New X-Men: E Is for Extinction [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

After every supposedly crucial reformation, though, the books settled back into the mediocrity that had been apparent since Mr. Claremont left in 1991, like vinegar returning to the top of Italian dressing a while after it is shaken. Soon the dangling subplots, ultimate predictability and the relative one-sidedness of each character returned and another epic reformatting was needed to keep the reader's interest.

The cycle may have ended when Joe Quesada became Marvel's editor in chief in 2000. Mr. Quesada was bent on waking Marvel from its creative slumber, eliminating the boring and ultimately inconsequential storylines from its more historied titles, lessening the importance of retroactive continuity and gearing Marvel's titles towards the general young adult audience, not just obsessive comic book devotees or "fanboys." One of the first targets of his renovation was the X-men. Writer, Grant Morrison, who was renowned for his work on dark, edgy titles such as The New Adventures of Hitler and The Invisibles but who had also proven his ability to revitalize long-standing titles on DC Comics' JLA, was tapped to script the new storylines and Frank Quitely, who had worked with Mr. Morrison on a JLA mini-series, was hired to redesign the X-men and their headquarters, the X-Mansion, to better parallel the recent hit X-men film.

So once again Marvel completely altered the X-books, reformatting the titles' covers, changing characters' uniforms, and chopping down the team's line-up (This time to Beast, Emma Frost, Phoenix, Cyclops, Professor Xavier and Wolverine). But alterations had been made to this variation of the X-men that had always been too risky for other reformers. The code of avoiding political hotspots had been broken, as Cyclops contributed to an assisted suicide and the X-men debated over employing capital punishment to reprimand a horrific supervillian. Topics such as Cyclops' and Phoenix's lovelife (including their sexuality) and Beast's insecurity about his monstrous appearance were tackled from new, more psychological angles. And, as a tragedy occurred on an enormous scale when the mutant-hunting Sentinels invaded Genosha and Professor Xavier made a seemingly unthinkable PR decision, readers were assured that this time, there would be no return to the ordinary that had followed other "reformations." Not since the X-men's golden years, when Jean Grey appeared to perish and Wolverine proposed to Japanese aristocratic matriarch, Mariko Yashinda, have readers been given such reassurance that every issue was too important to miss. Mr. Morrison likely completed extensive study on what had been missing from the X-men throughout the nineteen nineties. In his adaptation, the characters seem more complex and fascinating, the plot lines more surprising and the books in general more realistic and adult-orientated than they have in years. It is still too soon to tell but X-men: E is for Extinction, which reprints the first four issues of this latest incarnation of the X-men, may portray an actual revolution of the X-books. Finally.