The Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo, C2E2, went down this weekend in the Windy City. There was a lot of news from all over, but below are the things that stood out to me.

We Are the X-Men

The teaser images released last week were to showcase a new ongoing series simply titled X-Men coming in July. An interview with writer Victor Gischler and artist Paco Medina reveals that the book is intended to show the X-Men integrated in the Marvel Universe via guest stars team ups (possibly explaining the inclusion of Spider-Man, She-Hulk, Blade and Elektra in the promos). The first arc involves mutants vs. vampires.

Accompanying this announcement was another great Adi Granov image featuring a number of X-Men mainstays and word that Uncanny X-Men and X-Men: Legacy aren’t changing anything other than art teams. Of course, this could be to avoid spoiling anything in Second Coming.

New X-Force

An X-Force relaunch titled New X-Force is coming in September from writer Rick Remender and artist Jerome Opeña. It seems the current series will end at the close of Second Coming, which actually makes a lot of sense given the way this series and Cable launched out of Messiah Complex. The new book features a team led by Wolverine whose membership is currently a mystery, though the silhouettes look like Angel, Psylocke, Nightcrawler and Fanomex. Not sure how I feel about this one…

Secret Avengers

Speaking of mysteries, the full line-up of Ed Brubaker and Mike Deodato’s upcoming Secret Avengers series was revealed. I managed to guess some correctly, others not so much. Featuring an espionage theme and characters spanning the Marvel Universe (Steve Rogers, Sharon Carter, Black Widow, War Machine, Ant Man, Beast, Nova, Moon Knight, and Valkyrie), I think I’m definitely in for this one.  Plus I’m a huge fan of Beast.

Avengers: Children’s Crusade

This new project announced from Young Avengers creators Allan Heinberg and Jim Cheung probably has piqued my interest the most. Avengers: Children’s Crusade involves the Scarlet Witch, her children and the Young Avengers, House of M and at least Magneto if not the rest of the X-Men. The book is slated to begin in July.

I’m loving the current X-Men: Second Coming storyline as you may have read about here. Rather than just ride that wave, Marvel has released a series of images for May’s X-Men books reading “We Are The X-Men” to tease the status quo post Second Coming. The images (posted below) show what is presumably the new team tearing through an image from the cover of 1991’s X-Men #1 by Jim Lee. The first was intriguing in that it featured Spider-Man, but then it got weird as they revealed Blade, Elektra, and the new She-Hulk from an alternate future were part of the team. I don’t know where this is going. Could be great, could be awful. I’ll give it a chance, but only because I always do. I am looking forward to seeing how Nate Grey is involved and the interactions between him, Hope and Magneto. The vampire Jubilee could be intriguing as well.

Along with the images, Marvel.com did provide some information to go along with each reveal, but they don’t really speak to the details of why these particular characters might be together (or associated with the X-Men at all for that matter). Considering each of the non-X-Men characters in the context of recent X-events:

• Blade may be around as a result of X-Force’s recent battle with Selene during Necrosha as she was a vampire of sorts. Although it makes more sense that he may be after the vampire Jubilee.
• The new She-Hulk is from the future and may be connected to Hope in some way as she is also a key figure in things that haven’t happened yet.
• Elektra was associated with the X-Men in the Mutant X universe, so there could be an unrevealed connection that brings her into the fold in this story.
• Spider-Man has interacted with the X-Men in the past and was even invited to join the team in the X-Men/Spider-Man mini-series that saw print in 2009. On a side note, this was a great story for any long time X-fan.

More information is scheduled to be available at today’s X-Men Panel at C2E2.

The second installment of the epic X-Men: Second Coming crossover hit stores yesterday and I’m dying to talk about it.  I can’t tell you how I appreciate the weekly schedule for this series, but I can tell you I may spoil things here.

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After writing my earlier post, it occurred to me that I’m not even that big of an Avengers fan and Marvel has been releasing teasers for weeks for an event that I’m far more interested in. The third chapter in the X-Men: Messiah Trilogy hits this April with Second Coming.
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This snow is really starting to cause problems. Apparently Diamond Comic Distributors, who ship the majority of new books on Wednesdays, had no power and no phone as of Monday due to the weekend storm. A recent update says that this outage shouldn’t cause any shipping delays. However, considering the new storm that’s crushing us today, there’s a good chance we won’t see books before next week at this point. Without any books hot off the presses, it’s nice that Marvel has given us some teasers of what’s coming a few months down the line to focus on.
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