Hollywood Reporter: When X of Swords, the storyline stretching through Marvel Entertainment’s entire X-Men comic book franchise, arrives in September, it’ll do more than tie the publishing line together; according to one of the story’s lead writers, it’ll also demonstrate how collaborative the writers of the multiple comics have become.
Talking during the Marvel Comics: Next Big Thing panel streamed Friday as part of Comic-Con at Home, Tini Howard, writer of Excalibur, said that the 24-part storyline was the result of talking to X-Men writer and franchise lead Jonathan Hickman, and realizing that the two were planning similar plot developments without realizing it.
The storyline, originally announced in February, “comes out a lot of my love for a lot of things people have seen in Excalibur, of magic not just as a thing that lets you fly around and shoot fireballs or whatever, but magic as the idea of a cultural practice,” Howard said. “It’s going to be really exciting character work for a lot of your favorite characters. They all have some fun stuff coming up.”
Although the title, pronounced “Ten of Swords,” could be read literally given that the storyline will involve multiple characters using swords, Howard said that there’s another meaning to be considered. “If you know the tarot at all, you know the ten of swords is the end of a suit, and like all suits, it’s a journey. The suit of swords, if you’re a tarot reader, does not end well.”
In addition to watching the many different X-teams — the X-Men, the New Mutants, the Marauders, and more — come together, Howard promised that fans picking up the storyline will also get to see threads pass between chapters, with fellow guest Gerry Duggan saying that he’s even co-writing issues of the series he normally writes solo with other writers from the X-office.
The storyline, Howard said, "is really just showing you how good we’ve gotten at writing books as a team."
Storm, Cypher and Captain Britain are three of the X-Men that are teased to have major moments in X of Swords. Howard and Duggan were light on details, but Howard did mention that some of Douglas Ramsey's big moments do happen inside the pages of Excalibur.
A cover for November's Marauders #14 by artist Russel Dauterman features Storm sharing a sensual dance with a new X-Men villain, Death, who is one of Apocalypse's First Horseman and a central antagonist in the X of Swords crossover.
X of Swords begins with X of Swords: Creation #1, released in comic stores and digitally in September.
“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.
7 comments:
Betsy has a long connection to Apocalypse. I'm surprised Howard hasn't dropped a mention for Betsy's ancestor from the Akkaba mouth. HELLFIRE CLUB! Hello!
Has Ororo had a connection to Apocalypse? References from older books? Shadow King yes, Mzungu yes.
"A cover for November's Marauders #14 by artist Russel Dauterman features Storm sharing a sensual dance with a new X-Men villain, Death, who is one of Apocalypse's First Horseman and a central antagonist in the X of Swords crossover."
Wait, so Death is an antagonist? Does it mean Apocalypse is actually an antagonist in X of Swords, or have his Horsemen betrayed him?
Anyway, nice to know that Betsy, Ororo and Doug will get major moments in this crossover. And with Howard saying Doug will get some of his moments in Excalibur, could this finally be the story where Betsy and Doug have a proper interaction since he returned to life and she returned to her original body? That would be great (but if they don't, that's okay).
That said, I still have no idea of how this story will be, what are the X-Men fighting for, what are their antagonists fighting for (and who are their antagonists). But to know that the writers are actually enjoying to work as a team is a good sign; hopefully this crossover will be like Messiah CompleX and Second Coming (that is, a story where it feels like you're reading a single, cohesive story) rather than AvX or Battle of the Atom (where the individual styles of each writer ended up clashing with each other and the story became a mess).
Speaking of Battle of the Atom, I was re-reading it recently and just realized Bendis and Aaron missed a MAJOR opportunity when they decided to create their own Future X-Men, rather than utilizing the actual DoFP X-Men - not only it would give the O5 teens much more reason to worry about the future of mutantkind, it would also allow some interesting interactions with the present X-Men (Magneto would probably be shocked to find himself in a wheelchair, for instance) and between the DoFP team and Rachel.
Fsaker, no. Apocalypse is not an antagonist the OG horsemen are.
There are 10 heroes (including Apocalypse) and 10 villains. If you go back and look at the cover by Larraz, the 4 horsemen amongst the other new characters and the 1 summoner.
Apocalypse is standing with the XMen.
Thanks, randybear! I assumed they were still under Apocalypse's orders (and didn't realize they were in the X of Swords: Stasis cover, as they look kinda different there; in fact, I'm still not sure which of the 10 villains is supposed to be the Horseman with the Sphinx headgear and beard). It will be interesting to find out how and why they joined the other villains (including the creepy white dude - who I also thought was allied with Apocalypse).
Then again, I still have no idea of who are the villains in this story and what exactly they want (apparently they want to win Saturnyne's favor - but why? How? And is Saturnyne even okay with them doing what they are going to do?). It's all still very nebulous to me. Which is odd, because Marvel is usually very descriptive with the synopsis of their events (to the point where they often give spoilers without realizing it).
@FSaker the crossover X of Swords got more complicated and nebulous with the tie in with Empyre. The Cotati landed on the lunar Summers penthouse and attacked Vulcan which ended in Cotati massacre. I read Krakoa-secret Genesis rescue team implications. Krakoa is a sentient vegetation, so are the Cotati.
I agree with the DoFP X-Men in BotA. A missed opportunity to acknowledge canon timelines. Creating more possible futures adds nothing but confusion.
As far as I know, Betsy is connected to Apocalypse via the Hellfire Club by ancestral involvement. The new Akkaba cult have distanced themselves from Apocalypse's vision. He let its mystics die.
Storm is from Africa. She definitely has crossed paths with Apocalypse one way or another. I can't recall any of it happening in the comics.
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