Interview: X-Men writers Gail Simone, Jed MacKay & editor Tom Brevoort

[JB]

X-Men: From the Ashes Wants to Make Cyclops the Leading Man He Was Always Meant to Be
Exclusive: X-Men writers Gail Simone and Jed MacKay and editor Tom Brevoort talk about the future of Marvel's Merry Mutants in the From the Ashes relaunch.
https://www.denofgeek.com/comics/x-m...s-new-mission/

- “We wanted to start with Cyclops and wanted to bring him back to Alaska,” X-Men writer Jed MacKay tells Den of Geek during an exclusive interview at SXSW. “And from there we started thinking what his mission would be moving forward because he’s Cyclops, he always has the mission.”

- “The mutants that he assembles with him are parts of that mission,” explains MacKay. “These are a group of people who are not especially well suited towards simply going back to a normal life in the world.”

- For Simone, Gambit’s retreat to the bayou gives Rogue a chance to rest after the complicated events during the Fall of X storyline. But her retreat gets interrupted, not only by some young mutants who need help, but also by a frightening new baddie.

“Besides the Southern Gothic vibes, [Uncanny X-Men is] probably the scariest X-book,” she teases. “The new villain in there is someone that I would put up against any horror movie, psychological villain out there … and the sexiest.”

- According to Brevoort, these various retreats to old, familiar places is a natural outcome of the From the Ashes event, in which Marvel’s mutants must find a way to live without their Krakoa home.

“All of the assorted mutants of the world need to go and reintegrate back into the rest of the planet and live and coexist alongside a whole bunch of people that they just spent the last five years saying that they were the new inheritors of the future and that you have new gods now,” Brevoort says. “People around the planet have not taken that message to heart in a purely positive fashion.”

[BobbysWorld]

Oh good, the idea that all mutants are basically equally responsible and in agreement w/Magneto's intentionally inflammatory rhetoric is ratified by the new editor of the line, just what I was hoping for. All the mutants of the world DID act that way, yup, it definitely wasn't just some mutants under a handful of specific writers' pens who said stuff like that in the interest of generating controversy.....nope, Ayala, Ewing, LaValle, Foxe and others' casts were definitely all mutant supremacists, just like the bad faith takes all era claimed.

Sigh.

[NewMutant]

Still not sold. But I have plenty to reread and 97!

[Doom'nGloom]

Oh good, the idea that all mutants are basically equally responsible and in agreement w/Magneto's intentionally inflammatory rhetoric is ratified by the new editor of the line, just what I was hoping for. All the mutants of the world DID act that way, yup, it definitely wasn't just some mutants under a handful of specific writers' pens who said stuff like that in the interest of generating controversy.....nope, Ayala, Ewing, LaValle, Foxe and others' casts were definitely all mutant supremacists, just like the bad faith takes all era claimed.

Sigh.

I think it's Magneto saying it that makes it significant. Magneto was a founder of Krakoa and for a while sat on its governing body. Of course he can't claim to speak for the entire mutantkind but I can see why his words may hold more weight than any other mutants aside from Charles. Of course the new editor sharing this view isn't exactly a good sign.

[Uncanny X-Man]

I'm very happy and very curious to read the fallout of Krakoa properly addressed and explored in terms of relationships with the rest of the world, as it's not a genie you can easily put back in the bottle without retcons and not something you can logically just ignore.

I also found this quote interesting:

This motley crew presents MacKay with a very different challenge to the one he faces on his other team book, The Avengers. Where Captain Marvel, Black Panther, and Thor all have their own books, MacKay’s X-Men don’t have any solo comics (“For now,” X-Men group editor Tom Brevoort interrupts)

Brevoort seems intent on exploring solo books during his era and I'm curious to see how it will play out. Great creators can make anything work frankly but what remains to be seen is whether Marvel is interested in hiring great talent for those books and in giving them a chance to find an audience, or whether they're just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks.

[BobbysWorld]

I think it's Magneto saying it that makes it significant. Magneto was a founder of Krakoa and for a while sat on its governing body. Of course he can't claim to speak for the entire mutantkind but I can see why his words may hold more weight than any other mutants aside from Charles. Of course the new editor sharing this view isn't exactly a good sign.

Yeah I mean, we've hashed out Magneto saying that to death and back and I'm not real interested in starting that back up again, its just.....its also not like Magneto said that to the world at large either, he said it to a handful of ambassadors, and most of the remarks people complained about mutants saying were literally said among other mutants, not to humans. So in reality, its NOT like mutants have been running around calling themselves new gods to humans en masse or painting the kind of picture that Brevoort is alluding to, here, where mutants have all been expressing supremacist ideas to humans and thus now are reaping what they sow as humans hold it against them. And THAT'S the issue I have with Brevoort characterizing it this way....it smacks of the loosely-affiliated-with-the-truth interpretations a lot of the most vocal critics of the era were loudest about holding against Krakoa and mutants, rather than an actual earned cause and effect between mutants and humans on the whole.

[mugen]

Disgusted with what I just read, back to the mutant mediocrity before Krakoa... humans hate mutants even more because they created an island to prevent these same humans from killing them and brevoort which brings us the "new gods" trope while only magneto said it no other mutants felt superior to humans, have they read the krakoa era? he speaks like the fanboy of the 90s who hates krakoa and who prefers to see the mutants return to their one more day mutants hatred and fear, their cycle of genocide and xavier's stupid dream which has no meaning for years later all the genocide perpetrated by humanity even less after krakoa.

Brevoort is the worst thing that could have happened to the mutant, when at the premise of the three x-books everything seems generic, already seen a thousand times in runs from 90-2000, uninteresting how many times cyclops has become renegade with magik and magneto, kitty stops the x-men to come back then, rogue who leaves for new orlean recycling simply nothing surprising coming from brevoort.

Uncanny and Exceptional x-men scare me a lot, if Exceptional exceeds ten issues before being canceled that will already be good.
And I don't at all want to see uncanny continue to save humans who destroyed their nations to show that they are good mutie...

Krakoa was not perfect but we still ate in a great restaurant throughout its years, in July Brevoort is preparing to make us eat McDonald's to reheat in the microwave.

Not surprising this regression of mutants from someone who agreed to set up one more day of spider-man and who thinks that spidey must remain a single loser otherwise he is more relatable and who has given places currently in spidey's worst run.

[JB]

I'm very happy and very curious to read the fallout of Krakoa properly addressed and explored in terms of relationships with the rest of the world, as it's not a genie you can easily put back in the bottle without retcons and not something you can logically just ignore.

I also found this quote interesting:



Brevoort seems intent on exploring solo books during his era and I'm curious to see how it will play out. Great creators can make anything work frankly but what remains to be seen is whether Marvel is interested in hiring great talent for those books and in giving them a chance to find an audience, or whether they're just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks.

I'm also glad that it's not a matter of simply erasing Krakoa as some thought it might be. It sounds like it's going to be a real crappy time for mutants though. I hope we get to see some varying degrees on reintegration, perhaps it being easier for some more than others.

“These are a group of people who are not especially well suited towards simply going back to a normal life in the world."

Kwannon immediately came to mind because now that I think about it, she has spent most of her time on Krakoa since returning to life. I wonder if Beast is in this grouping because of all he's done in the Krakoan era and he can't just return to the real world right now.

[Rnap22]

Let’s be real… this is taking so many steps back. Think about what was just said… Beast had a problem with Scott and brought the O5 from the past. That happened how long ago and, while we don’t know the outcome of X-force, is this going to be Beast that doesn’t even remember that happening? I’m just curious if the creative teams and editors are that just out of touch with what has been going on or we are really cherry picking from this era and the outcome of FoX.

If many of the elements from this era are gone and forgotten, then I may just have to tap out.

[Galen Nycroft]

I'm willing to give everything a try during the relaunch, but sadly everything just sounds very generic, like there is no goal or end. There is no longstory, it will just be writing month to month like Gerry Duggan writes with no real endpoint or goals. Also, one thing kind of concerned me...when Gail referred to the new "baddie" introduced in Uncanny X-Men.

“Besides the Southern Gothic vibes, [Uncanny X-Men is] probably the scariest X-book,” she teases. “The new villain in there is someone that I would put up against any horror movie, psychological villain out there … and the sexiest.”

This makes me a bit worried that we will get a retread of what Tini Howard recently did with Catwoman, namely [re] introduced an attractive male villain (Valmont) to get in the way of Selina and Bruce/Batman. When she says "sexiest", it feels like she is perhaps setting up some character to come in between Gambit and Rogue in a triangle.

Not saying it will happen, but after what Tini Howard did in Catwoman, I don't want to see Rogue and Gambit broken up or effed with like this, or tension like this. They are supposed to be over all the BS and in a more stable union. Hoping Gail won't go that predictable and tired soap route.

[Askani's Flame]

"The only traditional hero on Cyke’s team is Hank McCoy a.k.a. the Beast, a fellow founding member of Charles Xavier’s original X-Men. But in addition to his rapidly slipping morals, as seen in the recent X-Force book, Beast has problems with Cyclops, so extreme that it drove the furry blue mutant to go back in time and retrieve the original X-Men from the past to talk some sense into his old pal."

So did they NOT keep clone early Beast? Because this quote from the article makes it sound like they have glossed over the past few years...

[LordUltimus]

"The only traditional hero on Cyke’s team is Hank McCoy a.k.a. the Beast, a fellow founding member of Charles Xavier’s original X-Men. But in addition to his rapidly slipping morals, as seen in the recent X-Force book, Beast has problems with Cyclops, so extreme that it drove the furry blue mutant to go back in time and retrieve the original X-Men from the past to talk some sense into his old pal."

So did they NOT keep clone early Beast? Because this quote from the article makes it sound like they have glossed over the past few years...

Not sure how much we should read into that; it's not a quote from one of the interviewees, but the site itself hyping things up.

[Rift]

“Besides the Southern Gothic vibes, [Uncanny X-Men is] probably the scariest X-book,” she teases. “The new villain in there is someone that I would put up against any horror movie, psychological villain out there … and the sexiest.”

Hellion confirmed????

Oh good, the idea that all mutants are basically equally responsible and in agreement w/Magneto's intentionally inflammatory rhetoric is ratified by the new editor of the line, just what I was hoping for. All the mutants of the world DID act that way, yup, it definitely wasn't just some mutants under a handful of specific writers' pens who said stuff like that in the interest of generating controversy.....nope, Ayala, Ewing, LaValle, Foxe and others' casts were definitely all mutant supremacists, just like the bad faith takes all era claimed.

Sigh.

I can't believe Orchis won the PR war, even IRL.

[JamJams]

X-Men: From the Ashes Wants to Make Cyclops the Leading Man He Was Always Meant to Be
“All of the assorted mutants of the world need to go and reintegrate back into the rest of the planet and live and coexist alongside a whole bunch of people that they just spent the last five years saying that they were the new inheritors of the future and that you have new gods now,” Brevoort says. “People around the planet have not taken that message to heart in a purely positive fashion.”

This is such a ridiculous quote that I can't believe he, as the head of this line felt like he could say it out loud and not realize how bad it sounds.

Even if Krakoa utterly fails, like completely implodes in on itself, mutants have proved that a society they create by themselves CAN work. It just might need new leadership and vision. And theres so many mutants with so many powers they can easily just...you know... make another Krakoa on Earth or Mars or wherever they wanted to go.

Then it gets worse when you add in mutants are an allegory for minorities. So imagine we flip the script and there's a POC demographic that make their own self-sustained country, the US does everything in its power to sabotage that country and succeeds. then they're like 'OK now that it failed they just have to shuffle back into the US where they can continue to be persecuted'.

Why? Why would anyone do that?
.


The Krakoan era should have just been it's own lil era that was self-contained that told a beginning, middle and end. Not turned into this vast line-wide thing that took over the comic and now puts them in a position where if someone wants to go back to another status quo there's no good way to do it and they expect the readers to just have to go along with it.

[Rufio]

As someone who was not a fan of the Krakoan era, but was just fine with it staying, none of that in those interviews sounds remotely good or makes much sense coming out of the Krakoan era. None of that sounds worth checking out. None of it sounds exciting, either. I could go to sleep with what I just read.