Hoping 2024 will be Awesome for X-Man
"Good-bye. Good luck. Good riddance."
Bit of behind the scenes info from X-Men Archives Sketchbook.
'X-Man as Apocalypse'
Illustrated by Lenil Yu
'In its earliest stages, the "Twelve" storyline didn't end with Cyclops being bonded forever with Apocalypse. Instead, it ended with X-Man (Nate Grey, the genetically engineered son of Scott Summers and Jean Grey from the "Age of Apocalypse") being absorbed into Apocalypse, resulting in an all-new powerful villain.'
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I'm glad that didn't happen. That "Twelve" storyline went sure through a lot of changes. When it was originally hinted at, it included Moonstar and Cannonball, who were no where around during the final storyline, IIRC.
So years ago I drew this fan art of Nate's 'evolution' for a contest over on Comic Vine
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And recently I've been in the mood to redraw/update it, probably increasing the number of Nates to 6 or 8.
Any suggestions for the additional costumes or for replacing any of the current ones?
Really love the art. Curious to know which pose you would add to not disrupt the fluidity of the movement you managed to capture so far. Perhaps something should fit between the 2 and 3?
The most recent one (leading to Age of X-Man) with long hair and white/ivory robe? Not much fan of that era of his, but the look itself was good?
My mind is fuzzy ATM but the costume he got during his solo is the first one on the left of your art (with just shorter hair), right? My favourite - I think under the pen of the artist who drew him in the year before The Twelve storyline Nate was the best looking.
First Warren in Dark X-Men #1, and then Genis-Vell in Captain Marvel #1. Seriously, Marvel?!
Avatar reflecting my mood. I couldn't stand the sunny high-flying Angel one anymore.
According to Joe Casey, Cable was always supposed to face down Apocalypse (whether with Nate or not I don't know), and finally kill him in #75. When Marvel told him that they had different plans to drag the story out, he bounced. That meant that Jose' Ladronn's wonderous Kirbyesque art was replaced with Rob Liefeld's. Sigh. I loved X-Man especially when he joined the 616. Always would pick up the latest issue from my neighborhood Diary Mart though by the time of The Twelve some of the storytelling choices made me leave. But up to around issue #45 or so, it was a great comic
Do you have any X-Men characters that either fly under the radar or are outright unpopular that you are fond of or have a soft spot for?
For example, I simply adore Longshot and think Nate Grey, the one and only X-Man, has a lot of seriously strong story potential nobody really has been able to bring out.
If I did, Cian, then that situation isn’t going to be a problem for them much longer, right? Because now I can use anybody that I want to regardless of how unpopular or obscure they are. I don’t know that I think either Longshot or X-Man are especially unpopular or obscure, though. The one limitation on all of this, of course, is the fact that there are more characters that people love than there are spots to feature them in books. But I wouldn’t think that either of those two gentlebeings will be off the canvas for too long.
So, he hasn't been completely forgotten.
Post Arachne Thanks