Hot on the heels of the 50th Anniversary event "X-Men: Battle of the Atom" writers of the X-Book franchise Peter David, Gerry Duggan, Dennis Hopeless, Marjorie Liu, Brian Wood, Charles Soule, Simon Spurrier and Editors Jeanine Schaefer, Jordan White, and Daniel Ketchum spoke to the New York Comic Con 2013 crowd about the future of mutantkind in a panel moderated by Senior Editor Nick Lowe.
GEEK ON
NYCC 2013 - X-Men & All-New Marvel Now Reboot
Fri. October 11, 2013 12:00 AM
by Danny Bernardo
ALL NEW X-MEN One of the big stories to come out of "Battle of the Atom" will be a 6-part crossover with "Guardians of the Galaxy" as part of the brand's 2014 rebooting "All-New Marvel Now." The arc called "The Trial of Jean Grey" will weigh in on the repercussions of Jean Grey's galactic genocide in her time as the Phoenix. This epic story will begin January 2014.Also in the future for the book, X-23 will be joining the team in issue 20, the cover of which showed her kissing a silhouetted character.
AMAZING X-MEN One of the most anticipated titles since it was announced at this year's Comic-Con, "Amazing X-Men" will bring the return of fan favorite Nightcrawler. "The book goes through time, space, and dimensions," said Lowe, in a debut he called the most "swashbuckling book we've ever written."About the tone of the book, Lowe said: "Every arc is going to be an event." Especially excited to join the book is artist Ed McGuiness whom Lowe noted has pitched a Nightcrawler story to him for years. "This is the book Ed has been waiting to draw his whole life," Lowe said."Amazing X-Men" will be written by Jason Aaron and will launch in November after the events of "Battle of the Atom."
X-MEN One of the best books to come out this year, Wood's all female led (adjectiveless) "X-Men" will see a huge arc featuring Lady Deathstrike starting with issue 7, drawn by Terry Dodson. Fans of Peter David's recently wrapped "X-Factor" will be happy to know that beautifully snarky Monet will join the team in issue 8."Monet was one of my originals the pitch," said Wood. "I wrote her when I wrote "Generation X" a long time ago. Pairing her off with Jubilee and her wise cracks is going to be fun to write."
WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN Hot off the heels of Battle of the Atom, covers of the series showed Wolverine smashing through S.H.I.E.L.D. logo and teaming up with his former ally Cyclops fighting against Sentinels UNCANNY X-MEN While Issue 14 deals will deal with the consequences of "Battle of the Atom," fans will be excited that Issue 15 will start ties into the new series "Inhumanity" which will deal with the Inhumans taking prominence in the human world after the Avengers story-event Infinity. "A lot of Inhumans are going to start popping up," said Lowe. "How does it affect the mutants? This is the book that explains it"
WOLVERINE With 1ssue 11 of "Savage Wolverine" wrapping Jock's 'Wolverine in space," queer fans will be excited that out artist Phil Jimenez will be bringing Wolverine to crime syndicate Madripoor starting with issue 12. The "Killable" arc of "Wolverine" by Paul Cornell will wrap in December, with a cover featuring long-time nemeisis Sabertooth with a sword at Wolverine's throat. The big question is: will Wolverine get his healing factor back. "We promise you, you won't see the end coming," said Schaeffer. X-FORCE The two separate titles "Uncanny X-Force" and "Cable and X-Force" will cross over in January in an arc called "Vendetta." With long time enemies Cable and Bishop leading each team, the panel agreed that this face off would be inevitable. Also huge news for the books, Stryfe will be returning in this arc.
ASTONISHING X-MEN "Astonishing X-Men" recently wrapped its nine year run with writer Marjorie Liu at the helm. "It was a real pleasure and honor to write this book," said Liu. "My goal was to write the X-Men as real as possible. They were characters you'd run into in a restaurant. I just wanted to write straight character based stories."On what made this particular team of X-Men unique, Liu said: "It's best to be different, no matter how much of an outsider you feel. You'll find your group, you'll find your path." The nine year run of "Astonishing X-Men" began with Joss Whedon creating a team dedicated to keep the public perception of mutants positive. Liu's year long run featured the milestone gay wedding of Northstar to his husband Kyle.
ALL-NEW MARVEL NOW The panel closed with exciting announcements for the rebooting of the whole Marvel line beginning in January. First mentioned was February 2014's "She-Hulk" solo book as was announced last week in USA Today. Comic fans have been seeing mysterious one-word teasers in their books this month, and the panel decoded some of them for us: Sinners – Ghost Rider will be joining "Thunderbolts" in 2014. Wrath - Richard Isanove joins the team for "Savage Wolverine" Trial / Judgement – the aforementioned "Trial of Jean Grey" Corporate – "All-New X-Factor" will launch in January 2014, written by Peter David, whose run of the original series wrapped last month. This new book will be "rooted in the real world," said David. "Corporate presence is everywhere. I'm mostly fascinated by Google. It came out of nowhere and ties into so many things: space travel, curing cancer, and oh, by the way, they have a search engine. Why wouldn't a corporation get into superheroes?" In the new book, the CEO and president of the largest search engine in the Marvel Universe buys X-Factor from Madrox and brings in Polaris, Quicksilver, Gambit, and three more team members who have yet to be announced.