If you don’t read Byrne’s forum… then start.  It is always a good place to see Byrne spout his usual crazyness .  Jeff Parker’s X-Men: First Class became an ongoing series and some fans were a bit PO’d to see something that somewhat resembled X-Men: The Hidden Years:

This weekend Marvel announced that X-Men: First Class, telling untold stories of the original X-Men prior to the formation of the All-New All-Different X-Men, will be an ongoing series.

Quesada canceled X-Men: The Hidden Years, telling untold stories of the original X-Men prior to the formation of the All-New All-Different X-Men, an ongoing series.

What’s up with that?

Apparently Byrne has a bit of a bone to pick with Quesada and most of the Byrne Drones responded with the usual, “We hate Marvel/Quesada/etc”.  But Parker had the following message relayed over:

Hi everyone, I just registered but can’t post for another 24 hours, so thanks to Steve for passing this along. Someone just wrote me that this discussion was going on, and after reading through I think I can clear some sticky points up. Though always remember, I just write First Class, I don’t call any shots!

The main one relates to all the Quesada commentary- the Editor in Chief doesn’t create and approve every single title Marvel puts out, there’s just too many and I don’t think anyone could. And in our case, as I understand it, this book was pioneered largely by Sales VP David Gabriel, who thought it would work not only as a Direct Market book, but an All Ages title that he could sell out in the world of the big chain stores like Target, WalMart and so on. So while it may not look like more than an average seller in your comics shop, it’s also doing well in other venues, hence it being turned into an ongoing title.

So while I understand readers being upset at losing Hidden Years, there’s not really a target to vent upon in this case. I was under the impression that Jemas cancelled the book, but I have no real information one way or the other. Our book takes place before HY’s stories, so our storylines won’t connect. Which is too bad for me, because setting a lot of the stories in the Savage Land was a great move.

As to the costume change: that was decided somewhere up top, and I don’t know the rationale though I do like the costumes, and they cue people that the stories are new rather than rewrites. I just explained in one of the issues that they were alternate uniforms.

I hope that helps a bit, thanks for letting me chime in.

Jeff Parker
http://parkerspace.com

But thats just because Jeff Parker is a nice guy… which was met with the following by Byrne:

Word to the wise — if you plan to make a habit of posting here, you might want to try to avoid using this phrase in discussions where someone does have “real information”. Especially if that someone happens to be me.

God I love Byrne!