We’re back! Issue opens with MacKenzie and Kurt, who I really like together. In a lot of relationships, that first kiss is something to really anticipate. But imagine waiting to be bamfed? And four times?! She wasn’t ready for that.
Kurt wasn’t ready for his surprise birthday! I have to remember this issue come November 11, Kurt and Dave Cockrum’s birthday. That splash page is perfect for that post.
I like all of the love Kurt gets this issue.
Logan notices someone at the door, it is Mutina, who wants to join the X-Men. Logan isn’t having it, and they fight. He thinks she is all talk, that she hasn’t killed anyone, but even if that is true, she’s getting closer to finally killing. She has definitely cut some fools, as she gets two clean hits on Logan. Does she have a Nightcrawler like shadow power? She keeps fading into the darkness. Was she born in the darkness, molded by it? Or has she merely adopted the dark? Do the shadows belong to her?
Mutina has done her homework on the Uncanny X-Men.
Screenshot
As Logan is confronting her, nearly the full cast of The X-Pets comes out. Ember, the dog shaped Sentinel, all of Gambit’s cats. Mutina tries to feed good boy, Ember, but he doesn’t want her food. The cats literally eat up the cat food she brought for them.
Mutina discloses information about The Outliers. She implies Calico burned her family home down, but I feel like that was heavily implied before.
Ransom threw four kidnappers out a window, which we also knew.
Jitter hurt a girl so badly, she can barely walk. I feel like this may have been a bully, which you shouldn’t beat a bully until they can’t walk, but you have to stand up to bullies. Or tell someone at your school, as there should be zero tolerance for that. Or she hurt someone who shouldn’t have been hurt, and there’s a story there.
Where there is a story is Deathdream. He apparently has a brother, and the story is awful. We do know that he is almost on the verge of tears whenever Ransom calls him, brother, so there’s a story there that I want to be told about.
What was in her box? Cupcake or thumbs? It was cupcake!
So, I’m liking Mutina, until I don’t. Logan goes inside, and we see she has a knife up to MacKenzie’s throat. Poor MacKenzie is in tears. Kurt talks Mutina into a duel. Mutina gets a cut on Kurt. He tells her she’ll never be an X-Man, but there is a path, which is odd. So, she could be an X-Man?
I said earlier in the day, whoever has content from the panel, will get a follow from me, and that’s what I did.
So the big BIG announcement was that the Post-Krakoan Era is going to be called “From the Ashes” – which I still don’t love, as that’s a sacred title associated with my all time favorite fun of X-Men, the Paul Smith/Bob Wiacek era, but here we are.
We are getting three main teams –
Gail Simone & David Marquez on Uncanny X-Men, the clear main team
The Roster is going to be – Rogue, Gambit, Nightcrawler, Logan, and Jubilee.
So a pretty classic lineup, and if any fans of the new X-Men 97 cartoon, want a comic, this is the comic for them.
This team’s adventures will be set in Louisiana, so we can expect some Thieves Guild, but what I’m really excited about is the family dynamics of Rogue and Nightcrawler together.
plus, Gail Simone is clearly the head writer of this new era, and I love fun in my comics, so I’m hoping this is a fun new era. I’m sure there will be dark and dreary moments, but I’m hoping there’s at least an element of fun.
Marquez is quite the artist as well, so we’re in good hands.
The only problem is that . . . besides Nightcrawler and the creative team, its a team I don’t have any stakes in.
Also, how great that Uncanny is back! Especially now that we have issue 700.
. . .
The second team is my second favorite.
X-Men, written by Jed MacKay and drawn by Ryan Stegman.
The roster is Cyclops, Magik, NuOld Beast, Psylocke, Magneto, Juggernaut, Oya, and Kid Omega.
I really wish we got Magik on the third title, but then this title would be missable for me as well, but I do love it when Cyclops and Magik are together, those two are great together.
MacKay is on a career high with his Avengers run, a beloved Black Cat run, and an upcoming giant vampire theme company wide crossover, Blood Hunt. Which Magik has a one shot involved, but that is being brought to us by Ashley Allen and Jesús Hervás. But I had the thought it would be a good place to see MacKay handle Magik, but we’ll get there.
I find it interesting that Magneto is in a chair, we’re to make the connection to Xavier in a chair. Cyclops and Magneto are also a great pair, we are only missing Emma or this would be a reunion of the Bendis’ Uncanny X-Men team.
Juggernaut with a giant X on his helmet, I guess so you know where he’s hitting you when he’s charging at you?
Oya being on a main team feels like this is long overdue. Changing her name to, Temper, seems like a horrible back step, for multiple reasons. One obvious one, is that she went from a very unique name to a very copyright unfriendly name, but there’s plenty Marvel’s Temper like characters, so that’s an easy fix.
Quentin Quire is my least favorite character in all of these lineups, but I do like him when paired with Oya, so I guess they already figured that out.
This team will take place in Alaska, so that’s great for Scott, maybe he’ll visit his grandparents more often now?
. . .
Then we finally get to my absolute favorite title of the relaunch :
Exceptional X-Men!
Written by Eve L. Ewing, who I’m not familiar with, but have been recommended her Champions run, and Black Panther runs. As well as her poetry is supposed to very good.
Drawn by Carmen Carnero, who I’m also not familiar with, but from what I’ve seen, is very talented.
I also adore that this is a female creative team writing a mostly female lead roster, so that feels great too.
The Roster is – Shadowkate, Emma Frost, and three new mutants, but not New Mutants – Bronze, Axo, and Melee.
two of those names the copyright office must have really loved – but its hard to come up with original names.
took a new twitter friend to point out that this new design for Kate Pryde is very X-Men Evolution coded.
I kept saying its her original basic yellow suit, but blue, as a homage to her Excalibur coloring . . . but just writing X-Men Evolution is so much faster. That, and I never thought about her Evolution costume being her trainee uniform, but blue.
but it totally is, and just being blue, makes me not even think of it as a trainee uniform, but instead, her own unique uniform.
We’ve seen it before in the Women of Marvel V5 1 comic as well :
and it looks great every time I see it.
When Emma Frost comes to Fortnite, I hope they use that hoverboard of hers as her glider. Seems so silly to include, that there’s only one explanation for it, she’s coming to Fortnite.
There was a fan survey sent out recently that asked which X-Men people would be interested in, and the options were Cyclops, Magneto, and Colossus. Two of those makes sense to me, and I’ll probably play Fortnite again for a season if they even brought one new mutant to the game, or even one New Mutant. I love this joke.
If I had to get Colossus, I’ll probably make a series of videos, using each one of my emotes, and have him land somewhere, and emote until he was eliminated. Maybe that’ll make for a better live stream?
Issue starts with Kate becoming a barista (really putting that Mekanix bartending skills to good use), trying to get away from the mutant nonsense (that will only last for the first few pages of the title), then has to protect these three new mutants, and then gets assistance from Emma Frost.
So it is nature’s best friends, Kate and Emma, teaching, which I’m already sold on.
I really wish Lockheed had made it to the promo art, or any of the promo art. It is the only thing giving me pause, but also, I’m fully committed to Exceptional X-Men.
Also, a very fun new adjective for the X-Men to have.
Their stories will take place in Chicago, so I love how the X-Men are scattered, and I imagine that is because the X-Office wants to make it so you don’t feel compelled to get every single title, you can get what you want, and there’s no pressure to get everything.
. . .
Which is great, as we’re not just getting three titles, we’re getting all of the titles!
Phoenix, Storm, and Wolverine are all getting solos. From the Women in Marvel oneshot, it appears Storm will be going on a press tour, so no more Queen of Arakko – which really, anything would be a step down from Queen of Mars so a press tour is at least something.
I really love the return of those classic logos.
NYX is a confusing title to bring back, as I only remember it as Joe Quesada’s comic he wrote himself, that was Laura Kinney’s first official comic book appearance, and he made the ‘brilliant’ choice to make her a sex worker who cut herself.
So instead of bringing those memories back, a more friendly District X title could have been nice, but maybe it is a copyright issue? That’s why we got so many New Mutants miniseries and such, as Marvel has to keep that title published x amount of years or lose the rights to it.
I’m going to guess that this is going to be the New York team of X-Men, with maybe Laura as the lead, and maybe Ms. Marvel too? Or is her time with the X-Office over?
I made the comparison to the Avengers Initiative, where they have an official Avengers team in every state, and this launch is like that, but with the X-Men, they could actually make 50 titles (most of them one shots), and I wonder which X-Men will be on the Arizona and Montana teams.
Arizona – Rachel Summers and Betsy
Montana – Outlaw
were the first ones to come to mind
I had to look it up :
Avengers Initiative Arizona was the Desert Stars – Two-Gun Kid, Komodo, Blacksmith, Johnny Cool, and Supermax.
Avengers Initiative Montana was Freedom Force (heck yeah!) – Challenger, Cloud 9, Equinox, Think Tank, and Spinner.
Then we have X-Factor and X-Force, and a slew of all star X-Men that are still unaccounted for, so at least 16 to 20 mutants will make up those two rosters.
July 2024 is when the three flagship titles come out, then maybe the rest in August?
Free Comic Book Day 2024 is May 4, 2024, and will be the second look at this new era, after the epilogue in X-Men V6 35, which is also Uncanny X-Men 700 (for some reason – should have just called it Uncanny X-Men 700)
So I’ll be taking the family up to Kelly’s Comics in Great Falls, ideally early, and devouring the comic.
which of course, ends the Krakoan Age, and hopefully, not the last we see of Lockheed.
. . .
From the trailer, Jubilee starts a hand gesture with what looks like Mercury, who does a response gesture :
I cannot get my middle fingers to want to do the Jubilee M, and I can barely do the response one, so I have to get better at that as I want to be a mutant ally.
I also like how we have co-opted the Spider-Man web fingers. He’s had it uncontested for too long.
Also from the trailer, the Xavier Mansion is rebuilt, and this time, is a prison for someone in the basement, Inmate X. Who has to be Xavier, right?
. . .
What are you, dear reader, most excited about?
I’ll be curious to see how long we get these titles before there is a crossover, issue six? issue twelve?
The first run of Krakoan Age comics all had great lengths, so I’m hoping we get to at least issue 25 before we get new number ones.
Brian Cronin and Kelly Thompson really outdid themselves with this list!
Here is who I voted for :
Ten Writers
Louise Simonson
2. Ann Nocenti
3. Marjorie Liu
4. Devin Grayson
5. Kathryn Immonen 6. Kim Yale 7. Gail Simone
8. G. Willow Wilson 9. Kelly Thompson 10. Marguerite Bennett
Ten Artists
Sara Pichelli 2. Rachel Dodson 3. Jill Thompson 4. June Brigman 5. Colleen Coover 6. Ariela Kristantina
7. Altri Firmansyah
8. Yasmine Putri
9. Alisson Borges
10. Sonia Oback
How did I forget Jo Duffy!?!
Not too many people who made both lists, I thought with all of the comments, that there would be more creators on the same lists.
Rumiko Takahashi (A24 W18)
Emily Carroll (A22 W13)
Kate Beaton (A14 W5)
Colleen Doran (A7 W21)
Four is still pretty impressive!
I’m pretty impress with myself for getting so many writers on my list, making it to the big list. I had Kelly Sue DeConnick but replaced her with Marguerite Bennett. I should have taken Kelly Thompson off the list and kept both of the other two but since Kelly worked on the list, I thought that wouldn’t be proper. PLUS, if Kelly did make the list, I wanted to be within the number that did vote for her but that clearly didn’t work out. I wonder if she got any votes or was I the main one.
I am still pretty embarrass that I left off Jo Duffy, she is such a great writer! She could have been ranked 19 if I had done it right!
Really surprised that DeConnick beat out Simone but I’m also surprised that Louise Simonson didn’t make it to the Top Three.
I thought that I would have had more lady artists make the big list but I also don’t really know any of them either, in terms of all popular they are and such. I believe that Sonia Oback may be like Rachel Dodson and doesn’t do pencils but mainly inks. I could be wrong on that.
Looking over the list, I’m not sure if any of these pairings have worked together. Some would make pretty good creative teams, that’s for sure!
Shadow and Flame with Magik 