Confirmed: Hickman is leaving the X-Men after Inferno

[H-E-D]

All this.Specially since the 11th life thing was a back-up.If things went south and everyone hated it they had a reverse key.It really was the perfect plan.

This was the plan if it failed.

The Three Act Story was the plan for if it was moderately successful.

What we’re getting here is what their pipe dream was. This is their best case scenario.

I understand that if you’re not invested in Krakoa on it’s own terms and just want Hickman’s story, that that is disappointing. But what’s happening here is exactly what they hired Hickman for.

If this was Hickman leaving the X-books on bad terms, I don’t think we’d be getting the news through such official channels.

[Hunter]

All this.Specially since the 11th life thing was a back-up.If things went south and everyone hated it they had a reverse key.It really was the perfect plan.

Honestly I thought that was the plan all along. Hickman would tell his grand story of the mutants getting utterly destroyed by their own arrogance/hubris, and then kill off Moira and everything would go back to "Mr and Mrs X".

Only hope is that he hasn't punted Marvel to the curb like so many creators before him so there is still a chance that I will get to see Nimrod blow up Krakoa. A slim chance, but hey. It's not even that I don't like Krakoa. But after seeing the beginning of the story, I know it would be worth it to follow through to the end, better than another year or two (or decade) of what we are getting now.

For me, I will keep reading until I just lose interest again.

[MentalManipulator]

I am sad he’s leaving already. But I am happy that he’s consulting on the future of the line.

I am also now super pumped for Inferno. I have faith he will deliver a great story there.

I’m sure Kwannon will be trated well in the relaunch but I’m nervous about Betsy. I hope she gets a new writer that does her justice. New costume please!

[jwatson]

Duggan posted about what’s happening on substacks

https://twitter.com/gerryduggan/stat...311379970?s=21

Also a lot of yall are being way too dramatic in this thread like my god i know yall like hickman but omg have faith that he and the xteam planned for this, it wasn't like y'all were so in love with his written x- books either so i dont know what the big deal is

I'll be riding that ship with you Duggan, i'll be riding it until the last Krakoan leaf falls, until Arrako falls out of orbit.

[CoCoBandz]

Honestly I thought that was the plan all along. Hickman would tell his grand story of the mutants getting utterly destroyed by their own arrogance/hubris, and then kill off Moira and everything would go back to "Mr and Mrs X".

Only hope is that he hasn't punted Marvel to the curb like so many creators before him so there is still a chance that I will get to see Nimrod blow up Krakoa. A slim chance, but hey. It's not even that I don't like Krakoa. But after seeing the beginning of the story, I know it would be worth it to follow through to the end, better than another year or two (or decade) of what we are getting now.

For me, I will keep reading until I just lose interest again.

I swear some of you have the most abysmal story ideas I've ever read. So basic and pointless.

[jwatson]

I swear some of you have the most abysmal story ideas I've ever read. So basic and pointless.

For real. I like this era personally enough that i still got x-corp and way of x this morning, i won't talk about them but i still got them. That is a successful line. lol.

[Spiderfan001]

This was the plan if it failed.

The Three Act Story was the plan for if it was moderately successful.

What we’re getting here is what their pipe dream was. This is their best case scenario.

I understand that if you’re not invested in Krakoa on it’s own terms and just want Hickman’s story, that that is disappointing. But what’s happening here is exactly what they hired Hickman for.

If this was Hickman leaving the X-books on bad terms, I don’t think we’d be getting the news through such official channels.

The three act story was his story he wanted to tell. Krakoa wasn't meant to last in the first phase forever.

"Best case scenario", lmfao.
The writers were greedy and veto'd Hickman's plan for their own short term gain.Now Hickman is gone, the mastermind.We may get more Krakoa content but we will loose 2 HOX/POX level series at the minimum.
Nothing written by the other writers comes close to HOX/POX or X-men 19(one w/ mystique and nimrod).I'd rather get less quantity and more quality.

This isn't extending phase 1, they dropped the plan and Hickman with it.

Nope, they Hired Hickman to revitalize X-men and tell an overarching story.I don't care if it is 3 years or 10 as long as it is what the writer himself wanted, the other writers slowed his pace and then cancelled his plan.He won't get to execute it and is now handing over the reigns.

Seen it with clone saga, a great idea being milked dry for money and now it's remembered as one of the worst era's of all time.A thing isn't beautiful because it lasts, quality over quantity any day.

No bad terms but he has joked about trying to get fired, the other writers constantly change his plans and say he has been "considerate".He has done one small interview and has small to none internet presence.They literally took advantage of his work and f*cked him over.

Let's be honest, there would be no hype if these writers themselves were just writing X-men, it was Hickman who did anything that really mattered.

[numberthirty]

You must not be an Immortal Hulk reader.

Read some The Immortal Hulk.

Without trying to knock a writer for something that isn't actually their fault, put it up against The Black Monday Murders.

One of these writers is operating on a whole other level.

It's not the writer you brought up.

[Spiderfan001]

Honestly I thought that was the plan all along. Hickman would tell his grand story of the mutants getting utterly destroyed by their own arrogance/hubris, and then kill off Moira and everything would go back to "Mr and Mrs X".

Only hope is that he hasn't punted Marvel to the curb like so many creators before him so there is still a chance that I will get to see Nimrod blow up Krakoa. A slim chance, but hey. It's not even that I don't like Krakoa. But after seeing the beginning of the story, I know it would be worth it to follow through to the end, better than another year or two (or decade) of what we are getting now.

For me, I will keep reading until I just lose interest again.

It was the back up imo, the only way he could pitch such a big status quo change was with a clean slate back-up card.Who knows what Hickman had planned, we never will either.

I liked Krakoa, it has many problems but I really do.But Hickman is a master at pacing and this was his creation, if Hickman was gonna keep Krakoa like it is for a decade that would be cool, but it would get stale.He knows this and thus wanted to move onto the next stage but all the other writers who benefit from him and Krakoa don't want it to end since they know they on their own wouldn't come close to what Hickman did.So they want to milk what he gave them smh.

Same, many titles are going stale.Hellions seems great as always, and X-men seem cool but HOX/POX was the main draw.All this was filler and fleshing out waiting for the big story stuff, now that it's not there there isn't much to look forward too.

Hickman's plan was the main course, all the other stuff was appetizers and drinks to keep you full till the main course comes.People don't realize this rn, but in a couple of years this will get stale as heck.And when these writers try to take this into the next phase, it won't come close to what Hickman did or would do.

[Spiderfan001]

You must not be an Immortal Hulk reader.

Al Ewing is doing one book in the X-line, and as someone who has read every issue of Immortal Hulk and waiting for 50 it does not compare to Hickman's work.
Hickman functions at a different level, Ewing is someone who works like an amazing second is command for Hickman.
Please read some of Hickman's work outside marvel as well, the guy is on a level none of the X-office can reach.
Also his job is already setting the stage for cosmic marvel, he's not doing head of X stuff.

[Master of Sound]

I am SO curious what act 2 and 3 were supposed to be. Guess we will never know :-(

[FFJamie94]

The three act story was his story he wanted to tell. Krakoa wasn't meant to last in the first phase forever.

"Best case scenario", lmfao.
The writers were greedy and veto'd Hickman's plan for their own short term gain.Now Hickman is gone, the mastermind.We may get more Krakoa content but we will loose 2 HOX/POX level series at the minimum.
Nothing written by the other writers comes close to HOX/POX or X-men 19(one w/ mystique and nimrod).I'd rather get less quantity and more quality.

This isn't extending phase 1, they dropped the plan and Hickman with it.

Nope, they Hired Hickman to revitalize X-men and tell an overarching story.I don't care if it is 3 years or 10 as long as it is what the writer himself wanted, the other writers slowed his pace and then cancelled his plan.He won't get to execute it and is now handing over the reigns.

Seen it with clone saga, a great idea being milked dry for money and now it's remembered as one of the worst era's of all time.A thing isn't beautiful because it lasts, quality over quantity any day.

No bad terms but he has joked about trying to get fired, the other writers constantly change his plans and say he has been "considerate".He has done one small interview and has small to none internet presence.They literally took advantage of his work and f*cked him over.

Let's be honest, there would be no hype if these writers themselves were just writing X-men, it was Hickman who did anything that really mattered.

I'm sorry, but this is in no way comparable to the Clone Saga.
That was a dumpster fire because editorial wanted to prolong it and changes in management, plus no one knew how to end it or where it was going, so it was just storyline built on top of storyline until they just finished it.
This, writers know exactly what they are doing and are writing it.

Anyway, it sounds to me like plans changed since before the first issue of House of X came out, an era this big, the plans probably changed a lot.
I can't speak for Hickman, so maybe he is very annoyed by this. But from the sounds of it, he realised now is the time to leave. Instead of destroying other People's stories, he decided it was best to stop for now with the possibility of coming back again.

All of it sounds like he is leaving on good terms. He is bringing some writers over to substack with him, he is still going to be in on the X-Men plans and have helped them out with what they want to do for the next few years, he is still at Marvel planning something else. From the sounds of it, it looks like Hickman doesn't want to do another monthly "X-Men" book but would rather do minis and events. Maybe he will return, maybe he won't. The fact of the matter is, those plans are still around the X-Office, I'm sure someone else will pick up the Nimrod story. It doesn't have to be Hickman, he just set it up.

Anyway, we will know what he planned for X-Men, it'll be in his substack comic which will probably see print. So from what I can see, this is the best of the leaving outcome. We get Krakoa for some more time, Hickman is still at Marvel and we'll get a repurposed X-Men story. Even if you dislike X-Men going forward, you can just replace it with his "Three Worlds" comic where he'll have a lot more creative control. We can get his ideas unfiltered without editorial interference, that sounds like a good deal to me.
I'll pick that up when it becomes a comic I can buy on store shelves.

I'm not a big defender of some of the **** that Marvel do. What they did to Leah Williams was just scummy. At least let her know 5 or 6 issues in advance so she can finish her story and get ready to tell the next chapter of her book. And don't go behind her back to rewrite scenes, that's just horrible.
But here, it seems like there's a big shake-up at the X-Offices, it looks like they want to go in one direction and Hickman saw that he probably wasn't the best to take it there. That happens sometimes, it sucks, but that's creative industries for you.

Outside of HOXPOX, the best comics came from other writers. Now I loved Hickman's time on the main book, but it was a lot of set-up and one-off stories. In my opinion, the best books have been Way of X, which has dealt with some of the more uncomfortable ideas to come from this era, Ayla's New Mutants which has just been a fun little horror comic dealing with the young mutants not knowing who the Shadow King is and Ewing's Sword which has sadly become an event book, but Ewing is a professional and manages to make every issue feel big and knocks it out every time. Heck even X of Swords wasn't really Hickman's story, that was coming out of Excalibur and was essentially Howard's story with Hickman helping to fit it into his own book.

Reading Duggan's X-Men, I have faith that he can keep the momentum up.

Maybe going forward the X-Men will suck, but with the writers we have, I trust it's in safe hands.

[Purplevit]

I just hope that Larraz and Gracia will stay on main X books and events. X books will suffer a lot if we lose that perfect art team.

[TheDeadSpace]

This is why marvel and dc are in the gutter. Look at what they did to x-factor and now you have your head of x jumping ship because these mediocre writers can’t follow a plan. We always knew hickman would put the toys back in the box at the end of the day but now we stuck in act one this is like harry potter being stuck in his first year in school. Or goku being stuck with king kai because people liked so they don’t move on to next phase of the story. Imagine the mcu being stuck in phase 1 lol.

Creatively speaking, this feels like it might cause the line to stagnate. Krakoa might just end up becoming the "X-Mansion 2.0".

Hopefully that doesn't happen. The allure of a new environment can only last for so long. I really hope there isn't plans for another Gala or X-Men team vote next summer.

Hopefully Inferno shakes a lot of things up, but, who knows?

[Kingdom X]

The three act story was his story he wanted to tell. Krakoa wasn't meant to last in the first phase forever.

"Best case scenario", lmfao.
The writers were greedy and veto'd Hickman's plan for their own short term gain.Now Hickman is gone, the mastermind.We may get more Krakoa content but we will loose 2 HOX/POX level series at the minimum.
Nothing written by the other writers comes close to HOX/POX or X-men 19(one w/ mystique and nimrod).I'd rather get less quantity and more quality.

This isn't extending phase 1, they dropped the plan and Hickman with it.

Nope, they Hired Hickman to revitalize X-men and tell an overarching story.I don't care if it is 3 years or 10 as long as it is what the writer himself wanted, the other writers slowed his pace and then cancelled his plan.He won't get to execute it and is now handing over the reigns.

Seen it with clone saga, a great idea being milked dry for money and now it's remembered as one of the worst era's of all time.A thing isn't beautiful because it lasts, quality over quantity any day.

No bad terms but he has joked about trying to get fired, the other writers constantly change his plans and say he has been "considerate".He has done one small interview and has small to none internet presence.They literally took advantage of his work and f*cked him over.

Let's be honest, there would be no hype if these writers themselves were just writing X-men, it was Hickman who did anything that really mattered.

Dude you’ve posted this narrative of the writers being greedy a*holes that kicked Hickman out at least a dozen times. Then why the HELL is he working with some of them in Substack?

Also there would definitely be hype if Ewing or Wells was writing X-Men. You act like these writers, many of whom have gained critical acclaim before this, were supposed to act like Hickman’s gang of minions. He ASKED them if they were ready to move-on and they all said their stories were still ongoing. If that decision was so damaging then editorial should have come in and been like “all right guys let’s keep the plan going.”

I’m just as disappointed as the next guy about some great stories that we’re missing out on, but making the other writers out to be an evil gang of betrayers seems a little over the top to me.