Marvel.com: After the monumental shift in the X-World after House of X and Powers of X, there had to be an equally epic way to keep the story of the X-Men going. Last week's release of Excalibur #1, written by Tini Howard with art by Marcus To and colors by Erick Arciniega, proved that there was much more story to tell for Marvel's merry mutants. In the latest episode of Women of Marvel, Sana Amanat and Judy Stephens go inside the making of the new X-book with the first part of a tremendous two-parter that reveals how Marvel comics are made, from concept to final product.
In Part 1, they introduce Excalibur with Marvel Comics Editor-In-Chief CB Cebulski, then talk to Senior Editor Jordan D. White, writer Tini Howard, and artist Marcus To. In the gallery below, you can find pages from the issue featuring To's art (with Arciniega's colors). You can also get your copy of Excalibur #1 right now, online or at your local comic shop!
Why Tini and Marcus were the best fit for this series?
CB Cebulski: Tini and Marcus fit this book so well because if you look at other books that Tini has written before, they have a heavy magic bent to them and Excalibur was a book that always played in Otherworld, a separate world with Morgan Le Fay and more magical characters. That's what Tini wanted to explore. She was the perfect character to bring magic into this world of X-Men, and Jonathan felt very strong about that. She's also a huge tabletop game player and loves fantasy. She looked at the X-Men as a campaign that she was doing in a game and each of the mutants that she chose has an archetype from the fantasy world.
Marcus also loves that world. He has this lighter, open style and takes some cues from Japanese manga and classic fantasy art. He's able to visualize what Tini has in her head and put on paper and bring these characters to life in a way that's going to appeal to so many different people who might not like the X-Men, but like magic books, fantasy or young adult titles. This comic really came together as a mix of that in both story and art.
Where did the idea to bring back Excalibur come from?
Tini Howard: What became Excalibur started as a thought exercise. Jonathan Hickman sent a lot of documents and when I read it, it opened up all these questions in my mind. He said there was space for a book for me and asked what in this world spoke to me. I wrote an essay about mutant magic and the idea of mutants pursuing the next evolution. The pitch had a lot to do with magic, beliefs, home and culture and I brought it in to Jonathan and Jordan. They looked at each other and said "This sounds like an Excalibur book". I guess they were right! It's this amazing fantasy world that tied specifically to mutantkind.
What is Excalibur about?
Jordan D. White: At some point, we thought what makes a book Excalibur rather than just another X-Men book. One of the elements was the magical element and the fantasy element, the other being probably England and then a little bit more Captain Britain. Our Captain Britain in this book is a different Captain Britain.
Tini Howard: There are a lot of mutants in Excalibur that are not from the UK. But they're all Krakoan now. Betsy Braddock, formerly known as Psylocke, is called to defend one of her nations. When we first met her, she was this English telepath that the X-Men didn't really trust, and then she becomes part of the family. For a long time, she was in the body of a ninja called Kwannon and recently they were sort of amicably divorced. Kwannon is having her own adventures in Fallen Angels, and Betsy Braddock is taking up the mantle of Captain Britain. That was really exciting to me, making a new Captain Britain and giving her a hero's journey.
Jordan D. White: Tini, I think all but Betsy were your choices that you pitched originally, right?
Tini Howard: The original pitch was more like a statement and then we did a draft where we sat down with cards where we wrote the names of all the mutants we could use. I picked a lot of my cast because they were my favorites, also because they had a place on the team that makes sense to me. A lot of the book is about connection. For me, it was about looking for these characters that I thought had a connection in their lives that seemed right for the kind of exploration I wanted the characters to deal. We have the Braddocks, Rogue and Gambit, a married couple, Jubilee, who's a mother and has her son with her in a place that not a lot of humans go. These connections are a big part of the story.
What was your process to make the world of Excalibur come to life?
Marcus To: I like to read the script first and get the idea of what we want to do with it. I tried to look at what was done before by Alan Davis, some of the power signatures that each character has, what other artists had done with it, see what I could elaborate on what was already there. I looked up references for English mythology to give an idea of style, especially when we’re in other worlds and dream worlds, a lot of things that end up being very different from what we look at in other X-Books.
Jordan D. White: Your design for Captain Britain is great. It's a great combination of a suit of armor with a superhero costume. It doesn't go too far into suit of armor. It still looks like she can fly around and kick butt.
Tini Howard: I love a tough girl in armor. At the beginning, I was like 'Make her Joan of Arc! Make her big and tough!' But that's not really Betsy. Marcus did a really good job at looking at my references.
Jordan D. White: Two other details that I want to mention about the designs is that I love Gambit's little hood and I love Rictor's new costume because it's a callback to his earlier costumes, but it looks cool and modern.
How do u decide when it's time to redesign a character or to keep a classic look?
Jordan D. White: For the X-Line now, it's a mix between new looks and classic looks. For Excalibur in particular, because of that fantasy element, we pushed to redesign the characters a little bit to add that fantastic element. Gambit is a good example. There are some things about his costumes that you don’t want to change. The headsock, the jacket... the fact that he added this hood makes him look like a DnD character.
How is it writing something that is part of an event series?
Jordan D. White: The book itself spins out of House of X/Powers of X, which set up the status quo for mutants. We are doing as much as we can to keep the X-line cohesive. It stands on its own, but it also feels like it's connected to Marauders, X-men... in fact, there’s a Marauders cameo in issue #2.
Tini Howard: We've been taking time to build this world. When I want to use other characters from other books, it feels like less of a mandate and more like storytelling. When you need something shipped in this world, who would you call? The Marauders. If you need dirty jobs? You call the X-Force. This world feels real and lived in. I feel like I spent the past year of my life nation-building Krakoa.
The next big arc is really going to get big. We're going to touch on a lot of the new X-men universe. We're going to have a couple of really massive issues. If you're big into the mythos of what Jonathan is doing, you'll love it. Jonathan and I are working really close on that.
In Part 1, they introduce Excalibur with Marvel Comics Editor-In-Chief CB Cebulski, then talk to Senior Editor Jordan D. White, writer Tini Howard, and artist Marcus To. In the gallery below, you can find pages from the issue featuring To's art (with Arciniega's colors). You can also get your copy of Excalibur #1 right now, online or at your local comic shop!
Why Tini and Marcus were the best fit for this series?
CB Cebulski: Tini and Marcus fit this book so well because if you look at other books that Tini has written before, they have a heavy magic bent to them and Excalibur was a book that always played in Otherworld, a separate world with Morgan Le Fay and more magical characters. That's what Tini wanted to explore. She was the perfect character to bring magic into this world of X-Men, and Jonathan felt very strong about that. She's also a huge tabletop game player and loves fantasy. She looked at the X-Men as a campaign that she was doing in a game and each of the mutants that she chose has an archetype from the fantasy world.
Marcus also loves that world. He has this lighter, open style and takes some cues from Japanese manga and classic fantasy art. He's able to visualize what Tini has in her head and put on paper and bring these characters to life in a way that's going to appeal to so many different people who might not like the X-Men, but like magic books, fantasy or young adult titles. This comic really came together as a mix of that in both story and art.
Where did the idea to bring back Excalibur come from?
Tini Howard: What became Excalibur started as a thought exercise. Jonathan Hickman sent a lot of documents and when I read it, it opened up all these questions in my mind. He said there was space for a book for me and asked what in this world spoke to me. I wrote an essay about mutant magic and the idea of mutants pursuing the next evolution. The pitch had a lot to do with magic, beliefs, home and culture and I brought it in to Jonathan and Jordan. They looked at each other and said "This sounds like an Excalibur book". I guess they were right! It's this amazing fantasy world that tied specifically to mutantkind.
What is Excalibur about?
Jordan D. White: At some point, we thought what makes a book Excalibur rather than just another X-Men book. One of the elements was the magical element and the fantasy element, the other being probably England and then a little bit more Captain Britain. Our Captain Britain in this book is a different Captain Britain.
Tini Howard: There are a lot of mutants in Excalibur that are not from the UK. But they're all Krakoan now. Betsy Braddock, formerly known as Psylocke, is called to defend one of her nations. When we first met her, she was this English telepath that the X-Men didn't really trust, and then she becomes part of the family. For a long time, she was in the body of a ninja called Kwannon and recently they were sort of amicably divorced. Kwannon is having her own adventures in Fallen Angels, and Betsy Braddock is taking up the mantle of Captain Britain. That was really exciting to me, making a new Captain Britain and giving her a hero's journey.
Jordan D. White: Tini, I think all but Betsy were your choices that you pitched originally, right?
Tini Howard: The original pitch was more like a statement and then we did a draft where we sat down with cards where we wrote the names of all the mutants we could use. I picked a lot of my cast because they were my favorites, also because they had a place on the team that makes sense to me. A lot of the book is about connection. For me, it was about looking for these characters that I thought had a connection in their lives that seemed right for the kind of exploration I wanted the characters to deal. We have the Braddocks, Rogue and Gambit, a married couple, Jubilee, who's a mother and has her son with her in a place that not a lot of humans go. These connections are a big part of the story.
What was your process to make the world of Excalibur come to life?
Marcus To: I like to read the script first and get the idea of what we want to do with it. I tried to look at what was done before by Alan Davis, some of the power signatures that each character has, what other artists had done with it, see what I could elaborate on what was already there. I looked up references for English mythology to give an idea of style, especially when we’re in other worlds and dream worlds, a lot of things that end up being very different from what we look at in other X-Books.
Jordan D. White: Your design for Captain Britain is great. It's a great combination of a suit of armor with a superhero costume. It doesn't go too far into suit of armor. It still looks like she can fly around and kick butt.
Tini Howard: I love a tough girl in armor. At the beginning, I was like 'Make her Joan of Arc! Make her big and tough!' But that's not really Betsy. Marcus did a really good job at looking at my references.
Jordan D. White: Two other details that I want to mention about the designs is that I love Gambit's little hood and I love Rictor's new costume because it's a callback to his earlier costumes, but it looks cool and modern.
How do u decide when it's time to redesign a character or to keep a classic look?
Jordan D. White: For the X-Line now, it's a mix between new looks and classic looks. For Excalibur in particular, because of that fantasy element, we pushed to redesign the characters a little bit to add that fantastic element. Gambit is a good example. There are some things about his costumes that you don’t want to change. The headsock, the jacket... the fact that he added this hood makes him look like a DnD character.
How is it writing something that is part of an event series?
Jordan D. White: The book itself spins out of House of X/Powers of X, which set up the status quo for mutants. We are doing as much as we can to keep the X-line cohesive. It stands on its own, but it also feels like it's connected to Marauders, X-men... in fact, there’s a Marauders cameo in issue #2.
Tini Howard: We've been taking time to build this world. When I want to use other characters from other books, it feels like less of a mandate and more like storytelling. When you need something shipped in this world, who would you call? The Marauders. If you need dirty jobs? You call the X-Force. This world feels real and lived in. I feel like I spent the past year of my life nation-building Krakoa.
The next big arc is really going to get big. We're going to touch on a lot of the new X-men universe. We're going to have a couple of really massive issues. If you're big into the mythos of what Jonathan is doing, you'll love it. Jonathan and I are working really close on that.
Sweet they have found a niche for each X-Men title. The X-Men are the Inhuman Summers family on the moon, the Marauders Kitty's merry deckhands, Excalibur are defenders of the realms, X-Factor the CIA of Krakoa and Fried Bagels is the cloners book.
ReplyDeleteNew mutants is nostalgia on legs travelling in space.
ReplyDeleteIt's nice to know that Howard is working closely with Hickman; this will help to make Excalibur be cohesive to the main X-Men book.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, it seems Hickman is somehow following all the creative teams throughout the X-books - this should be the editor's job, but unfortunately the X-editors would often let the stories in different books contradict each other, so I guess it's nice that the main writer took this task to himself.
This reminds me, Fallen Angels will get its first issue next week, right? While I loathe Kwannon, I must admit I'm curious to see this book. To be honest, part of me does miss ninja Psylocke - yes, it brought serious representation issues with Betsy and I'm glad she's back to her original body, but I can't help having fond memories of the 1990s Psylocke -, and the fact this book will also have X-23 (who's a fantastic character when properly written) and Cable (granted, the young and less likeable version of him, but still) also helps.
That said, Betsy will always be better than Kwannon, and that's a fact.
By the way, Kiki, from what I understood, the main X-Men book won't be focused solely on the Summers clan (who are indeed similar to the Inhumans); they're just the protagonists of the first arc.
ReplyDeleteIf I remember correctly, some covers for the later issues show Storm, Armor and Mystique, so I guess they're the protagonists of the second arc. Hopefully Betsy will also get her own arc there (yes, she's already in Excalibur, but if Storm and Armor can appear in the X-Men book, why can't Betsy, right?).
Oh believe me if you take a sharpie and strike through the name Kwannon in speech bubbles you get a book about Betsy plucked out from the 90s. No gain, no loss. Butterfly checked, psychic knife checked, hand uniform checked, urge to kill checked. A book of alternative Betsy is presented to us as racial progress.
ReplyDeleteI hope the X-Men won't tread the silent war of Inhumans. The Inhumans are the most loathed niche of Marvel comics. Living in a moon base and starting a war with the Fantastic Four confirms it.
Indeed. Then again, did anyone expect Kwannon's return to be anything else but a way to keep Ninja Psylocke around? I didn't.
ReplyDeleteAt least, the creative team seems to be trying to show she's really Japanese, thus the "hai" among her lines. As for racial progress, maybe Marvel should have put Armor as her sidekick instead of X-23 - granted, Hisako's past isn't dark enough to brand her as a "fallen angel" like Kwannon, Laura and Cable, but having a teammate from the same country could help to establish Kwannon's identity (even though, as said before, it seems the intention was never to give her an identity, just to have Ninja Psylocke back without undoing Betsy's recent progress).
As for the X-Men following the Inhumans' path... well, humankind always persecuted mutants in the Marvel universe and I doubt they'll stop doing it now; it seems this time X is determined to have his people proactively stand up against this persecution. But unlike the Silent War event, I think the X-Men won't start a war, they just won't run away from it if humankind starts it. Hopefully they won't be enemies to the Fantastic Four, though; considering how both teams were boycotted by Disney, I'd rather see them managing to reach a peaceful conclusion regarding Franklin's situation... then joining forces to give the Avengers the beatdown they deserve.
(by the way, while all you said about the Inhumans is true, I must confess I like them)
There was a time when the X-Men and the Fantastic Four were close like good friends. Honestly they were family since Franklin Richards was married to Rachel Summers in the Days of Future Past. Not to mention T'Challa marriage to Ororo and their bonds to the Fantastic Four or Johnny Storm's friendship with the Beast and Iceman.
ReplyDeleteSame goes with the Inhumans and Crystal marrying Quicksilver giving birth to the first mutant-inhuman person in the Marvel Universe. With the legal fights over the acquisition of the rights for X-Men and the Fantastic Four decades of progress and shared history was thrown under the bus.
The same betrayal we experience with Betsy's code name being stripped off of her and given to her nemesis. It'd be wiser to let the name Psylocke in limbo despite it's ninja commercial success and use another in order to respect the legacy it has. Just like ignoring the Inhumans versus X-Men and Avengers versus X-Men events that ruined friendships and established personalities.
"Hai" I laughed out loud when I saw that in the preview. I guess shes like Colossus or Nightcrawler now, where they intermittently will use a single word of their native language lol
ReplyDelete@randybear you made me laugh by bringing that up.😂
ReplyDeleteI imagine her say like a broken record the phrases ''toire wa doko desu ka?'', ''Yurusanai!'', ''domo arigato'', ''So desu ne'', ''kimochi warui''.