Sure, sure, Ed Brubakers getting all kinds of buzz and talk right now for the upcoming
Captain America arc, which sees a new star-spangled Avenger sporting
new, Alex Ross designed togs (which also add a whole new level of meaning to the phrase bust a cap in yo ass), but the writer also has a little something else coming this month as well hes the first writer on tap for Marvels X-Men crossover event,
Messiah Complex.
The storyline essentially follows from the fallout of M-Day, that is, back at the end of
House of M when the Scarlet Witch said, No more mutants. The rapid effect was that the vast majority of mutants in the Marvel Universe were depowered. The secondary effect? Her statement was
absolute, as in No more mutants
ever. No mutant babies ever again. As a species, the present-day members of Homo superior are it.
Or are they?
The simple, yet amazingly blasphemous tag for
Messiah Complex: and lo, unto them, a child is born.
We hit up Brubaker to talk about launching the 13-chapter crossover.
Newsarama: The
Messiah Complex one-shot hits this month Ed, and you're writing it. How did you land that honor? Did you volunteer, or did everyone else step back before you could when they asked who wanted to do it?
Ed Brubaker: I think it came about because of the publishing schedule, since
Uncanny goes first in the
Messiah Complex schedule, so I was always going to write the opening. And then when it was decided to do a one-shot to open instead, it was just assumed I'd write it. I've wanted to work with Silvestri for a while, so I wasn't going to complain.
NRAMA: Marvel is hyping this as the first X-Men crossover in over ten years, and you're writing part one. Does that carry any...apprehension with it? After all, X-fans are loyal, but at the same time, they'll turn on, and devour a creator without a second thought...they can be like that domesticated tiger thats kept as a pet
EB: I know that pretty well, but really, like with the Death of Cap, I'm just treating this as a story. It's an epic story, for sure, but I worry about the needs of the story and the characters more than anything else. I just wanted to tell a good opening chapter. I haven't really thought too much about the crossover of X-years past while working on this. It's been hard enough getting our story right without comparing it to the craziness of the 90s X-books.
So, no apprehension, really... just determination. I had a pretty detailed road map of every chapter of this story when I started, thanks to all the other writers and the editors and Jim McCann, so it was more a matter of finding a path into the story that would hopefully hook readers and set the characters down the right paths.
NRAMA: Before we move on - along those lines, from the inside, how do X-creators see X fandom? Is it even a concern? Have there been meetings where someone's said, "Oh, the fans are going to love/hate this?" Or is it all focused on story, and fan response/reaction is secondary?
EB: I would always say, and this is no dismissal of fandom by any means, but fan response
should always be a secondary concern, at best. Yes, you want the fans to dig what you're doing, but doing stuff to specifically appease or antagonize fans is not servicing your stories, your characters, or your fans. They all deserve better.
When we sat in a room for days and broke this story down, we thought of how to make the biggest, baddest, most fun and exciting and dramatic X-Men X-Over we could, and that was all we talked about. We knew there would be moments that would make some fans yell and others **** bricks, but that came after we saw them up on the board or bounced them around the room.
As for X-fandom overall, well, I haven't been too exposed to it. It seems like there are more critical fans than you see on a lot of books, and some truly fanatical fans here and there, but for the most part, they don't seem that different than any other comics fan. And as I've said, uncannyxmen.net which is a fan-run site, is indispensable at this point if you work on the X-books, because there's so much history and research on that site.
NRAMA: Back to the one-shot itself, catch us up a little bit - the one shot picks up the threads that have been laid down in "Endangered Species," correct? And that was Beast's realization/hunt for...well,
hope for mutants in the form of a genetic future, to put it bluntly?
EB: Not really. Endangered was more of a mood-setter for
Messiah Complex, laying the groundwork, showing the fans the stakes and the playing field.
Messiah starts with a completely new event, the first appearance of a new mutant on Cerebra since
House of M ended. Since M Day. And what does this new appearance mean, who else knows about it, and what happens now... that's our story. Is this the new future of the mutant race, or is this the event that will get them all killed or thrown into the Negative Zone? That's our story.
NRAMA: That said, how soon after the last part of "Endangered Species" does this pick up, just to give a general feel of the timeline?
EB: Probably days. I don't think that's that important a consideration for
Messiah Complex.
NRAMA: Is this your first crossover that you're intimately involved with at Marvel? Cap was involved in
Civil War, but still, you were telling your own stories in a sense in the series - this time, you're one of the architects, right? What was/is the process like?
EB: Well, it's a lot different than just tying-in to something like
House of M or
Civil War. This is all the X-books for three months, so we had to break down a 13 chapter story to practically scene by scene structure so we'd all know who was doing what. The initial idea of the new mutant appearing actually came from some meeting I wasn't at, but the first I heard of it from Joe Q. at one of the summits. And then at our next X meeting we talked about it some more, as something we were building towards. So, it's been really interesting, watching this idea develop into what it now is, as each of us kicked it around and brought different suggestions to the table. But the coordination of the writing and making sure all the pieces fit together is always scary and a bit of a nightmare. It's during crossovers that I'm truly glad I'm not an editor.
NRAMA: Breaking that down more, how were the individual stories/beats decided upon? Was it character based, meaning that whoever had that character in their book got to tell the chunk of story, or was it more chronologically based, or...what?
EB: Yeah, it's all chronological, to a large degree. We went old school. Each of us got to pitch our character arcs, but we're all writing each of the strands of the plot in our issues. So, I write
X-Factor and
New X-Men storylines in
Uncanny in several chapters. Everyone is playing with all the toys, basically, where we need or want to. But yeah, let's hope the most important scenes for any of the characters are actually written by their main writer. I think it's worked out that way, somehow.
NRAMA: The somehow is good to hear. And you're working with Marc on this - are you a writer who writes for their artist? If so, how's your "direction" for Marc different from the "direction" you give say, Michael on
Daredevil or Steve and Mike on Cap?
EB: I am a writer who writes for the artist, but it usually takes a few issues before you figure out how to do that effectively. So, with Marc, I just looked at a bunch of his work and figured out how he paced stuff, and went with that. I'm more about storytelling than flash, and so I just relied on Marc to bring the flash with him. He knows what he's doing, so I mostly just tried to stay out of his way and give him room to show what he does.
NRAMA: The story from here as you said, you're handing it off to...yourself, right?
EB: Yeah, lucky me, I got to leave my own loose-ends to pick up right away. That was kind of nice, really. Like I got to double-dip on the opening act of the story. Then it hands off to Peter David, who takes Jamie and Layla on a little jaunt no one will want to miss.
NRAMA: Just one last tease/question...the central goal here - the price > that could be paid if the X-Men "lose" in this situation...how would you describe the stakes in
Messiah Complex?
EB: I don't want to spoil too much, but I will say, this is when we'll see Cyclops really step up and that this is a lot his story. It shows what he thinks the stakes are, and that this new mutant could be the first tiny piece of hope for the future.
The schedule for Messiah Complex is:
October 2007
Chapter 1: X-Men: Messiah Complex one-shot
November 2007
Chapter 2: Uncanny X-Men #492
Chapter 3: X-Factor #25
Chapter 4: New X-Men #44
Chapter 5: X-Men #205
December 2007
Chapter 6: Uncanny X-Men #493
Chapter 7: X-Factor #26
Chapter 8: New X-Men #45
Chapter 9: X-Men #206
January 2008
Chapter 10: Uncanny X-Men #494
Chapter 11: X-Factor #27
Chapter 12: New X-Men #46
Chapter 13: X-Men #207
http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=132737
and X-editor Nick Lowe. They came armed and ready to talk about our favorite mutants and the upcoming crossover, so let's get to it!
This 'on again'>agnst, angst, angst>'off again' thing just has to be finished!
