Enter Marvel’s ‘Age Of Revelation’: Our Thoughts And Reactions
by Tony Thornley
Yesterday Marvel revealed the big event they’ve been teasing for months- first in vague teases, then in a promo out last week. Now we know what the From The Age era of the X-Men has been building to: Age of Revelation.
Kicking off with a surprise zero issue out next week from Jed MacKay and Humberto Ramos, Age of Revelation finds the Marvel Universe ten years in the future, facing a world that is increasingly hostile towards humanity. In the present, Cyclops welcomed the transformed Doug Ramsey back into the X-fold with open arms. In the Age of Revelation, humanity is an endangered species…
The Heir of Apocalypse has risen. The resistance ignites.
On being the architect behind the latest X-Men milestone, MacKay said, “Enter … the Age of Revelation! I’m extremely excited to be at the center of this event — we’re traveling to the alien future of the Age of Revelation, where the stories unfolding in the Revelation Territories and beyond will decide whether this is the dawn of a new world, or the end of one. We’ve been exploring a whole world, and it’s been really exciting to see other creators make corners of it their own!”
The full story kicks off in October from MacKay and Ryan Stegman in Age of Revelation Overture #1, leading to a whopping sixteen new series (with full announcements coming next week), replacing the existing X-Men line and also showing readers the full scope of the Marvel Universe in this new timeline.
So first of all, this will be the third alternate universe replacing some or all of the X-Men line in the last six years — Age of X-Man, Sins of Sinister and now this. And as a celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Age of Apocalypse, it’s pretty great to do this, because Apocalypse really just means Revelation.
As far as the title line-up goes a lot of these are at a minimum, very interesting. You can see the direct throughline for most of the current X-line- you can’t quite line up which X-Men series is which, and I’m not sure which series Magik has morphed into. Otherwise, titles like The Last Wolverine, Laura Kinney Sabretooth, and Undeadpool are extremely provocative.
And the wider Marvel Universe titles sound fun. Another Iron Man/Emma Frost team-up book could be fun with the right writer. X-Vengers is a silly title, but that could mean a few different things. And I love The Radioactive Spider-Man, Cloak or Dagger and Sinister’s Six.
Lastly, the best thing about alternate universe realities is awesome new designs. Age of Apocalypse had face tattoos. Age of X-Man had some incredible new age-y costumes and fun tweaks like Magneto’s militaristic costume, Nature Girl’s new antlers and Colossus’s missing arm. If the teasers are any example, this will be full of them, just based on Cyclops’ new post apocalypse gear, Wolverine’s “maybe a mask, maybe just his skull” look, and the incredible road warrior Glob Herman.
Watch for more news about Age of Revelation next week!