X-Solicits for January 2014

	X-Men #9 Writer: Brian Wood Art and Cover by: Terry Dodson Muertas Part 3! • Lady Deathstrike’s new Sisterhood set their sights on the X-Men, and Psylocke is in the crosshairs! • A foe awakens... and neither team might be able to handle her!
	Uncanny X-Force #16 & 17 Writer: Sam Humphries Art by: Harvey Tolibao Covers by: Ramon Perez “Vendetta” – A Four Part X-Force Event! Issue #16 - “Vendetta” Part II Issue #17 - “Vendetta” Part IV • Classic X-Force villain Stryfe has returned! And he’s eager to exact his revenge on the man who left him broken and adrift in the timestream: Cable. • As Stryfe’s plan comes to bear, Hope is brought face-to-face with Bishop, the man who crusaded across centuries in a mission to exterminate her. But this time around, she’s ready to retaliate... and they’ll hold nothing back as they race to destroy one another. • Don’t miss this no-holds-barred, knockdown, drag-out X-Force event! Because when the dust settles, only one X-Force team will be left standing...
	Cable and X-Force #18 & 19 Writer: Dennis Hopeless Art by: Angel Unzueta Covers by: Ramon Perez “Vendetta” – A Four Part X-Force Event! Issue #18 - “Vendetta” Part I Issue #19 - “Vendetta” Part III • Classic X-Force villain Stryfe has returned! And he’s eager to exact his revenge on the man who left him broken and adrift in the timestream: Cable. • As Stryfe’s plan comes to bear, Hope is brought face-to-face with Bishop, the man who crusaded across centuries in a mission to exterminate her. But this time around, she’s ready to retaliate... and they’ll hold nothing back as they race to destroy one another. • Don’t miss this no-holds-barred, knockdown, drag-out X-Force event! Because when the dust settles, only one X-Force team will be left standing...

Uncanny X-Force #12 Art

NYCC 2013: X-Forces Clash in "Vendetta"

Newsarama: Uncanny X-Force and Cable and X-Force will clash in January with a crossover "where Cable kicks the shit out of those imposters," said Dennis Hopeless. The crossover is called "Vendetta." The event will be weekly for the month of January, with two issues of each shipping that month.

Stryfe returns and also gets into the mix with both teams. "We knew when we had two X-Force titles that it would be cool to have one X-Force running into the other X-Force," said Daniel Ketchum.

X-Men #6 Art

Battle of The Atom – Chapter 7 Spoilers

Chapter 7 – X-Men #6: At the Jean Grey School, a crying Shogo wakes up Jubilee, who finds out Iceman and Beast left the baby with Broo. Later, Bling! builds a device to protect Shogo which works like Armor's powers and gives it to Jubilee. Meanwhile the X-Men and the Future X-Men head back to the school after having retrieved Teen Jean and Teen Scott. However, Wolverine is suspicious and requests Rachel to keep and eye on the Future X-Men. Xorna Jean and Future Beast take the originals to Beast's lab along with Storm, Beast and Kitty. Bling! informs the others that Teen Iceman and Teen Beast are gone. Xavier goes nuts and attacks Bling! when he finds out the originals went to their future with Magik. Xavier fears the other X-Men will come for them and the future X-Men show their true colors, dropping the charade. Rachel says they've been lying all along. Future Kitty is actually the metamorph Wolverine/Mystique lovechild, who stabs his father. At Beat's lab, Xorna Jean is being a bit unsympathetic to Teen Jean. Xavier orders her to secure the originals at any cost. Xorna Jean does so by psychically overwhelming everyone. Future Beast uses power dampeners on Storm, Kitty and Beast and the originals and hacks the school defense systems, locking down every room. Back at the Hangar, Rachel attacks Xavier. Jubilee comes to her defense but is knocked out by Ice Hulk. Rogue tries to absorb Ice Hulk, only to find out he's not really a person. Psylocke who's holding Shogo shatters Ice Hulk into pieces with a psychic morning star. Rachel gets the upper hand against Xavier, but Molly Hayes knocks her unconscious from behind. Shogo ends up pressing Bling!'s protection device, which wraps him like a hamster ball. Only Psylocke is left to fight Deadpool and Wolverique while Jubilee, Bling!, and Shogo run away. Cyclops's and Future Jubilee's X-Men head to the school. Sentinel-X goes for recon and meets Jubilee and Bling!. Sentinel-X takes off his mask and reveals himself as Future Shogo. A wounded Psylocke (or Wolverique in disguise) also manages to leave the school and meet them.

Villainous Return in This Week’s Uncanny X-Force #12

Newsarama: In today’s Uncanny X-Force #12, readers finally learned the true identity of the Revenant Queen that’s been wrecking havoc in the lives of Psylocke’s X-Force team and the larger west coast area. And it is... Cassandra Nova!

Last glimpsed five years ago, the long-lost evil sister of Professor Charles Xavier reared her head and unveiled herself as the person behind Bishop’s recent madness and the team’s problems over the past year. Just how does it all happen? We asked series writer (and the mastermind behind Nova’s return) Sam Humphries.

“Cassandra Nova is ambitious and immortal. Thousands of years in the future, she hijacks Bishop to come back to the present -- right at the moment when her brother is dead, and unable to stop her,” Humphries tells Newsarama. “She's an immensely powerful psychic with a huge axe to grind -- and an army of psychic demons to crush the world.”

Humphries explains that Nova has been hidden in the background of Uncanny X-Force since its first issue last year, although not physically.

“Technically, she appears in issue 1 -- well, Bishop appears in issue 1, and she was possessing Bishop,” says Humphries. “And we saw her jump to Ginny in issue 4. But the seeds were planted back in that first issue.”

This revelation was revealed as part of the larger story of this week’s Uncanny X-Force #12, which in effect was a solo story for the former Mojo pawn Spiral – the first, arguably, since her Ricochet Rita days. Although Psylocke is the centerpiece of the series, Humphries says that Spiral shares similar experiences as Betsy – although more intense.

“We've all got a lot of love for Psylocke -- she's a murderer, yes, but we give her and other characters like Wolverine a pass because of their tortured histories. Psylocke has been kidnapped, mutilated, and body swapped. But everything Betsy has been through, Spiral has been through ten-fold,” Humphries explains. “So I wanted to know, if we can have sympathy for Betsy, can we have sympathy for Spiral too? And Spiral is a cosmic ninja, which is pretty awesome.”

Best known as the multi-armed “cosmic ninja” of the classic X-Men villain Mojo, Spiral was born far different – Rita Wayword, professional stuntman. Created by Art Adams and Ann Nocenti back in 1985’s Longshot #1, Wayword was kidnapped and imprisoned by Mojo for years before being genetically modified – inside and out – to become a minion of Mojo. Humphries revealed in early issues of Uncanny X-Force that Spiral had been exiled to Earth and stripped of her teleportation abilities, resulting in Spiral turning over a new leaf as she looked after a homeless mutant named Ginny.

“Spiral used to be human, but she's had her humanity stripped away from her. I wanted to explore the feelings of someone like that trying to navigate a big city like Los Angeles. Someone powerful and dangerous barely holding it together on the streets,” says the writer. “Ginny was the first person not to treat her like a villain and a monster, and that changed Spiral's perception of herself -- awakened something within her she thought Mojo had killed years ago.”

Out from under Mojo’s thumb and looking for the whereabouts of Ginny, in Uncanny X-Force #12 Spiral follows the trail of the Revenants to try to suss out exactly what they are and who’s behind them. Along the way Spiral ended up torching one of Los Angeles’ famous landmarks if you’re a foodie – Donut Time. When asked about this culinary catastrophe, Humphries assured us Donut Time still exists – but offers up some additional recommendations when you’re out in L.A.

“Donut Time is infamous to residents of the area. And unfortunately, where Spiral goes, destruction follows,” Humphries says. “Nickel Diner and Umamicatessen downtown have some fancy bacon-and-whatnot-style donuts. But I always like SK Donuts on 3rd Street near La Brea for that authentic independent donut experience. The apple fritters are amazing.”

Getting into more serious matters, Spiral eventually follows the trail of the Revenants back to their home and reveals the return of Cassandra Nova. After glimpsing Revenant versions of Storm, Psylocke and Puck in the last issue, Nova explains that Revenants is the unbridled dark side inside every one – Nova herself being Professor X’s.

When Cassandra Nova was first introduced by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely in New X-Men, she was described as a “mummudrai,” a Shi’ar term for what is roughly equivalent to a spiritual evil twin born on the astral plane. Cassandra Nova was Xavier’s, but due to his immense telepathic abilities was able to take physical form. As revealed in this week’s Uncanny X-Force #12, these Revenants are mummudrai that Nova is able to bring to the physical word.

“The legend of the mummudrai -- the Sh'iar word for revenant -- states that everyone has a revenant when they're born,” elaborates Humphries. “That means there's about a hundred billion of these slathering, snarling goblins out there, waiting for an opportunity to experience the good life on this side of the psychic divide. If you open that door between our worlds, you'll never get it closed again.”

This all leads to an upcoming arc teased in the advance solicits for Uncanny X-Force called “Revenant War,” which will see Los Angeles being invaded by Nova’s Revenants.

“Cassandra Nova wants to rip down the barrier that keeps all revenants from our world, and create a revenant invasion,” says the writer. “The revenants have languished too long with the short end of the stick. They're envious, and hungry. Readers can expect a city on fire, a demon invasion, and Uncanny X-Force scrambling to turn the tide against one of the most powerful villains on the planet. And fantastic art by Phil Briones and Angel Unzueta -- they bring hell to Los Angeles.”

Uncanny X-Force #12 Spoilers

Spoilers: While looking for Ginny, Spiral hears about a cult of “White Robes” ghosts terrorizing Hollywood and kidnapping everyone. She attaches body shop tech to a bird to help her track down these ghosts, which leads her to a donut shop. There, Spiral finds a woman stabbed to death, but reanimates her with magic. The woman reveals her daughter was kidnapped and once she told the police the location of the White Robes, they came after her and killed her. The woman wishes to rest in peace again, so Spiral beheads her and sets the donut shop on fire. Spiral heads to a wig shop, the location informed by the woman, and finds a “White Robe” dragging an unconscious woman. The Revenant reveals their Queen warned them about Spiral. She tortures him and finds out through his belongings something about a “Magic Mansion”. Spiral checks on said Mansion, only to find it guarded by “White Robes”. She teleports inside right in front of the Owl Queen. The Queen reveals they’re revenants or like the Shi’ar likes to call them mummudrai. The Owl Queen takes off her robe and reveals herself to be Cassandra Nova in possession of Ginny’s body. Revenants attack Spiral, but she manages to kill them all; however Cassandra escapes. Spiral then meets X-Force and tells them all about it. Bishops says Cassandra wants to destroy the veil that separate our world from the underworld, bringing death to humanity and the end of the world.

Battle of The Atom – Chapter 6 Spoilers

Chapter 6 – All-New X-Men #17: Years from now – Dazzler the most recognizable, liked and trusted mutant of the last twenty years is elected the first mutant president of the United States of America with the support of her fellow X-Men. Before Dazzler delivers her victory speech, she's brutally murdered. This causes Beast to resent the human race and most likely led to the X-Men's split into two different factions.

Even more years from now – Magik, teen Beast and teen Iceman arrive at the Jean Grey School and are welcomed by the future X-Men: Colossus, Jubilee, Sir Iceman, "Iron Man", "Cloak", Quentin Quire and Kymera. Jubilee tells them to go back to the present, but Magik insists on asking about the other Future X-Men group. They stress that they cannot tell what will happen in the future. Sir Iceman reveals that the Ice Hulk is an aspect of Bobby's powers. Jubilee doesn't want to help, but Colossus says they're also partly responsible for this mess.

Present – Back to Cyclops' Xavier School in Canada, Magik arrives with Jubilee's team of Future X-Men.

Uncanny X-Force #12 Preview

Uncanny X-Force #12
Writer: Sam Humphries

Art by: Adrian Alphona

Cover by: Kris Anka

X-Men 50th Anniversary Variant by: Phil Noto

The Story:

• Spotlight on Spiral!

• With the rest of the Uncanny X-Force in Madripoor, Spiral has devoted herself to finding new mutant Ginny.

• But is the cult Ginny belongs to more than meets the eye?

• Even six arms might not be enough to juggle all this trouble!

In Stores: October 9, 2013

Prepare for War in Uncanny X-Force

Marvel.com: Spiral finds all of her hands full in UNCANNY X-FORCE #12—on sale October 9—as she challenges a Revenant cult in Los Angeles as part of her quest to find the missing mutant, Ginny.

In order to better understand the path writer Sam Humphries has planned for UNCANNY X-FORCE on the way to the coming Revenant War, we caught up with him. In addition to revealing the action-packed ninja story he and artist Adrian Alphona have in store for issue #12, Humphries details his plans for Bishop and the rest of the team. He also hints at the identity of the enigmatic Revenant Queen.

Marvel.com: UNCANNY X-FORCE is a unique book in the X-Men universe, as you made clear in issue #6, when you had Psylocke say to Wolverine: "Not all of us are going to go with you or Cyclops. We're not all that convenient." Is that dialogue, in some sense, a mission statement for the kind of nuanced X-book you are writing?

Sam Humphries: That's Betsy speaking Betsy's frustration with the pressures and fissures of the mutant world post-AvX. But in a broad sense, yes, UNCANNY X-FORCE must exist in a lane separate from any other X-book. There's no point in being a clone of [Brian] Bendis or [Jason] Aaron or [Brian] Wood. It's been my goal since day one to provide a mutant experience in UNCANNY X-FORCE you can't find anywhere else. 

Marvel.com: Speaking of Psylocke, she has struggled through much of your run to in a sense find herself again, who she is as a person despite all she has had done to her by myriad evil forces over the years. On a basic level, are you trying to partially help define her for readers by how you write her dialogue? For example, in issue #6 you had her use the adjective "cack-handed" which is a distinctly British word.

Sam Humphries: You want to be able to define a character not just by what they say, but how they say it. Betsy is British, but she's also lived abroad for most of her adult life. She's not crying for tea and crumpets and waving the Union Jack, but some British slang definitely slips through.

Marvel.com: You and artist Ramon Perez used a Chris Claremont/John Byrne Wolverine homage at the end of issue #10, where Bishop was pulling himself out of underground waters and saying: "Okay Revenants, you've taken your best shot, now it's my turn!" Why that panel, and why now?

Sam Humphries: It's a great moment that helped define Wolverine. I wanted to borrow some of that intensity and drama to help re-define Bishop as a capable badass in the Marvel Universe.

Marvel.com: What is it about Bishop's character that motivated you to bolster his badass qualities?

Sam Humphries: Bishop has been off the stage for too long. He's had a checkered past, but doesn't everyone deserve a shot at redemption?

Marvel.com: Ramon Perez served as the artist on issues #10 and #11. You two worked together previously at Marvel on JOHN CARTER: THE GODS OF MARS. Was this a happy reunion?

Sam Humphries: Hell yes it was. Ramon and I have been chomping at the bit to team up again. His character work, his vertiginous layouts, and his dynamic action make him perfect for UNCANNY X-FORCE. Ramon is a special wizard. There's a reason they gave the man three Eisners!

Marvel.com: Spiral has been off the radar for the past few issues, but issue #12 is a solo story for her. What has she been up to?

Sam Humphries: Spiral has been trying to solve the mystery of a missing person: Ginny, the new mutant we first saw in issue #1. But as many mysteries go, it turns out Spiral is in deeper than she thought. The trail of Ginny brings her head-on with the Revenant cult spreading through Los Angeles. It's a mystery story, it's a horror story, but it's Spiral, so it's also a ninja story, with tons of blood and sharp steel. Adrian Alphona is drawing that issue and it is gorgeous.

Marvel.com: Creatively, why take a relatively unlikable villain like Spiral and make her sympathetic on some level?

Sam Humphries: Spiral is a great character—a cosmic ninja. We've seen her be the stoic killer, the cackling assassin. I wanted to get into her head a little more. Betsy has been through a lot, and we feel for her. But everything Betsy has endured, Spiral has survived tenfold. I wanted to see if we could have sympathy for her as well and still retain everything that makes her a cool character.

Marvel.com: From the start of this series, you have been carefully constructing the buildup to the Revenant War while developing character dynamics in parallel. In terms of building dynamics and having a character to play off others, how much has it helped to have someone as quirky like Puck to utilize and play off the others?

Sam Humphries: We have a lot of grim characters in this book, facing a lot of grim threats. It's fun to be able to let off some steam in the book by letting Puck be the charming smart ass that he is.

Marvel.com: Do you consider Demon Bear to be a member of the UNCANNY X-FORCE team, or is he a free spirit, so to speak?

Sam Humphries: It's definitely fair to say Demon Bear is on the team. But what would Demon Bear say about that? He's a force of nature. He is loyal to Betsy for saving his life, which means he sticks around. He certainly fits on this team of misfits. But who knows what is going on in that demon head of his? Demon Bear keeps his own council.

Marvel.com: Is Bishop back up to full strength now, or is his psyche still pretty fractured and fragile?

Sam Humphries: I don't think you can go through everything Bishop has gone through without showing some cracks in your psyche. Storm played fast and loose with his memories recently— that's gotta cause some damage. We're going to see that come to a head. But overall, Bishop is on solid footing, more so than he has been in years. He's at full strength, and ready to kick some ass.

Marvel.com: Any hints you want to drop about the surprises in store for the Revenant War, which starts in issue 14?

Sam Humphries: The true identity of the Revenant Queen is someone you've seen before.