Did the Age of Apocalypse X-Men Almost Get Their Own Series Over 10 Years Ago?

[[{“value”:”

Welcome to the 954th installment of Comic Book Legends Revealed, a column where we examine three comic book myths, rumors and legends and confirm or debunk them. In this third legend of this all-X-Men installment, see how close the Age of Apocalypse came to coming to the Marvel Universe in their own series a decade ago.

One of the most famous X-Men storylines of all-time is “Days of Future Past,” which was released after John Byrne had already quit the title over his complaints over Chris Claremont changing the agreed upon plot in the script (since Claremont scripted the book after it was plotted and drawn, Claremont was the last person to make major changes to the book, and as a result, he effectively had “final say,” and since Byrne wouldn’t know what Claremont did until the book was finished, him quitting after seeing the final result of X-Men #140 meant that Byrne had already co-plotted and drawn #141-143 by the time that he saw the change that drove him to quit in #140). Had Byrne not quit over the incident in #140, he almost certainly would have quit after what he saw in Uncanny X-Men #142.

As I have noted before, the concept of the time travel story was that Byrne wanted this one to be a clean victory for the X-Men. The powerful telepath Rachel would project the older Kitty Pryde’s mind into the body of young Kitty Pryde who would prevent the execution of Senator Kelly, thus preventing the terrible future where mutants are hunted and murdered by Sentinels.

Kitty succeeds in doing so in Uncanny X-Men #142. This is almost certainly why he had the earlier scene in #142 (that is featured on the famous cover) where Wolverine and Storm are murdered in the future – to really highlight the whole “Thank goodness this future will be averted!” deal.

This does not mean that the future would automatically be great for the X-Men, just that this particularly awful future would NOT happen. And that’s what Byrne drew on the climactic fight scene in Uncanny X-Men #142…

But Claremont then added some extra text in the final panel. “Lets the winds of eternity sweep her home.” (emphasis added) Her future was not erased!! The main point of Byrne’s plot was negated! And, of course, Claremont later returned to this dystopian reality, which was intended to have been erased (now, do note that Mark Gruenwald was big on the whole “you can’t change the future by going into the past, you only create a divergent timeline,” but obviously, Byrne was planning to ignore Gruenwald’s time travel rules, as, well, Mark Gruenwald was not in charge of Marvel’s time travel plots overall).

I mention that because once THAT story was revisited, it meant that pretty much EVERY alternate reality of any note was eventually going to be revisited, and sure enough, we HAVE seen pretty much every notable alternate universe revisited in later stories. While Jeph Loeb is writing an upcoming series returning to the adventures of the Age of Apocaylpse X-Men, Rick Remender was planning to bring the Age of Apocalypse characters to the Marvel Universe over a decade ago!

How did Rick Remender work the Age of Apocalypse into Uncanny X-Force?

Rick Remender’s breakout series at Marvel was Uncanny X-Force, which he started on with artists Jerome Opeña and Dean White. The opening arc saw X-Force argue over whether to kill a young child who was destined to be the next host of Apocalypse. Fantomex solved the debate by killing the kid himself (he later regretted it, which was a whole “thing” itself). However, without an heir to Apocalypse, Archangel found himself the host of the “Death seed,” which was slowly turning him into the next Apocalypse. The only way to save him was to get a “Life Seed,” and the only way to get one of them was to go back to the Age of Apocalypse (the alternate universe created when Legion accidentally killed his father, Charles Xavier, in the past, way before the X-Men formed, which woke Apocalypse up early, and led to him conquering Earth before superheroes could became a thing. Magneto then formed the X-Men in honor of Xavier).

X-Force went to the Age of Apocalypse universe, and obviously, that became a whole storyline in of itself.

However, originally, Remender wanted to do even MORE with the Age of Apocalypse X-Men!

Who were the Amazing X-Men?

Remender revealed on his social media a few years back that he had made a pitch for a spinoff of Uncanny X-Force called The Amazing X-Men (named after one of the two main X-Men titles during the Age of Apocalypse, the other one being Astonishing X-Men) that saw the Age of Apocalypse X-Men end up in the Marvel Universe.

As CBR noted at the time in a write-up on the post:

The story would have seen Fantomex taking the Age of Apocalypse versions of Jean Grey, Sunfire, Sabretooth, Banshee, Nightcrawler and the Silver Samurai to the present; Remender stresses in his pitch that the idea was to use these versions to make a new X-Men team without resorting to resurrections, as many of their 616 counterparts were dead at the time. The book would also see the team combat Apocalypse era villains that showed up in Uncanny X-Force.

That’s a very clever approach, and it is similar to what happened with Old Man Logan taking over Wolverine’s place during the period that Wolverine was “dead.”

Thanks to Rick Remender for the information! It sounds like it would have been a cool book!

Check Out a TV Legends Revealed

In the latest TV Legends Revealed – Was the first time that James Bond was adapted into film or TV as an American character played by an American actor on a 1950s TV show?

That’s it for Comic Book Legends Revealed #954! Come back soon for the next installment! Be sure to check out my Entertainment Legends Revealed for more urban legends about the world of film and TV. Plus, Pop Culture References also has some brand-new Entertainment and Sports Legends Revealeds!

Feel free to send suggestions for future comic legends to me at either cronb01@aol.com or brianc@cbr.com.

“}]] In a brand-new Comic Book Legends Revealed, learn if the Age of Apocalypse X-Men almost joined the Marvel Universe in their own series a decade ago  Read More