X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, Exceptional X-Men - Summer 2024

[Thirteen]

Kwannon has black hair. Betsy has lilac hair. This character is inked tp Kwannon's wiki bc its Kwannon

They're not consistent with both Pyslocke's hair colors.

I THINK the issue is that she's wielding her tk blade above her head so the power signature is affecting or 'lighting' her hair in that art

I dunno why people are questioning who Psylocke is.

4 X-men are showing up in Mackay's Avengers event which is post krakoa

Jubliee
Illyana
Laura
Kwannon

Yes they are. Prior to Betsy going back to the British body, she was colored inconsistently with black and purple hair but ever since the Krakoa era, her hair has been colored lilac/light purple and Kwannon has been black. Not dark purple. She's been firmly established as Asian Psylocke with black hair. Any deviation from that is an error. Its the one way that Marvel has made sure to differentiate them in the comics

One of these is Kwannon and the other is Betsy and the hair is a dead give away


Its not even doing that as the hair is clearly black and not purple

In the pic the hair comes across as grey which could mean miscolored lilac or black with heavy reflection. Combine that with the status of Betsy being undefined, it leads to the question...

[Wally West]

I’m gonna be honest if someone showed me that pic I wouldn’t know who that is. It doesn’t really look like either psylocke

[From The Shadows]

Maybe they wanted an elderly "Psylocke"?

[Jwyatt]

From Sol ambassador to US congress, that's PAINFUL.

And it's not given that she'll win the election.

[Nicoclaws]

I agree the white is probably a coloring mistake, like they wanted to show the pink lighting of the sword on her hair, but it looked to purple and they feared people would think it',s Betsy, and course corrected a little bit too much ?

[x-mind]

it will never make sense to me why the (mostly inexperienced) writers prefer to create new characters in their flagship title, than using already established ones. Especially since we know that after this run, these new characters will get to background limbo as well.
Also Bronze, Axo, and Melee? Couldn't they be more creative with their codenames?

[Frobisher]

it will never make sense to me why the (mostly inexperienced) writers prefer to create new characters in their flagship title, than using already established ones. Especially since we know that after this run, these new characters will get to background limbo as well.
Also Bronze, Axo, and Melee? Couldn't they be more creative with their codenames?

The names are for synergy with the new smells of Ax body spray this year.

[Kingdom X]

it will never make sense to me why the (mostly inexperienced) writers prefer to create new characters in their flagship title, than using already established ones. Especially since we know that after this run, these new characters will get to background limbo as well.
Also Bronze, Axo, and Melee? Couldn't they be more creative with their codenames?

Guaranteed royalties and the slight chance that they end of being a breakout character. Plus it’s probably easier to do a character arc with an OC than with 50-60 year old characters that Marvel won’t let you change in the slightest.

[RAWRlrus]

it will never make sense to me why the (mostly inexperienced) writers prefer to create new characters in their flagship title, than using already established ones. Especially since we know that after this run, these new characters will get to background limbo as well.
Also Bronze, Axo, and Melee? Couldn't they be more creative with their codenames?

As disappointed as I am by the lack of "older" X-kids it makes sense why we get so many new ones. It's hard to do a storyline about characters learning how to control their powers or understand what its like to suddenly be "feared and hated" if they've been around for 30 years and experienced 8 different extinction events. To some those are core concepts of the X-Men.

[ChronoRogue]

https://twitter.com/GailSimone/statu...83678249406974
https://twitter.com/GailSimone/statu...74684088782917

This is like the second or third smile-y response in regards to Monet. So... unless it's all an elaborate troll, pretty sure she's another member.

https://twitter.com/GailSimone/statu...62862468084060

Seems like a somber tone upfront.

[Gray Lensman]

https://twitter.com/GailSimone/statu...83678249406974

This is like the second or third smile-y response in regards to Monet. So... unless it's all an elaborate troll, pretty sure she's another member.

Or at least a recurring character in the comic.

[ChronoRogue]

Or at least a recurring character in the comic.

Yep, but Gail also does keep saying the five shown off weren't the full roster, so I'm more inclined to think full-member. I think the 4 new characters are more supporting (maybe), since adding 4 is a lot.

[Dante Milton]

Overall

Too many of the decisions here feel like a reaction against Krakoa rather than a truly innovative new direction. Mutants scattered and against the ropes once more is not an interesting or new idea, they have been in the current comics since the last Hellfire Gala, and I’m already bored of it. From the small blurbs we have and some teases from the creators, it sounds like the teams aren’t in heavy communication with each other, which is a weird and unappealing direction coming out of the current era. And despite apparently not coordinating with each other, it seems like each team is pretty much doing the same thing but in a different location which feels redundant. Brevoort claims each of these is a flagship supposed to give a unique perspective, but right now they feel too similar. I hate the staggered release plan. The casts are very white and very straight. I’m sure some of the new kids in Uncanny and Exceptional will probably be some form of LGBT, but let’s be real they aren’t going to be relevant for long; meanwhile, Iceman, Betsy, Rachel, Northstar, Karma, Rictor, and Shatterstar are all older characters who are so far absent from any title.

X-Men

From what little we’ve seen it seems like this is maybe meant to be the proactive team that advances mutant interests and ideology. That’s mostly speculative, because we’ve gotten the least information about this one, and so far MacKay has been pretty absent from promotion. The Alaska setting is a weird choice, it’s new but that also means they don’t (or shouldn’t) have any resources to work with in this location. It also kind of feels like it was chosen specifically as a reaction against the tropical Krakoa vibes preceding it. This one has the most interesting cast to me. The panel seemed to make a big deal about MacKay writing both this and Avengers and I really don’t like the implications of that. I do not care about the Avengers, and I don’t want them in my X-books.

Creatives: I’ve never read anything by MacKay, but fans seem to be pumped about this choice and I’ve heard good things about his Avengers run, so I’m pretty much neutral about him. I do not like Stegman’s art, and never have. Stegman has been sharing quite a lot of upcoming images and it has not changed my opinion of his work. This book has my favorite cast so far, but I don’t know if I can put up with art that I don’t like for very long. The writing will have to be very strong.

Costumes (None more black): Cyclops – Boring, but to be fair most of his costumes have been. I understand the choice of gold on the top as the classic X-Men color, but I would have preferred that in either blue or red with the gloves and boots remaining gold.

Psylocke – Very boring. It’s a generic black cat suit with a feature-less black jacket and some pink straps that add very little to the design. I get that she’s a former assassin so I understand why she would wear mostly black, but she’s supposedly a superhero now, let’s give her something a little more interesting. At least it’s not Betsy’s used thongkini.

Beast – Also dull, but again most of adult Hank’s costumes have been. The reversion to his ‘90s look suggests that this is the clone replacing the complicated, but to me potentially more interesting (if not written by Percy) version.

Juggernaut – I don’t like how the X motif is incorporated almost thoughtlessly into his costume. More basic black, bored again. Maybe if they inverted the red and black bits and found a better way of putting an X in there it would be better?

Idie – I really can’t get over the hair, it’s such a bad choice. Also troubling is that Stegman draws her looking older than not only Quentin, but also Cyclops. The actual costume is one of the better ones though, the biggest problem is that orange and blue do not match and never looks good together. Red and blue would be better, and the gloves and kneepads should be white.

Quentin – I really like the jacket. The pants could use a little tweaking to make them more interesting. I hate the checkered shirt. Why does he look 13?

Magneto – There’s a design floating around that I think is by Stegman. The cape as bits of metal is an interesting idea if executed well. Other than that it’s pretty similar to his old look. Speaking of old, his out of costume design makes him look ancient and feeble, don’t care for that.


Uncanny

The back to basics, classic X-Men book. I’m sure many readers will find that appealing, but I’m finding it difficult to care about in the face of the creativity that’s being thrown out from the preceding era. Also, for me the problem with a classic set up featuring older characters is that it feels kind of pointless, like, how am I going to learn anything new about these characters doing things they’ve all done before? New Orleans is a potentially interesting setting. But, the setting along with the inclusion of Gambit means that the guilds are almost certainly making an appearance, and I have always found them irritating. The cast is very popular, and I like most of these characters. I struggle to care about Kurt, and actively dislike Logan, but being a team book hopefully means they won’t hog focus. There have been teases that Monet will probably be in the book, which is great, I love her. But I don’t know that she makes sense here, I don’t think she would like most of the other team members, or that she has much patience for “Xavier’s Dream”. The tone has been described as Southern Gothic, which sounds fun for an arc or two, but not really something I’m looking for in an ongoing X-Men book.

Creatives: Never read anything by Simone, I don’t generally read DC and most of her Marvel work is with characters that I don’t like. She seems to have a very loyal fan base. And maybe the largest social media presence of the creators so far, which means her opinions on all things X-Men are available if I were so inclined to care. Marquez is a very good artist, my only criticism of his work is that it can sometimes get too pretty and soft, which can affect the tone of a book.

Costumes (Everything old is new again): Going to mostly lump these together because they are all old costumes with such minor tweaks that I don’t know why they didn’t just use the old ones. I like Jubilee’s jacket, the outfit underneath is very ’90s, that’s not a compliment. With Logan I’m biased because I don’t love yellow and there is a lot of it in there. Something I noticed with the costumes in this and Exceptional is that where color blocked sections meet instead of being a flat line they’re doing a blocky kind of zigzag, I don’t like that.


Exceptional

The student/kid/training book. I think these are good roles for Kitty and Emma to have, and I mostly enjoy seeing them play off each other. I am finding it difficult to care about yet another group of new kids who will most likely vanish when the book is over. Kitty has taken breaks from the X-Men before so that aspect of the premise doesn’t bother me, but the fact she chooses to be a barista is odd when she has other options. Like, does she have several roommates at the beginning of the book, because I doubt you can live alone on a barista’s wages in Chicago (or anywhere else these days really). Not the most interesting premise, or my favorite characters, but the creative team is one I’m most curious about.

Creatives: I’ve heard really good things about Ewing, and I’m glad that a black woman has such a prominent role in the new era. Very interested to see how she approaches the mutant metaphor and how it intersects with real world marginalized identities. Carnero does beautiful work and is probably the most versatile of the artists announced so far.

Costumes (Basic training): Emma – There is a design sheet floating around that shows a variety of looks for her and the one they chose for the cover is the worst of the bunch. The others are really nice though, hopefully she switches looks throughout.

Kitty – Basic and boring. But Kitty canonically has bad fashion sense, the bigger offense to me is the return of the flat ponytail. Hate it.

The kids – Boring, nothing really stands out. I like the punky guy’s jacket. More of those blocky zigzag lines that don’t really add anything and make the color blocking look clunky.

There are also some design sheets of Kitty and two of the kids in street wear, and each of these looks are more visually interesting than their costumes, really nice stuff. But shouldn’t it be the other way around?

[Havok83]

In the pic the hair comes across as grey which could mean miscolored lilac or black with heavy reflection. Combine that with the status of Betsy being undefined, it leads to the question...

I think you are reading too much into it. Her hair isnt meant to be lilac there. To me its clearly black and those are highlights are meant for contrast. There are other shots of her from the actual comic and its undeniably black. Anyone holding out hope that thsi will turn out to be Btsy will likely be in or a disappointment

[CGAR]

yeah her hair is black and the section with white streaks is lighting or "hair shine" imo