By Kevin Mahadeo
This Halloween, the dead rise and terrorize the mutants of the newly formed Nation X as X-FORCE writers Chris Yost and Craig Kyle mastermind the X-Men crossover event Necrosha, which begins with the release of the X NECROSHA one-shot on October 21 before flowing into X-FORCE for the core story with tie-in issues of X-MEN LEGACY and NEW MUTANTS.
X Necrosha focuses on the schemes of immortal X-villain Selene as she seeks revenge on both the Hellfire Club and the X-Men for constantly getting in the way of her self-prophesied ascension to godhood. As such, the former Black Queen begins returning to life countless dead mutants as means of punishing her enemies through torture both physical and emotional.
Necromancers Kyle and Yost took some time away from reanimating corpses to explain the psychological nature of the returned dead, share their thoughts on the Inner Circle and tease Selene's intense desire to destroy the White Queen.
Marvel.com: You both have been planning this event for a while. What's it like seeing it finally come to fruition?
Chris Yost: It's great. At a certain point, a lot of stuff with X-FORCE was set up. Even NEW X-MEN was a lot of setting up stuff here and setting up stuff there. But we've now reached a point in X-FORCE where everything is now payoff.
Craig Kyle: What's nice about this story is that it's probably the biggest personal fight our characters are going to be in. It's really personal. It's really ugly. It started so long ago with Chris and me in NEW X-MEN and it's incredibly satisfying. It's going to be nice to see our team take on a threat that's much larger than them, but show that when pushed they can do some really extraordinary stuff besides just stabby-stabby and shooty-shooty. So, it's pretty amazing.
Chris Yost: Yeah. This isn't a couple of low-level thugs or some Purifiers. This is something huge that they're about to jump in to.
Marvel.com: We know Selene is raising the dead, and when it comes to stuff like that people naturally think zombies. But these aren't just brainless monsters walking around, right?
Chris Yost: That's right. What Selene is doing is using the Techno Organic virus-which is this alien virus that can basically rebuild bodies and rebuild minds-to bring them back to life with the same look. So, these aren't decomposed people running around for brains. These are people exactly as you know and remember them. Their bodies look the same. Their minds and personalities are the same. It's not zombies. It's the people you know.
Craig Kyle: This is what we wanted from the beginning. Although we're big fans of zombie storylines and Marvel has had some of the best in recent years, it's not about that. It's about seeing the people you fear, love and hate back from the grave with all the danger and emotions that they bring normally and an extra layer of trouble laid on top of them because of Selene's plan.
Marvel.com: You mention a lot of the personality traits and attitudes they had in life are retained. But then how do they play into Selene's control? Do these resurrected dead have an included evil streak added on?
Craig Kyle: You know what happened with Bastion-he's the one who first put this plan in motion-where he would resurrect the human threats that were the most efficient and had the most opportunity to destroy mutantkind and used all their money and backgrounds, groups, affiliations and everything they offer for him to use against mutantkind. Eli Bard discovered this plan, which turned everything upside down for him. The TO virus offered him an opportunity he never dreamed of. So, a lot of that hardwiring that comes with this control interwoven into the TO is basically what Selene and Eli are using here. So, although you have a lot of characters trying to piece together who and what they are now that they're back to the living, they're not in control of their own minds when the strings are pulled by Selene. So, it's a mixed bag.
Chris Yost: Yeah, there's definitely an element of control and you're going to see that play out in the one-shot and certainly the NEW MUTANTS back-up story. One of the characters in that is going to experience that first hand and you're going to see it from his point of view.
Marvel.com: The X NECROSHA preview from DARK AVENGERS/UNCANNY X-MEN: EXODUS revealed a few of the members of Selene's inner circle, many of whom are also characters long gone from the comic world. I want to hit on those characters and I wanted to start with Wither, a character from your NEW X-MEN run.
Chris Yost: Wither was one of the New X-Men students that was seduced and abducted by Selene and he has essentially become her right-hand man. He's definitely in her thrall, but at the same time, she's kind of given him what he needed at the time. This was a boy who killed with a touch and who hated himself and his power. This woman came to him and said, "No, this is a gift. Let me show you." You're going to see a [much] transformed Wither in X NECROSHA and the lead up to it. And in December, you're going to get THE GATHERING, where you're going to get more back story on all of Selene's inner circle.
Craig Kyle: There's also something really cool about the White Queen being the one who failed him and betrayed him and allowed him to leave under the worst terms; and then the Black Queen being the one who
discovered him and said, "Those who failed you failed me. We can build a new life together and achieve our potential." His own life mirrors Selene's saga that we're working on right now. I think people who have been following them since NEW X-MEN are going to be really happy with the way things shake out.
Marvel.com: We mentioned Eli Bard earlier and he served as Selene's right-hand man before. What can you say about Eli Bard's role now?
Chris Yost: Eli Bard, or Eliphas, which is his Roman name, was a tool of Selene. He was somebody that she approached, much like Wither, but 2000 years ago, and said, "Do this for me and you'll live forever." He failed her, and she wasn't too happy about that and turned him into a pathetic, suffering, immortal creature and then just left him and said, "If I ever see you again I'll kill you." So for 2000 years, Eli Bard has been trying to figure out a way to make it up to Selene, whom he loves. This is his big shot to get back in her good graces.
Craig Kyle: Would you say he's a big fan of Wither? Think he likes that guy?
Chris Yost: Yeah. They're going to be best buddies. [Laughs]
Marvel.com: It's a sweet romance story. He loves her and wants to woo her with dead people.
Chris Yost: That's what the lady likes.
Craig Kyle: Not everybody likes flowers. That's all we're saying. [Laughs]
Marvel.com: Senyaka has been around the X-Books for quite some time, always seeming like he died, but never really the case. Why did you decide to bring him back?
Craig Kyle: When you look at this group that Selene has put together, they all have specific traits that obviously fill a role for her and her ascension to power and death is largely the trait the binds them. This group was constructed by her to help her devour the world. He was a perfect fit.
Chris Yost: For me, Senyaka is the one that's not an innocent. He was not one of the students. He's not somebody that needs a lot of convincing to jump on board Selene's train here. These are people that have a death power and Selene sees the potential in them. Under Magneto's reign, he didn't necessarily get to cut loose the way he wanted to. Well, in this, he's going to cut loose.
Craig Kyle: He's the guy willing to do it. He's not looking for a whole lot of motivation for the opportunity. He's a refreshing perspective in the group.
Marvel.com: Next we have a personal favorite of mine-Blink. This is the mainstream Marvel Universe version, whom we haven't seen since the Phalanx Covenant. What do you like about the character of Blink?
Chris Yost: I like purple people. [Laughs] I think Blink was always one of the one we've been thinking about for a long time. In some respects, it is because Blink is a failure of Emma Frost. Selene has a couple of goals here and one of them is to take revenge on everybody that's ever failed her. And one of those people is Emma Frost. When Selene walks down the street and people don't bow down in front of her and offer their lives to her, she gets confused because that's not the way it's supposed to be. So, she fully expects people like the Hellfire Club and the X-Men to serve her and basically be her slaves and help her to ascend to her destiny as a goddess. All of this is building to the point where she is going to have her revenge and putting Blink in front of Emma Frost like that is just a way to twist to the knife. The other great thing about Blink is that while her power is teleporting; it's incredibly lethal. She took out Harvest, and he was somebody that Sabretooth, Banshee and Emma Frost couldn't take down. Blink ripped him apart and then disappeared. So, this is a fun little nod to history, but Blink is dangerous.
Marvel.com: Between Wither and Blink, that's two people Selene is sending after Emma specifically. I have a feeling she really doesn't like Emma...
Craig Kyle: [Laughs] Of all the things she's done to Selene in the past, putting on the Black Queen outfit recently was probably the tip of the iceberg. She thwarts Selene's ascension at every turn and betrayed her when she was part of the Hellfire Club and then later on in life to pretend to be her and take on her role-there's a lot of anger. Across the board, all the Hellfire members have a price to pay, as do the X-Men.
Chris Yost: Hey. Are any of those guys on the island? Oh, wait.
Craig Kyle: We really should go back and re-write those scripts. [Laughs]
Marvel.com: The last person we saw in the preview was Dazzler's sister, Lois London. This is a pretty obscure character you're bringing back here.
Chris Yost: There's not a lot of mutants left, but when you get to that list and look for someone with specifically full on death power, she's one of them.
Marvel.com: Last time we saw her, she was a good guy though. What happened?
Chris Yost: Funny you should ask that. There's this one-shot called THE GATHERING where you're going to see exactly what Lois London's life was like in between going off with her father and X Necrosha. She's a killer and she knows it. When you're a killer can you live a normal life like that?
That is the question. And I would say the answer as possibly seen in the X NECROSHA preview: no. It really didn't work out that well. I think a lot of people will be surprised by her life.
Craig Kyle: Maybe she's the conscience of them. She's the Wolf-Man of this team. [Laughs]
Marvel.com: Before we close out, you've got to tell us: who are some of the returned dead we'll be seeing when this event kicks off?
Chris Yost: Well, we know Thunderbird is coming back. And St. John Allerdyce-Pyro.
Craig Kyle: And we just saw Berserker and Scaleface. In Mike Carey's X-MEN: LEGACY, they're doing Destiny.
Chris Yost: Weren't the Hellions on the cover?
Craig Kyle: Yeah. Don't they have a connection to Emma?
Chris Yost: What? No. [Laughs] There's a good number that have not been announced yet. Those are the ones that are out there and there are more to come.
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