Marvel Comics has just released the creative teams and member roster for their much anticipated post-Inhumans vs X-Men teams for the new X-Men: Blue and X-Men: Gold comics, via the folks at IGN. As previously speculated, the new teams are going for something of an all-star classic line-up for both squads of heroes. Before we break down why this could be exactly what’s needed for Marvel’s Merry Mutants, let’s get the details out of the way first.
X-Men: Blue Brings Back the OG-5, with a twist
X-Men: Blue will be written by Uncanny X-Men writer Cullen Bunn, joined by recent Star Wars artist, Jorge Molina. Bunn will bring Magneto over from Uncanny to lead this squad, which will be made up of the time-lost original X-Men — Jean Grey, Cyclops, Iceman, Beast, and Angel, who formerly starred in All-New X-Men. This should prove to be an interesting dynamic, because the original X-Men know Magneto almost entirely as the villain who tried to kill them every week in their earlier X-Men history.
You can see the cover for X-Men: Blue #1 below:
X-Men: Gold Gives us the ’70s/’80s era mutants we all love
Arrow co-showrunner Marc Guggenheim returns to the X-titles as writer of X-Men: Gold, where he’ll be joined by recent Superman artist, Ardian Syaf. Kitty Pryde will lead this team, reuniting with her original X-Men teammates Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Rachel Grey, and Old Man Logan. This is very much an all-star X-Men line-up, as it represents the core “All-New, All Different X-Men” who made this book the biggest one in comics, from 1975 to 1987 or so. (Note: conspicuously absent from the line-up is Rogue. What’s up with that, Marvel??)
To emphasize how old school they’re going, Storm, Nightcrawler, and Colossus are all wearing variations on their original iconic costumes. Only Rachel Grey is getting a new costume and a new code-name, as she’ll now be called “Prestige.” This is the first time Rachel’s codename isn’t a nod to her mother, Jean Grey (previously she went by Phoenix, then Marvel Girl). You can check out the cover to X-Men: Gold #1 below:
Why the X-Men need this RessurXion
These new team rosters seem completely geared towards winning old-school X-Men fans back, with classic team line-ups and simple mission statements. Basically, they’re superheroes again. In many ways, the X-Men titles whole “ResurrXion” initiative seems very similar to what DC did this year with their big Rebirth  — get everything back to basics, and in the form that people recognize and enjoy the most.
So why do the X-titles need this so badly? Just look at the sales charts. For thirty years, it was unheard of for an X-Men comic to not be in the monthly top-20-selling books each month. It was almost unheard of for them to not be in the top 10, to be honest. These past few months, the X-Men books have been selling as low as #76 and #83 on the Top 100. The past decade of X-Men books have been a constant upheaval of one horrible event after another. First it was M-Day, which reduced the mutant population to 198, and making mutants an endangered species. But that was just the start.
From then it was a constant struggle for survival, making Cyclops a militant leader and forcing a schism between himself and Wolverine. Then more recently, a conflict with the Inhumans made the mutants an endangered species yet again, after having been re-powered in the pages of Avengers vs. X-Men. It seemed Marvel kept wanting to marginalize the X-Men as a team, and even the most hardcore fans stopped caring.
Over this past decade, it seemed Marvel was hell bent on making the X-Men anything but the original basic premise of the team, which was a group of mutant outcasts living at a school together (the great exception to this is Jason Aaron‘s excellent and short lived Wolverine and the X-Men series, which found Logan taking over as headmaster of the newly renamed Jean Grey School).
One thing that ResurrXion won’t be seemingly doing, at least from these initial line-ups, is bringing back any dead members. So despite what many thought, it doesn’t seem like we are getting an actual resurrections for Professor X, the adult Jean Grey and Cyclops, or Wolverine. All of these heroes are being replaced with alternate versions of themselves from the past (in the case of Cyclops and Jean) and the future (in the case of Old Man Logan). While this seems from the outset to be more trouble than its worth, I guess this is Marvel’s way of giving the people what they want, but not all the way.
Another thing many fans assumed would happen with ResurrXion is that the time-tossed original five X-Men would finally return to their time — this very much does not seem to be the case. It looks like the younger mutants are here to stay (it has been about five years) although Marvel seems no closer to explaining this giant space-time anomaly. Also, aside from the adult Iceman, who will be getting his own ongoing solo series soon, we have no idea what lies in store for the adult blue n’ furry Beast, or the adult razor-winged Archangel (at the moment, adult Jean and Scott are taking a dirt nap).
Both new X-Men books will be out in April, and will be shipping twice monthly, meaning there will be a new X-Men book each week for fans. Also coming soon as part of ResurrXion are new ongoing Iceman, Jean Grey, Cable, Generation X, and Weapon X comics.
What do you think of these new/old X-Men titles? Is this what you wanted, or were you hoping for something less old school? Let us know down below in the comments.
Images: Marvel Comics
