It's amazing to me what gets people worked up.
Newsarama recently posted online an upcoming X-Men cover depicting Jean Grey and Wolverine, uh, kissing. This set off a firestorm of debate about upcoming plans for the X-titles, and even Warren Ellis weighed in on his Delphi forum, saying that the X-Men have always been about sex, and apparently now Marvel is going to be more upfront about it. Newsarama clearly thought it was a big deal, since they chose to put a large, clear image of the cover on their page, instead of the usual, poor resolution thumbnails they provide of cover images (which you can click for a better look).
I'm not aware that kissing can be called sex (although if that's all Bill Clinton had done to Monica Lewinsky, you can be sure extremist conservatives would have made a case for that), and I'm also in stark disagreement with Ellis over what it is that made the X-Men popular.
As someone who was reading Uncanny X-Men at the time it first became hugely popular, I know that what made Len Wein, Chris Claremont, Dave Cockrum, John Byrne and Terry Austin's (and others) run so compelling to readers was the sense of adventure and family that was there on virtually every page.
There was a hint of sex, certainly, in those issues; I think an implication that Jean and Scott had "done it," was about as risque as it got, though. I believe Wolfman and Perez were the ones who actually went out on a limb and showed that Robin and Starfire were sharing a room at the Titans Tower. Ooh, naughty.
Now, perhaps what Warren is thinking of is the last decade or so of X-Men stories, virtually all of which were unreadable. Artists such as Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld filled the titles with vacuous, scantily-clad vixens, telling us much more about the inner lives of the artists in question than about the X-Men.
The fact is, and I can't believe this isn't obvious to everyone, the X-Men have been popular for the past twenty years based mostly on the momentum from Giant Size X-Men #1 (the new team's debut) through Uncanny X-Men #143 (the end of the Byrne/Austin artistic tenure), and really, I think, where Claremont began to lose interest).
There were some entertaining runs after that, most notably by artists Paul Smith not long after, and more recently a nice run by Chris Bachalo. But the last decade has been one of virtually non-stop wrongheaded editorial interference and lousy writing and art. Despite this, the X-titles have, for the most part, continued to sell extraordinarily well. Hope springs eternal, I guess.
Now, this kiss between Logan and Jean.
There have been intimations of an attraction between the two going back as far as the Claremont/Byrne era. Most recently, it was revisited in the X-Men movie, which certainly will be a blueprint of sorts for the comics for years to come.
The movie was not a success because Rebecca Romjin-Stamos was naked in it; it was not a success because of the sheer, raw sexiness of Patrick Stewart's bald head. It was a success because the filmmakers looked to the adventure, melodrama and sense of family in the best of the Claremont and Byrne issues. These are basic elements that most mainstream comics seek out, and they were given a big payday in the X-Men movie.
I have no idea what Grant Morrison, Joe Casey, Frank Quitely and Ian Churchill are planning for their X-Men runs. We'll begin to see in May. Certainly, I'm curious enough to check it out. But a kiss between two characters, both adults, who have a twenty year history of denied attraction, scarcely strikes me as risque. Neither does it strike me as pandering, as Ellis implied.
Sometimes, a kiss is just a kiss. This cover is nothing for anyone to get worked up about, except in the positive sense that something in that issue will likely happen besides the usual mindless chaos we've seen for the past decade. It may be melodrama, it may even be pandering, but at least it will move the characters forward.
Frankly, I barely care if Marvel is able to revive these titles to the point of readibility again. I remember the characters fondly, but I'm most interested in other comics these days, most of them a hell of a lot more intellegent and compelling than even Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely are likely to turn out. Maybe they'll prove me wrong. I'll let you know in May. In the meantime, for the meager thrills the X-Men are capable of delivering to me, I'm most excited about what's been going on in Ultimate X-Men. But for the creaky old titles that inspired it, this kiss can only be good news.