Cyclops-intoxicated

好啦好啦，我八百年前就知道你死不了啦，笨蛋狼，現在離那些可憐的武士刀遠一點，他們可是代表著一種已經死去的古老精神的藝術品耶。

As the inaugural Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo began to wind down Sunday afternoon, Marvel's X-Men panel was in full swing.

On hand for the panel were Marjorie Liu, "Dark Wolverine" artist Cammo (Giuseppe Camuncoli), Peter David, editor Jenine Schaefer, and moderator Arune Singh.

Whilce Portacio will be the new artist on "Uncanny X-Men" beginning in July, Singh announced. Leonard Kirk will be the new artist on "New Mutants," while Chris Claremont and Milo Manara's "X-Women" one shot will also ship in July and Claremont's "New Mutants Forever" begins in August.

"Mutants vs. Vampires" begins in a new "X-Men" #1 by Victor Gischler and Paco Medina.

"Wolverine: Weapon X" will be ending, with a new "Wolverine" #1 by Jason Aaron and Renato Guedes, with covers by Jae Lee shipping in September. In it, Wolverine goes to Hell. "His soul goes to hell, andwWe're going to see what happens when he's not around to be in control of his own body," Schaefer said.

"Dark Wolverine" will become "Daken: Dark Wolverine" in September, with Liu, Daniel Way, and Giuseppe Camuncoli returning. "The key words are intrigue, violence, exploitation, sex—more of the same."

An X-23 series begins in September, written by Liu with an artist to be named later. "She's basically on a journey of self discovery. It's going to be very dark, intense book, but hopefully along the way there will be a ray of light that she'll be able to find her place in the world," Liu said.

"X-Force" will end after Second Coming, to be relaunched in October with Rick Remender and Jerome Opeña. "When Wolverine is put in charge of X-Force, it's a totally different team than Cyclops would put together," Schaefer said. "They're going to be taking on Apocalypse."

David then spoke about "X-Factor." "People have been asking why we've taken X-Factor in the direction we have," David said. "The long-time Marvel fans will remember that any time anybody got into a cab in New York City, Mark Spector Moon Knight would be driving it." He's trying to restore that feel by making X-Factor the go-to detective agency of the Marvel U. "If you're a super-villain and you suspect your wife is cheating on you, you go to X-Factor--especially if you think she's cheating with another super-villain." X-Factor will take the case if you can pay the bill, David said.

"When 'X-Factor' #207 comes out, fans are going to go nuts," he continued. "The last page will get us as much attention, if not more, than since Madrox ate his baby."

Singh said that, following "Second Coming," the X-Men will be much more integrated into the Marvel Universe, which will explain why Spider-Man, She-Hulk and others are in the X-Men promotional images.

Singh then turned the floor over to questions. Throughout the session, though the panelists had to hedge answers because they might reveal the events of "Second Coming."

"X-Men Legacy" will continue with Mike Carey despite other changes to the line, Singh confirmed in response to the first question.

A fan asked whether the X-Men would return to being a metaphor for civil rights issues, with Schaefer saying that there would be a degree of this in Matt Fraction's "Uncanny," which she said already had this underlying tone.

"After M-Day, there were only 198 mutants, and that number has been slowly dwindling," Schaefer said. "Every time a mutant dies, that's like two million people."

David contended that the X-Men have not got away from the civil rights concept, with the mutants being threatened from within or without, noting that, "now they're essentially living in a ghetto." "We couldn't have done that when there were two million of them. Now we can explore the ghettoization of an entire culture."

Singh said there is something coming up in "Second Coming" that will "make you very happy."

The Wolverine in hell story will take place before the events of the new "X-Force," although their publishing schedules overlap. "It will all fit in," Singh said of the continuity.

The next question asked when Layla Miller would "get back to making out with Jamie Madrox." David said she would be re-joining the team with "Second Coming" and "sticking around for a while." The early dynamic of "everybody but Madrox saying, 'what is she doing here?'" will return, thanks to her year with Doctor Doom. "In the real world, when someone doesn't trust you, you do everything you can to earn their trust—Layla doesn't give a crap," David said. "As to whether she'll be making out with Jamie: yes."

"Second Coming" will address Hope's story and origins, Schaefer confirmed in response to a question.

"I can't tell you anything about 'X-Force' and I can't tell you anything about Nightcrawler, but I can tell you he has a huge role in 'Second Coming,'" Singh said when asked about the character's fate.

Asked about the hint that Madrox was not a mutant, David said that the line was actually "You have no idea what you are." David explained his thought was that there are a second evolutionary branch of mutants who don't follow the pattern of gaining powers at adolescence. David said he would touch on this at some point.

A fan said he was worried about the return of "shallow" '90s stories, given the character selection of the new X-books. Schaefer said that what's happening in the X-books is very organic, while David said that writers choose characters because they think there's a story to tell. "I brought Shatterstar back because I wanted to give Rictor something to do," David said, to applause and laughs.

The beginnings of a question about Daken's hook-ups and the romance between Rictor and Shatterstar was interrupted by David, who said, "No, Rictor will not be making out with Daken." "I wish Nick Lowe, editor on 'Uncanny' was here, because he totally wants more kissing," Schaeffer added.

A fan thanked David for the Rictor/Shatterstar love story. "I've got letters from people saying they literally broke down in tears of joy at seeing those characters together," David said. He noted that other writers have laid the subtext, but "it's the 21st century--it doesn't have to be subtext anymore." He added that, "Maybe I was being naive, but I really didn't think it was that big of a deal—it was panel 5 of a six-panel page."

He wound up by saying, "under my watch, I am never going to kill off Rictor or Shatterstar. Will it be a smooth road? Hell no!" David also said he would not say whether they would ultimately stay together. The fan was applauded for his comment, and David for his response.

Asked about the Juggernaut's status as a hero or villain, Singh said the character would play a huge role in "Thunderbolts," the Jeff Parker-written book that will feature Luke Cage reforming villains starting in May.

Regarding the visual differences between Logan and Daken, Cammo said, "Logan is raw; Daken is more seductive, which also affects how he fights."

"We trust Cammo; his instincts are superb," Liu said.

Liue said "Daken" was a series about "a man who wants to rule the world." "He has a big ego, which is part of why he thinks he deserves all this power. But a lot of it is also insecurity," she added.

超划算(？)不附餐點熱水衛浴、回程機票需自備的免費太空之旅回來就有心情玩水，果然英雄的神經都特別的粗。

For over four years, dedicated fans of Marvel's X-Menand the franchise's longtime lead writer Chris Claremont have been asking one question of the publisher at any available opportunity: when exactly will fans see "X-Men: Ragazze In Fuga"? Written by Claremont and drawn by Italian artist Milo Manara for publisher Panini, the stand alone graphic novella (whose titles translates roughly to "X-Men: Girls In Flight") will finally make it's way to the U.S. this July with the title "X-Women," the publisher announced today.

"Panini has been Marvel's publisher overseas for quite some time," Claremont told CBR News of how the project came to be. "I've been doing a creator-owned project with them for a number of years that started around the same time [we signed on for this X-Men story] – 'Wanderers' – with Phil Briones. The first volume of that came out last year, and we're in the process of getting the second done. But they wanted to do some original material for the European market and I suspect establish some contact with our classic European artists by introducing them to the American market and American characters. It all sort of synergized together."

For the story of "X-Women," a major driving factor in deciding what kind of story Claremont would tell came from the selection of Manara, who's best known for his erotic work in Europe. And while "X-Women" doesn't fall into that category, the writer had no problems finding a way to tell a story with his characters that fit the artist's strengths. "He has a certain affection for presenting figure 'au naturale' as they say – or as they said when I was a kid, 'starkers,'" the writer laughed. "And the utterly intriguing, amusing thing is how close he comes throughout the book in terms of presenting the character...how he just gets as close as he can to crossing over Marvel's line of disapproval but not quite. At the same time, he gets away with presenting the characters in all the glory Milo loves to do so. And I think it's wonderful."

For his part though, Claremont had more to focus on than the female figures at hand – namely building a world and characters that were of a piece with the X-Men yet still fitting for the project and market. "In this instance, they wanted to do a book that showcases, I suppose, their perception of Manara's strengths, which involves women as opposed to men and reality as opposed to superheroes. From my perspective, if you're going to go to someone like Manara, you don't go with classic Jack Kirby space adventure superheroes with monsters and and freakish looking characters and monstrously sized figures in armor. You find a story that is exciting and well grounded. By the same token, we're speaking primarily to an audience that may not be as religiously familiar with the American canon in terms of characters and the world itself, so you want to create a physical environment that is accessible to the broadest possible collection of readers."


On hand for the story will be the titular X-Women including Rogue, Storm, Psylocke, Kitty Pryde and Rachel Summers. "In a primal sense, Kitty ends up being the viewpoint character because she very often is when I'm telling a story," Claremont explained. "The story starts with Rogue having a party at a Greek island mansion she inherited from Irene Adler, from Destiny. And things from there get very, very complicated. They get hijacked out to Genosha where we discover some things about Genosha that we've never discovered before. And much interesting and exciting adventures are had by all. A dastardly villain is revealed, a dastardly plot established. The characters are for the bulk of the story stripped of their super powers so they have to function as normal people and prove once again that the X-Men are just as dangerous without their powers as they are with them. And we thunder our way hopefully to a happy and satisfying ending. Oh...and along the way there's romance, pirates, severed heads galore, action-adventure and a magnificent sequence where Rogue discovers a skill for being a den mother/babysitter and doing lots of ironing. And Betsy discovers that she has a knack for feeding pigs."

Though while the story will obviously be built to some extent on the history the characters have with each other and with the Marvel Universe, the write pulled out overt references to past continuity and stories to make the book as fresh as he could for european readers. "It's intriguing and exciting for those who are familiar with the characters, but it also is interesting, irresistible and fun for those who aren't and vice versa. The thrust of the story is to get on, say your piece and get off. The reality is that it's only 46-pages, and there isn't a lot of time to establish the traditional bone fides. The more you throw in, the more you have to explain, the feel convoluted and restricted the story becomes. The idea was to take these half-dozen characters and put them in a reality that was exclusive unto itself because you're never quite sure [who's familiar with what.]

"When we did the book, the cast was reflective of the reality at the time in terms of how we presented Kitty and Storm and Rachel," he added of how the project doesn't necessarily need to fit into one specific place in continuity. "That's the reality of 2005, but the reality of 2010 is completely different. Storm is married. Rachel is no longer a part of the Uncanny team. Kitty no longer exists...at least this month. So you just have to accept that. By the same token, when I wrote this story Jean was dead...now she's sort of not depending on whether you're in 'Uncanny' territory or 'Forever' territory. So you want to keep things as uncomplicated and intriguing as you can. If you throw in any traditional tropes such as the mansion or other characters – which were in the earlier drafts, here Xavier and there Scott or whatever – the more complicated things become and the less relevant those characters and situations those ideas really feel to the story. It was a matter of pruning things down to the quintessential basics."

X-FORCE #25


STORY BY Craig Kyle, Christopher Yost
ART BY Clayton Crain
LETTERS BY Cory Petit
PUBLISHER: Marvel Comics
COVER PRICE: $2.99
RELEASE DATE: Wed, March 31st, 2010

NECROSHA ENDS HERE! Everything Destiny foretold has come true. The Black Queen has become the Dark Goddess, but X-Force's mission stands...KILL HER. But how do you fight a god with claws, knives and guns? And how many members will X-Force lose before the fight is over? PART SIX (of SIX)