Hickman / Schiti 2023 – "-the Powers That Be Meet the Natural Order of Things"

[Rift]

The brunette girl seems to have dark eyes, and her skin is slightly darker than everyone else's. Wind Dancer?
The girl with white hair looks Asian to me. Surge, dying her hair once again?
A black-haired guy with high, rich-people fashion and an undeniable sense of swagger? An older Hellion?

Finally, it's time for Academy X to get its dues.

[Devaishwarya]

Schiti...Hickman (hopefully he won't abandon this like he did X-Men. Yes, I know it's more to do with his being "over-ruled" about the direction of the X-line and most likely some other in-office nonsense at the time, but still...)

I'm in.

[Iron Maiden]

I wonder if Hickman will be putting out any graphic design elements for this series.

[Anthony W]

"What Happens When the Powers That Be meet the Natural Order of Things?"

I'm going to assume it results in something that gets your hopes up, let's you down and then results in Hickman leaving the whole thing in the hands of people who are far less talented?

[charliehustle415]

I'm going to assume it results in something that gets your hopes up, let's you down and then results in Hickman leaving the whole thing in the hands of people who are far less talented?

lmao, stop reading my nightmares

[H-E-D]

Schiti...Hickman (hopefully he won't abandon this like he did X-Men. Yes, I know it's more to do with his being "over-ruled" about the direction of the X-line and most likely some other in-office nonsense at the time, but still...)

I'm in.

Hickman left the X-Men because Marvel wouldn't match his Substack deal, from what I know, and he didn't think he had the time to do both.

Whatever this project is, it is probably a lot less time commitment than being Head of X.

[hawkeyefan]

Silver Sable and Morbius both seem like candidates for a couple of them.

But given the cosmic theme that’s implied, it seems like maybe they’re incarnations of some of the cosmic entities. The Jubilee looking girl could be Infinity, maybe the half-face guy is the In-Betweener. Morbius looking dude is Entropy.

Not sure about Silver Sable lady or techie dude, but these are some of the thoughts I had.

Either way, Hickman is one of the few reasons I’ll pick up a Marvel monthly, so I’m on board.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

I'm pretty interested so I'll pick it up eventually.

[alanyoung909]

I am 100% confident that these aren't Doctor Strange, Jubilee, Silver Sable, Morbius, Wind Dancer, Surge, Hellion, or any other Marvel superhero.
These people don't even look like traditional superheroes.
After all, if Hickman was using preexisting characters, why would he waste Marvel's money and Schiti's time to redesign characters who already have working designs?

The way I see it, there's two likely choices for who these people are:

1. These are Hickman Original Characters

The 'archetypal Hickman plot' as I like to call it, involves a group of people (a team or an organization) aiming to change the world working against a counter-group that wants to keep the world as it is. All this while being ensnared in a decades-spanning conspiracy.

In this case, I can see the trenchcoated guy and woman in yellow being agents of an organization that represents 'Order'.
The circular / two-circle badge is the symbol for this organization.
The slightly-nerdy guy in grey with a futuristic multi-purpose I-Pad is tech-support for this organization.
The Victorian themed black-white guy is a villain representing 'Chaos' that works against this organization.
The white-haired lady with a gun is a spy or assassin of some sort.

This could be a book in the vein of Hickman's S.H.I.E.L.D.

OR

2. These are Cosmic Abstracts incarnated as humans

But given the cosmic theme that’s implied, it seems like maybe they’re incarnations of some of the cosmic entities. The Jubilee looking girl could be Infinity, maybe the half-face guy is the In-Betweener. Morbius looking dude is Entropy.

Since Hickman described this as 'Sandman in the Marvel Universe', this sounds very possible as well.
Like hawkeyefan said, the guy in the trench coat could be Eternity, the woman in yellow could be Infinity, the half-black, half-white faced guy could be the In-Betweener. All reincarnated or posing as humans.
'What if gods were humans?' is a very popular indie comic concept - Gillen's The Wicked and the Divine, Higgin's Ordinary Gods, and so on. So why not bring that flavor to Marvel Comics?
Since no one is using the Abstracts in books right now, Hickman won't be stepping on anyone's shoes if this really was his idea.

Hickman left the X-Men because Marvel wouldn't match his Substack deal, from what I know, and he didn't think he had the time to do both.

Whatever this project is, it is probably a lot less time commitment than being Head of X.

During his X-Men exit interviews, he said Marvel doesn't pay him to write ongoings anymore, so I don't think that this is something that will last longer than a year.

I suspect that this is either a dense 6-issue miniseries or an elaborate 12-issue maxiseries.
Basically one of Hickman's indie projects like Decorum or Black Monday Murders, but done at Marvel instead of Image.

[Lee Stone]

Schiti responded on twitter that those aren't Strange or Jubilee.

My first thought was Doctor Strange and Justice League Detroit's Gypsy.

[DigiCom]

They definitely aren't Doctor Strange & Jubilee. Schitti said as much on Twitter.

I think the "Conceptual beings incarnated as humans" makes sense, particularly with Hickman's Sandman comment.

The only real question is... are we talking Eternity/Infinity or Order/Chaos?

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

Well dressed guy being Morbius would be pretty cool. But these are probably entities like Eternity walking around as humans.

[your_name_here]

I think they’ll be new characters, or personifications of Order/Chaos etc

[ARkadelphia]

The old order changeth

[danielsan52]

I think they’ll be new characters, or personifications of Order/Chaos etc

This is who they remind me of…
104D90B5-445F-4637-91EB-34E3382F567A.jpg