Time travel seems to be a pretty popular storytelling device in Marvel Comics these days. A whole mess of our favorite heroes (and some huge villains) are getting involved with the technology, but one of the most prominent uses of the sci-fi staple in the Marvel NOW era is in Brian Michael Bendis’ ‘All-New X-Men’, where the first class of Charles Xavier’s mutant team came to the present in an effort to stop the modern day Cyclops from committing the heinous acts carried out during ‘Avengers Vs. X-Men’. However, it appears that Angel, Beast, Cyclops, Iceman, and Jean Grey’s time in the present is up as Marvel will be attempting to send them back to their own time period in the upcoming X-book crossover titled ‘X-Men: Battle of the Atom’.
According to IGN, the event was announced at C2E2 over the weekend at Marvel’s X-Men panel and will be a collaboration between Bendis, Jason Aaron, and Brian Wood. Beginning in September, ‘Battle of the Atom’ will feature X-Men from all across time as the X-Men of the future go back in time to confront the X-Men of the present to send back the X-Men of the past to their own time in order to prevent a terrible future. That’s a whole lot to take in and all in a very short amount of time since the crossover will be ending in October.
If you’re anxious to get your pull lists updated before the fall, here’s the list of titles that will be involved in the event:
- X-Men: Battle of the Atom #1
- Uncanny X-Men #12-13
- All-New X-Men #16-17
- Wolverine & The X-Men #36-37
- X-Men # 5-6
- X-Men: Battle of The Atom #2
The panelists assured the crowd that this story will tie up all the points planted by Bendis and company since the changing of the guard began back in November. They also shared that Frank Cho will provide the art for the first issue of the crossover.
Finally, before sending everyone off into the con, some early designs of the X-Men of the future drawn by Arthur Adams were revealed. Featuring some characters you might recognize, here is the concept art that was shown in the gallery below:
Deadpool and Beast interest me very much, but at the very top of my “Are you serious?!” list is a character labeled Molly Hayes. If this is the same character that I’m thinking of, then it’s the darling little member of the Runaways who packed quite a punch and idolized the X-Men as she was growing up. As I mentioned when ‘Avengers Arena’ first debuted, I’m glad to see members of that team pop up around the Marvel Universe once again. Brian K. Vaughn created some awesome characters in that series, so it’s a joy to see them interacting with the bigger names in the Marvel stable.
The future (and the past?) holds some big things for the mutants of the Marvel Universe come this fall when ‘X-Men: Battle of the Atom’ hits shelves. What do you think of the upcoming crossover? Are you disappointed to hear that the First Class is going back to where they below? Do you have any predictions as to how this will come about? Share your theories in the comments.
