X-Men Monday #237 – Al Ewing Discusses ‘Resurrection of Magneto’ #1

[JB]

https://aiptcomics.com/2024/01/29/x-...ewing-magneto/

AIPT: Welcome back to X-Men Monday, Al! Let’s kick things off with a question from X-Fan Sam, who’s writing in for the first time because you’re one of his favorite comic writers! Sam wanted to know what inspired the romance between Storm and Craig.

Al: A mix of things — I’d introduced Craig as a human voice on Arakko, because I thought it was important that Arakko was a more complex place than people expected. At the same time, two things occurred to me — firstly, that I miss the days when superheroes had more relationships with non-super supporting cast members. These days superheroes tend to date each other, which is very efficient — it’s two heroes getting romance beats for the price of one, very useful space-wise especially given how comics storytelling has decompressed over the past 30 years — but at the same time, it makes the superhero world feel a little closed off and incestuous, and also it means the hero’s never really off the clock. Now even love is work-related.

And the second thing was that Storm needed to relax a bit and I thought a fun thing to do would be to have her go on a date, maybe mirroring the “dinner with Doom” scene from S.W.O.R.D. but kind of showing how that’d go if she actually wanted to be there. And hey, here’s this eligible bachelor in her orbit… at a certain point all this is like snooker, or cooking — you’ve set the balls in motion and then they just naturally bang into each other and careen off the table and you see what ends up where and then work from that. You have a recipe in your head, but at the same time, you suddenly decide to add a bit more spice. And so on.

AIPT: X-Fan @ororoswind first would like to congratulate you on a monumental first issue and thank you for this fantastic ride for Storm. What was the thought process behind wanting to include Ashake in this story? Can we look forward to this side of Ororo’s character being explored a bit further in the mini-series or was that all there was space for?

Al: This whole journey is very magical and metaphorical, and Storm gets another POV issue in #3 — the even numbers belong to Magneto — so we can expect a bit more. Ashake’s kind of done her bit at this point — I included her because I did some research for a bit that’s coming up and found that mini from a while back that featured her very heavily while exploring Ororo’s magical side, which led me down a quick research rabbit hole into her whole deal. She’s sort of “up to something” in her first appearance in New Mutants and we never really find out what — I like the idea that she’s doing all this stuff in her time period that’s reaching all the way forward to now, and maybe one day we’ll find out what that is, and maybe we won’t. Anyway, Ashake seemed like a useful ingredient.

AIPT: A throwback question before we wrap — X-Fan KingdomX asked if there were any storylines or characters from S.W.O.R.D. that you wish you got to spend more time with.

Al: All of them. I’d love to spend more time with Wiz-Kid and Frenzy, with all the different divisions, do more with that giant org chart, those amazing uniforms Valerio Schiti designed… really, the truth is that I miss Valerio and Marte. We were a good team — I just wish we’d had less tie-in stuff and more space for the pure original idea while we were still together, but so it sometimes goes.

AIPT: Finally, what can you tease about the next issue of Resurrection of Magneto?

Al: It’s from Magneto’s POV and it’s called “The Weight Of The World” — it’s about the weight of the world on him, the weight of him upon the world, whether he can or should bear either of those things again… oh, and there’s a cool key we haven’t seen for a while.

This week's eXclusive preview images!

[JB]

Shoot her, Hope!

[Kingdom X]

I’m always so thankful when my questions get picked. I’d love to see manuscripts with all of Ewing’s dropped pitches and ideas for books like SWORD one day. My hope for him is that one day he can get the Tom King treatment, where he’s given 10-12 issues, with no concern about cancellation or tying into anyone else’s stuff.

Also is that Hope and the Dead X-Men in RotPoX? If so, they’re showing up far sooner than I expected!

[mugiwara]

So, no third part of Ewing's Defenders.
Bummer...

[PhoenixStudies]

So Rachel and Xavier have to know about Jean's current condition right?

We were told that Rachel selects the dead X-Men to go on their time/reality jumping mission. Now we see Hope and MR with the Dead X-Men.

Will it be Rachel and Hope with Xavier or Rachel and Jean?

[JB]

I’m always so thankful when my questions get picked. I’d love to see manuscripts with all of Ewing’s dropped pitches and ideas for books like SWORD one day. My hope for him is that one day he can get the Tom King treatment, where he’s given 10-12 issues, with no concern about cancellation or tying into anyone else’s stuff.

Also is that Hope and the Dead X-Men in RotPoX? If so, they’re showing up far sooner than I expected!

It's so great to see them in two books. The start of Dead X-Men in two days can't come soon enough!

[Sunny]

I'm glad he brought up having to be interrupted by tie-ins to other stories. That irked me to no end during SWORD.

[Fokken]

I'm very much into Xavier's BLOND(???) beard.

[Saturius]

I'm glad he brought up having to be interrupted by tie-ins to other stories. That irked me to no end during SWORD.

I came to post just that. We all already knew but it's nice to get confirmation that he kept getting screwed from telling the stories he wanted to really tell..

[Uncanny X-Man]

Very interesting interview as expected. I love how Ewing fleshed out the "Rooftop in Japan" and Yukio connection and traced a direct line from there to Ororo's relationship with Craig but also Ororo literally about to jump to her death with no clear outcome... all captured in a single sentence in the comic. If that's not masterful writing and use of continuity and characters history, I don't know what is.

Very pretty preview art too - I hope we get to see the Dead X-Men getting resurrected in the WHR. And at this stage, Hope should probably just pull the trigger on Mother Righteous.

[Uncanny X-Man]

I'm glad he brought up having to be interrupted by tie-ins to other stories. That irked me to no end during SWORD.

It's funny because Ewing seems to be so damn good at handling crossover tie-ins and pivoting books in a completely different direction than we can forget he can get annoyed at having to do that without being able to continue with his narrative. He's really skilled at making a delicious lemon cake out of lemons but I can understand how annoying it would be having to do it constantly.

[Devaishwarya]

Ha! In true Claremontian fashion, I love that he doesn't come right out and answer exactly what DeerGod was really asking: Is Storm bisexual? And his response is exactly what I've always personally thought it was.

Yes, maybe it was in part sexual or not (Claremont being Claremont) but...the connection she made with Yukio throughout that night superceded anything and everything Storm was going through at the time, spiritually, mentally, emotionally and not just physically (which is the only part some fans have been fixated on all these years). And yes, free to just Be...regardless of what labels and boxes we fans want to place her in.

[PhoenixStudies]

If Hope really loved her granny, she'd blow that witches head clear off.

[Devaishwarya]

LOVELOVELOVE that panel of Storm surrounded by snowflakes.

[Kingdom X]

It's funny because Ewing seems to be so damn good at handling crossover tie-ins and pivoting books in a completely different direction than we can forget he can get annoyed at having to do that without being able to continue with his narrative. He's really skilled at making a delicious lemon cake out of lemons but I can understand how annoying it would be having to do it constantly.

I feel like it should be an unspoken rule that writers don’t need to tie-into crossovers/ events if they haven’t gotten through a full arc/ trade yet. The fact that SWORD issues 2-4 were part of King in Black is wild. It gets a break with issue 5, but then issue 6 is a Hellfire Gala tie-in and 7 connected to Last Annihilation. Poor book never got to form it’s own identity.