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New York Comic Con 2011 X-Men: Regenesis panel

Posted by under *like, Comics |

We’ve spent a good bit of time talking about this Fall’s X-Men: Regenesis here at MLD. Lots of changes are in store for the X-line, and the final day of this year’s New York Comic Con saw nearly all of the creators from the titles involved sitting for a panel talking with fans about what to expect. I almost skipped this presentation altogether after the difficulty of getting into any panels at last year’s show, but thankfully there were plenty of seats in the audience even if they had run out of room on the stage.

Marvel presented a crowd of creators from their X-Men titles in the final panel on Sunday afternoon including Kieron Gillen, Brian Wood, Majorie Liu, Greg Pak, Jason Aaron, Peter David, James Asmus, editors Jeanine Schaefer and Daniel Ketchum, editor-in-chief, Axel Alonso, and moderator Arune Singh. They even had to add seats for Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning who arrived after the stage was full. With all of these people in the room, it was a great opportunity to hear them sum up their plans for Regenesis in one sentence about each of their books.

  • Uncanny X-Men by Kieron GIllen – Cyclops and arguably the most powerful X-Men team of all time trying to be the world’s best super team.
  • New Mutants by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning – The team continues their mandate to clean up the X-Men’s loose ends.
  • Generation Hope by James Asmus – Tracking down new mutants and continuing with all the teenage hormones and kissing.
  • Astonishing X-Men by Greg Pak – Set post-Schism, this book will see a lot of meetings between characters not happening anywhere else.
  • Wolverine and the X-Men by Jason Aaron – Wolverine and company rebuilding the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning from the ashes of the Xavier Institute.
  • Wolverine and the X-Men: Alpha and Omega by Brian Wood – Wolverine versus Quentin Quire (Kid Omega) with Logan’s latest protege, Armor, as collateral damage.
  • X-Factor by Peter David – They’re a detective agency and Wolverine is now a paying customer.

The latest adjectiveless X-Men‘s Victor Gischler was not in attendance and Axel Alonso said that while he can’t continue to edit the book as editor-in-chief, he was sure it will continue “kicking ass” and had it quickly pointed out that Sunday was kids day at the con. The book will continue to chronicle Jubilee’s path as an ex-mutant vampire and primarily see the X-Men interact with the rest of the Marvel Universe. Also absent was Uncanny X-Force writer Rick Remender who will continue on that title as well as Secret Avengers and we may see the books intersect at some point.

On the topic of absences, it would have been great to see X-Men: Legacy writer Mike Carey in attendance as his time on the X-books is nearly at its end. The panel did pay tribute to his six years on the title which was met with a very nice round of applause from the fans in attendance. The book will continue to focus on Rogue along with Gambit, Rachel Summers and Frenzy training young mutants with new writer Christos Gage and artist David Baldeon. Their run will begin with a “Point One” issue in January. Baldeon was signing at the Marvel booth before the panel and had I known he was taking over this title I would have been sure to talk with him about it.

Peter David’s plans for X-Factor also have my keen interest as Havok and Polaris return in issue #230. David explained that when he learned that the returning characters were in play it was perfect timing to bring them into X-Factor. The team finds itself at their lowest point and the return of the team’s former leaders will make some characters very happy while others won’t be so pleased. Knowing that two of my favorite characters will once again be handled by David is great news as was seeing that artist Leonard Kirk will continue to work on X-Factor.

With the fundamental split at the foundation of X-Men: Schism and subsequently Regenesis, the panel took an informal fan poll to see who was with Wolverine and who was with Cyclops. The overwhelming majority was naturally with Wolverine, but when Peter David’s name was thrown in the ring the crowd sided almost unanimously with him. Axel Alonso did make a point before the panel ended that he was very happy to see that there were a lot of fans siding with Cyclops as it showed there was some balance to the argument. I’m not a Wolverine fan and announcements like the upcoming Wolverine #300 don’t do much to grab my attention, but Jason Aaron’s plans for Wolverine and the X-Men have me intrigued. I love the decision to name the new school in honor of Jean Grey and including a cast made up of characters from across the Stan Lee / Jack Kirby, Chris Claremont, and Grant Morrison eras is really appealing. I’m particularly interested to see Beast and Iceman interacting again.

I don’t follow the Wolverine family of titles, but there were some interesting announcements regarding the future of X-23 and Daken. Daken will see the Runaways guest star in the near future, but given the way those characters have been handled since Joss Whedon’s arc that ended their ongoing title I can’t say I’m interested. The same is true for the prospects of Jeph Loeb and Simone Bianchi’s “Sabretooth Returns.” I didn’t care for Loeb’s treatment of the principal characters when he killed off Sabretooth years ago and I’m dreading his return to that story (as well as his resurrection of Cable coming this Fall). X-23 will be part of Regenesis with issue #18 which sees the return of former love interest Hellion and tells the story of Laura babysitting for the Fantastic Four. Liu commented that it was inspired in part by the film Adventures in Babbysitting and that might be enough for me to give it a look.

The announcement of Brian Wood’s Wolverine and the X-Men: Alpha and Omega mini-series and an Age of Apocalypse ongoing were welcome additions to the shipping schedule. I’m not terribly familiar with Wood’s writing, but his history with Veritgo, Alonso and Aaron has piqued my interest. There will be a lot more to come from Wood at Marvel and he commented that the X-Men line is where he feels he best fits at the moment. The Age of Apocalypse series is a surprise coming roughly fifteen years after the original storyline. Remender’s Uncanny X-Force has brought it back into focus and will serve as a launch point for the title. I really didn’t see this coming and can’t wait to see what David Lapham and Roberto de la Torre have planned starting in March 2012.

Before taking questions, the panel ended by revisiting the “It’s Coming” teaser ads that were revealed to involve the Phoenix at a Saturday panel. I’m not really sure what to make of this given that only one of the creators listed on the ad, Jason Aaron, is currently involved with any of the X-titles. Bendis, Brubaker, Coipel, Fraction, Hickman, Kubert and Romita Jr. are involved in a variety of other corners of the Marvel Universe so it’s hard to say just how broad this story will run. I’m intrigued, but I’m keeping a very circumspect perspective while we see how this develops. I’m in no hurry to see Jean Grey return, but there’s no definite indication that she will here or how exactly this story will affect the X-Men publishing line.


Read more about X-Men: Regenesis on MyLatestDistraction.
and keep up with our reviews as each of the X-titles enter this new era.

X-Men: Regenesis #1

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is a scientist by trade and a fan by nature. Born and raised in Philadelphia, he has spent a lifetime attending local educational institutions, collecting comic books, and watching professional wrestling. He is the founder of Break Even, an independent microlabel that specializes in releasing music from unknown artists.