The X-Axis – w/c 12 May 2025
ASTONISHING X-MEN INFINITY COMIC #21. By Tim Seeley, Edoardo Audino, KJ Díaz & Clayton Cowles. The Generation X reunion continues with Mondo, who feels like getting him into this storyline involved some awkward shoehorning. Of course, the Mondo who was in Generation X was later revealed to be an impostor; this is the real Mondo, who doesn’t really know the characters he’s being reunited with, and in fact has only a scattering of previous appearances. In itself, that’s quite a fun inversion of the reunion angle. Getting him into a story about influencers by making him a pacifist podcaster feels forced, though – even if the story then acknowledges that he’s not a particularly successful pacifist podcaster, he still has to be doing well enough to show up at this event at all. Mind you, I do like Banshee’s dad-like bafflement at the online world, which seems like a solid use of his weary father-figure role in this group – if he’s not the headmaster then his role in the cast ought to be a bit awkward.
UNCANNY X-MEN #14. (Annotations here.) So we’ve got three threads here: Henrietta’s flashbacks in the 1920s (or so?), the Outliers in the Dark Artery in the present day, and Gambit’s encounter with Sadurang. Thus far, the third of those threads doesn’t seem to have much to do with the other two, beyond perhaps keeping the regular X-Men occupied while the Outliers do their thing. It’s neat enough in its own right, but I’m not quite sure what it’s doing in this arc yet. The other two threads are coming together nicely, though – we’re getting some advancement about who the Outliers are and how they actually wound up coming together in the first place, and at the same time Gail Simone continues to try and flesh out a historical mutant underground community. David Marquez’s art is naturally beautiful, especially on the historical flashbacks.
It’s another issue where some people will complain that it’s an Outliers comic rather than an X-Men one, and they have a point, but I’m perfectly happy to read an Outliers comic so it doesn’t bother me at all. The idea that there’s a long-standing mutant community that predates the X-Men is a bit harder to pull off – why did the X-Men never make contact with this historical tradition, and why was the detection of a single new mutant still treated by everyone as a major event for the first twenty years or so of the series? But it depends on how exclusive and underground that community is, and maybe this is just an area of continuity that needed someone to bite the bullet and retool it. The original idea, after all, was that mutants were starting to appear in numbers at the start of the Silver Age because of something to do with the discovery of nuclear bombs and atomic power. But with the sliding timeline, that hasn’t made sense in many years, and besides, the population of Genosha must have come from somewhere. So if we’re going with the idea that there have always been many more mutants than stories once suggested, then sure, what were they up to? So far, I think the arc is making it work.
X-FACTOR #10. (Annotations here.) This is the final issue, and it manages to avoid being an outright scramble to reach the finish line. Quite sensibly, the priority is to get Havok’s storyline and the book’s main theme resolved. Since there was evidently enough notice to start the process of having the team’s relationship with their government employers fall apart, Mark Russell is able to bring that story in to a proper resolution. Other subplots are quietly sidelined: the whole thing about Warren’s odd behaviour as Archangel, which seemed pretty clearly to be a plot point, is reinterpreted to make him a second Havok so that the issue can resolve his story too. The book’s best conceptual joke is to omit poor Forget-Me-Not altogether. He doesn’t even make the recap page.
The basic approach of the “From the Ashes” era was to get away from everything being connected with a single setting in Krakoa, and offer a wider range of X-books in lieu of having a grant unifying idea. Given that, and the track record of the creators, I can absolutely see why X-Factor was commissioned, but it really hasn’t worked. Bob Quinn has made some of the jokes work – Granny Smite is basically a visual gag more than an actual character, and I’ll quite miss her. But the message that the book wants to get across about Havok’s error in dealing with the government is basically the same one that Russell spelled out in a couple of paragraphs of his essay in issue #1, and the attempt to play him as a tragic figure in need of redemption never gelled with the inclusion of broad comedy characters like Broderick. And while Havok makes sense for the book’s theme as the perennial B-list Summers brother hunting for a role where he can feel useful, everyone else seems to have been selected at random – what are Frenzy and Pyro doing in this book, exactly? I honestly couldn’t tell you.
A reasonable idea for a series on paper, but it didn’t work. Unfortunately, it looks like books like this are getting replaced in the next wave with yet more Wolverine team-ups, which is not very encouraging for the direction of the line. X-Factor was at least an interesting failure.
PHOENIX #11. (Annotations here.) We’re on to a new arc and a new artist in Roi Mercado. He’s a more solid, less flashy artist than Miracolo was, which is absolutely to the book’s advantage in the conversation scenes, and perhaps less so in the set-piece cosmic moments. But this issue leans heavily towards the former, so that’s fine. The story involves the return of Jean’s sister Sara, or at least someone claiming to be her – Stephanie Phillips has Jean vouch emphatically for Sara while continually indicating that she isn’t to be taken at face value. It’s a slightly confusing issue as a result, since much of the plot hinges on there being obvious gaps in Sara’s story which Jean isn’t inclined to press on (such as “why aren’t you dead” and “why aren’t you on Earth”), but clearly that’s the whole point. So I’m giving it the benefit of the doubt, though the previous arc kind of fell apart as it went on, so… we’ll see how it turns out.
WOLVERINE #9. (Annotations here.) I spent several paragraphs of the annotations grumbling that the book has jumped from “X-Men #1 hasn’t happened yet” to “Wolverine is a member of the Lousiana X-Men” without there being any opportunity for that to happen, and while it doesn’t matter that much, it is the sort of thing that irritates me since it would have been so easy to leave a gap without causing this book any trouble at all. Anyway, we’re going back to the Howlett Estate, which gives us an opportunity to meet Agent Mehta again and… actually, if we’re setting her up as the smart one in Department H, she doesn’t really act like it here. Saladin Ahemd’s overall idea for her is strong – she figures that the best way to keep track on Wolverine is to be honest and to form a working relationship with him. But the scene winds up making her responsible for a pointless “ambush him in a car park” sequence, when she could have just walked up and said hi, and that undercuts her. The back end is pretty much just Logan arriving at the Howlett Estate and getting into a fight with two of the Marauders – and I do appreciate the choice to go with just the two, since they can be more distinctive that way. Still, we don’t get much further in terms of finding out what the storyline about Logan’s mother involves, and on the whole it’s not the strongest issue of the book.
HELLVERINE #6. By Benjamin Percy, Raffaele Ienco, Bryan Valenza & Travis Lanham. In a week with five ongoing X-books out, you’ve got to draw the line somewhere, and I draw it at the Ghost Rider mash-up title that’s way on the periphery of the X-books. Not that there’s anything wrong with that – Hellverine undeniably offers something unique in the current line, and it’s all the better at doing that because it’s off on its own.
This issue is the start of a new arc that takes Akihiro back to the Project Hellfire outfit from the Hellverine miniseries, now being run by the seemingly well-intentioned Dr Spivey. For some reason, Dr Spivey has decided to hire an obviously evil half-demon as an adviser, and is busily reassembling a Hulk-like demon from parts scattered around the world, for no adequately explained reason. Unfortunately, it’s the sort of issue that leaves me thinking that I’m meant to think it’s an adequately explained reason. It’s all a bit silly, which is par for the course on this book. I quite liked the Project Hellfire characters the last time round – I was a bit disappointed that they didn’t seem to be a regular feature of the series – but this doesn’t really click.
GODZILLA VS X-MEN #1. By Fabian Nicieza, Emilio Laiso, Federico Blee & Clayton Cowles. There are several of these Godzilla one-shots, but they don’t appear to have any through line – or if they do, it’s not essential to this issue. It’s quite simply the early 90s X-Men taking on Godzilla. Fabian Nicieza understands the brief for this sort of thing. Sure, you need a plot. Sure, you can play up the idea that the mutants and Godzilla both know what it feels like to be misunderstood as a monster when you’re trying to help. Sure, you can have the angry guy who just wants to shoot stuff at Godzilla. And sure, you can have the anti-Godzilla robot things as the Sentinels. But that’s just the scaffolding for your set-piece scene in which the X-Men borrow a Super-Adaptoid and some Pym Particles so that they can fight Godzilla with an improvised X-kaiju, because what the hell else are you going to do in Godzilla vs. X-Men #1? Approached in that spirit, this issue is absolutely fine – Laiso mostly gets the sense of scale that it needs, and it would have made a perfectly fine 90s annual.
Re; Hellverine- the idea is that the pieces of the Hell Hulk all turn people evil and Bagra-Ghul scattered them around the world for some reason we don’t know about. I think.
Bleeding Cool’s Bestseller list is out. Godzilla vs. X-Men came in at 4 and Uncanny X-Men came in at 8. This was a busy week but Wolverine not making the top 10 is not a good sign. (X-Factor, Phoenix and Hellverine are all either cancelled or on their last legs.) There’s probably going to be pressure on Breevort to improve the line if this continues.
And with that, the last of the canceled titles comes out. It has been very trying seeing Marvel trying to continue the X-line in the shadow of the Krakoa era. Clearly, something isn’t working. When Brevoort was brought on, it was thought that he would return the X-line back to form. However, rumors abound that many writers did not want to write for the X-line for whatever reason. I can see how difficult it is for Brevoort to manage when people still pine for the Krakoa era.
X-Factor: This one felt difficult to connect to. You buy a book titled X-Factor and get what feels like a knockoff of X-Statix but without any of the elements that made X-Statix work. The tone clash and the art not matching the absurdism did not help.
X-Force: It had some interesting ideas, but the writer approached it as if they were guaranteed more than ten issues, which didn’t help with development. I personally thought it was too soon to do an X-Force book. The book felt too insular, and the crossover did not help.
NYX: VERY mixed bag of a book. I get what it was going for, trying to acknowledge Krakoa and living in the aftermath of that time. But there were just too many storylines vying for time. I think that it would have worked better as a mini-series.
After the three being canceled, it baffles me how Phoenix and Hellverine are still going. And unless Exceptional changes tactics, it won’t be long for this world either.
I’ve long felt there was an odd incongruity between the era in which the X-Men raced to recruit any mutant who popped up (i.e. Blob) and later competed with the Hellfire Club (i.e. Kitty, Dazzler) and the era in which adult mutants came out of the woodwork at any given opportunity. By the time there were dozens, hundreds, even thousands of mutants in existence who clearly hadn’t been detected and recruited by the major factions, there had to be a reason why certain ones were such hot commodities.
I figure the real drive towards recruitment for both Xavier and the Hellfire Club wasn’t so much “any old mutant” as “the right kind of mutant,” both in terms of powers, and personality. For example: Angel, as a guy with the power of flight, isn’t exactly an A-Lister on paper, but he’s rich, white, male, attractive, and open to Xavier’s indoctrination. Kitty Pryde’s intangibility would have made her valuable as a spy and assassin if Emma had been allowed to influence her properly. Dazzler’s sound-light conversion is also potentially valuable.
On the flipside, neither side necessarily wanted intractable, unmarketable, unreliable, unstable, antisocial, unattractive, or low-power mutants such as we see in the Morlocks or sometimes operating independently. The ones who got snapped up by governments, or who became mercenaries, supervillains, or who remained under the radar.
Remember, Xavier didn’t even want the New Mutants–it was the Brood within him influencing him to recruit potential hosts, IIRC. And the Hellions were all recruited as potential assets, weapons, and Hellfire agents.
This is, of course, the long-winded way of explaining why, if there had actually been secret mutant communities all along, contemporary faction leaders still bumped heads over certain emerging mutants in the modern day. Xavier wanted media-friendly heroes to promote his goals of acceptance and assimilation; Apocalypse wanted agents to forward his Darwinistic goals; Hellfire Club was more interested in secret control, dominating through wealth and power.
Oh, and if something tragic happened to the historical mutant community, along the lines of other instances of marginalized erasure, that might also be why we never heard more about them. I mean, how many people are unaware of what happened to New York’s Seneca Village, or the 1921 Tulsa massacre? Stands to reason we’re in for a dark turn with Henrietta’s story.
It sure seems like Marvel’s attempt to distance the x-line from the Krakoa era is a result of something internal that led to Jordan D White’s demotion, Brevoort coming in as x-editor, and the back to basics approach of the x-titles. Reading comments here and to some extent Bleeding Cool “articles”, one would think Krakoa was a massive success, but Marvel has given every indication that it was not viewed as successful internally.
This could be as simple as it being a “creative” success with some of the hardcore fans, while ultimately not being a sales success based on the internal sales figures that Brevoort claims are wildly different than anything publicly available. I get that it’s really none of our business as fans, but it is a curious disconnect between what “fans” say online compared to Marvel’s actions.
The Doug Ramsay story was hilarious. He was best friends with an X-Man, and Xavier knew he was a mutant, but Doug’s power was useless to Xavier so he didn’t even tell the poor kid. If Warlock hadn’t crashed to Earth, Doug would probably have discovered he was a mutant in the moment he got vaporised by a Sentinel that he didn’t think he had to avoid.
Well yeah. I mean, what good -is- “speak/understand all languages” to the X-Men? It’s not exactly on the level of weather control, laser eyes, or shapeshifting. How do you even train that sort of power, and to what end? “Quick, translate this ancient Sumerian FASTER.”
Never mind that Doug would have been invaluable to historians, archaeologists, scholars, diplomats– as essentially the ultimate Rosetta Stone, he could revolutionize entire eras of historical study. Or, as it turns out, communicate with and understand aliens.
Or, once someone with actual imagination got ahold of the character, he could have done unthinkable things with science, magic, technology. Even before he got a shapeshifting alien robot as his best pal. And once his power was finally extended to body language…
But he wasn’t immediately useful to Xavier’s paramilitary poster children strike force, so he got to live in ignorance.
What readers in the old days, and creative teams back then, failed to understand about Doug is that while he wasn’t flashy or dynamic or good in a four color fight, he was definitely a wish fulfillment character for a lot of us, and a lot more plausible than “soulless teleporting magical demon girl”
@Si, The Other Michael- The really funny part is that Kitty used him to tap into Sebastian Shaw’s computers but told him she wanted the information because she was curious about the kinky club he was part of.
“We could tell Doug the truth about the X-Men. No, let’s just let him think we’re voyeurs.”
Ugh, I really hate to have to bring this out, but there’s actually a canonical proto-X-Men that dates back to at least the 1920s, the Promise, from X-Men: The Hidden Years, and including the guy from AMAZING ADULT FANTASY #14 and the guys from YELLOW CLAW.
On the one hand, it makes total sense to ignore it because who read that series. On the other hand, if you want to ground the idea of mutants being around for a while in something, at least they’re something you could set up as a contrast.
Also, I totally understand why you wouldn’t want to touch them since they’re tainted goods, but the Gauntlet from the (*sigh*) Warren Ellis/Steven Grant X-MAN had an interesting remit of not caring about either the Xavier or Magneto side of mutant rights (or the Hellfire Club side of kink), and just wanting to use their powers to make money and accrue power. Just thought it tied into what The Other Michael was saying, about implying that there’s mutants who could care less about the normal agendas of the heroes and villains.
The Promise sort of contradicts this idea about a community of mutants during the 1920s, as Tobias Messenger said he had to struggle to find other mutants to join his cause.
I guess this could be explained in a few ways:
1.)Messenger was looking for certain mutant powers for his cause, and these mutants didn’t fit his agenda. Although, Messenger said that the mutants of The Promise were weaker than the original X-Men, postulating that the atomic bomb had increased the level of mutation, which implies that Messenger probably would have taken any mutants.
2.)This mutant community rejected Messenger’s goals. They refused to hide in the face of prejudice. I’m not sure if that fits with what we’ve seen of these characters though. It seems as if they’d want to find a place that would accept them.
3.)Messenger somehow missed an open community of fellow mutants, while managing to find the members of the Promise. Strains credulity a bit, but maybe.
Some of the Promise’s recruits might have been more high-profile, such as being involved with the Yellow Claw, but Messenger managed to locate someone like Gracie Smith in the 1970s.
The Krakoa era clearly had a strong segment of enthusiastic fans, but it was also both deeply problematic and unsustainable. There was no doubt that it had to end and something at least in some senses more traditional had to come take its place for a time.
I think I can see some of the appeal. A time of triumph for mutantkind is certainly different and somewhat refreshing after so many times of desperation and grief.
However, that status quo did not play to the strengths of the franchise, at least as long as the intent remains to make it a part of the main shared continuity. There is only so much that can be done to explain why a community of so many people with so many varied and powerful abilities is so remarkably devoid of internal conflict and has so little desire to keep their previous lives and activities.
It also made solo books very difficult to write, because so few characters could find a way to work outside the very specific and exotic environment provided by Krakoa. Juggernaut’s mini was all but forgotten (again). Wolverine was nearly a second X-Force book. X-Men Red was essentially a Storm solo book, but it did not work at all except as a narcisism power trip, even if Al Ewing was very skillful at telling it in a somewhat entertaining way – and even then it had to resort to putting Storm isolated in a planet of her own. Kurt had three or four solo features, and they all were stymied and cut short by the greater Krakoa narrative.
Probably more significantly, the Krakoa status quo is also very, very hard sell as a setting for the movies to come.
But I still think that ultimately the decisive factor is that the whole line had become just way too esoteric and self-referential. Sins of Sinister was unreadable, and so was most of what came from then until the final Hellfire Gala. The books of that time period might as well warn readers not to come uninitiated, for their own good.
Compound that with the loss of some of the best writers available and acquaintanced with the material, such as Si Spurrier and Hickman himself, and I really don’t see what else could happen very differently from what we got now. Lots of gauging-the-waters books, many of those solos starring unexpected characters and written by fairly new writers. Some tentative new iterations of the usual suspects among the team books. And a predictable mix of results all over the place.
It may not be the best possible world after Krakoa came to a close. But I don’t know that it is too far apart. If nothing else, it is opening the ways for books that are not too hostile for potential new readers coming from the MCU movies and merchandise, while also easing badly needed new writers and new viable solo characters into the mix.
One thing I haven’t seen mentioned is the Runaways comic. They went back 100 years in time and met various super-powered people, including the mutant Klara Prast.
Back in the 90’s, I wrote X-Men based fanfic centered around a third, neutral school (to counter Xavier and Frost) which was for young mutants who wanted more of a choice in their futures. I miss those days sometimes. 🙂
There is a rather confusing period in Marvel history that goes from the 1950s to the birth of the Fantastic Four, an increasingly long and indefinite interval of time, into which various stories over the years have been inserted (the birth of S.H.I.E.L.D., Stern and Byrne’s Lost Generation, the vicissitudes of some forgotten heroes like Comet, etc.).
We may think that something happened in this period that caused the near disappearance of the various mutant communities seen in the past, at least until Messenger, Xavier, Magneto (and before them Logan and Creed, as seen in First X-Men) started recruiting them.
Hcikman has always said that he intended Krakoa to be temporary. And Jordan White has said that he was planning on ending Krakoa before he was fired.
Part of the problem is that Breevort lacks familiarity with the X-titles, compared to his knowledge of the Avengers tittles. Plus, White and Breevort didn’t communicate during the transition to From the Ashes. So we got things like Darkstar turning evil, Phoebe going from “I wuv Quentin” to working with Empath in two months for… reasons, Julian turning evil and then his murders being explained away in a fairly unconvincing manner, the return of Romulus despite it being common knowledge that the fans hate him, Sophie reminiscing about being in the same class as Empath, Iceman reminiscing about growing up with Quentin, etc. There were other bizarre choices- like Moses Magnum and Zanda as the main villains in a plot designed to bring humanity and mutants together despite neither of them ever caring about human-mutant relations. In hindsight, Breevort was a poor choice for editor of the X-Men.
I suppose it depends on expectations.
Me, I think that a strong case can be made and should be made that the time came for things to collapse and open the way for new, more sustainable things.
I just don’t know that anyone could have done a better job than Brevoort. Maybe such a person exists. I don’t expect so.
But I sure think that a (relative) lack of familiarity with the X-Books is more of a feature than a flaw at this stage. Unless someone really wants them to become a closed club or to diminish significantly.
Personally I am all for shrinking the line a bit, but that is not very likely to happen any time soon.
Chris V., that’s a good point on Messenger, although wasn’t the Promise all made up of mutants that could pass as white cisgender humans, if memory serves? (Not going to reread that series more than once a decade if I can help it)
I could easily see a white dude from the 1920s declaring it’s hard to find mutants and then being, “oh, but not THOSE mutants”.
Now imagining a Mystique/Destiny flashback story where there’s a subplot about them avoiding Tobias Messenger because he’s a prude & a bigot and him being oblivious to every hint that they’re queer.
Re: Mondo, he at least knows Chamber a little bit, since they were (for whatever reason) on Hickman’s original Krakoa-era New Mutants squad together.
Come to think of it, did we EVER get a reason for why they were there, other than Hickman wanting to shake things up a little?
@Midnighter, maybe they all went to Genosha , who advertised itself as a mutant-friendly global refuge (like in the X-Men Adventures cartoon) , only to actually enslave the mutant refugees (as well as all the latent mutants it activated using the Genegineer’s retconned-as-comings-from-AoASugarMan)
@Michael, maybe Sophie and Bobby were being sarcastic since they know their audience doesn’t know any better , it’s in their personalities , Sophie is a parthogenetic clone daughter of Emma after all (with Weapon XIV modifications) and Bobby was a snarky jerk even when he was still in the closet all the way back to Giant Size XMen 1 (in fact it’s ironic he became much more nicer when he came out, since Chuck Austen was writing him as stereotypical ‘catty gay bitch’-but -straight and then Milligan wrote him as a stereotypical Red-State-Republican-fratboy-bro who was Kitty’s abusive bf , when he returned to the Xbooks via the Doop/XMen mini-series during the Schism Era)
Hickman planned for Krakoa to be a three year experiment, but the sales were so strong after the first half that Marvel decided to sign on for an unlimited period, leading to Hickman’s decision to leave the title. Then, sales ended up steadily declining from the high-point of HoX/PoX/Dawn leading to Marvel deciding to end the Krakoa-era.
Brevoort came aboard with confident plans that he could revitalize the X-titles again. It’s easy to see an increase in a line-wide relaunch when it’s starting, but it’s much more difficult to sustain those sales. Now, “From the Ashes” is seeing the expected drop in readership to, what seems to be, around the level of the final year of the Krakoa-era already. I, and many others, predicted this would happen, but it’s occurring sooner than I think most would have expected.
Uncanny and X-Men are the only two titles maintaining figures in the top ten. Godzilla outsold the flagship book of the line.
> Personally I am all for shrinking the line a bit, but that is not very likely to happen any time soon.
Right.
I read recently that the X-line must make up 25% of Marvel’s comic output.
Don’t remember where.
I don’t think the editor of the X-books has to know the history chapter and verse. My main problems with Brevoort stem from the clumsiness in which the transition from Krakoa to FtA (which is not all his fault, admittedly), the blandness of the line as a whole, the dumb “mystery box” set-ups in the first year, overloading the first year with awful crossovers, the devaluation of the Krakoan era, and not reining in bad writing choices. There have been some successes, and most of the art has been good. After a year, however, I think the line is no better than average and I care less about the X-titles as a whole.
Brevoort is in a tough position. He’s the face. He doesn’t directly edit some books, but he’s the fan focus.
Also,revamping a much smaller Avengers franchise in the wake of Heroes Return and revamping the X office post Krakoa are two different beasts.
Too much has changed. Except maybe fans dreaming of comics that could be. And I do not mean that as an insult to anyone.
Don’t we all do that? Isn’t this hobby almost just as much about frustration as it is about fun? Kind of?
Mass Media popular culture is always going to have backseat fandoms wanting a different story than what the official product, be it comics, TV shows, movie franchises or wrestling.
In one sense, it’s was fanfic is so popular. You can write your version where X doesn’t die or Y doesn’t turn heel etc. and that’s not even getting to slash fanfic, where it’s whole different kettle of fish.
But in 2025, it’s harder to ignore, especially if you’re on social media or fandom specific website (like this one).
In other housekeeping news …
Al did the new episode of our podcast, talking about The Handbook vs Who’s Who, 90s comics, new comics, Thunderbolts, the folly of rehabbing super villains, some old Sci Fi TV talk, a wee bit of wrestling and more.
http://tinyurl.com/pod139
Jed MacKay did an interview with AIPT today:
https://aiptcomics.com/2025/05/19/x-men-monday-297-jed-mackay-talks-x-men/
After reading this, now I’m thinking that maybe the Chairman isn’t Doug:
AIPT: X-Fan Aisling Clarke asks what challenges might Revelation face when he battles his former teammates. And X-Fan Joey asks if Revelation might be looking to create his own version of the four horsemen. Anything you can tease?
JED: Who’s battling former teammates? Doug, Bei, and Warlock are out in the world (as we’ll see in X-Men #19), trying to figure out what exactly being the Heir of Apocalypse means — but unfortunately for them, others have already decided, and they don’t like the conclusion they’ve come to.
That makes it sound like the Chairman isn’t Doug, But the Chairman constantly uses the phrase “Great Work” and the preview for X-Men 19 describes Doug as trying to create the “Great Work”. Maybe the Chairman is one of the others who have already decided?
Elsewhere in the interview, MacKay describes Cassandra, the Doctor and the Chairman as the scientifically minded ones, while Wyre is the physically-minded one. I can’t think of anyone who would want to carry on Apocalypse’s work who I’d describe as scientifically-minded, except for Dark Beast, and the Chairman doesn’t look like him.
Elsewhere in the interview, MacKay describes 3K’s motivations:
JED: 3K are mutantkind’s last, best hope. Krakoa ended, and with it, mutatkind’s age of ascendancy. Now? They’re scattered, disparate, and the name “X-Men” means so little that there are multiple groups calling themselves that name. The X-Men (whichever regional flavor one prefers) gave up — but 3K never did. And their X-Men are the real ones, the vanguard of the genetic war.
That does seem like a good motivation for Doug, especially if he’s still angry about the dying-while-Xavier-was-having-sex-with-a-bird-ladty-in-space thing. And when Bishop and Cable travelled to the future in Timeslide, they found that Xavier had become a tyrant.
When Marvel solicited All-New Venom 6, the solicits described MJ as confronting Venom. This convinced a lot of people that Paul was actually Venom. But of course, MJ was actually Venom and All-New Venom 6 was a flashback showing how MJ and the symbiote became stuck with each other. I’m wondering if this is something similar- in issue 18 we learn that Doug is the Chairman and in issue 19 we see how he became the Chairman.
Or maybe not…
The rest of the interview has some other interesting tidbits:
Cyber was originally going to be the Means but he was snapped up for Wolverine.,
We haven’t; seen the last of Scott’s panic attacks. Good- you can’t get over panic attacks just by being stabbed by a Canadian.
We will be seeing three romances in the Hellfire Vigil one-shot, including one between a member of Rogue’s X-Men and Scott’s X-Men.
Just please tell me that Doug is no longer in that Revelation getup
There was also a preview for X-Men 17 posted with the interview. A couple of interesting things:
The Doctor is indeed Astra and she’s got a Magneto clone- who may or may not be Joseph- with her.
Quentin has a failsafe and Phoebe Cuckoo is listed as an authorized ally. Yes, Quentin is in love with her but it looks like Phoebe is considered an ally of the X-Men again after helping NYX stop Mojo.
Some designs for the Hellfire Vigil are posted here:
https://aiptcomics.com/2025/05/19/x-men-hellfire-gala-vigil-1-designs/
Note that not all the characters appearing in Vecchio’s designs will be at the Vigil- Betsy, for example, has a design but according to Breevort she will not be at the Vigil.
One important spoiler- Sophie Cuckoo is with the Exceptional X-Men characters- that might mean she’s joining the Exceptional X-Men cast.
All the designs are obviously influenced by high fashion and all that, but Storm especially looks like she’s about to drop a major pop album.
Who is Flourish? And Abeni?
@kryzsiek:
Flourish- https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Marisol_Guerra_(Earth-616)
Abeni- https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Abeni_(Mutant)_(Earth-616)
The remit was obviously “sexy sad.” Love Dazzler’s beehive so much.
@Krzysiek, they’re Storms proteges from the 00’s , Flourish is a Mexican girl introduced in the Greg Pak Storm solo series whose powerset is like Poison Ivy/Genesis , except fungi instead of plants (and she dropped out of the Jean Grey School when it was in NYC Central Park because she wanted to actually be useful to her own hometown/homeland instead of just being in an ivory-tower) and Abeni is a a South African girl whose powers are like Petra , and who like fellow SA mutant Maggott , was the surviving victim of racist ethnic violence in her homeland (which massacred her hometown, and which she avenged by killing in self-defense all of the attackers) and was rescued by Storm to go live in Krakoa during the First Krakoa n Age
Ah, I remember Flourish, but forgot that was her codename.
And I’ve just checked that Abeni is from Black Panther, which I’ve checked out of some time after Ta-Nehisi Coates’s run started.
“…if nothing else, it is opening the ways for books that are not too hostile for potential new readers coming from the MCU movies and merchandise”.
Has there ever been any evidence that ‘synergising’ actually achieves anything?
Bishop will be getting a new costume when he appears in Storm, so maybe he’ll be staying in that book for a while.
It’s weird that Angelica is showing more skin than Emma in the Vigil sketches. Usually it’s the other way around.
@Dave, well , it made 616-Carol Danvers half-Kree on her mother’s side , due to Marvel’s misunderstanding of Disney’s plans LOL but personally, it was Fridge Brilliance , because it via cosmic coincidence caused Marvel to at last have its own actual counterpart to DC’s so-called “Trinity”: black-haired , brown-eyed White people: Clark (alien) , Bruce (human) , Diana (goddess) , while Marvel : gold-haired , blue-eyed White people : Carol (alien) , Steve (human) , Thor (goddess) KEK https://www.pinterest.com/pin/avengers-45-andy-kubert–84301824248312888/
And it was a typo , but I can’t edit it anymore , I meant Thor Odinson , the male god of course , not Jane Foster , the female goddess , though arguably , it could also still apply , since at that point in time when the retcon happened , JF was as the new Thor (furthermore , in Japan’s 7 Deadly Sins franchise , deities are called by the English female term , The Goddess Clan , whether they are male or female)
Carol already had Kree DNA though after her genetics were merged with Mar-Vell.
Rogue made the claim that she was half-alien during the Claremont/Smith run, when they were in Japan, which must have been a reference to her partially absorbing Carol’s Kree DNA.
Rogue also didn’t fully absorb Carol’s Kree DNA, as Carol’s human/Kree hybrid DNA allowed her to transform into Binary when the Brood messed up by attempting to experiment on her.
I thought they made Carol half kree so she had her own agency, and didn’t derive her power from a man.
Are Beak and Angel S. still a couple?
@wwk5d, they still are , and their killcrop kids are already in grade school , based on the Infinity Comics
@Si, GirlBoss Marvel-Style LOL I wish they still kept her bathing suit though , and she should have remained single tsk tsk tsk
@The other Michael: Kitty is shown thinking that Professor Xavier didn’t tell him because his power would be more useful in the real world. He was already a computer major and a software expert, aided by his power.
@Si: Doug shouldn’t show up strongly on most mutant detection devices because his power is passive, and he should know enough to avoid huge attacking robots on his own. The best way to keep him safe is to not have him around a group that gets usually gets attacked by Sentinels. (The New Mutants weren’t a paramilitary force. Xavier insisted they didn’t go on missions when Storm asked to use Rahne on one.)