X-Position: Bunn Reignites The Hellfire Club In Uncanny X-Men

CBR: This week in X-POSITION, “Uncanny X-Men,” “Civil War II: X-Men” and “Deadpool and the Mercs for Money” writers Cullen Bunn answers your questions about everything from Elixir’s future to Archangel’s past and everything in between.

After seeing the line up for the ANAD Hellfire Club, why did you choose Black Tom Cassidy as a member? He has not been relevant since Austen’s run on the “X-Men.”

Bunn: Originally, Black Tom and Juggernaut were going to be members of my Hellfire Club. For various reasons, I had to remove Juggernaut, but I’ve always liked Black Tom, so I left him in the mix. He’s a lot of fun to write, I’ve found. It was time to pull him out of mothballs.

Maybe I missed something while reading, but how did the drone Archangel come to be in the first place? When Archangel died in “Uncanny X-Force,” a blank slate Warren Worthington remained. How did we end up with Warren and the drone as two separate entities during the 8-month gap?

Bunn: At some point during the 8-month gap, Warren came to the conclusion that his wings were things of evil. After he hooked up with Akkaba, those wings were harvested to grow the Death Flight of Archangel clones. One of those “clones” escaped. This was the Archangel from the beginning of the series.

I have read before you were a huge Rachel Grey fan, a trait rarely found in X-writers these days. In just one issue you already shown you care and know a lot about the character. So my question is: What are your plans for Rachel Grey? Is she just a guest or is she going to stay in your book? And why did you choose to bring her now?

Bunn: It’s true that Rachel Grey is my favorite X-character. My original plan for the “Civil War II” book was to showcase a lot of mutant characters we haven’t seen much of, but that changed along the way. In the end, I had to cut back on the number of guest stars, but I kept Rachel in the role I had planned. You’ll have to see how “Civil War II: X-Men” ends to see if Rachel is sticking around or not. Whether she does or not, I consider her appearance in that book as a way of easing her back into continuity in a bigger way.