CBR: Mister Sinister, a longtime X-Men foe, holds yet another point of
view regarding the Phoenix Force. In "Uncanny X-Men" #14, on sale June
20, writer Kieron Gillen and artist Dustin Weaver kick off a story that
puts the cunning villain in conflict with the titular team and their
newly cosmic empowered members, the Phoenix Five. CBR News spoke with
Gillen about his plans for the series."In issue #13 I wanted to create this weird mood where we had Storm, Magneto, and Psylocke, three of the most powerful individuals on Earth, sitting there in a cellar drinking bottled water and they're all exhausted. They don't talk about who they've beaten. They talk about how they've been hurt and how they've lost. They're all exhausted because the last 25 hours of their life have been complete chaos," Gillen continued. "They haven't really had a chance to stop and process it all. Now's the time for conversation, but when there was so much at stake Storm and the others had to follow Scott. For me, the low key-ness of the moment makes the epic superhero conflicts more real."
Speaking with Scott Summers the next time Storm sees him will be a very different experience, because at the end of "Avengers X-Men" #5 the Phoenix selected Cyclops and four other members of the Extinction team -- Emma Frost, Namor, Colossus, and Magik -- to be its avatars. When this cosmically powered quintet, dubbed the Phoenix Five, returns to Earth their non god-like team mates will each have their own opinion on what they have become.
"In issue #13 I deliberately put Storm, Magneto, and Psylocke together. They're almost like our Greek Chorus. They'll comment about what's going on. Storm leans one way. Magneto leans another, and Psylocke is conflicted. So they provide interesting commentary and in their own ways they're all voices of reason," Gillen explained. "They're there when the Phoenix Five do what they're doing and they're our view point characters in a lot of way. I wanted to try to keep the Phoenix Five at a slight distance because I wanted to convey a sense of the otherworldly and their immense powerful. It's quite uncanny when you see some of the images of what the Phoenix Five get up to. So Magneto, Storm, and Psylocke end up walking into this room with the Five and they're all sort of glancing at each other. In a 'Er... worried now!' way.
“For so long, my life has been out of control. Chaos and serendipity, wrapped in insanity. I have suffered, I have lost. Not just my life, but my very soul, my self. But no more. Now I know who I am.” – Elizabeth ‘Betsy’ Braddock, daughter of Otherworld, mutant, telepath, telekinetic, defender of the realm and, above all, X-Man.
3 comments:
Cool to know that Psylocke will still have a considerable role in the next UXM arc! I guess she'll be replacing Hope in the Extinction Team (since Hope left Utopia in AvX #6). And it makes total sense that she won't either lean Storm's way or Magneto's. I guess Storm will be very concerned and wary about the Phoenix Five, Magneto will have complete faith in them, and Betsy will feel like, "okay, they're my friends, but they are über-powerful now, but they have only helped the world so far, but they could be corrupted by this power, but..."
I like the direction Gillen is taking this book. I only wish he'd have explained a bit more about the Five Lights (especially about the sixth and seventh lights, who don't fit in his "messiah and five acolytes" explanation last issue) in this interview...
I like that we're getting three different views of this situation. Even if the X-men win I can't see this somehow blowing up in Scott's face.
They've been hinting at Cyclops being imbalanced and totalitarian for a while. I think the end of this arc may be his undoing.
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