X-Men Monday #300 – Giant-Size Anniversary Spectacular

So, with the Hellfire Vigil as X-Men Monday #300’s backbone, I thought, why not sit down with the Conductor of X himself for a wide-ranging conversation, while also spotlighting Storm’s Vigil costume with two of its creators, Murewa Ayodele and Luciano Vecchio? Well, if you’re reading these words, I assume you’re on board with that plan. But as the end result is over 7,000 words — and your life surely doesn’t revolve around X-Men Monday — we’d better get going. So get comfortable and let’s get this party started!

AIPT: Welcome back to X-Men Monday, Tom! It’s been about one year since the “From the Ashes” era began, with the upcoming X-Men: Hellfire Vigil one-shot seemingly designed to close out the first year and set up what comes next. In recent months, you’ve seen passionate fans rally behind solo series like Phoenix and Storm, and then you’ve seen series like X-Force and X-Factor end sooner than preferred. So, how do you feel as the Conductor of X heading into year two, and do you think you have a stronger grasp on the X-Men universe and X-Fandom?

Tom Brevoort: Well, generally speaking, I’m feeling fine. I think we had a decent first year. I always understood from the beginning — and I told at least the editors in my group about this — that we were going to try a whole bunch of different things, and not all of them were going to work equally well. That’s just the nature of the beast and a fairly competitive marketplace. But having done that, I’m probably not going to do much differently next year. We’re going to try a bunch of other stuff, and hopefully — percentage-wise — more of that will be to more people’s liking.

Even with the books that cycled through, they all had very strong, vocal fan bases. Not a day goes by that I don’t get bombarded by emails from a handful of Betsy Braddock fans who really would like to see more of the kind of treatment she had in X-Force. People talk very, very nicely about NYX.

Even X-Factor — probably one of the more divisive books we did — has a pool of fans that really liked the fact that it was a completely different flavor and had a completely separate point of view on the whole mutant experience. So I don’t look at any of this as a downside or a failure. You look around, and books cycle through all the time in this market. Not everything you do is going to run forever. I know that very well, having relaunched Avengers like eight times over the years.

In terms of figuring out or being simpatico with X-Men fandom — I think that X-Men fandom is largely an illusion, which is to say, within the big ball of people who would consider themselves X-Men fans, there are people who like all sorts of different themes, different periods, different characters, different approaches — and they are very passionate about the parts they like. But there’s no enormous consensus. So with pretty much anything that I do, there will be people going, “That’s terrific, I love that.” And there will be people going, “That is the worst thing ever, will somebody throw this clown out a window?” And that’s for literally everything.

So in terms of figuring it out, I don’t know. There are certain things that people felt strongly about that I would not have anticipated going in. So, now I’m a little more aware of those particular sorts of issues. But in general, I don’t feel like there’s a one-size-fits-all answer for X-Men fans.

I think almost anything that you do, partly because the line is so big, the swath of characters is so wide, and the readership is so broad, people come to X-Men for any number of different reasons. And they’re all valid, as far as that person’s point of view, time, and entertainment dollars are worth. But again, I don’t really get the sense that there’s any one thing you could do that would make even 80% of X-Men fans all happy in the same way.

AIPT: Betsy Braddock in every book. That’s the answer.

Tom: If only. And not to poke it, but that very vocal segment of fandom was writing in before the last X-Force issue even came out, going, “When is she going to be in another book?” It’s like, she’s in a book right now, guys. It was a book that you guys liked, and a lot of other people didn’t pay attention to. So now it’s going to go away, and maybe there’ll be another chance. So you’re certainly showing me that there are a number of people who like that character or like this iteration of that character.

Although even within that, there’s a span of people who want her to be Psylocke again, there are people who want her to stay as Captain Britain, and there are people who want her to be some other new thing that’s neither of the two, but that speaks to her background. So right there, it’s sort of a multiple-choice question — which is the way to go? And the answer is: The best idea wins.

AIPT: So, my next question is actually inspired by Betsy’s fanbase. Obviously, you want to create comics that readers enjoy — but they also have to sell. So, what is the most effective and constructive way for X-Fans to express demand for a character?

Tom: Well, certainly showing up when those characters appear and/or when those characters appear in stories that are to people’s liking. Just because somebody likes Betsy Braddock doesn’t mean they’re going to love every Betsy Braddock story that gets done. It’s the monkey’s paw of being a comic book fan that people will be dying to have a favorite character show up again, and then they will, and it’ll be in some story or some usage they just don’t like at all. That’s a very familiar story.

But in addition to being vocal about it and bombarding me — all of that never hurts — you can also get the word out to other people. Like you said, we are a business, and the thing that’s going to move the needle the most is actual sales. Actual paying customers coming to the book and showing there’s an audience there that will put their money where their mouth is. It’s a difficult thing for any one fan, but for groups, it is possible to move the needle.

Honestly, it happens very rarely, in my experience. The greatest example of that I’ve ever seen were the fans of Spider-Girl, the Tom DeFalco, Ron Frenz, and Pat Olliffe series. That was a series that seemed like it was teetering on the verge of cancellation every six months. And whenever that word would go out, you would see that hardcore fanbase mobilized effectively in terms of getting stores to increase their orders, or in terms of getting book buyers to be more interested in carrying collected editions.

Those fans were incredibly clever and effective at getting their message across. They weren’t just telling you what they want, but showed an actual understanding that moving the needle is the whole game. Because while there are fans of Spider-Girl and Betsy Braddock, there are fans of every other character. You can’t name a character that doesn’t have their fans. But the Spider-Girl fans are the gold standard in terms of that type of activism.

AIPT: Well, for X-Fans Askani’s Flame, Chris G., Crimson TT, HOXOR, Kevin L., Nathan G., RetsyPleaseAndThankYou, and Uncanny X, are there any updates you can share on where Betsy Braddock — and Rachel Summers — might land following X-Force?

Tom: Right now, X-Force has run its course in its current iteration, and that means both Betsy and Rachel are sort of back to being active X-Men characters that could show up anywhere. Is there a specific plan yet? Not one that I’m ready to say anything about. 

We’ll see a couple of hints of Rachel in a few places. I read a script just this morning that had some Rachel activity in it. But I can’t direct you to a specific point where those fans will get exactly what they want. I don’t know that all of those fans can have exactly what they want, because like I said, it’s a span. But again, for all the Betsy and Rachel fans, there are all the fans of all the characters that weren’t in any of the initial launch books, who are also waiting their turn for their favorites to show up again. It’s like a line for resurrection.

AIPT: Before we move on from Betsy, as a follow-up, X-Fan Bambi wonders, based on what you’ve read online and in fan mail, what are your biggest takeaways on why Betsy Braddock is so appealing to her fans?

Tom: That’s a fairly good question, and I’m not sure I could point to one specific thing. Certainly, she’s got history. She’s a character who has been around since the ‘70s in a variety of different iterations. I think people have definitely keyed into her as the champion of Avalon. I think people seem to be really invested in her relationship with Rachel, more so than I might’ve anticipated before getting into this. But I don’t know that there’s any one specific thing that I could point to yet.

And all the readers of X-Men Monday can now bombard me with the obvious thing that I’m not thinking of. And that’s fine. They should definitely do that — I have plenty to learn.

AIPT: So, I’m fascinated by your grand unifying theory for Scott Summers and Jean Grey’s relationship, which you first mentioned in X-Men Monday #250. First, how much more was there to your original theory than appeared on the page? And, second, why was it so important for you to dedicate page time to strengthening and explaining their bond?

Tom: Well, in terms of the length and breadth of the theory, let me just spiral back a little bit. This is a thing that’s been bouncing around in the back of my head since the ‘80s. This isn’t even from an editorial standpoint — this is me as a reader, because I was around when the lead-up to the original X-Factor came out, and that entire cycle of stories horrified me in how it sort of deliberately mischaracterized the characters to get them into a position that, editorially, those guys wanted them to be in.

You know, I’ve had to force characters to follow certain paths over the years in different places, so I understand that sometimes there’s a need that is greater than that. But it wasn’t handled especially well, and there was never an explanation for it that I could make sense of in my own head.

And really, it wasn’t until 20 years later when Grant Morrison did the end of their New X-Men run and came out and said, “Oh yeah, Jean’s still the Phoenix. All that stuff about cocoons and bodies in the river — that’s nonsense.” That was the thing that kind of gave me the last piece of it. I could rationalize to myself.

And I don’t want to get too deep into this, because this is more about, if you want to make this canon, this is a story that gets told at some point. But going back to the Chris Claremont and John Byrne story, if Jean as the Phoenix, not even entirely understanding how her powers worked, what she was, and how this worked, essentially fused herself and Scott’s essence together as sort of a way of providing an anchor for herself so she didn’t drown in the power of the Phoenix and lose herself in this cosmic splendor. I can rationalize, at least to myself, the idea that Jean comes back, and even though she’s claiming to be just the real Jean Grey with no connection to any of this stuff, she isn’t really.

And suddenly, it’s like a chain pulls on Scott Summers and he has to go, even if he can’t rationalize it to himself. And even if it doesn’t really make any sense. He has a newborn child and a wife here, and he’s going to go run off, hang out, and play Ghostbusters with his old school friends. That’s pretty much the first five or six issues of that X-Factor run. But I at least have an explanation that I can turn to and go, “There’s more going on here than was apparent at the time.”

It speaks to sort of the ineffable connection between those characters. It also sort of starts to inform, at least for me, all of their interactions with their other paramours and would-be paramours over the years and why, ultimately, it always kind of resets back to the two of them. Because, ever since that issue of Uncanny X-Men, they’re literally inseparable — not just figuratively inseparable.

So, if we’d had more than five pages, we might have been able to go a little more chapter and verse into how these various events played out over the years, and what it means physically and spiritually. But working with the amount of territory we had, just to get it on the page and establish it, I feel like it’s important. At least, it was important to me, and I get to decide what’s in a five-page story. So I get to do that every once in a while.

That sort of original sin of Scott Summers, though it’s been 40 years, he kind of has never climbed out of that pit. Nobody’s found a way to make that work and make sense and be not necessarily, you know, good or acceptable, but understandable, so you can move on past it. I’d like to get to that point. And inevitably, other creators will come along, whether it’s during my time or after my time, and pick at this, play with it, add to it, reverse it, or turn it inside out, because that’s what we do. But at least getting it there and getting it to happen makes me feel better. And sometimes, that’s all the motivation I need.

AIPT: X-Fan and Battle of the Atom podcast co-host Adam Reck says, in Giant-Size Dark Phoenix #1, the Phoenix Force “jumps” from Phoenix to Legion, leaving “Jean Grey” behind. But since Jean was actually the Phoenix from Uncanny X-Men #101-137, the Phoenix jumping into Legion should leave nothing behind. Elsewhere in your newsletter, (#165 #166), you said the Phoenix backstory was “suspect,” and implied the Phoenix “wasn’t being forthcoming” about the cocoon in Jamaica Bay. Even if you were just kidding around, what do you want readers of the current era of X-Books to think about who/what Jean was in “The Dark Phoenix Saga” and the subsequent Kurt Busiek/John Byrne retcon?

Tom: I mean, I think during “The Dark Phoenix Saga,” Jean was Jean, Jean was the Phoenix, and the Phoenix was Jean. I tend to take those issues more as written then a lot of the back-flipping, backstory, revising, and re-revising that went on over the years. Part of that is I was the reader when those books came out. I bought them on the stands monthly, dropping my 40 cents for each one, and I read them. So, as texts, they sort of loom large in X-Men canon, and I tend to want to default to them more than the back-flips that Chris himself and later creators tried to do.

And given the sort of state of play that exists now, pretty much ever since Grant’s run, the Phoenix was Jean, and Jean’s always been the Phoenix. So whatever that was — whatever motivated the Phoenix to go, “We’re going to get up now out of the Hudson River and pretend that we’re just a normal human being with telekinetic powers and none of that stuff counted. And that was all some other thing. But clearly, that’s not the case, because 20 years later, we’re going to get the stories where clearly we’re not.” So I find all of that stuff suspect.

It’s no different than what happened with Gwen Stacy. There was a whole story explaining how Gwen Stacy’s clone wasn’t a clone, she was some other kind of thing created by the High Evolutionary. And then, when they got into “The Clone Saga,” they did a second story that revealed, “Oh no, that second story was nonsense, and she really was a clone.”

There’s been some of that kind of back and forth here with the Phoenix over the years as different creators have wanted to do or say different things about them. So on this, at least on the surface, I’ve not spoken to them about this at all. But I’m kind of in the Grant Morrison camp. Jean is the Phoenix, the Phoenix is Jean. Can the power pass to other people? Yes, we’ve seen it happen plenty of times over the years — others have inhabited some or all of that force. But I think the difference is Jean and the Phoenix are a primal thing, and everything else is a lesser light in the firmament of the Phoenix. And I think even when Jean’s not there, she’s there.

AIPT: OK, so we received over 100 questions for this anniversary edition, which means a lot of questions about the status of specific characters. I can’t ask about them all, but let’s run through a few. X-Fan John Jones wants to know if Synch will be a regular in an X-Book anytime soon. John is disappointed with how Everett’s forward momentum didn’t carry over from the Krakoan era to this era.

Tom: I think Synch is a good character, and I liked how he was in NYX. I don’t know exactly where we’ll use him next, but he’s not that far from my head. The honest truth about Synch as a character is that the way his power set has been developed over the years, he’s sort of a Swiss Army knife at this point. He solves too many problems for most books. He can do pretty much anything at any point because he has done it once in the past. I mean, that’s a great thing if you want a character who is all-powerful in all cases, and some fans really love that. But in terms of telling stories that are dramatic and have stakes and jeopardy, it’s not the best thing in my world.

But I don’t just want him to lose those attributes or go backwards as a character to take him back to a level where he’s a little more manageable to deal with. So, none of the various writers who are working in the group have yet found a way to square that circle. I think that’s kind of the thing. Once we hit on that or solve that — how do we make him not solve every problem in every story — it’ll be a lot easier to use him on a more regular basis.

AIPT: X-Fan Hakka asks if there’s a chance the main X-Factor trio of Angel, Havok, and Polaris will land in other X-titles in the near future.

Tom: I think it’s a better-than-average chance that we’ll see all of them again before too long. I mean, they all have the advantage that they go back to — not the start — but very close to the start in the case of Havok and Polaris. So they’re fairly significant sort of bedrock characters and more likely to get tapped, even if it’s just in what we now call retro series. I don’t think fans have to worry too much about them. And none of them have the sort of deficit that I see in Synch in that, while they’ve had a bunch of weird deviations over the years, they’re still effectively Archangel, Havok, and Polaris.

A couple of fans have been asking me to do more Polaris-Magneto interactions, and I think there’s definitely a rich vein of stuff there to tap into. So at some point, I’d like to have stories that play on that and develop that a little more. We haven’t gotten to it yet, but it’s a seed in the back of my head. And I have a certain fondness for Havok, having had him as part of Uncanny Avengers for a while and then just having read the character going all the way back.

AIPT: X-Fan Bambi asks if there’s any chance we’ll see Madrox play a more serious role in the overall X-Men narrative, similar to his X-Factor Investigations days.

Tom: Peter David fleshed him out and made him more of a lead character. He was sort of a secondary character and a player in Peter’s first X-Factor run. And then, when they came back and did the Madrox limited series and second X-Factor run, it really brought him to the fore and gave him a lot of facets that makes him interesting. So yes, I kind of expect to see more of Madrox as we move ahead. I can’t quite point to exactly where, but I think there’s a better-than-average chance.

AIPT: X-Fan Yuri asks if we might see Vulcan again, as we left him on a sad note.

Tom: I like Vulcan. Honestly, I like all of the members of that quasi-second Deadly Genesis crew. Again, there’s a bunch of potential there, and certainly Vulcan got a bunch of play in War of the Kings and some other cosmic stuff.

AIPT: And speaking of Peter David’s X-Factor, Darwin was in the mix there. 

Tom: Oh, right. But as an idea, I think those characters have some untapped potential. I’m not sure what, and I’m not sure where, but again, it feels like there’s a story to be told where Vulcan is more the lead and less the spoiler force, the secondary force, or the out-and-out antagonist or villain. So I’m not sure where I might do a story like that, but it’s definitely something that scratches in the back of my mind when I think about him. He’s had an interesting and sort of tragic history, even though a lot of it was sort of backfilled in after the fact. I feel like he’s a character that needs just the right sort of adjustment, and he could become an important player.

AIPT: X-Fan Lysander asks if we’ll get to see Prodigy and Sunspot again anytime soon.

Tom: Sunspot had the misfortune of ending up in the Shi’ar galaxy with Cannonball and Smasher. And since we haven’t done a lot of space stuff recently, he’s sort of been at loose ends. But I suspect that’s going to change. I’d like to get all those characters back on the board, especially since I recently had to go through the last arc that Jonathan Hickman did on Avengers to sort of edit it down for a collected edition. So I had the opportunity to go back and reread that again, and it reminded me he really liked those characters and had had a lot of fun with Sam, Bobby, and Smasher.

So that’s a little trio I’d like to bring back and do stuff with. I sort of expected them to play more of a role in Imperial than they wound up doing, but maybe if we had twice as much space, we would’ve used them, because Jonathan definitely would’ve enjoyed writing more of them. But in the aftermath of all of that, there’ll be a playing field where we’re potentially able to do more stuff with them. 

Then you were talking about Prodigy. I think the answer is yes — and this will last again only until somebody comes up with a story that says differently — but in my head, Prodigy is a mutant, but not a superhero, and works best as an educator. He’s a teacher, and I like that role for him. That gives him something distinctive. That’s kind of all his, and he’s an activist. So I’d like to develop him more there and find ways to get him further representative to the larger community such that he has an interesting role to play and could do something different other than, you know, fifth X-Men from the left who’s punching whoever we’re punching today. He could have a story and a trajectory that’s on his own.

AIPT: And finally, X-Fans Azzie, Kermie, Pame, and Sam Erin ask if Rictor and Shatterstar might pop up again soon.

Tom: I can’t say I have a plan or have heard anybody else in the group express a plan. But I like them, so I’d like to get back to them again. One of the difficulties with X-Men, and one of the reasons why the Betsy fans, I’m sure, are somewhat concerned with X-Force going away, is that it really is an embarrassment of riches in terms of all the characters you have to play with. And you just can’t use them all at the same time. There aren’t enough books and there isn’t enough room. You can only do so much. So sadly, both Rictor and Shatterstar have kind of been left fallow by the fact that we’ve been doing other things. But sooner or later, the compass will point to them again, I’m sure.

AIPT: OK, thanks for fielding those character-specific questions. Now, I’d like to pivot to the upcoming X-Men: Hellfire Vigil one-shot. You mentioned that what became the Hellfire Vigil was in your original X-Men briefing document. Could you share a bit more about its beginnings and why you felt the need to revisit the Hellfire Gala in this new X-Men era?

Tom: Well, on the most basic level, the Hellfire Gala as an idea and as a publishing event was one of the most successful things that Jordan D. White and his teams did during the Krakoan era. It marked the passage of time in each one of those three years, even though in comic book time, three years didn’t really go by. So the X-Men were holding a party every other month — they were very happy that they had an island. But as a tent pole, it was a strong thing. And by virtue of the fact that we launched around June and July last year, you couldn’t do a Gala then. Our Gala was the start of the new books and the switch from one year to another.

But from the beginning, I wanted to get back to that. I liked the fact that it was a communal experience — creatively, too. So building a book in which pretty much all of the core X-writers could have a voice and bring their characters and storylines to the fore, and have them interact and crossover in interesting ways, was very interesting.

I think we came up with the Hellfire Vigil name once we were actually starting to work on it and talk about what could actually be, because it definitely shifted from my original notes. It was something slightly different entirely, and we still have just a shade of that in the bedrock of it, but that’s not really what it turned out to be in practice when it came time for us, and the writers in particular, to help tell me what this thing would be and figure it out.

Now that said, we’ve already got the idea for next year’s thing, which won’t be a Gala and won’t be a Vigil, but will be a Hellfire something. I won’t say which writer is on it yet, because I want to avoid them getting a lot of questions from fans going, “What is it? What is it? What is it?” But I tossed this question out to the writers a week or two back and one of them came up with an idea that got everybody else pretty excited, even though it’s an absolutely mad idea, and to try and do it in a format like this — sort of a round-robin structure — is almost foolhardy, which is why we’ll end up doing exactly that because I like to do things that I’ve not done before.

AIPT: Well, that’s something to look forward to. But what about this Hellfire Vigil — what can X-Fans expect?

Tom: It’s definitely sort of a capstone to the first year and a segue into the second year. So you’ll see some seeds of things that will play out moving forward. Really, the biggest thing is it’s much more of a character story than a plot story. And the big fun thing from my point of view is seeing all of these characters who have mostly been siloed beginning to interact with one another and occupy the same space and territory. We’re getting the larger sense of mutant community that you kind of really haven’t had in the same way since the end of Krakoa, when everybody scattered. There are definitely whiffs of things to come in the future, just about all of the current X-writers are represented and write stuff that deals with the characters they’re dealing with.

And while we’re trying very much to look forward, this can’t help but also be a little bit of a look backwards and sort of a celebration of the stuff that came before us as much as the stuff that we just did. So hopefully people like it. One of the things I’ve enjoyed doing with the X-stuff is I’ve been trying to do crossovers and cross-book stories in a variety of formats, largely because I like to be able to mix things up. So, “Raid on Graymalkin” was a classic back-and-forth, four-part crossover just between two books. And “X-Manhunt” was a line-wide crossover that went through all the books that month, that hopefully didn’t disrupt them too much in terms of their own ongoing plots.

And then the Hellfire Vigil is where everybody kind of works together to assemble one book, and then the next thing is different as well. And the thing beyond that is different. So I like experimenting with all the different kinds of X-Men crossovers or events that you could do and working out what works and what doesn’t. Hopefully, stuff that we learned from the two we’ve done already will apply to the Hellfire Vigil, and then we’ll apply that to the next thing.

AIPT: So, while we’re on the topic of the Hellfire Vigil, I thought it’d be a fun X-Men Monday #300 treat to bring in two of the creators working on the one-shot, and zero in on one of its most striking designs. So without further ado, welcome artist Luciano Vecchio and writer Murewa Ayodele back to X-Men Monday! Luciano, you’re no stranger to giving X-Men characters fashionable makeovers, having designed looks for the 2023 Hellfire Gala. Now you’re back for the more somber Hellfire Vigil. What is it about these Hellfire events you enjoy the most as an artist?

Luciano Vecchio: I remember when the first Hellfire Gala came out, and seeing Russell Dauterman’s designs in the announcement. It was such a moment for artists and fans. Everyone wanted to jump in and play along, myself included, doing our versions of superhero persona meets fashion.

To me, it resembles a Drag Race or Project Runway challenge. You have to come up with a design that encapsulates the character’s iconography, personality, and powers, and make it wearable fashion. I enjoy doing my designs, and also seeing what the other artists involved came up with, drawing theirs and seeing how they draw mine.

AIPT: Your Storm design is front and center on X-Men: Hellfire Vigil’s main cover. How does a look like this come together?

Luciano: This particular one was very collaborative. The first thing I drew in the special was a Storm sequence written by Murewa right after my two issues as guest artist on his Storm title. Murewa is a very visually driven writer, and he already had a vision for what Ororo needed to wear to fit his master plan. He provided directives and references, and I added my own twists to finish the look.

Murewa Ayodele: Storm‘s creative team members infiltrated the Hellfire Vigil big time. Luciano had just completed work on Storm #7 when he moved to work on the book. He contributed a stunning cover alongside Mateus Manhanini, our Storm main cover artist. So, it wasn’t hard for Ororo to shine in this project. But her look was specifically motivated and inspired by many things.

AIPT: Well, let’s hear more about that. With comic book fashion, I assume inspirations come from both the page and the real world. 

Luciano: Murewa’s main references were the Jacksons’ military-inspired outfits. With Storm’s big hair gone, I wanted an element of a similar materiality, so I added the cloudy boa (Sesshomaru from Inu Yasha can be an inspiration). I wanted the hair in a bun for Evita vibes, and I brought back the Mahmud Asrar-designed headpiece from X-Men Red. 

I swear I had not heard of the Black Parade thing until now, but people online won’t let me stop hearing about it.Murewa: Firstly, we were going for the Michael Jackson/Janet Jackson paramilitary aesthetics as a nod to African American pop culture. Ororo is often compared to pop icons like Beyoncé and Rihanna. I wanted us to introduce some more icons into the conversation.

Secondly, there is an iconic scene from the anime series, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, that was ringing through my head every second I was scripting for the Hellfire Vigil. It was the scene where a character was about to cry, so he claimed that it was raining just before the tears began to pour down his face. I wanted Storm, a character who could create rain to hide her tears, to have such a moment. To make the reference stand out to anime fans, we needed Storm to have a military-style cap. That introduced another element of her look.

Lastly, the costume is also intended to foreshadow a possible future storyline we have planned for Storm. It really was a very fun look to watch Luciano put together.

AIPT: Luciano, you’ve also designed Hellfire Vigil looks for major X-characters, such as Betsy Braddock, Rachel Summers, Polaris, and Sunfire, along with the newer Outliers and more obscure mutants, like Tommy and Catseye. Of your other designs, is there one you’re especially proud of?

Luciano: I did a bunch, some for the main characters in the sequences I did, and many to have background cameos of some of my favorites. Working with mainly black and white was a limitation that opened up many possibilities. I worked on all of them at once to create a system, and I see it as one piece, but my favorites might be Armor, Wolfsbane, and Dani Moonstar.

AIPT: Finally, Luciano, as a creator who played a key role in the final days of Krakoa — and helped us say goodbye to it on the page — how does it feel to see the Hellfire Gala live on in a new form?

Luciano: Even if there is a solemn vibe for the mutants who chose to stay on Earth, I see Krakoa as the X-Men’s biggest achievement, as there’s a prosperous Mutant society that lived on somewhere, out there. I loved the Krakoan Era and being part of it, even if briefly in the end, so being part of the Vigil feels like creating a bridge between such important and different moments in X-Men history. I think Krakoa’s impact is undeniable, and now we get to explore its legacy as the X-Men, and we move on. 

AIPT: And on that note, we return to Tom to take a peek into the future of the X-line. Tom, can we expect new series announcements and new creators to the X-Office in the months to come?

Tom: Yes, there will definitely be new books, and there’ll definitely be creators who haven’t worked here yet. And there’ll probably be creators who you’ve seen before who come back and dip a toe in, like Al Ewing did on the short story he and Sara Pichelli did at the back of Giant-Size X-Men #1.

I didn’t want to launch with anybody who had been there the month before because it was meant to be a shift in tone, tenor, and outlook. But all the creators who were working on X-Men before that are terrific. So when the opportunities arise, I will certainly turn back to Al, Gerry Duggan, Kieron Gillen — you know, pick your person. Really, going all the way back to Chris Claremont. And hopefully we’ll be able to use them and continue to make them a part of the living, breathing X-spectrum of titles.

But also, we’ll have new blood and people who haven’t been here before, who can hopefully make a mark on some characters.

AIPT: It’s like the X-Men characters. There’s only so much room for every X-character and X-creator. Will we continue to see a mix of team series and solo books?

Tom: Yes, you can definitely expect a mix very much like what we did during the first wave. Though we probably won’t hit as hard with a whole bunch of team books all at once in the same way we did setting up the line, because between X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, Exceptional X-Men, NYX, X-Factor, and X-Force, suddenly you were putting a whole bunch of team concepts on the table all at once, and that was kind of a necessity coming out of the previous era. But it’s probably more than I think is wise to do all at once.

And you know, rather than solos, maybe it’s a pairing of two characters. I don’t want to get into anything specifically. But it’s a little harder to go, “Here’s a good compelling reason for these characters to all be together and doing something that’s not the same as any of the other groups of characters that are together doing something.” It doesn’t mean that’s an insoluble problem. Certainly, X-Men tends to work best as a team concept — that’s what it was designed to be initially. So it will always have a certain amount of team activity going on.

AIPT: And X-Fan Prometheux wanats to know which characters we can expect to get a big focus in year two, following the Hellfire Vigil.

Tom: Well, probably the biggest one is Doug Ramsey and his little family unit. They’re the focus of X-Men #19 right after the Hellfire Vigil. There’s going to be a lot of Doug Ramsey in the future — something that nobody in the ‘80s would’ve believed. Doug Ramsey is going to be an incredibly important character in the course of year two, and the first real taste of that is in X-Men #19.

I’m pulling up my chart here so I can decide who and what I think I can say things about.

I think Dani Moonstar is maybe somebody to pay attention to.

In not too long… Bishop.

Fresh off his limited series, there’ll be some more Cable. 

I think we’ll be doing some interesting stuff with Kate Pryde.

There’s definitely a weird wrinkle coming for Gambit in an unexpected place.

And not that she’s not on the board right now, but Emma Frost.

AIPT: Finally, X-Fan Hank has always been surprised by your willingness to engage with readers. What has encouraged you to do so?

Tom: Well, it’s a combination of narcissism and masochism really. I mean, it’s just that when I was a reader, I would’ve been all over the message boards — I would’ve been following all of this stuff. Back in my day, we didn’t have this kind of instant communication. I read The Comics Journal, Comics Interview, Amazing Heroes, and Comics Buyer’s Guide — I was absorbing all of the insider play that you could get in those days.

It kind of goes back to the Stan Lee philosophy of creating a bridge with the audience, helping them, and letting them feel like they’re a part of the mythology and the things we’re crafting and creating. Even if, every once in a while, that’s a bridge that becomes a heated battlefield.

So on a certain level, it’s a responsibility. I should be doing it. And generally, I like it. I never mind the feedback. I say never, but, you know, obviously if somebody’s being abusive, I could do without that. But I don’t mind people saying, “I don’t like this thing that you’re doing,” “I wish you would do something else,” or “I wish you would do this instead.” I think that’s perfectly fair. And certainly, I also don’t mind it when they say, “I love that thing that you’re doing, and I wish you’d do more of that,” because that’s good too.

We’re all fans. We all love the characters. We all love this world. I want people to feel welcomed to the universe of X-Men and able to share their perspective on it and their point of view. Even if it doesn’t align with mine, I’m willing to be convinced of things. Some things are easier than others, but I’m certainly willing to hear what people have to say as we do this stuff.

AIPT: Well, from X-Men Monday to your Substack newsletter, it seems like readers have plenty of ways to share their opinions. Tom, is there anything else you’d like to share or tease?

Tom: I guess the only thing I could tease is it’ll be a big end of year, for good or ill. I’m hoping for good, but you can never predict these things ahead of time. But a big end of 2025 for the X-Men and the line in general.

AIPT: And the X-Men will never be the same again?

Tom: I don’t know about that, but it will certainly be catastrophic and earth-changing. And nobody will miss that it’s going on.AIPT: And maybe we’ll see Betsy there.

Tom: Maybe. Maybe.

AIPT: Well, on that note, Tom — thanks for taking time out of your busy conducting schedule to celebrate 300 editions of X-Men Monday with us! And thank you to Murewa and Luciano for their time discussing the upcoming Hellfire Vigil!

Speaking of, X-Men: Hellfire Vigil #1 doesn’t go on sale until July 2, 2025, but did you really think we’d talk so much about it and not give you an eXclusive, early look at the one-shot’s lettered preview? (After 300 editions, you’d think you’d know better by now!) Thank you to our friends at Marvel for this one! You can find the issue’s full credits here, but here are the details for the pages below:

Pages 1-3 — Jackson Lanzing, Collin Kelly, and Javier Garron
Page 4 – Jed MacKay and Netho Diaz
Page 5 — Gail Simone and Luciano Vecchio
Page 6 — Eve L. Ewing and Federica Mancin

Before I go, a GIANT-SIZE thank you to all the X-Fans who continue to read, share, and submit questions to X-Men Monday! 

If you’re looking to keep the X-Men Monday #300 party going, I recently went on a mini-podcast-press tour to share some stories from my time on this column.

Here’s the link to my appearance on the AIPT Comics Podcast.
And here’s the link to my appearance on ComicsXF‘s Battle of the Atom podcast.

Until next time, X-Fans, stay exceptional!