The X-Men Assemble In The Void Left By The Avengers In December’s ‘Maximum X-Men’
by Tony Thornley
This fall, Avengers: Armageddon changes Earth’s Mightiest Heroes forever, leading to the fall of the Avengers. In the wake of the disaster, a new team of X-Men will assemble to protect Earth in MaXimum X-Men.
The Avengers are no more. Who will stand in Earth’s defense? Storm steps up and gathers a team of some of the X-Men’s heaviest hitters — including Wolverine, Bishop, Iceman, Colossus and Psylocke. Joining them will be two mutant heroes who have closer ties to the Avengers — Firestar and Justice!
The team has assembled just in time, as an invasion from the Negative Zone threatens the planet. But does this herald the return of Annihilus, or something even more frightening?
The series comes from X-Men veterans Chris Yost — one of the key writers at Marvel Studios and the writer of New X-Men, X-Force and X-Men — and Tony S. Daniel — one of X-Force’s original artists, and current artist on X-Men. Both are excited to return to the forefront of the X-line.
Yost shared “I’ve worked on my fair share of X-Books over the years, but MaXimum X-Men is everything I love about comics rolled into one— it’s underdog heroes saving the world from the biggest Avengers-level threats imaginable, it’s mind-breaking action and drama and everything people expect from X-Men, all with a classic Claremont vibe. Rolling MaXimum X-Men out as part of the new world post-Armageddon only lets us spotlight the need for a story like this… and to top it all off, I get to work with legendary artist Tony Daniel. As a life-long X-Men fan, it doesn’t get any better!”
“The X-Men have long been my favorite characters since discovering Giant Size X-Men #1 in the fourth grade,” Daniel added. “I’ve always dreamed of working on my favorite characters so it’s an incredible honor to launch MaXimum X-Men with Chris. I’ve been a fan of Chris’s writing for a long time, but this is our first time joining forces. I’m already in love with the story in the first issue. Its vibe and energy reminds me so much of the kind of X-Men stories I loved as a child and I can’t wait for the audience to see what we have in store.”
I really like the idea of X-Men as “big damn heroes.” The last time the line had a title like that — Kieron Gillen’s 2011 Uncanny X-Men — it was a lot of fun, mixing the X-Universe with some unique villains and challenges. It’s also great to finally see some of these characters back front and center for the first time in years. Seeing Betsy Braddock back on the main team in particular is great (especially after her time as Captain Britain).
It does concern me though that this concept is so dissonant with the rest of the line. Adding Logan to another series makes his role in Uncanny potentially confusing. After acting like there’s a big reason Bishop is off the board, suddenly he’s just back… What’s been going on with Iceman? And acting like Firestar has no X-Men history just doesn’t sit right.
I’ll hold my judgement until the title hits though.
MaXimum X-Men #1 debuts in December from Marvel Comics.
