The X-men Monday is out with Russell Dautermann.

Here is the link:

https://aiptcomics.com/2020/06/22/x-...ell-dauterman/

a few choice quotes:


AIPT: Do you have an all-time favorite X-Men story?

Russell: My all-time favorite is probably Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s New X-Men–specifically, and this comes as no surprise, New X-Men #121. That’s my favorite comic of all time. But that whole run was such a bold new direction for the X-Men, with wonderful character work and all the awesome/weird sci-fi fantasy stuff you’d expect. It also has this 3-dimensional view of mutantdom that expanded the world, with a larger student body, the U-Men harvesting mutant organs, the hate crime against Jumbo Carnation–there was just a lot of world-building outside the X-Men, which I liked. Then, of course, at the center is the incredible soap opera.
Dauterman has good taste

AIPT: So what do you love about Jean as a character?

Russell: I love that she’s an empathetic and emotional character, which some people might view as being weak and she’s often underestimated. But she proves over and over again that she’s incredibly capable and smart, tough and powerful–Phoenix or not.

I love X-Men #28, where the X-Men are having trouble with Sabretooth and Jean stands up to him, hits him with a psychic blast and delivers that great speech about being like an atom bomb. Sabretooth thought she’d be easy to manipulate and she proved him wrong.
and finally...

AIPT: Something else that’s gotten X-Fans talking is the return of Jean’s green dress, which has split X-Fandom in two. But I’ve seen many fans embrace your redesign of the X-Men Red uniform. What made you want to put Jean in that costume and slap a new coat of paint on it?


Russell: Well, I like the green dress in the context of the ‘60s. I think that a college-aged woman in the ‘60s would feasibly wear that as her superhero costume. I don’t think a 30ish woman in 2020 would wear that as a superhero costume. I think it’s anachronistic and I wanted Jean in something modern to match the rest of the team.

Mahmud Asrar designed such an awesome modern costume for her in X-Men Red. Jonathan had talked about Jean’s colors being green and gold, so I tweaked the costume and asked if we could use that. They were up for it and seemed to be willing to play around with costumes and the whole mutant clothes idea. I was very glad we got to use that.