• At Marvel Comics’ panel presentation for its X-Men line at Comic-Con International in San Diego, the publisher dropped a tease for the return of the Uncanny X-Men title at the panel.
• Uncanny X-Men will be released in November. No creative team has been announced for the title yet.
• Marvel also revealed that X-Men Black is actually an entire line of one-shot comics, rather than a single series, with each title headlined by a major mutant villain and running weekly in October; each issue will feature back up stories focusing on Apocalypse written by Lonnie Nadler and Zac Thompson.
• X-Men Black: Magneto #1 by Chris Claremont and Dalibor Talajic
• X-Men Black: Mojo #1 by Scott Auckerman and Nick Bradshaw
• X-Men Black: Mystique #1 by Seanan McGuire and Marco Failla
• X-Men Black: Juggernaut #1 by Robbie Thompson and Shawn Crystal
• X-Men Black: Emma Frost #1 by Leah Williams and Chris Bachalo
“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.
9 comments:
I wonder if Betsy will encounter any if them ? specially Magneto or Mystique. the cover that surprised me the most was Mojo. and Juggy too
Bachalo is back and drawing Emma.. again ugh. I hope hes on the new Uncanny. What a weak reveal I was hoping for more reveals.
Meh. Backup stories with Apocalypse?! Why? I hope there's more exciting stuff on the horizon for the
X-men than this
To be honest, I like this idea. It's been a while since I started wondering what would happen if Apocalypse decided for once to have actual bad guys as his Horsemen instead of insisting on recruiting X-Men (a decision that is always doomed to fail). Since he will be in the backstories, I wonder if these issues will show him trying to recruit these characters as Horsemen - and, if so, which of them won't join (since there's five of them).
It's a pity that Mr. Sinister isn't there. Just imagine Apocalypse joined by Magneto (leading the Acolytes - I always thought a team of terrorists moved by religion could be a huge threat), Mystique (leading the Brotherhood/Sisterhood), Emma (leading the Hellfire Club) and Sinister (leading the Marauders); that would be the ultimate threat to the X-Men! It's actually surprising no X-writer has ever considered that before...
(as for Uncanny, I guess that will be the book where Betsy will be; as WWE former wrestler Paige - who's also British, by the way - would say, "THIS IS HER HOUSE"!)
Question for you guys. If X-Men: Black is limited, and X-Men:Gold and X-Men:Blue are canceled, do you think Jean's book just be renamed? Seems like the color theme is going away, which I'm not mad about. Marvel seems to have forgotten that this franchise was at its absolute best when consumers were not given more than three choices:
The Uncanny X-Men (the definite article adds some weight and as a Marketing tool, I think Marvel should keep the adjective, uncanny solely for the X-Men versus spreading it thinly across other characters)
The New Mutants
X-Factor
Granted, the 80s were also the time when we saw the best writers on these titles, but we all know that oversaturation is also one of the biggest issues with why our favorite Marvel family hasn't been in top for about two decades now. I'm still rooting for them, but think Marvel needs to do something drastic.
I agree with you, although Claremont and Louise Simonson also had a good share of missteps in their (otherwise brilliant) runs. I'd even say Claremont's X-Men #1-#3 (you know, the arc presenting the roster that would remain for most of the 1990s and pitting them against Magneto and the Acolytes) was kind of the end of X-Men's golden era (even if there were still great runs after that, such as Morrison's, Whedon's and Gillen's - I won't mention Remender's as his one involved the X-Force, not the X-Men per se).
I'm not sure if Marvel is the only one to blame on the oversaturation, though; many X-fans were hysterical the last time Marvel tried to reduce the number of X-books, accusing them of cancelling mutant titles to favor inhuman books (which is quite stupid looking back, as even after Inhumanity the number of books featuring inhumans was never as big.
Maybe some people also consider that more books means more characters in focus, thus less characters left forgotten. Fraction had a brilliant idea of using his book to house nearly ALL of the X-Men - the problem is, when it came to executing this idea, he put too much emphasis on Cyclops, Emma Frost (granted, they were the leaders, but they still were more highlighted than it was needed) and Beast (for the first half), while everyone else barely got to do anything. Psylocke can even be considered lucky, as despite being just a supporting character, she still appeared more than 90% of the other X-Men (I mean, Gambit only appeared in ONE panel throughout that entire run; two or three if we count the UXM issues during Second Coming. Yes, I'm serious).
Oh well, nevertheless, I agree with you: three monthly books should be enough for the X-family.
FSaker,
And I am with you as Adjectiveless 1-3 being the end of an era. Louise and Chris were the dream team on these books. And when I was a kid, I used to think we needed every character we loved crammed into the books, the adult me realizes that life isn't like that. I think the reason why self-contained books like Saga and Y: The Last Man excel is not only due to their strong writing and self-contained universes, but also due to characters coming and going. Some return and we cheer, because we love them, but we also lose ones we love and that feels more natural and it ground some reality in all the fantasy. As a sci-fi/fantasy fan, I think that the best franchises often add some element of reality to their lore. Also, as you highlighted, the entire Fraction run felt like everyone save for about 5 characters was literally wallpaper. I know how much you hated Betsy's "As you wish." LOL.
I think Claremont was on to something with his original plans to have characters retire or move on in life or to die final deaths and make way for new characters to inherit their legacies. Instead, we got oversized casts with new additions propped and vets sidelined while all visible. For instance, there are characters I adore like Northstar, Dr. Reyes, Longshot, Rictor, Dazzler, Cypher, Havok, Sunspot and Marrow. While I often want them on a team, when they are made part of a roster for a while, I really appreciate them even more and can be fine when they're off-canvas for a length of time.
LOL, the "As you wish" line was so stupid (and yet used so many times) I'm surprised it didn't become a meme among X-readers. I remember at the CBR forums there was a member who did an amazing parody of Fraction's run, and Betsy would often say this line while bowing to Cyclops (with her bottom facing the reader, of course).
I didn't get the chance to read Ed Piskor's X-Men Grand Design yet, but I do look forward to it, as it covers exactly Claremont's first run on the X-Men (plus the Stan Lee era with the Original 5) and is supposed to end exactly on Adjectiveless 1-3 (which is still one of my favorite arcs ever, my only criticism of it being Jubilee's sudden absence without any explanation).
Gotta commend you on the great taste, by the way; Saga and Y are both amazing series!
FSaker,
Thank you. Pot meet kettle. Brian Vaughan is probably the best comic book writer currently working.
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