue and in the others after, didn't see in the solicits for futures issue neither in the covers or variant covers, is he quest or part of the past as much as kitty & emma
I have been only reading the solicits for the future issues and getting the release dates,
Thanks again, Tom.
Small question: From your description of Cable's series, it sounds like we won't be seeing the time-displaced Young Cable around. Should we assume he went back to his time period?
I know I'm a minority but I've always disliked Cable until he was replaced with the younger version. I know I'm probably never seeing him again but that's cool. Costs less that way.
Cable is also one of my least favorite X-characters, not far behind Bishop and Gambit.
FINALLY! Someone else who can't stand Gambit. If you dislike Colossus too it'll be a trifecta. I don't dislike Peter with the fire that I do Cable and Gambit but he is just so boring. No one's much tried since Claremont to even remedy that after nothing in the first ten years stuck or worked to make him interesting.
Gambit, Cable, and Bishop are what I call Christmas Trees: writers just keep more and more crap on them hoping to make them interesting but only turn them into overblown characters that take longer and long to explain/introduce. Gambit is the worst in this regard: the goofy costume, the glowing eyes, the thieves guild, the wife, the silly power. It just never ends with him. As for Colossus, I agree he's boring. If he hadn't been introduced in GS 1 he would have been forgotten long ago.
I was going to comment that he did at the end of his series, but then I remembered that he reappeared in X-Men right before the last Hellfire Gala and I don't know if that was ever addressed
How many writers can fit inside your office and still have enough room to write comfortably? I know people are increasingly back to the office these days, but wouldn't it be more efficient to allow them to write from home?
Has there ever been a Bone-Mangler or a Stealinator? 'Cause now I want to see them in print. Comics often start with throwaway bad guys and the last two or three pages of their fight with Our Hero. Why waste a Constrictor or Vulture when you can toss Bone-Mangler and The Stealinator at them?
I agree with all of your guidelines. I am hoping that I might have imparted some of them to you when you were an intern as all of those rules were passed to me from Larry Hama, Archie Goodwin, Mark Gruenwald and Tom DeFalco. Larry had a way of getting right to the point of rules for the medium. OIf course some can be bent here and there once one know HOW to do it correctly...somethung else Larry was really good at pointing out when it DIDN'T and was able to show you how to fix it.
Last exceptional issue was by far my fav
My question is about iceman, he wasn't in any book this whole year literally he basically dissapeared for a year, so my question is how gonna be 2025 for him, is he established in an ongoing series, is he gonna be in the next issues of exceptional that are yet to come 5'6'7, is he gonna be doing something important next year or at least something
I know it is a wait and see question and probably repetitive sorry for that but could you respond with tease without giving spoilers pls, out of my favs he's the only one that I'm not getting much so far
Thanks in case you respond
Happy holidays Tom from the past/future! Thanks so much for sharing those guidelines!
Naming the characters is a great rule, especially in the X-Books where it seems the X-Men are named by caption on the splash page but the villains rarely are. But a big downvote for Claremonting the powers. His restating of the obvious was one of the most annoying features of his run, since he always (over)used the same phrases to do so. In this case the better rule is "Show, don't tell."
Tom, thanks for the writer guidelines. I have a personal goal in 2025 to write some comics scripts, partially for myself, partially to see if I can actually sell anything professionally. I've "known" these guidelines from years of comics writing, but it's great to see these spelled out in a document that I can put into Notion (my personal wiki) to come back to.
I know there are great books for writers and artists looking to learn how to create comics- How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way, Will Eisner's books, Bendis's book, the book by Van Lente and Pak, Scott McCloud's books...is there anything else either targeted at comics writers or fiction writers that you recommend?
Thank you again for all you do.
The backup story thing is unfortunately valid - I remember a year or two ago when every other issue of an ordinarily $3.99 book had a random backup that I didn't read and ended up feeling ripped off, so I can feel that.
Question about the next releases (and one that may annoy): Why no Legacy number for Cable? Is it because this is a miniseries and not something ongoing?
And on a different note - I also just read your blog post about the best Doctor Who stories of the classic era, which made me wonder: If Marvel again ever had the license for Doctor Who, would you want to be involved or editing it, or is that something too sacred to touch?
It’s funny to me that Wiccan’s powers immediately accomplish #2 of your guidelines, “CLAREMONT” THE POWERS, by nature of him announcing his reality warping verbally. Feels almost like Heinberg cleverly gave himself one less thing to worry about! Do you have any interesting memories involving Heinberg creating Wiccan’s powers or other writers approaching them over the years?
Hey Tom. Was recently reminded that a lot of fans think that the Marvel Universe has some sort of official time increment, like 4 years in real time equals 1 year in Marvel time. I tend to think it's not really at all official. It's not like you're all going to come in one day and say "well, time for the characters to start getting gray, it's been 4 x X years since 1960". Can you confirm or deny?
In your headcanon, if Santa is a mutant, why didn't he play a bigger role in House and Powers of X or the Krakoa era generally?
Santa is recognized by Chuck using Cerebro as a mutant, but Santa is also known to change his appearance to fit into local traditions. So maybe he’s not (just) a mutant, but something else entirely?
Tom, random question inspired by your appearance on Eating the Fantastic... What's your fan and/or pro preference: JLA & JSA on the same Earth or different Earths?
So were the backups considered a failure? Or were the complainers offset by others who were drawn in by the backup? Or is there no real way to tell? I've always been inclined to try/not drop a more expensive book if it has a backup, as long as it compliments the main feature. Recent issues of Batman and Nightwing being a perfect example.
Hi first time here
I read exceptional x-men last issue and I have two question
Is Emma gonna be getting a pov issue or the same spotlight that is kitty having right now
And how about iceman I'm kinda lost about his place in the book is he just there for this issue, is he gonna be in the book next issue and in the others after, didn't see in the solicits for futures issue neither in the covers or variant covers, is he quest or part of the past as much as kitty & emma
I have been only reading the solicits for the future issues and getting the release dates,
didn't read any interview or anything like this
so that why i might be a little lost
If you held yourself to the Claremont rule of announcing your powers as you used it, what would your editing power be?
“With a stroke of my mighty eraser, I replace ‘tiny” with ‘minuscule’!”