For some time now, True Believers have been wondering where the X-Men have been in the Marvel Universe. Aside from a few characters here and there, the mutants have largely been absent from the House of Ideas’ comic book roster. That changed recently with titles like ‘Death of X’ and ‘Inhumans vs. X-Men’, but in Spring 2017, all your favorites will come back in a big way as the company rolls out the ResurrXion initiative and the two brand new flagship books, ‘X-Men: Gold’ and ‘X-Men: Blue’. And now, not only do we know who will be crafting the stories behind the scenes, but we also know which heroes will be featured as well.
Marvel recently revealed that ‘Arrow’ creator Marc Guggenheim (who has also worked on ‘X-Men’ and ‘Young X-Men’) will be teaming with ‘Green Lantern’ artist Ardian Syaf to bring the X-Men’s biggest guns together for ‘X-Men: Gold’. When Kitty Pryde returns to Earth after a stint with the Guardians of the Galaxy, she finds the X-Men in shambles. To remedy the situation, the former Headmistress of Xavier’s School For Gifted Youngsters assembles Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Old Man Logan, and Rachel Grey to take mutantkind into the future and make the world a better place.
Meanwhile, Cullen Bunn and Jorge Molina have some big plans for the time-displaced original X-Men in ‘X-Men: Blue’. After having a few ups and downs since being reintroduced to the Marvel Universe in ‘All-New X-Men’ back in 2012, Jean Grey brings the team of Cyclops, Beast, Iceman, and Angel back together again to pursue Professor X’s dream to foster a world that no longer hates and fears them. However, they won’t be alone as Magneto will serve as the team’s new mentor. How will the young X-Men jive with their former foe? As the old saying goes, “keep your friends close and your enemies closer”.
After spending quite some time on the back burner of the Marvel Universe, it sounds like the X-Men are ready to return to business as usually in bigger and better ways than ever before. As editor Daniel Ketchum puts it in the press release for the upcoming books, we should expect “a return to form, with spandex costumes rather than body armor, softball games on the school lawn, and the X-Men on a proactive mission to be the greatest heroes of all time—to human and mutant alike”. Does that sound like reason enough to pick up ‘X-Men: Gold’ and ‘X-Men: Blue’ when they’re released in April 2017? What do you think of the creators that Marvel has lined up for these books? And how do you feel about the team rosters that have been assembled? Sound off in the comments.
Despite being a “professional writer”, Ben likes run-on sentences far too much. For more of his attempts at being funny and the occasional insightful thought, follow him on Twitter and Instagram.
