Review Fix Exclusive: Brian Cronin Talks ‘100 Things X-Men Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die’

Review Fix chats with author Brian Cronin, who discusses his new book, “100 Things X-Men Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die.”

Review Fix: Why do you think the X-Men have endured for so long?

Brian Cronin: Partially, I think the basic concept is a strong one. The idea of superheroes who are hated and feared just for being born? And then they go out and save people in spite of that? That’s an awesome concept. However, I think the biggest reason is that Len Wein, Dave Cockrum, Chris Claremont and John Byrne developed the characters so well that people are always going to feel an attachment to the main X-Men characters like Wolverine, Storm, Kitty Pryde, Cyclops, etc.

Review Fix: What inspired this book?

Cronin: Over my many years of writing about comic books online, what I have enjoyed the most is sharing the fun and sometimes offbeat aspects of comic book history and this book provided the perfect opportunity to take a single franchise like the X-Men and spend a deep dive spotlighting all the interesting facets of X-Men history in an easy-to-digest format. It’s like the Flintstones vitamins of comic book history!

Review Fix: Who’s your favorite X-Man? Why?

Cronin: I have a bizarre fondness for Banshee. I’ll admit, when I was growing up in a very Irish-American family (my wife keeps trying to get me to get an Irish passport like a couple of my siblings did), there were, like, three Irish superheroes in all of comics and Banshee was by far the most prominent, so I gravitated towards him for that reason. Once that connection was made, though, I grew to like the fact that he was by far one of the most adjusted members of the X-Men. Here was a guy who had lived a whole life before the X-Men. He had real job skills. At the same time, he was very much a misfit as an X-Men because he was old enough to not really be a peer to the others but not old enough to be a father figure. The oddity of the character really appealed to me.

Meanwhile, as a kid, I was already a jaded enough reader that I knew that he was a minor enough character that I kept waiting for them to kill him off. Being a minor X-character is like being a red shirt on Star Trek. It is to the point where, if you are a fan of a minor X-character, you almost prefer to see them not appear in comics, because if they show up, it’s probably so that someone can kill them off. Obviously, that rule eventually caught up to Banshee.

Review Fix: What was the research process like?

Cronin: Honestly, I have written so much about the X-Men over the years that I seriously think that I had TOO much knowledge about the X-Men for the book before I started to write it, so the research was mostly just trying to get the details as close as I could (like issue numbers and dates). The bigger issue was taking that pile of knowledge and sifting out the information that wasn’t as necessary to the key elements of each character and creator.  

Review Fix: Was it difficult to edit?

Cronin: I was very impressed by how great my editor, Jesse Jordan, was at working with some last minute edits. After submitting the book, the Kevin Spacey news broke and we thought twice about dedicating a chapter to Bryan Singer, so even though the book was already formatted with his chapter in there (and thus, we couldn’t move things around – whatever went into its place had to take that exact spot and with the same basic amount of words), we managed to find a way to replace Singer’s chapter with a better one that improved the book overall.

Review Fix: What did you learn that you didn’t know about the team through this?

Cronin: The biggest thing that I learned was that while I knew that the X-Men had their title “canceled” in 1970, when new stories stopped appearing, I did not realize that it was canceled canceled. I thought that it went into reprints after the new stories stopped showing up. In actuality, they were outright canceled but then given a reprieve after a number of months (likely due to a bump in sales from the end of the Roy Thomas/Neal Adams run on the book).

Review Fix: Who’s your target audience for this?

Cronin: Anyone who has even the slightest interest in the X-Men. If you’re a fan of the comics, you’ll find something interesting in this book. If you’re a fan of the movies, you’ll find something interesting in this book. If you haven’t followed the X-Men since their cartoon series went off of the air, you’ll find something interesting in this book. Even if you know more than I do about the X-Men, then you’ll probably still find something interesting in this book.

Review Fix: How is it different from other books in this series?



Cronin: I wouldn’t say it is all that different from the other books in the series. My buddy Mark Ginocchio recently came out with a 100 Things Spider-Man Fans Should Know and Do Before They Die that was a lot of fun. I think that this book is fairly similar to that one, which is a good thing, since that was a good book.

Review Fix: What you want people to get out of this book?

Cronin: Either learn something new or at least see a different angle on something that they knew already. Plus, hopefully at least one chuckle! Also, to paraphrase the great Kate Willaert, if you buy this book and only read 99 out of 100, then I’m fairly sure that that means that you can never die.

Review Fix: What’s next?

Cronin: Pretty much every day at CBR.com, you will have a new article by me about comic books to read! Be sure to check them out at either cbr.com/author/brian_cronin (if you want to read all of my writing about comics) or cbr.com/tag/csbg if you are only interested in my Comics Should Be Good series of columns. 

Review Fix: Anything else you’d like to add?

Cronin: If you like my writing about comic books, you might also dig my site, legendsrevealed.com, where I write about legends involving movies, TV, music, sports and more!