In the latest Comic Book Legends Revealed, discover how Joss Whedon nearly wrote X-Men before Grant Morison's run on the series.

Welcome to Comic Book Legends Revealed! This is the eight hundred and twentieth installment where we examine three comic book legends and determine whether they are true or false. As usual, there will be three posts, one for each of the three legends.

NOTE: If my Twitter page hits 5,000 followers, I'll do a bonus edition of Comic Book Legends Revealed that week. Great deal, right? So go follow my Twitter page, Brian_Cronin!

COMIC LEGEND:

Joss Whedon nearly wrote X-Men BEFORE Grant Morrison.

STATUS:

True

In 2001, Grant Morrison was hired by Marvel to completely revamp the X-Men Universe and Morrison did just that with an epic run on the )(re-titled to reflect this new era) New X-Men....

a run that I described last year on the Top 100 Comic Book Runs countdown as, "Marvel basically gave Morrison total freedom to do what they wanted, and what they wanted to do was to make some major changes in the title, from eliminating the traditional costumes (going with a “leather jackets” look), which is similar to what the movies did, to making Beast look like the Beast from the famous Jean Cocteau film from the 1940s, adding Emma Frost to the X-Men having it be revealed that home sapiens were on the verge of extinction and, of course, introducing a new bad guy named Cassandra Nova who systematically leads to the Sentinels destroying the mutant population of Genosha. And that was just the first story arc!!!

After there, Morrison kept the pace quick and the new characters a-plenty, from Xorn, Angel, Beak and the Stepford Cuckoos to John Sublime, Fantomex and Kid Omega.

The book was set-up as a sort of homage to Chris Claremont and John Byrne’s run, in that Morrison would attempt to address the same stories they did, just in a different manner. They had a Sentinel story? Morrison would do a Sentinel story. They had a Shi’ar story? Morrison would do a Shi’ar story. And so on and so forth."

RELATED: How Spider-Man's Foe, the Man-Wolf, Was Named Before He Was Officially Created

Morrison was then followed on the series by Joss Whedon, who initially thought that he was literally going to be following Morrison on New X-Men, but then Marvel thought that it made more sense to launch a new ongoing series just for Whedon called Astonishing X-Men.

That run ALSO made the countdown last year, where I noted, "When Grant Morrison left New X-Men, Marvel had some big shoes to fill,. Luckily, Joss Whedon, popular writer and creator of the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel (plus Firefly), was a big X-Men fan, so he accepted the task of following Grant Morrison’s run, and Marvel gave him his own title to do so, pairing him with acclaimed artist, John Cassaday.

Whedon’s first task was to introduce the idea that the X-Men felt that they needed to be more public as superheroes, so Cyclops insisted that Kitty Pryde, one of the best public faces of the X-Men, join the main team (made up of Cyclops, Wolverine, Beast and Emma Frost).

Whedon’s first storyline dealt with a “cure” for the mutant gene being developed, and how such a cure would effect mutants all over. This turned out to be some plot involving some bad aliens, and it all tied to the return of…Colossus!!

See, the Russian mutant, long thought dead (or, rather, fairly recently thought dead) was not actually dead, he was caught up in some big alien conspiracy. Colossus and Kitty had a tearful reunion.

The next storyline involved the Danger Room coming to life and fighting the X-Men. This storyline involved Professor X, as well. Next, Whedon and Cassaday began a really long storyline that resolved the big alien conspiracy. Whedon’s sense of humor and his good ear for dialogue made the book a great place to look for nice character interactions. Cassaday’s artwork, meanwhile, was good for both character work AND for action scenes, making the book a visual delight."

Here's a fascinating bit of information about these two epic runs - Whedon very nearly wrote X-Men INSTEAD of Morrison! You see, revamping the X-Men was high on the list of Joe Quesada's priorities as the newly-minted Editor-in-Chief of Marvel Comics and Quesada's initial idea was to go REALLY big for X-Men. Not that Morrison wasn't big, of course, but Morrison was COMIC BOOK big (huge, even) while Joss Whedon, of course, was TELEVISION SHOW big.

At the time, Whedon was trying to get a Buffy the Vampire Slayer animated series going and Whedon was working with the great TV producer, Jeph Loeb, who has been known to write the occasional comic book story, as well (you know, just some of the most beloved comic books of the past thirty years, like Batman: The Long Halloween) and so Quesada got Whedon's phone number from Loeb and according to Amy Pascale's 2014 book, Joss Whedon: The Biography, Quesada cold-called Whedon and said, "Hey, Mr. Whedon, you don't know of me, but I was wondering, how would you like to write an [X-Men] book?"

Whedon then gave it a long pause and replied, "Can I take a day or two to think about it?"

An excited Quesada told him to take a whole week. In the end, Whedon just had too much on his plate at the time. Both Buffy the Vampire Slayer AND Angel were still on the air and Firefly was about to launch and Whedon just didn't have the time. Three years later, though, things were different and his X-Men run began.

Thanks to my pal Zack Smith for suggesting a related legend that led me to this story!

RELATED: How Batman's Villain Two-Face Was Nearly Cut Over a Huge Comic Book Controversy

SOME OTHER ENTERTAINMENT LEGENDS!

Check out some Christmas-related entertainment legends from Legends Revealed:

1. Did Vera-Ellen’s Neck Have to be Covered During the Filming of White Christmas Because it was Ravaged by the Effects of Anorexia?

2. Was There Originally a Coca-Cola Ad Mixed Into A Charlie Brown Christmas?

3. Was Stephen Sondheim’s “Marry Me a Little” First Recorded Only as a Christmas Present?

4. Was the Original Ending to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Changed Due to Viewer Complaints?

PART TWO SOON!

Check back soon for part 2 of this installment's legends!

Feel free to send suggestions for future comic legends to me at either cronb01@aol.com or brianc@cbr.com

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