I have not purchased any comics in many years, but I believe this deserves some attention.
http://www.comicmix.com/news/2009/02/06 ... n-forever/
I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I'm looking forward to seeing Jubilee back in the group with Wolvie again.The Cubs win the World Series. Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston get back together. Chris Claremont writes the X-Men again. One of those things, at last, has happened.
Chris Claremont, the writer of the X-Men for 16 years, from Uncanny X-Men #94 to X-Men #3, is returning to the characters that he made famous. Starting in May, Chris Claremont will be writing X-Men Forever, a new bi-weekly series that literally continues from where he left off. No really-- right where he left off. X-Men Forever will create a fork in Marvel continuity, continuing the series the way he wanted. Artwork will be by Tom Grummett. The series will premiere in May, with preview issues in March and April.
Chris is also working on an original X-Men graphic novel with artwork by Milo Manera.
ComicMix will be running an in-depth interview with Chris Claremont shortly, which will explain where's he's going with it. In the meantime, leave your comments and questions for Chris here.
Welcome back to the X-Men, Chris-- hope you survive the experience!
Interview w/ Claremont:
http://www.wizarduniverse.com/020709nyccclaremont.html
The legendary X-scribe discusses his new title picking up where he left off after 'X-Men' #3, and he dishes on his upcoming 'GeNext' project!
pad
By Brett White
Posted 2/7/2009
pad
pad
[NYCC] CHRIS CLAREMONT TALKS 'X-MEN FOREVER'When last we left our heroes, they had narrowly escaped from the clutches of Magneto and the complete destruction of Asteroid M. Now, as the world is still reeling from the nuclear judgment the master of magnetism promised to rain down on them, the X-Men prepare to face threats more extreme and radical than any they ever have before!
pad
They decide...to play basketball?
Fans reading the record-obliterating juggernaut that was Chris Claremont and Jim Lee's X-Men back in 1991 may have found that sudden change in tone jarring. With X-Men Forever, a new biweekly ongoing series from Marvel launching in May with X-Men Forever Alpha, Claremont picks up where he left off all those years ago and promises to deliver the global-scale action fans have been waiting years to see.
How did X-Men Forever become a series?
CHRIS CLAREMONT: [X-Men Forever editor] Mark Paniccia sat down with [Marvel Editor-in-Chief] Joe Quesada and [Marvel Publisher] Dan Buckley, ideas were passed around and they made a decision. That's management, not execution. Having [New Exiles collaborator] Tom Grummet on art, actually, went much the same as what happened with Salvador Larroca back when I returned to Uncanny X-Men back in 2000. Salva and I were working on Fantastic Four and we were a good team. Marvel wanted us to keep going and it made perfect sense to slide him over to X-Men, which turned out to be the perfect thing for his career. So for all I know, this time next year Tom will end up doing Fantastic Four or Uncanny.
How close is this X-Men story to what you had actually intended to write over 17 years ago? Have you replaced those plots with newer ideas?
CLAREMONT: It's very much an evolution of the story elements and structural elements that I had in mind but, as often is the case, the devil is in the details. The fact is that the characters have changed and evolved since then and the world has changed and evolved significantly since then. X-Men Forever is presenting what Mark and I visualized as the next step in the mutant saga.
The one significant difference and advantage that Forever has over Uncanny is that we don't have to worry about corporate needs. The one great disadvantage with Fantastic Four or with X-Men or with Spider-Man or with any book in the mainstream Marvel line is that the characters must be preserved for Marvel's sake. But since these characters are being preserved in Uncanny, they can be altogether frighteningly mortal in Forever, as we'll be demonstrating fairly early on. The fact is, if a character is unlucky enough to die, it's a real thing and it isn't corrected a week later. They won't come back. There are consequences and from that basis everything proceeds.
Is X-Men Forever going to focus on solely the Blue Team of characters depicted in those first three issues of X-Men?
CLAREMONT: There is no Blue Team and no Gold Team. We are focusing in on a group of characters who are defined by the circumstances and situation that the X-Men find themselves in. They are getting a new regular member of the team, a sort of quasi-government figure by the name of Fury.
Wow! He was actually in the first three issues of X-Men when they came out.
CLAREMONT: And, oddly enough, he's sticking around! A guy that looks like he's going to live forever could be considered a quasi-mutant. But, the point is that the X-Men's relationship with the world is about to change markedly. The X-Men got involved in a situation where Magneto became a nuclear power and threatened to use those nukes from orbit. The reality exists that if he could do it, anyone else could do it. One might be able to fudge things in the world of 1991 and say that terrorists that threaten the safety of the world don't get away with it...but they do. That's no longer a valid argument today. You have a world which has just seen Magneto and a team of mutants steal an entire nuclear submarine's payload of nuclear missiles, establish himself as an orbital nuclear power, threaten to use those missiles and then get defeated by the X-Men. The premise that we're starting with is that the great powers of the world are probably not going to stand for that anymore.
The other significant thing about Forever is that Mark and I feel that traditional conflicts, traditional adversaries and traditional circumstances are the province of Uncanny and X-Men: Legacy. We're not interested in that. The thought, goal and ambition here is to present what we hope will be totally new and original adversaries, circumstances and characters...except for Sentinels. No more fantasies, no more switching genders, no more extreme curses, no more "darns" and "goodness graciouses." We're trying to eliminate all the Claremont clichés in one fell swoop and see what happens next.
A couple of characters you created towards the end of your original run on Uncanny, like Gambit, have had origins implemented that differ from your original intentions. Are these original back stories going to appear now?
CLAREMONT: The Gambit in X-Men Forever is the Gambit who was in Uncanny up to #278 and X-Men #1 through #3. He's technically not even an official X-Man. He's just been hanging around for a bunch of weeks and, as we establish in the preview, he's not even sure he wants to stay. He's playing it by ear. Circumstances will arise that may make up his mind for him, but everything is considerably more fungible. Nothing in this is going to be like what you're used to seeing.
The future also holds more of GeNext. Can you give any hints about what's going to happen in that series?
CLAREMONT: Basically the story picks up about forty minutes after where the first mini-series left off. It starts in Genosha with their ride home showing up, courtesy of Hank McCoy and Megan Frost-Summers. From there on they quickly find themselves caught up in an adventure that takes them to India. The whole series is set in the subcontinent and involves introducing a coterie of Indian superheroes, villains, second generation heirs to a list of Marvel bad guys and hopefully more than a few surprises. And ideally enough enthusiasm, dynamism and sales to justify a third arc which would wrap up this initial run of the book.
