York: Genogoths | |||||||||||||
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Come September, Generation X: Genogoths by J. Steven York will
be released, the continuation of the Generation X novel series. Recently,
I was given the opportunity to speak with York about what the novel will
be about and the circumstances which caused it to constantly be delayed.
Can you tell us a bit of what Genogoths will be about?
Elements from the first book are back, such as M.O.N.S.T.E.R., the campus mutant organization founded by Beast and Iceman back in The New Defenders #142 and not seen in the comics since. I'm using some of the original elements too, the Xabago (which turns out to have blown a head gasket fifty miles from home, and has been quietly rusting off-panel somewhere behind the biosphere) and the guys from M.O.N.S.T.E.R., Chill, Recall, and Dog Pound. A character only glimpsed in the party scene at M.O.N.S.T.E.R. house in the first book plays a VERY important role, and I pull in a number of elements from what Kurt Busiek calls his worst work of all time (it isn't that good, but I'll read third-rate Kurt Busiek before I'll read half the people working in the industry today), the Spider-man/X-Factor miniseries. Basically, Chill, Recall and Dog Pound are captured before the book begins by a secret government organization that plans to expoit mutants with "lesser" powers to hunt other mutants. The technology to boost their powers comes from Kurt's mini-series (and has a connection to Synch's powers too), as does the man in charge. The mystery character from Crossroads shows up on Gen-X's doorsteps just as they've been left "home-alone" by Emma and Sean and told to stay home and stay out of trouble. So naturally, she tells them their friends are in trouble, and they fire up the Xabago and head off cross-country to effect a rescue. Unfortunately, our mystery character is a renegade member of a secret organization call the Genogoths. Since the time of Darwin, they've been the secret guardians of the X-gene. Seems that most people who carry the gene don't have showy, useful powers like the X-men. They have weak or useless powers, and the Genogoths have been watching over them and working to keep their profiles low, hiding them from the government, Magneto, Sinister, even Xavier. They're a pro-mutant organization, but one with a very narrow agenda, one that puts them at odds with any mutant that draws attention to themselves. That includes the X-Men, the Brotherhood, and because of his radio talk show, Recall. Gen X is probably on the cusp as far as they're concerned. They think the rescue will draw too much attention to mutantkind and they'll do anything it takes to stop the rescue and guard their secrets. Before Crossroads had even seen print, you were already talking
about this book. What drew you to writing a second Gen X novel?
Why is it this novel wasn’t published when it was originally supposed
to?
Not only did it freeze books in the works like Genogoths, but they couldn't sell any of the warehouse stock of books like Crossroads. Books already on store shelves were okay, but as an unfortunate result, all the Marvel books were listed in the computer system of the largest chain in the country as "out of print." Apparently their policy is to yank all such books, strip the covers to return for credit, and pulp them. Thousands of copies of Crossroads and other Marvel titles were needlessly destroyed. And all the while, the terms of the injunction also kept us authors from getting ANY unmade payments. My final payments on Genogoths were a year late. It was a real mess for those of us doing the books, and I had it easy compared to many authors. I did get paid and my book is coming out. It wasn't a classic "evil publisher" situation though. Marvel was justified in what they did, and there were some really good folks on the other side, including Keith Decandido who was then the editor for the Marvel book line, and Ginger Buchanan at Berkley who I think did their best to fix the situation and play square with us. But boy did a lot of innocent creators get stuck in the middle. What is this we heard of a Generation X: Mutant 911? Amazon.Com had
a listing for it a while ago with you as the author.
When I contacted you about this interview, you mentioned a “retro-X-Men/Gen
X cross-over.” What’s happened to this plot?
The one scene that I was most looking forward to, and that really sold the idea, was of Paige, Jubilee and Monet doing a make-over on Marvel Girl. Then Paige, learning from her own mistakes with Jono, was going to tell her to get over this whole angst, loving-from-afar thing in her relationship with Cyclops. So there would be this wonderful moment when Cyclops is standing around doing his "I care so much for Jean, but how could we ever be together when I can't control the terrible power of my optic blasts" angst thing, and Jean was going to just walk up and put a serious lip-lock on him. Oh, it would have been a moment! I had all sorts of crazy ideas, stuff that I think the fans would have really loved. For instance, for a while when Xavier was gone, the Changling replaced him without the X-Men's knowledge, and he later died in Xavier's place. But Gen X would know that, and they'd expose him and save him from getting killed. So he'd join the X-Men as yet another alternate universe version of Morph. But the situation with the packager got rather murky (I suspect that, behind the scenes, Marvel had told them they couldn't do the book unless all the payments were made on the first one) and then the legal ax fell. So, don't hold your breath that you'll see that book any time soon, or ever. You also mentioned a cover for Genogoths that we’ll never
see. What happened to that?
So they hired a different artist, who I won't name here, to do the cover art. Not that the art is bad, but it's very generic, just Monet, Paige, and Synch in costume against a white background. And Paige is in the middle, back to the reader, legs spread, arms over her head, supposedly forming a "X." But the costumes took "painted on" to a new extreme. We are talking a major butt-shot here. This wasn't a comic-style line and color piece, this is a very realistic painting. So, naturally, after the injunction was lifted, we discovered that Marvel had never seen the cover, and wouldn't approve it when they did. I don't know specifically why, but I'm guessing it was just too spicy, especially for a character that's maybe 16 or 17! But anyway, I have on the bulletin board behind me in my office a color copy of the cover you'll never see (unless you show up and see it in person). The naughty art, the white background, the ugly mustard-yellow with gangreen-green highlights on the back cover, the title I hate, and cover copy I wasn't happy with. Getting the new cover is the one major upside to all the trials this book has had getting to print. Anyway, Putnam hired a new artist to do a new cover, which is why it will be one of the last Marvel books coming out from Putnam, instead of first out of the chute when the legal tangles were lifted. The new design has a split down the middle, with the dark "Genogoths" characters on the left, and the Gen X guys on the right. Very cool, and I'm secretly delighted that my original characters are given equal billing, even first billing if you judge the value of left to right, with Marvel's on characters. Vince Evans is the new artist. I haven't seen the final, but I'm really looking forward to it. I think it should be cool. Were you given more or less reign this time around with the Gen X
characters?
But writing Crossroads, I went in with a REAL vague idea of who the chracters were. You have to remember that, when I started the book, I think the comic was still somewhere in the teens, and I was given no inside information about what was being done in the book. At that point we didn't have a clue what was up with Monet and the twins, Skin's background was pretty shrouded, and poor Synch was so underused that you forgot he was in the book half the time. It wasn't clear at all what the extent of Monet's powers were, or how Synch's powers worked, or Chamber's either. It was a mess. We knew more about Jubilee and Paige, which is probably why I singled them out for heavy use in the first book. With Chamber, I felt like I had a handle on his character, if not his powers, and I sort of took the cypher that was Synch at that point and ran with him. I had my take on Skin by the end of the book, and M I just kept as a character of mystery, and a foil for everyone else. By the time I was writing Genogoths, it was Hama's time on the book. The Monet thing had been resolved, much of Skin's past had been revealed, and some of the powers were a little clearer in how they worked. So I wasn't dancing around all these unknown factors, and that made it FEEL like I could do a lot more with the characters. I could get into Monet's character a lot more, for instance, and make better use of Synch. Then about half-way through writing, it was announced that Jay Faerber would be taking over the book. We exchanged some e-mail, and I was headed up to Seattle, where Jay lives, on other business, so we got together for a drink and talked over the book. We exchanged our frustrations over some issues (like the details of Skin's powers, or Synch's, or Husk's) and he gave me some idea of the direction he'd be taking the book. So for once, I was slightly ahead of the curve in writing. Naturally then, the book had to sit on the shelf for a year. So for sure this isn't going to be the grim-n-gritty Gen X you've got in the book now. The school won't be trashed, in fact, the biosphere is still there. Penance and Artie and Leech are still around (though they don't do a lot in this book except wave good-bye). Nor is the school full of huan students, nor are they wearing uniforms. (I did like those uniforms though. In fact, I liked them so much that I built a custom Chamber action figure in Xavier school uniform.) |