X-Men #4 PREVIEW

[Mercury]

October 13's X-Men #4 will be a very special Halloween-themed installment of Marvel's mutant flagship title. From the looks of the preview released to us by the publisher, it's a bit of a haunted house tale - with the house being the X-Men's newly-created New York City headquarters, the Treehouse in Seneca Gardens.

It all starts with some bad dreams for Cyclops and Jean Grey, and then a surprise Marvel villain appears - back from the dead and a two-year absence. Check it a preview of X-Men #4 by writer Gerry Duggan, artist Javier Pina, and colorist Erick Arciniega:

That's Nightmare, which some call Marvel's answer to DC's Sandman - but with a villainous edge. 'Lord of Dreams,' just like Sandman/Dream, but he's been more of a night terror than a sage.

X-Men #4 will be his apparent return from the dead, as he definitively died in 2019's Loki #4 - losing a bet with the god of mischief for his immortality, with the comic even showing Nightmare arriving in Marvel's version of the afterlife and a meeting with their top deity, the One-Above-All.

Nightmare will apparently be one of two villains returning after a long absence - the other being a literary icon - the Headless Horseman from Washington Irving's 1820 short story 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow' (as seen on the main cover to X-Men #4). That story has been adapted numerous times in film and television, but even comics - in fact, the Headless Horseman has been a Marvel character for almost 70 years.

The Headless Horseman made his Marvel debut in 1954's Uncanny Tales #22 with the story 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.' That Stan Lee and Dick Ayers story isn't an adaptation of Irving's short story but instead concerns a modern-day man who tries to scare an enemy by impersonating the Headless Horseman and ends up meeting the real Headless Horseman, who comes to punish him for the impersonation.

He popped up again in 2020's Ruins of Ravencroft: Sabretooth #1, revealed to have been an actual Ghost Rider in the early 1800s - still headless, but carrying a flaming skull (as befits a Ghost Rider, of course!).

Now it's possible Marvel could be making the two characters one and the same - after all, NIghtmare likes to impersonate other people and already has a horse, Dreamstalker. That would certainly be something.


https://www.gamesradar.com/x-men-4-p...are-halloween/

[rhaenylis]

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[Mercury]

Updated the op with a summary and link.

[rhaenylis]

Hope that means each character can get a bit of focus this time

[Spiderfan001]

A deep dive into characters psyche please, don't be a monster fighting issue.

[Kingdom X]

This might be a great time for Laura to shine, her whole life is nightmare fuel, but she also has quite a bit of experience confronting it head on.

[Master of Sound]

Scott looks so hot

[Rift]

Thanks for posting

I hope we see the other characters' dreams. They'll probably just dream about iconic events in their lives, but it'd still be cool to see what their fears are.

[JB]

Thanks Mercury!
I love the Cyclops pumpkin. The art is fantastic and Nightmare should be a fun villain in this issue.
I'm ready.

[rhaenylis]

Thanks for posting

I hope we see the other characters' dreams. They'll probably just dream about iconic events in their lives, but it'd still be cool to see what their fears are.

Guess Rogue dreams of her imprisonment on Genosha and her fight with Carol
And Lorna must be dreaming about the genocide, Malice and the death of her parents

[Exodus]

WOW! That's bloody fantastic. I cannot wait for this issue to come out fast enough.

When was the last time Nightmare interacted with the X-Men? I remember a beautiful issue with Emma Frost and Nightmare in Generation X.

Absolutely here for this!!!

p.s. I need his unicorn to appear!

[Phoenixx9]

Jean needs to take it to Nightmare and do to him what she did to Knull!

[Devaishwarya]

Javier Pina and Erik Arciniega need to be Larraz and Gracia's alternates going forward.

That is all.

[salarta]

I haven't been around as much for a while for personal reasons. Feel like I can post now though.

This is an interesting premise. I'm interested to see what Duggan covers for Polaris' part. There's certain things I really hope get touched on, and others I hope don't get touched on or that I think could be left out if it means the stuff I think should be touched on getting left out.

[kalai]

Jean and Scott lowkey moved out of their bedroom on the moon,
good for them,
sucks for Logan.