Also, just finished reading #19.1 .... Kitty meets Darkholme. :3Another possibility is some weird creative cycle that's simply drawing creators and editors back to that material. It could be what some of them know best or remember most fondly from their days as readers, so they have enough passion for the material that they're able to construct pitches liked by the senior editors. The X-titles have also seen a return of Morrison's content from the early '00s: The World, Fantomex, Quentin Quire, etc. Honestly, I sometimes wonder if HoM/Decimation had a detrimental effect on the creative possibilities for the X-titles because it seems they've been dusting off old material ever since. Of course, one could argue that the Avengers line has been going in circles for a while as well. Maybe the House is suffering from a shortage of Ideas?
I dunno, splitting the X-Men up, killing off Nightcrawler, and then having the various X-Men teams and the Avengers go to war with each other are four fairly original plots out of the Marvel house of idea peoples. Granted the war is going to be sparked by an already done plot (HoM, return of Wanda), but they've never gone so far as getting into fisticuffs with eachother before. The fall-out fro that should be interesting.
As for covering 90's material, it makes sense that they would go back to that. You're right about the crash, but you're also right about the success of their comics right before it. And maybe there is a timetable to use characters but I think there's also the specific point that each character they have brought back has a fanbase with a "Pokémon" attitude. That is to say; they gotta catch 'em all. You can't just get the one book Carnage is featured in if you're a Carnage fan. You gotta get 'em all.
I agree there's no end to the number of reasons a book could be doing well, but isn't that what write-ins and forums like this are for? If they see a Nightcrawler related title go up, see forum posts like ours, Formspring responses, twitter shout-outs, Facebook updates, and hand written write-ins to Marvel, telling them they approve, that's the only notification they really need.
I don't see those types of notifications going away and more importantly, I see all Blue-Elf fans using these various forms of communication to let Marvel know, we approve. (Or don't approve, if we don't.) Point is, I think the Nightcrawler fans are here and they're going to be impressed (I hope) and are going to let Tom & company no. I know I will.
[Edited on 27/12/11 by Ult_Sm86]