The Writers of 'Uncanny X-Men' Tell Fans What to Expect from the New Series

UNCANNY X-MEN #1 has arrived! The first issue of the new series starring Marvel's mutants is available now in a story as big as the Marvel Universe! It's such a massive undertaking that three writers will be working together on the newest X-mission -- Ed Brisson, Matthew Rosenberg, and Kelly Thompson assembled to chat with Ryan "Agent M" Penagos for an upcoming interview on This Week in Marvel.

Ryan "Agent M" Penagos: What is the top line of what Uncanny X-Men is about?

Matthew Rosenberg: Um.

Kelly Thompson: Oof.

Ed Brisson: Well, we are killing them all.

Kelly: That’s such a lie.

Matthew: It’s the story of Doop and his understanding of his…

Kelly: The story of Doop!

Matthew: No. Uncanny X-Men is… We don’t want to spoil stuff. … I feel like we can say that a lot of the X-Men’s problems and the world’s problems have come from the X-Men. And they’ve come home to roost. The legacy of the X-Men has come back to them in a way they aren’t prepared for.

Kelly: [People have been] asking about [teasers and covers]: “Oh, this X-Men’s in the teaser so they’re going to have a big role.” That teaser is amazing, first of all. David Marquez is the best. But, that teaser, to me… Part of the reason [that] as many characters as you can fit are on it is because this is an X-Men problem that they’re dealing with in this story. This is a mutant problem and so it touches all of them, even if they don’t have some big, juicy side role. Even if they’re just sort of showing up for the “final fight” or whatever it is. It affects all of them, what happens in this story. So it’s very big in that way. Ed’s making jokes about death, but I actually think the death count has been highly overhyped. People are going to be surprised.

Ed: Absolutely. I think that’s what people thought we were doing when we came in. We got a lot of people. As many who were saying, “Where is ‘so-and-so?’” there were as many people saying, “Please don’t kill ‘so-and so!’” Which Matt didn’t help by just every time responding, “Nope, dead.”

Matthew: Yeah. If you ask me where an X-Men is in the book, I tell you they’re dead. That’s just a blanket rule.

Ed: I think the cool thing about this series is that we have your standard X-Men, but I think we’re also elevating some X-Men who don’t get as much spotlight.

Ryan: Glob Herman?

Ed: I’m not saying Glob Herman, but maybe like a Glob Herman.

Kelly: We’ve talked about that in interviews. A lot of the new X-Men, the younger kids who aren’t Laura, have gotten lost in the shuffle. There’s just so many X-Men. I don’t think anyone’s trying to put anyone on the bench. It’s just what happens when you have that many incredible characters and that many incredible stories. So, we obviously can’t raise them all up, but one of my favorite things—and I know it’s Ed’s, I don’t know about Matt’s—in this story is the story of these young X-Men. Specifically, Armor, Pixie, Rockslide, and Glob have big roles. And it’s not just [that] they have big roles punching things, they have questions and they have complaints, and they have an evolution of where they’re headed. And I think it’s really cool stuff that you don’t get to see a lot.

Ed: Yeah, it’s been one of the most fun things. The whole series is great, but that in particular has been nice, to elevate them. Back in the day, you had the new mutants who graduated and became X-Force. They became their own X-Team. You don’t see that much anymore.

Kelly: No.

Ed: This is not a promise that that’s what’s happening at all.

Kelly: No. no. Since we’ve already seen the pin-up for the X-Force, we know that’s not what happens. But it’s still a story, and it’s a story that we want to tell. And it also creates a lot of good opportunities for me and Ed to try to push each other out of the way to write Armor, so that’s always fun.

Matthew: I also think that there is a component, when people see it, about a generational idea in what the X-Men are and like I know early on, Ed and Kelly were very excited about the kids. And I love the kids too, but it took me sort of a long time to realize, “Oh, the kids’ story is sort of mirrored in a bigger story in a different way.” That fits into the generational idea of X-Men that we’re kind of examining. If you have a favorite era of X-Men, we’re trying to give you something that you’ll like. We’re trying to show you, “here some of them are, here they are doing their thing and how they deal with these problems.” The kids are the last generation of X-Men, so following them a bunch has been really rewarding in a way that kind of caught me off guard. But I do love it very much.

You can hear the full interview on the next episode of This Week in Marvel, coming this Friday!

UNCANNY X-MEN #1, written by Ed Brisson, Matthew Rosenberg, and Kelly Thompson with art by Mahmud Asrar, R.B. Silva, Yildiray Cinar and Pere Pérez, is available now online and at your local comic shop!