Comics New X-Men: Academy X

[bengan]

3 red x's.

uh?

 

[Kevin]

All I see are 3 red x's. I'm more than sure I'm the only one, and that saddens me.

 

[Kevin]

Finally read it (Now I have to force myself to read Uncanny ad X-men) It was a good issue. Now let's talk about it, dammit!

 

[Colossal Spoons]

I thought it was pretty meh, mostly filler.

 

[ProfeZZor X]

Here are new pics of two more characters (Hellion & Pixie), courtesy of Skottie Young:

http://skottieyoung.blogspot.com/

 

[Colossal Spoons]

His Hellion looks like Wither and his Pixie looks like Molly and/or Karolina from Runaways.

 

[cerealkiller182]

those skottie young pics are so depressing

 

[Specter313]

Hellion looks like some emo, goth brat. Thank god that art killed just about any interest I have in the Magik arc.

 

[ProfeZZor X]

Hellion looks like some emo, goth brat. Thank god that art killed just about any interest I have in the Magik arc.

I don't know about you guys, but I like Scottie's approach to these characters. He's right on the money with portraying them as kids, which is how they should be, considering they replace the O5 when they were that age.

Not only that, but he's representing each character as they were originally written. Hellion is currently too much of a "Scott" copycat, and Sarah is too pretty to be a Wolverine clone. After all, slightly hairy teenage girls do exist out there...

 

[Colossal Spoons]

I don't like the fact that Anole's calves and shins are dangerously unhealthy looking

 

[gothicFLAVOURS]

I don't know about you guys, but I like Scottie's approach to these characters. He's right on the money with portraying them as kids, which is how they should be, considering they replace the O5 when they were that age.

Not only that, but he's representing each character as they were originally written. Hellion is currently too much of a "Scott" copycat, and Sarah is too pretty to be a Wolverine clone. After all, slightly hairy teenage girls do exist out there...

I agree with you. I'm actually liking what Scottie's doing with the characters, bringing them back to their right age. It wasn't normal or even logical that X-23 or Surge looked like 25 years old models and Hellion looked more buffed than Cyclops. They're supposed to be teenagers. BTW, is it just me or does Anole look like Aang from Avatar: The Last Airbender?

 

[bengan]

I got to say, Im starting to really like his art

 

[cerealkiller182]

I don't know about you guys, but I like Scottie's approach to these characters. He's right on the money with portraying them as kids, which is how they should be, considering they replace the O5 when they were that age.

Not only that, but he's representing each character as they were originally written. Hellion is currently too much of a "Scott" copycat, and Sarah is too pretty to be a Wolverine clone. After all, slightly hairy teenage girls do exist out there...

I get where you're coming from but I see this as the opposite extreme. Too young. Anole looks like he is 8 years old. And I thought Pixie had butterfly wings not fly wings(I could be wrong on this part).Hellions hair is ridiculous. The kid wants to be a leader so he is obviously going to look the part, and since he is a teen I would think he would lean toward short with a flip in the front (like he has) not long garage band. And just because Hellion is not buff anymore doesnt make him any less adult or kid looking since he seemed to have grown two feet (if the pictures are to scale to each other).

Sarah is only half a clone of Wolvie. The other half came from a very pretty woman (i may not have recalled that right). The overall design of the girls isnt bad, i think its just his style of drawing.

 

[Specter313]

New X-Men #36 will arrive in stores on March 14 from Marvel Comics. The issue is written by Christopher Yost and Craig Kyle, with art and cover by Paco Medina.

Here's how Marvel describes the issue:

"Mercury Falling,' part 4 of 4. X-23 and Hellion have stormed the Facility to rescue Mercury. And as if Kimura and a hundred Facility agents wasn't bad enough, something is roaming the halls of the Facility... something designed to feed on mutants. Predator X is on the loose, and nothing will ever be the same for the New X-Men!"

New X-Men #36 will be 32 pages and will cost $2.99.

 

[Colossal Spoons]

^That looks awesome!

 

[Snikt 6]

Kinda feelin bad for Cessily.......

I am REALLY glad that Hellion has some morals. The X-Men are NOT suppose to kill, they try to choose the right....right? I really like that.

 

[Snikt 6]

Here are new pics of two more characters (Hellion & Pixie), courtesy of Skottie Young:

http://skottieyoung.blogspot.com/

Ya know....I kinda like it. Very cool.

 

[usagicassidy]

EXCITMENT! So does the Illyana story follow directly after this one?

 

[Colossal Spoons]

^I think so.

 

[Snikt 6]

^Very cool.....I'm there.

 

[Specter313]

“The Quest for Magik” kicks off with a special prelude tale co-illustrated by Skottie Young and Pride of Baghdad’s Niko Henrichon in April’s New X-Men #37.

Newsarama.com spoke with one half of the co-writing team, Chris Yost on all things New X-Men.

Newsarama: Looking back for a moment, did you guys have a say in who stays, who dies, and who changes? Or did the Powers That Be dictate the fates of the New X-Men?

Chris Yost: There are 25 students left, not counting Quentin Quire, and sometimes it feels like about 15 too many. From before we took over the book, we had a list going of who we wanted to keep, and who was going to go, one way or another.

A few depowerings were suggestions that came down from the X-Office, most notably Danielle Moonstar. Wind Dancer was another one that had to be decided early, as she appeared mentioned as about to be depowered in the House of M mini itself. But they did run it by us, if I recall correctly.

Things change, from concept to execution. In our initial pitch, it was Sofia – not Laurie – that died from a sniper’s bullet.

NRAMA: It’s obvious that there are still fans and loyalists of original series writers, Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir, and some of them were not happy with the way you guys “got rid of” some of the original members, and the changes done to the others. Okay, we all know that the X-Men is all about change and evolution but in your opinion, why did you think these changes had to be done, especially in the aftermath of House of M?

CY: The name of the event was “Decimation.” If you’re not going to go all the way, then what’s the point? It was the single most significant event in the history of mutantkind, nearly the eradication of the species. We just took what would be the next logical step for anyone who hated mutants – take out the survivors and finish the job.

Every single death is meaningful now. When Cassandra Nova wiped out 16 million plus mutants on Genosha, well, so what? There’s apparently millions left. When you take down one single mutant now, it’s one step closer to extinction.

Although from a statistical standpoint, I think Academy X is having a better time of it than Generation X. I’ll own up to it, despite owning every issue of Generation X, I totally forgot about them when we wrote the mass eulogy in issue #32.

NRAMA: Did you hope to bring in and attract the old school X-fans as well as new fans who enjoyed the X-Men Evolution animated series? After all, X-23 was first introduced in the series. Or did you set out to appeal to the (then) existing fan base who had been sticking with the characters since N&C introduced them in 2003?

CY: We set out to appeal to, and are still shooting for, each and every X-fan on the planet. Craig and I grew up on the classic Claremont run of Uncanny and New Mutants. We adore it. We’re trying to bring that feeling to the book, to appeal to those fans.

But there are 40+ thousand people who read U$ncanny that don’t read this book. Even more who read Astonishing.

Yes, there are people who think that we’ve flushed down the toilet everything that the previous team worked so hard to create, but we believe in this book. We think this book and these characters stand shoulder to shoulder with each and every X-book out there.

Now we just have to convince those 40+ thousand people of that.

NRAMA: Also gone from the series are some of the original New Mutants Danielle Moonstar, Karma aka Xi’an Coy Manh, Magma aka Amara Juliana Olivians Aquilla/Alison Crestmere, Wolfsbane aka Rahne Sinclair (although she’s been seen trailing/keeping an eye on Wither aka Kevin Ford), and former X-Men Northstar aka Jean-Paul Beaubier. Instead, the team’s being tutored by co-headmasters Cyclops and Emma Frost and other X-Men such as Beast. What do the senior members, especially Emma, have in mind for the next generation of X-Men?

CY: Keeping them alive is the new goal. And it hasn’t obviously hasn’t been going so well. You’ll see that even the kids now comment on how they can’t rely on the X-Men to save them.

NRAMA: How does X-23 aka Laura Kinney fit into your plans for the team? The current arc features the appearance of Kimura, her handler from her time at the Facility, making life a living nightmare for her, team member Mercury and others in the X-Mansion…

CY: Wolverine basically forced her to come to the Institute. You’ll see more of that relationship in X-23: Target X, but she told him it was a bad idea.

But at the same time, being around these kids, Wolverine hopes it will help humanize her. She’s got a long way to go.

NRAMA: Also, will the revelation about her being the Kingpin’s former assassin be further explored and explained in the coming months?

CY: We saw in X-23: TX #3 that the Kingpin hired X-23 to take down a super powered blackmailer. It’s safe to assume he’s contracted her services subsequently. As seen in New X-Men #35, she does seem to have a certain amount of respect for the Kingpin.

NRAMA: Emma has a dislike for X-23 and has most recently used the latter’s relationship with Hellion aka Julian Keller as an excuse to get rid of her. Is Emma trying to make up for past mistakes, i.e. failing to save her former students, the Hellions, and is now making sure that history won’t repeat itself with Hellion and the New X-Men? Or is there more to it than meets the eye? Does she have a history with Wolverine and/or X-23 that’s not been revealed?

CY: Emma wants to keep her students alive, and she sees X-23 as a ticking time bomb in her midst. She knows that all it takes is a dose of Trigger Scent, and X-23 will kill any one of them. In this case, Emma’s desire for X-23 to be far, far away from the school is the most responsible thing Emma’s exhibited in a while.

NRAMA: Unlike Wolverine, X-23’s origin and back stories are being fleshed out so soon after her introduction into the comics in the pages of Joe Quesada and Josh Middleton’s NYX. Why do you think the time is right for the readers and those who were first introduced to her in the X-Men Evolution series were ready to find out most, if not all about this clone of Wolverine now rather than later? Don’t we all love characters with a mysterious past anymore?

CY: Oh, there’s still plenty of mystery to X-23’s life. She was killing for the Facility from the age of something like 13, and there’s still many tales to be told. But one of the key differences between Wolverine and X-23 is that she knows every single bloody thing she’s done, she remembers every murder. Part of the mystery of the character is trying to understand how she’s dealing with that.

Hint: not very well.

NRAMA: As for Surge being the leader of the New X-Men, why is she the right candidate? After all, the team now includes others who’ve been leaders of other squads introduced in N&C earlier run such as Hellion (who once led the Hellions squad and was punished by Emma, who made Surge leader of the New X-Men instead because Julian did not obey her orders to “eliminate” X-23 in a competition), Anole (Alpha Squadron), Match (The Paragons), the now Three-In-One Stepford Cuckoos comprising Celeste, Mindee and Phoebe who once led The Corsairs and even the now depowered but still remains at the X-Mansion David Alleyne who was once offered to lead the New Mutants but declined the offer…

CY: With one or two exceptions (Rockslide), any one of the kids could potentially step up into a leadership position. Even the Facility realized that the chain of command in the team was the triad of Surge-Prodigy-Hellion.

But Surge is the right candidate, because she wants it the least. And you’ll see, it’s taking a big toll on her. Being a leader when you’re doing team sports and field day exercises is one thing, but leading when the stakes are life and death is another thing.

NRAMA: Rockslide’s now larger and more rugged than his earlier form, Mercury’s going through various experimentations (and transformations, I’m sure) in the current arc, Julian’s becoming more powerful than ever… What other changes are in store for these characters?

CY: Change is the name of the game. Rockslide’s transformation is far more complicated than Hellion putting him back together. He’s fundamentally changed, and doesn’t even know it. Yet.

Hellion’s power increase is something he can get a handle on in time, and Mercury’s torture will affect her for months to come. Things aren’t getting easier for poor Cessily, but it’s how she deals with adversity that will define her, and all the kids for that matter.

Even bigger changes are in store for a couple of the other characters.

NRAMA: One of the comments (well, more like arguments) that I’ve come across was that the new team consists of mostly the Hellions squad while the original members were either depowered or killed off. With 25 out of 182 students left after “Decimation”, there’s a chance that others could still make the team. Incoming artist Skottie Young’s been showing new character designs and sketches on his blog, and Pixie and Anole are two individuals who’re, I’m assuming, taking up more screen time, or rather story pages in the coming months. Who else is moving up the chain and taking on more responsibilities and assuming a more pro-active role? Why do you think they’re up for the challenges ahead?

CY: “Quest for Magik” will answer that question pretty conclusively. By the time issue #38 is over, readers will have a pretty good idea who’s stepping up.

But this is post-Decimation New X-Men. Stepping into the limelight isn’t so different than stepping into the crosshairs. If you’ve got a favorite background character, is becoming a full-on member really the best thing for them?

NRAMA: What’s next for Elixir? His story’s not over, right?

CY: Far from it. Anole of all people gave Elixir a suggestion, and Elixir took it to heart. In issue #37, he follows through with it.

And in issue #38, you’ll see that everything has changed for Josh Foley.

NRAMA: Likewise, Wither. What have you guys got planned for him and (former?) Black Queen of the Hellfire Club, Selene?

CY: There are definite plans for young Wither, but a couple of things are up in the air right now.

But if you’re a powerful evil mutant recruiting a young mutant… why stop with just one?

NRAMA: Other than those who’re still in the X-Mansion, will the readers ever see the others who’ve left and find out what they’ve been up to since “Decimation,” especially Sofia Mantega?

CY: You will never see them again. Well, except one of them.

The truth is, who knows? Someone might have an incredible story to tell someday repowering Kidogo, or Spectre. It’s not impossible. They’re still alive. And frankly, it’s not impossible for the dead ones. Pretty much every writer out there could have every single student back among the living in about two panels.

Just not us.

NRAMA: Are there plans to introduce new characters?

CY: Nope. We’ve got plenty. Well, that’s not true. The new Purifiers were new characters, as was Predator X and Nezhno. Nezhno will be appearing, talking and using his powers in “Quest for Magik,” and Predator X will be… around.

NRAMA: While we’re on this topic, one familiar yet new character is making a comeback in the pages of New X-Men soon, and she’s none other than Magik aka Illyana Rasputin. However, as has been revealed, she will be the House of M version and not the one who succumbed to the Legacy Virus back in Uncanny X-Men #303. Now, various versions of Magik have made their way to the X-Universe since then, including most recently one alternate version from Earth-4210 in Exiles and of course, the one seen in the New X-Men issues that tied in to House of M. What went into the decision to bring this version of Magik back into the comics?

CY: We have no interest in writing House of M Illyana Rasputin. Although that version of the character is extremely important to the story.

NRAMA: In your opinion, why is this particular character so popular with X-fans old and new?

CY: She’s Magik, and she’s magic. She was an exciting character, and a tragic one. Innocent, but there was darkness within her. She did her best to keep it at bay, tried to fight it herself, and when she fell, her friends were there to catch her.

And hell, she’s a teenage mutant demon sorceress with pet demons and a bad ass sword and she could go evil at any time. I honestly don’t know what you do to make her cooler.

Except being alive. Hmm…

NRAMA: Will we see more of Armor and Blindfold (assuming they survive Joss Whedon’s “Breakworld” arc in Astonishing X-Men, that is)?

CY: Blindfold appears extensively in “Quest for Magik,” and Hisako has popped up here and there in the book. My understanding is that “Torn” and “Unstoppable” take place in the near future.

So between now and “Unstoppable,” we have to assume classes are going to start up so Hisako can have an impending chemistry test.

NRAMA: With Artie now depowered and Jubilee in the same situation (for now, anyway, as Joe Quesada’s said to look out for this character this year), will we see Emma get in touch and interact with Leech and other former Generation X members such as M (who’s with X-Factor now), Chamber, and Husk?

CY: Not in New X-Men. 25 characters, not counting Emma and Scott. Plenty. Although we did see Husk a couple of times.

NRAMA: Plans for New X-Men to crossover with other X-titles? Just how big and crucial a role will the New X-Men play in the upcoming X-event?

CY: Not a crossover per se, but we did see Jamie and Rahne from X-Factor in #32. But New X-Men is huge in the crossover. I can think of three major elements of the story that are New X-Men centric, and the kids will shine.

NRAMA: Speaking of crossovers, Rockslide did mention that the team should “beat up” the Young Avengers, with him facing off against Hulkling, although fellow students Loa and Anole said the latter would win instead. So, will Santo Vaccarro get to fulfill his wish anytime soon?

CY: There’s been talk.

NRAMA: When asked about X-23 in an interview, Chris did mention that there are plans for more sequels. So, are more minis in the works, or will the readers find out more about the character in the pages of New X-Men instead?

CY: Craig has a structure in place that could generate X-23 stories for years to come. Between Innocence Lost, Target X, and New X-Men’s “Mercury Falling,” he and I feel that having put those stories out there, it’s like the X-23 primer. Other writers can see what Craig intended for the character, and really get a feel for who she is.

NRAMA: Craig’s also said that X-23 is "definitely not just Wolverine with female parts." So, what's your mid- to long-term plan for the character in the X-Universe? And as seen in Target X, Captain America and Daredevil know of her existence. What role do you see her in the main Marvel Universe?

CY: As you’ll see in [May’s] X-23: Target X #6, Cap and DD are hearing the story of X-23 first hand, and it presents them with a real problem. Can she be held responsible for what she was made to do? Does X-23 know the difference between right and wrong? And what do you do with her? Turn her over to who, exactly?

Cap feels responsible for letting her escape through his fingers, and she’s killed hundreds since then. But as Emma Frost knows, X-23 is just a weapon. Other people are pointing her. So Cap’s got a big decision to make.

NRAMA: With the House of M Magik arc, which version of Belasco is it going to be? And what does he want from this version of Magik?

CY: The really kick ass, dangerous one. As you’ll see in #37, he’s pissed. What does he want? He wants his apprentice back.

NRAMA: On his blog, Skottie made it known that Julian is to be modeled after Sawyer from Lost. Who're the rest of the gang modeled after then? Why?

CY: The long term evolution of Julian Keller is to turn him into a red neck con artist with a penchant for nicknaming people with fun, pop culture-y names.

In all seriousness, we saw that deep inside this prick of a man (Sawyer) there was someone good inside. And that’s how we saw Julian. Prick, but at heart a good person. And amazingly, over the hell these kids have gone through the last year and a half, Julian has changed. You’ll see more of that in issue #36.

Regardless of what people may think of the comparison, look back on the last 17 or so issues and judge our characterization of him, not just a comparison or model that was thrown out.

Other models… we didn’t really have any aside from Hellion, and it was just to help us wrap our heads around him. I’ve got one for Pixie, but I’ll keep it to myself, as it’ll get me yelled at on the internet. Yes, we know she’s Welsh.

And lastly, thanks to everyone who’s stuck with us, who’s come on board, and who’s just joining in now. We are so excited about the book and what’s coming, we can’t stand it.

And Skottie Young is going to rock this book.

We promise good junior X-Men excitement, and we aim to deliver. These kids are tough, but they’re still kids. They’re fun, they’re cocky, they’re idealistic, they wear their hearts on their sleeves, they do good, they mess up. All with super powers, to boot.

And in a world that hates, fears, and wants them dead, all they have is each other.

Stick around, the ride is just starting.

​

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=104799​

 

[Specter313]

http://livewireworld.net/livewirereview/interviews.htm

 

[Specter313]

Bleh, these guys just need to stop talking. So glad I've dropped this and not pickin it up again.

 

[Kevin]

Still love this book.

 

[gothicFLAVOURS]

Yes, they really overrate themselves, the book's not that good right now. I just hope somebody will do something with Sofia, she's an amazing character.

Anyways, I'm really looking forward to this Magik arc