Marvel has released several pages of art and almost as many covers for the upcoming X-Men #1, the much-discussed "Curse of the Mutants" storyline featuring Draculas, vampire suicide bombers, and so on. Here's what they have to say about it:
Marvel is proud to present your first look at X-Men #1 from the red-hot creative team of Victor Gischler and Paco Medina. In the first X-Men #1 in almost 20 years, Marvel's mighty mutants enter the Heroic Age to face a deadly new threat in a battle that will drastically alter the ENTIRE Marvel Universe! With new faces being brought into the fold and an all-star new creative team, fans cannot miss the "Curse of the Mutants" in the all-new X-Men #1!
X-MEN #1 (MAY100628)
X-MEN #1 ROMITA JR VARIANT (MAY100630)
X-MEN #1 MEDINA VARIANT (MAY100632)
X-MEN #1 DJURDJEVIC VARIANT (MAY100633)
X-MEN #1 BLANK VARIANT (MAY100629)
Written by VICTOR GISCHLER
Penciled by PACO MEDINA
Cover by ADI GRANOV
Variant Cover by JOHN ROMITA JR.
Variant Cover by PACO MEDINA
Variant Cover by MARKO DJURDJEVIC
Rated T+ …$3.99
FOC-6/17/10, On-sale-7/8/10
I have probably been doing this for too long, but the phrase "the first X-Men #1 in almost 20 years!" gave me the first good laugh I've had all week. What a thing to hold up as a point of pride. I think the "almost" is what makes me lose it.
As for the book itself: I can't wait. I don't know the work of Victor Gischler very well, but he is acclaimed and renowned in the world of hard-boiled fiction, so I am absolutely not holding all that Deadpool against him. More importantly, this book promises to be something even rarer than a #1 issue of X-Men: an X-Men story I feel like I've never read before. It doesn't sound like something from the Summers family's past coming back to haunt everyone; it doesn't sound like the League of Racists has re-formed, this time with a Super-Super-Super-Sentinel; it doesn't sound like Shi'ar or Mssrs. Sinister are anywhere to be found. By all accounts, it is just a story about the X-Men facing a threat in the true Heroic Age style. Bring it on!
Find us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Subscribe to our RSS Feed
Some rights reserved.
YAWN!
Yay!
It’s good this thing has five covers, just in case the X-fans were starting to get well adjusted. Phew!
Just seems like more rdundant X-Men wheel spinning with a twist of Twilight fever. That good old X-Men spark just doesn’t look like it’s going to show up again THIS decade. Yawn seconded!
I share your amusement and admire your optimism.
Wait, yellow coat, pink sunglasses. . .is that Jubilee?
Also, yawn.
I don’t know why, but now I feel like shopping at Macy’s.
Ok, that vampire exploding in the sunlight is not too bad an idea, I must say. Gimme the classic monsters, not sparkling diamond skin. And that Paco Medina ain’t a slouch. I’m looking forward to seeing an X-Men that’s not mired in X-continuity, but Marvel U continuity instead. That’s an improvement, right?
Question: on the Adi Granov cover is that Hope or Kitty. I guess it doesn’t really matter. I’m just curious.
This actually doesn’t look too bad–the art looks gorgeous, and I don’t think the idea of a vampire suicide bomber’s ever been done before. I’m totally game for this. 🙂
I’m glad I’m not alone in not judging Gischler solely on his sub-standard Deadpool stuff, as I’m a huge fan of the few novels I’ve read that he penned (especially Shotgun Opera). So I will definitely be giving this a shot, as I also really like the artwork of Paco Medina.
Very much in two minds here, and I did think seriously about adding this to last month’s previews order, just to give it a go. Art is lovely. I’ve never been an absolute X-fan, so I feel that kind of makes me a little less jaded about it and more open minded. The biggest turn off is the same question I ask myself about so much new product these days – Do we really need another new comic about (mostly) the same characters?
Are the X-Men really so accepted now that a chick with bug wings can just sit in the park with no-one noticing?
If people read his Deadpool stuff, you’d know this is gonna be bad.
Although the only shining star in this is Paco Medina. He is a great artist and a great fit for X-Men.
I’m kind of glad to be going back to just picking up Uncanny and X-Factor, oh, and Remender’s X-Force when that starts. I’ve been digging Second Coming but this book couldn’t excite me less. No thanks. Good art though.
@MikeFarley In San fransisco they are. the city has been extremely welcoming to the mutants over the course of their move
I have zero interest in this book… but it appears to have Jubilee. ::Must resist…. remember… new warrirors..::
Hmm… Twilight Comes to the X-men……
Hm… Twilight is the movie that puts me to bed when I suffer insomniac
But on the other hand X-men wets my whistle…
Oh the irony. And of course Jubilee is in it, who
@PraxJarvin: Whatchootalkin’boutJarvin? NW vol 4 was pretty good. (exceptforthatsecretinvasionarcthatsucked) NW vol 3 now.. that’s a stinker (No offense to Skottie, the art was good, story bad).
Okay, let me get this straight…
1. Vampires have regularly appeared in Marvel stories for decades.
2. Twilight becomes popular.
3. Every subsequent vampire story becomes a cash-grab meant to capitalize on Twilight’s popularity.
Does that about cover it?
@Bornin1142: Depends on what you’re covering.
Partial public perception of "Curse of the Mutants".
Being a fan of the Marvel "monsterverse" and 80s era X-Men, I’ll definitely give this shot. Going in with low expectations and giving it a story arc to win me over. From the preview, I like the art.
Is that Nate Grey on one of the covers? Yea!
@Patio- neither, Rogue.
Wow Josh, you really lined up your shot on the podcast didn’t you?
Regardless if it was intentional or not, well done. 🙂
Also, what the fuck kind of variant is a cover with just a fucking X on it!
It’s basically a silver foil/hologram/embossed variant. Is anyone fooled by this? Are people buying this shit? I mean it’s called the fucking blank variant!
I’m done now.
I just think its so weird that they are relaunching fucking X-Men with a vampire crossover/storyline
@JumpingJupiter: That X-Cover is meant to get sketches on. Most big launches from Marvel include a blank cover variant.
fuck fuck fuckity fuck jubilee. God I hate that character. I really don’t have too high of expectations for this but you never know. X-men comics have always been a mainstay in my collection for better or worse.
Someday, I’ll read an x-men comic book.
To me it feels like they are totally out of ideas. Which makes sense since their ‘big’ event this year is rehashing old plot points from a million other stories.
But of all the things the writers could think of, out of all the imagination they have to have on their fingertips, the best idea they could come up with is: "Hey why don’t they fight vampires?".
Nate Grey is going to be in this. That’s the only reason I need to pick this up.
@TNC: saying that we know Victor Gischler’s work on a story won’t be good because a Deadpool book is awful is like blaming the poor kid behind the counter at Taco Bell for a yucky burrito. He could be Emeril Lagasse; grade D meat is grade D meat.
One of the best stories in the X-verse in the last 5 years involved Dracula shooting Vampire Missiles from the moon at Earth it sounds retarded and was amazing. People have to stop being judgmental prigs about something they haven’t experienced yet. Vampires can both be good or bad, it’s about execution.
I’m not getting this book, I’ll wait for reviews, but I’m not going to judge and poo poo it because of a movie or trend that has nothing to do with it.
Let us try to be fair, a lot of people put a lot of hard work into this book.
@Jimski This is coming from you…a man who makes fun of ANYTHING Deadpool related even though you barely read enough of any of it to judge seriously. Prose and comics are two totally different styles of writing. Sure his prose “may” be great, but please tell me what comics by Gischler you have read that convinces you this will be good.
@tnc Do you currently read any x-men comics?
@TNC: I’ll have to agree with @Jimski on this one. I’m not a fan of Victor Gischler’s work. His Deadpool wasn’t good and neither was his Punisher MAX, IMO.However, who is to say it won’t be good based on one or two other works. I could take this in the opposite direction and make the the argument that everything Jeph Loeb writes will be awesome based on Long Halloween and Hush. Sadly, we know that is far from a true statement.
I’ve begun to have an X-Men itch I need to scratch but I’m hesitant to jump in because there are soooo many X books that I don’t need to add that much to my pull list. I bought the Messiah Complex hardcover and continued reading the Cable and X-Force issues that dealt with that storyline. I read one or two issues of the Second Coming and I’ll wait for the hardcover to read it all. After that I don’t know what X stuff I’ll pick up. I check this out and see how it is. I’ll probably pass on the Curse of the Mutants story arc and I’m debating whether or not to pick up back issues. I’m thinking X-Factor or Astonishing.
@vadmowens I currently read Uncanny in trade. Cause the title has hit such hard times I can’t justify buying it in issues. It feels like most X-titles are like this now. I just want to read a good X-Men story again but it feels like once Whedon finished Astonishing all the titles went down a black hole of despair.
@JesTr See here is the difference. While Loeb is a shitty writer now, I can acknowledge at any time he wrote brilliant comics in the past. Unlike Gischler, who had literally done nothing enjoyable or good to read since he joined Marvel. I shudder to think what his “pulp” novels are like.
do these vampire mutants sparkle in the sunlight? i’m gonna buy 25 copies of each, hop in my Delorean time machine and go back to the 90s so i can make some real money!!!!! (btw Ron, i cracked up when i heard that story on the Thunderbolts podcast…made me nostalgic for buying comics in the 90s)
They need a reboot ala 2001 when they brought in Grant Morrison and Joe Casey. They need it bad.
I like Matt Fraction’s run a lot, personally. The only real trepidation I have about a new series is that same old "the same team doing two different things at the same time in two different books" stickyness.
@TNC OK. You may be waiting a while for a good x-men story after Second Coming, but hopefully I’m wrong.
@mikeandzod agreed
@TNC His novels are great, especially Shotgun Opera.
I definitely agree with most of you. Enough of this Twilight hogwash. More Anne Rice and fuck-you-up monsters. When I went to the XMen panel at Chicago’s C2E2, and they announced the vampire adventures? It said facepalm all over it. This better blow my mind or so help me I will complain like a broad during PMS.
I am somebody who, on principle, tries not to slam stuff before it comes out or to take joy from predicting things will be bad. However, it would take a pretty radical change of direction to get me psyched for a new X-title and Victor Gischler plus vampires are not even close to being on that list. I think this means I agree with TNC again.
I’m convnced Marvel put Fraction and Ellis on the X-Books in order to get people to pay attention to the Avengers.
I like Fraction and I like Ellis. Not in love with the editorial direction; I think it’s bigger than individual writers.
@ohcaroline: Yay!
Seriously though, I know I do slam things before they come out. (It’s in my nature, I apologize) Still, how can anyone be excited over an X-Men title with Gischler as a writer and the premise is vampires…..just baffles me.
I said it in the first post I made, you guys have fun with it. If it turns out it’s good to you then I can’t judge your opinions.
@TNC: I wouldn’t say I’m excited but I’d definitely say I’m interested.
I think I’m jumping off the X-books after this Second Coming storyline. I like Fraction, I like overall idea of the direction of Uncanny, but I’m not loving the execution.
As far as vampires go, I think part of the problem is marketing. If this were just the next arc of Uncanny, I don’t think anyone would really complain. Reminds me, for some reason, of old Claremont arcs like when Kulan Gath turned New York into a barbarian fantasy world in Uncanny. But anyway… by using this arc to launch a book, and holding press conference about how these are all new vampires, it really suggests that this is super-duper special and an event — rather than just a new X-men story. And I think that rubs a lotta folks the wrong way. Because we’ve seen a whole lotta vamps lately, and while pitting the X-men against vampires is an interesting story on its own, it doesn’t seem impressive enough to command the marketing push that its getting.
theoretically the series will have a second, non-vampire arc. what that proves to be other than just Gischler’s take on the same characters is anyone’s guess.
The art looks very new school image.
I will say that I’ll probably give issue 1 of this a shot, which I wasn’t going to previously, because this conversation has made me curious. Optimism is (almost) as contagious as bitterness!