Confirmed: Hickman is leaving the X-Men after Inferno

[cranger]

honestly, I can’t pretend that Hickman has been the highlight of the line post-HoXPoX. Outside of #4 and #7, his X-Men wasn’t exactly the banger of the month.



To be fair, it sounds like Hickman was always aware of this possibility. Hickman’s plan was a victim of its own success.

Cannot argue with the opinion on the X-Men title, and to add to the second statement, Hickman is getting paid a lot and his work will survive moving on to whatever he moves on to. In the long run, for Hickman fans and for his own legacy at Marvel, the relatively few issues of his work that came out as part of the X-Men will be a small chapter in whatever grand epic he ends up creating (not that I am a Hickman fan, but people do see a big connection of ideas through all of his stuff).

[Nomura99]

Best case for me is the other writers are allowed to noodle around telling their stories with Krakoa for a bit, and then he comes back to launch Phase 2. Better late than never....?

I think there's no phase 2 anymore and Inferno is Hickman's pivot. Instead of having a year-2 event that would lead to year-3 and the end of his story, he's coming up with 160 pages that will answer some stuff from HoX/PoX and setting the table for the X-Office to keep playing with Krakoa/Arakko and this status quo he created with HoX/PoX.

If somehow the X-Office is able keep working together and Marvel doesn't **** them over, I can see Hickman returning to write a huge crossover event ala Secret Wars. But who knows, can Marvel not **** **** up in 2,3 or 5 years? Will Hickman be still working Marvel 2,3 or 5 years? Would the story even require him to even come back by that point?

That's the kind of uncertainty that blows about this news. The January relaunch will be key for me in terms of being optimistic or pessimistic about the X-Line going forward. I hope Ewing, Wells and Ayala stay. Everything seems to point to Duggan and Spurrier staying too so that's a good start at least.

[Riv86672]

X-Men comic fans have been fearing this day, but alas, it has arrived. EW can confirm that Jonathan Hickman, the writer behind the celebrated 2019 comics House of X and Powers of X (illustrated by Pepe Larraz and R.B. Silva) that relaunched Marvel's mutants with a radical new status quo, will be departing the X-Men line after his upcoming Inferno series wraps up.

"Oh, plans have changed entirely," Hickman says. "When I pitched the X-Men story I wanted to do, I pitched a very big, very broad, three-act, three-event narrative, the first of which was House of X. And while this loosely worked as a three-year plan, I told Marvel upfront that I honestly had no idea how long the first part would last because there were a lot of interesting ideas that I had seeded that other creators would want to play with, and so, we left this rather open-ended. I was also pretty clear with all the writers that came into the office what the initial, three-act plan was so no one would be surprised when it was time for the line to pivot."

Hickman continues, "However, I also knew that I was cooking with dynamite, and it was very possible that what I had written in House of X, and the ideas contained within, was not actually the first act of a three-act story, but something that resonated more deeply and worked more like Giant-Size X-Men, where it would represent a paradigm shift in the entire X-Men line for a prolonged period of time. So, during the pandemic, when the time came for me to start pointing things toward writing the second-act event, I asked everyone if they were ready for me to do that, and to a man, everyone wanted to stay in the first act. It was really interesting, because I appreciated that House of X resonated with them to the extent that they didn't want it to end, but the reality was that I knew I would be leaving the line early."

"Marvel doesn't really pay me to just write ongoing monthly books, there's an expectation for me to write bigger books that have a wider reach than that," Hickman tells EW. "In an effort to facilitate both things, we've all spent the last six months or so reorienting the line, me creating Inferno to assist with that, and then bringing in some new writers to add to the existing team, and then plan for the next several years of X-books. So after Inferno, I'll be leaving to go work on my 'Next Big Marvel Thing™' and starting in January the X-Line will rocket forward starting with a weekly series that leads into the very cool, refocused, line of books. Yes, it's taken us a little while to get everything assembled correctly, but the end result — everything that's coming after Inferno — is going to be pretty great."

https://ew.com/books/inferno-jonatha...t-x-men-comic/

Huh.
There IS a god. Can’t wait.

[ospfwildcard]

i just want to know what drug people are taking that allows them to be so optimistic about the future when marvel had a winner on their hands with Hox/Pox and they still managed to screw it all up. look what they did to Leah?

but hey at least we will get a yearly gala!!!

[Spiderfan001]

honestly, I can’t pretend that Hickman has been the highlight of the line post-HoXPoX. Outside of #4 and #7, his X-Men wasn’t exactly the banger of the month.



To be fair, it sounds like Hickman was always aware of this possibility. Hickman’s plan was a victim of its own success.

This, Krakoa was too good and they are gonna make the same mistake they made in clone saga.
A good idea milked for way too long

[Spiderfan001]

i just want to know what drug people are taking that allows them to be so optimistic about the future when marvel had a winner on their hands with Hox/Pox and they still managed to screw it all up. look what they did to Leah?

but hey at least we will get a yearly gala!!!

Same, Hickman's plan was the main thing for Krakoa which they aren't doing anymore.
Gonna milk it dry and it's a ship with no leader or and they aren't gonna replace him with someone close to his caliber.
God I hate that editors and staff let the others writers derail Hickman's plan, Hickman's plan should have been top priority.
These writers got such a chance because of Hickman and they f*cked his plan smh.

[Spit and Syntax]

Bloody hell !

Would have much rather had Hickman write his three act story compared to more years of pretty good but mostly unambitious titles.

Let’s hope they give Ewing or Spurrier Uncanny to balance out Duggan’s abjectless. X-Men deserve a sprawling, political and thoughtful title, and it fears me that the quality of everything may slowly fizzle out.

[H-E-D]

This, Krakoa was too good and they are gonna make the same mistake they made in clone saga.
A good idea milked for way too long

To be fair, I think there’s a lot more potential to mine with Krakoa than there ever was with the clone saga.

[Spiderfan001]

To be fair, I think there’s a lot more potential to mine with Krakoa than there ever was with the clone saga.

There's potential in every character.None of the writers are even close in caliber to Hickman, the books we have from them are decent but nothing substantial.Like 20 books from the other writers have less than one from Hickman.
And Inferno isn't even part of Hickman's own plan ,it's to set up this new line.

This is gonna be a clone saga situation, they are gonna milk it dry.I doubt the conclusion will be nearly as satisfactory as Hickman's.
The problem is such stories work when they have a beginning, a middle and an end.3 stages as Hickman himself said.
Ditching this plan is gonna bite them in the butt badly, and they don't have the level of writing or caliber of creativity to make an ending of their own that is anywhere near Hickman.

[CGAR]

And Inferno isn't even part of Hickman's own plan ,it's to set up this new line.

Where was this said?

[Gripstir]

There's potential in every character.None of the writers are even close in caliber to Hickman, the books we have from them are decent but nothing substantial.Like 20 books from the other writers have less than one from Hickman.
And Inferno isn't even part of Hickman's own plan ,it's to set up this new line.

This is gonna be a clone saga situation, they are gonna milk it dry.I doubt the conclusion will be nearly as satisfactory as Hickman's.
The problem is such stories work when they have a beginning, a middle and an end.3 stages as Hickman himself said.
Ditching this plan is gonna bite them in the butt badly, and they don't have the level of writing or caliber of creativity to make an ending of their own that is anywhere near Hickman.

Well I think Krakoa to a lot of people still seems like an event something that changed the game as an event. I don’t think everyone still sees Krakoa as a new lore. I think there are sooo many good ways you can go with this. Obviously the wild card are the current writers. We’ve seen a lot of books cancelled or close to cancelled because the writing has been pretty bad. I hope everyone steps their game up when the relaunch happens. I really need to see some shakeups and stuff to keep me interested

[Spiderfan001]

Where was this said?

Read the interview, he says inferno was set up by him to assist his leaving and his plan being cancelled.His plan has been left in the dust, this is for the tranfer.

He even made jokes about getting himself fired and it's easy to see why, Hickman revived X-men for so many and they stopped him from completing his story because they wanted to milk his ideas.

[butterflykyss]

sad to see him go but thankful he revived the franchise. good job sir!

[Spiderfan001]

Well I think Krakoa to a lot of people still seems like an event something that changed the game as an event. I don’t think everyone still sees Krakoa as a new lore. I think there are sooo many good ways you can go with this. Obviously the wild card are the current writers. We’ve seen a lot of books cancelled or close to cancelled because the writing has been pretty bad. I hope everyone steps their game up when the relaunch happens. I really need to see some shakeups and stuff to keep me interested

But the thing is these writers by themselves have never done anything close to what Hickman did or was doing.If not for HOX/POX and Hickman no one would care if these writers were writing X-men.
And even after this boost, Hickman's work is far superior than all the other writers combined.Even if he was leaving, they should have stuck with his plan.Instead they delayed it and thus he left, they really think they can do better than Hickman.
Even all these extra books being added was milking it, but atleast you knew that overall plan was in place.Now that's gone.
Man really revived the entire X-franchise only to get f*cked over by Marvel, and then they wonder why no one with real talent works with them.

[yogaflame]

sad to see him go but thankful he revived the franchise. good job sir!

If he revived it, can it continue without him? I mean, look what happened after Claremont, after Morrison. Marvel editorial messed this up, real talk.