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Both pages are of healthy size and this aligns with how Marvel markets them so I've no issue with them remaining split.
Even if it's considered silly, matching reality seems the better way to go.
Again, it's (almost) the same cast, the same creative team, and the same overall plot. Why maintain two pages when there could just be a single page?
By now, it should be clear to all except the most dense of us that sheep are secretly conspiring to kill us all and steal our pants.
I agree - it's clear Marvel still see them as part of the same story, and a split feels meaningless at this point.
It's not like maintaining two pages is more work or anything, given one page is done with and won't need more updating.
And if there is currently two pages on the wiki maintaining them both rather than putting tropes on the wrong page because that's how you think it should be seems the better thing to do if there's a lack of consensus.
^ That's pretty much my starting point on this.
If there's a consensus to merge, we merge. If not, we leave them separate.
But as long as they're separate, I strongly believe works for the 2023 Sequel Series should go on the works page that's been created for it, not get added alongside the 2022 series' examples on the other page.
If Marvel treats them as separate series, then I think there should be some kind of split.
Maybe you could soft-split them as a compromise (I've seen other Sequel Series without pages get a soft split on the parent series' page).
Avatar by Butterscotch Arts. Used under license.
I kinda hate soft splits (makes crosswicking confusing). On work pages, I see them as a midpoint between all the tropes being meshed together and a hard split... and the pages are already hard split so why regress.
Re: same story - a film sequel with the same cast and crew could get its own page no problem because it’s marketed as a sequel. Even if it was an Immediate Sequel that told a continuous story. What’s the functional difference?
Edited by Synchronicity
I disagree quite vigorously with the notion that X-Cellent was "done with". I intended to keep updating it when it came back from hiatus.
By now, it should be clear to all except the most dense of us that sheep are secretly conspiring to kill us all and steal our pants.
And you'll be able to? Like the only issue with having two pages is if a trope is in two works, you'll have to update two pages. That's not an arduous thing.
I'm assuming that your question is, what is the functional difference between the two situations, and not what is the functional difference between X-Cellent and The X-Cellent, correct?
I'd argue the difference is in authorial intent. In most sequels, the author/screenwriter/director inserts a very clearly defined split between when installment 1 ends and installment 2 begins. The split between X-Cellent and The X-Cellent, on the other hand, is murkier. However The X-Cellent has been marketed, X-Cellent was originally presented as an ongoing series, and the numbering on the issues did not indicate that the series would be ending after only five issues. Within the text itself, issue five ends the way Milligan often ends an issue of a continuing series, with a close-up of one of the characters making a cliffhanger declaration. The only indication that the series is being rebooted comes from a bumper on the next page, which could easily have come from Marvel's marketing department rather than Milligan and Allred themselves. And the first panel of ''The X-Cellent" opens with the words "Meanwhile", suggesting that this is the start of another issue, not an entirely new run. if you someone read the last page of issue 5 and the first page of the new issue 1 without showing them that bumper ad and that cover, how many of them would automatically assume that they've moved to a new series and not just a new issue?
By now, it should be clear to all except the most dense of us that sheep are secretly conspiring to kill us all and steal our pants.
Given that God Does Not Own This World (it's a "work for hire" project, owned outright by Marvel Comics and Disney) I'd argue that authorial intent - however much weight we give it - isn't purely about Milligan's own views, whatever they may be. As you say, Marvel clearly decided to split it. And Marvel own the X-Cellent / X-Statix concept and hired the whole creative team.
In any case, we can theorise about Milligan and Allred's own views on how the story is published but, in the absence of on-the-record statements, that may be considered another form of Speculative Troping.
(Pre-pandemic, before it was delayed and revised, it was initially mentioned as a fixed length "maxi-series" - and not, to the best of my knowledge, as an ongoing series)
Edited by Mrph1
... You were the one who first brought up authorial intent all those weeks ago when I pointed out Marvel's history of cynically relaunching titles in order to goose sales.
By now, it should be clear to all except the most dense of us that sheep are secretly conspiring to kill us all and steal our pants.
I think I was trying to make the same point in both, although I may not have succeeded. Marvel released it as two separate works and marketed it accordingly.
Almost everything beyond that (other than the original pre-pandemic announcement, which falls under What Could Have Been) is speculative.
I don't know Milligan and Allred's preference, or whether they were fully onboard with Marvel's decision (or how much weight we give to their views vs. Marvel's when Marvel owns the property).
I don't know if Marvel/Milligan/Allred were somehow acting in bad faith by "cynically" treating it as two separate miniseries.
...and I'm not personally comfortable second-guessing any of that as part of any justification for page changes.
All of which is getting away from the original purpose of this ATT - until and unless we merge pages, I think tropes for the 2022 series belong on that page, whereas tropes for the 2023 series belong on its own page. That seems to be in line with broader wiki policies?
Edited by Mrph1
I would argue that the fact that Marvel has changed its mind repeatedly about how to classify the series is a sign that maybe we should not follow their lead this time. I understand that there is precedent, but precedents don't work in every situation.
On a more practical note, what do we do about character tropes related to this series? Most of the new characters premiered in X-Cellent, and the character sheet is attached to that page, but because of the way the series is divided, many of the new characters don't get their backstories elaborated upon until the second half, and thus those tropes would, under your proposal, belong on the latter page, even though as character tropes they should be on the character sheet.
By now, it should be clear to all except the most dense of us that sheep are secretly conspiring to kill us all and steal our pants.
Character sheets for Shared Universe characters cover the whole continuity and shouldn't be duplicated for different works within that universe - e.g. X-Men: '80s Members covers all of their other appearances as well.
(Edit: And Characters.X Cellent is just a redirect to the original Characters.X Statix page anyway)
So I don't think that should be a problem?
Edited by Mrph1
Bringing this one back to ATT as we've failed to reach an immediate consensus on forums - and we now have a disagreement on how to proceed until we do have a consensus.
Marvel's 2022 comic book miniseries X-Cellent was followed by / relaunched as 2023's miniseries The X-Cellent (Recycled Titles, especially character/team titles, are pretty standard for Marvel). That second series is still an ongoing work.
Over the last year or two the prevailing approach has been to create a new page (or, at the very least, a soft split) for comic relaunches of this nature, but StrixObscuro made the point that it may be close enough to the original to be handled as a single work, adding that
"I see no reason why we should humor Marvel's cynical relaunches" note
As there was no consensus for an immediate merge, the agreement by default became
to wait and see how this progresses, then revisit it when the work's complete, or at least less incomplete - e.g. is it going to get a third installment and how will it be handled for collected editions? We can then make a more informed decision to merge or not.
However, we still seem to have a difference of opinion on how we act in the interim - StrixObscuro has added examples for characters and events from the 2023 sequel to the 2022 series's page.
I moved them over to the 2023 page
, not realising this had been a deliberate choice, on the basis that until/unless we merge, tropers wouldn't expect to hit spoilers (tagged or otherwise) or plot details for the new series on the previous installment's works page.
StrixObscuro then challenged that
, saying that their view
is that we should continue to update it with tropes from both series "until consensus finally and definitively decides that the two pages should remain split".
Can we get a steer on this aspect? I think we've dropped into entrenched positions on this one (and the Marvel cleanup thread's been pretty quiet), so I don't think we're going to resolve it ourselves.
For context, the original ATT is here
, and the original cleanup thread discussion starts here
.
Edited by Mrph1