Welcome, X-Fans, to another uncanny edition of X-Men Monday at AIPT!
A lot of X-Fans love Generation X. I know this because I receive a lot of X-Fan questions. It’s one reason why so many readers were overjoyed to see characters like Synch and M shine during the Krakoan era. It’s also why I’d regularly see questions about the possibility of trade paperbacks collecting the original run or a new Generation X series during that same period. And while we haven’t gotten the latter, we have the next best thing with the Astonishing X-Men Infinity Comic, exclusive to Marvel Unlimited.
In the scrolling follow-up to X-Men: From the Ashes Infinity Comic, rotating writers Alex Paknadel and Tim Seeley team with artists like Phillip Sevy and Edoardo Audino to tell new tales featuring Banshee, Husk, and Skin, as well as Juggernaut and even Captain America. And, best of all, Alex and Tim took time out of their busy schedules to sit down for a joint interview to discuss the magic of Astonishing X-Men and tease what comes next. Let’s see what they have to say.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
AIPT: Welcome back to X-Men Monday, Alex and Tim! Neither of you are strangers to writing X-Men stories. But for those who haven’t been reading Astonishing X-Men on Marvel Unlimited, what, in your opinion, sets it apart from other X-comics?
Alex Paknadel: To be honest, the thing I really like about it — and this might sound paradoxical — is the lack of scope. You get to tell very intimate, emotionally resonant X-Men stories, which have always been my favorite X-Men stories. I mean, this is a controversial take, but I genuinely think Weapon X is probably the greatest Marvel story ever. If you look under the hood, it’s a very intimate story — there isn’t a lot of scale. People elsewhere have said X-Men, at its heart, is a kind of elevated soap opera, and it doesn’t get much more soap opera than at this scale. So it’s kind of perfect for me. It’s just very intimate stakes, which I think suits mutants very well.
Tim Seeley: We talked about a lot of ways to go about it when we started, and then it kind of evolved into a pretty small cast. It’s really focusing primarily on three characters, but then it’s also the world they interact with as they do these investigations, essentially. So we don’t need this sprawling team, but you get to see how they interact. And then, as they interact with other characters, we bring them into the arcs to kind of catch you up as to where they are — from Juggernaut to Generation X characters. We have all the toys available, and then we just use them when they fit our narrative.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
AIPT: Now, aside from doing this interview together, how do you two collaborate when it comes to Astonishing X-Men? Or are you just telling your own stories on a rotating basis?
Alex: We’re taking turns, but we both have a lot of visibility into each other’s scripts. We went away at the start and built a platform that allowed us both to have a level of independence — building our own stories without detracting from what anyone else was doing. So we’re sharing toys and communicating regularly.
Tim: I mean, it’s a ton of work to do these, so to do it by yourself and have these six pages due every week, essentially, would probably kill both Alex and me. If we’re two-handed, though, we get to take some of that workload away. But we also just get to riff on each other’s stuff. And I think we have similar interests, but not the same. So we’re getting something that has little bits of each of us that’s not something as a whole we would’ve done by ourselves.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
AIPT: On the art front, as you do more and more of these scrolling stories, do you find your approach to scripting evolves? And Tim, as an artist yourself, do you approach Astonishing X-Men scripts differently than you would a Rogue: The Savage Land script?
Tim: Oh, yes, quite a lot. I mean, the biggest part is the panels are all the same size. When you go into a full-length comic and just about anything that’s not one of these digital scrolling comics, you’re primarily thinking of where you’re opening this up. Where are you using the page turns? What’s the splash? What’s the most important panel on the page? It’s the entire driver of how you set up these units of pages. And here, they’re all the same size. I think both Alex and I have figured out ways to get creative with it, but the restraint of it means all the panels are of equal importance, essentially. I think that’s why we settled on doing more intimate and emotional stories — because of those limitations.
So it’s really good for character moments. What it’s not good for is a massive scope of where a character is in relation to other stuff. So I think that focus changes just about everything about how you write it, but it doesn’t leave you without tools to make good stories.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Alex: On the previous iteration of X-Men Unlimited, when I cycled in every now and then, I knew I was on for three weeks, so it was time to kind of do a couple backflips if I could. But once you’re doing it regularly, I would say I got less tricksy with it. I started trying to do fewer formalist things and focused my efforts on the story.
Tim: Yeah, I teach at a college, so I see college kids reading these comics. This is the stuff younger people read. So I see them reading it, and it informs the idea that I can’t get cute. They just want some great stories with characters they like in between classes or in the bathroom, you know? So I tend to think that way. How do we get this really fast delivery of a story, which is not something I would necessarily try to do in a full 20-page comic.
AIPT: Alex, you kicked off Astonishing X-Men with a mini-Generation X reunion. Despite being one of the oldest X-Men characters, Banshee doesn’t get consistent love these days. What made you want to zoom in on him post-Krakoa?
Alex: I’m trying to kind of cycle through and give characters fairly equal weight as the series progresses, but certainly, yeah, Banshee’s the sort of focal point of the first arc. And I think a lot of it really arose from conversations I had with Declan Shalvey, who’s a very good friend and always felt like Banshee hasn’t really gotten his flowers, which I think is very fair. He’s a fascinating character because he’s a former cop and a former Interpol agent. He’s actually a very dark character with a very murky past, who I think can sometimes be presented in sort of more of a folksy way. So I really wanted to lean into this sort of black ops side of Banshee. I thought that was very interesting.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Also, one of the things that became abundantly clear as we were doing a lot of background reading is what this guy’s gone through in the last 10 years, particularly on Krakoa. He got killed a bunch of times. He got resurrected a bunch of times. He was worn as a skin suit. He did not have a good time. And I think what’s really interesting about him in relation to a lot of other mutants is that generally, on that island, he had a pretty crappy time. So Krakoa doesn’t occupy the same mental real estate for him as it does for a lot of other mutants. A lot of other mutants look back on Krakoa with affection, whereas for him, it was just a site of endless trauma. He’s dealing with mutants becoming a sort of diaspora again in a very different way. So I wanted to have a protagonist, particularly for that first arc of Astonishing X-Men, who is almost more jaded than the other mutants who’ve had to come back and is much more cold-eyed about the experience of Krakoa.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
This is kind of a mystery-of-the-week book, so I wanted a very grizzled detective type. Tim and I discussed this a bunch and Banshee just fit the bill perfectly. He’s our Columbo.
Tim: Screaming Columbo. We like the dichotomy of him being a sort of tough-guy cop. He’s a detective, right? He can look things up, but he’s also a teacher. Whether he wanted to be that or not, he’s sort of a mentor. He’s doing these two roles for himself, which is that he’s compelled to solve these crimes and help people. But he’s also kind of compelled to say, “Well, I don’t know if everybody came through the experience like I did, but I’m going to make sure these kids, who I feel very responsible for, are OK.” Husk and Skin are the ones we specifically have around. And we can bring in the other characters as we go along. So beyond characters like Mondo, we see other young mutant characters — not necessarily just from Generation X — but just how everybody’s dealing with the case that’s haunting these particular three characters.
AIPT: Well, speaking of Mondo, X-Fan Mia Fadid wanted to know if any Generation X alumni appearing elsewhere, such as Monet, Synch, Chamber, Jubilee, or Emma Frost, might eventually join Banshee, Husk, and Skin.
Alex: Funny you should mention that…
AIPT: The plot thickens… I assume you two were fans of Generation X?
Tim: Oh, for sure. Absolutely. It was like the book of our era. We had Generation X and Gen 13 from Image. There was a moment of these hip, teenage superhero books. I was 17 when Generation X came out, so yeah, I was all about it. And that sweet Chris Bachalo art that I just love so much. I was like, why is the guy from Sandman drawing an X-Men book? This is so weird.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Alex: I was a similar age and I think it was the Bachalo art as well. That weird kind of importation of a sort of Vertigo aesthetic, but also just belonging to a time. And I think we’re kind of there again, where X-books set the aesthetic tone for the entire industry — everything else follows. It was just a beautiful book and as soon as the opportunity arose and we were discussing who was available for the roster, it sort of emerged quite organically, and just seeing the reaction online shows the appetite is definitely there.
AIPT: Tim, X-Fan The Living Memory 1407 Greymalkin Lane said Juggernaut teaming with Captain America is a unique pairing we don’t see often. What inspired this dynamic?
Tim: Well, I’ll be honest, the first comic I ever got when I was a kid was Amazing Spider-Man #230 — it’s hanging on my wall — and featured Spider-Man and Juggernaut together. So originally, I wanted to do a sequel with Spider-Man and Juggernaut fighting an unbeatable foe. But when it came time to write it, we couldn’t use Spider-Man, so I had to reconfigure it.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
But then it kind of worked great because Alex had given us this sort of framework for how these characters were dealing with a change in their life. And Black Tom seemed like a perfect version of that because he was someone who had been a manipulative bad guy. He had also been a guy who sort of bossed around the Juggernaut, making it seem like they were friends. So that made total sense. Then, with Captain America as the guest star, you have the moral anchor who always believes the same thing. So we have Cain, who’s the guy who came back and did OK, Tom was the guy who came back and he’s a wreck, and Cap is the guy who didn’t go anywhere and is just watching this all happen.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
AIPT: Tim, both your “Agents of T.H.A.N.K.S” story arc in X-Men: From the Ashes Infinity Comic and “The Unbeatable Foe” shine a light on the subtler ramifications of the fall of Krakoa. Is that a coincidence, or is Krakoa just the idea engine that keeps giving?
Tim: Yeah, I think that’s what we find interesting. I mean, especially with our politics as they are now — someone’s paradise is someone else’s Hell, right? And that’s just what keeps happening — there’s this sort of whiplash every time. We had it this way and now we’re going to punish you for making us live through that. Krakoa kind of feels like that. It worked so great for a certain population, but then you took away all that support. You took away that identity, and you took away the safety net and all those things that those characters had. Now they have to go back to a world that’s even more suspicious of them because they took their toys and went home.
That’s the part that’s most interesting to me — how that changes all these characters who were bad guys alongside good guys. Well, now you’re home. A guy like Black Tom, who is not a good person, had a place that could forgive him or help fix him, and now it can’t do anything for him. I mean, that’s interesting. I feel like that’s something we can really play with.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Alex: I think that was articulated beautifully. Yes to all of that. My interest in it definitely stemmed from the idea of a returned diaspora. Particularly the young. Going into this, I was just sort of thinking, well, what’s it like to be a young mutant, where you had this kind of perfect society, and it’s suddenly been ripped away from you. If you’re Banshee, Magneto, or Xavier’s generations, you’ve seen a lot of these cycles. There’s been Mutant Town, there’s been Genosha. But if you’re a younger mutant, that was kind of it. And what do you do now?
It’s funny, you have to approach every story from a position of empathy, but I’m sort of trying to put myself in a head that’s 25 years younger and think, what’s it like to have to come home with your tail between your legs when you’ve given your passport away perhaps? What does that feel like? How do you adjust? How does your community treat you when a couple years back you went to found a perfect community? “See you later, I’m never going to see you guys again” — and then you come back. The first story with Paige and Lewis was kind of addressing that.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
That stuff is endlessly fascinating to me, to the point that while I love the Krakoan era, I think the fallout from the Krakoan era is just as fascinating.
Tim: I think Krakoa works great for a certain kind of story. People living in a sci-fi utopian society is not our world at all. But then to have them come back to a crappy apartment, rent, and just life — that is more interesting to me, for sure.
Alex: There’s a story coming up where it’s basically a ton of mutants who are trying to get jobs now and they can do stuff that unionized workers can’t do. What happens then? These ramifications are endless. One of the things that the Astonishing X-Men format allows you to do is really get granular with this stuff.
AIPT: Alex, Marvel will be collecting more of your X-Men: From the Ashes Infinity Comic stories in the upcoming X-Men: Demons and Death one-shot. Your Omega Red arc featured in that one-shot resonated with a lot of fans of the character, and X-Fan Sam Walker wanted to know if there’s a chance we could see him again in Astonishing X-Men.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Alex: No plans in Astonishing X-Men. I don’t know if a shepherd’s crook is going to come in from stage left at any point, but I’m really trying to write more Omega Red. Like, I would love to, so I’ll just put that out into the universe.
AIPT: As we wrap up, let’s look ahead — Tim, what can you share about that Cassandra Nova 3K stinger at the end of Astonishing X-Men #12? Are we getting a glimpse at your next Astonishing X-Men arc, the future of Jed MacKay’s X-Men, or maybe both?
Tim: The Cassandra Nova and X-Cutioner stuff is a thread that goes through all of our stories — every one we’ve written so far, anyway.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
And in the one I have coming up after Alex’s next arc, we get some good stuff in Chicago. And then, we have an arc that brings back the Mutant Liberation Front. It’s essentially the murder of a bunch of mutant influencers, and it brings back the MLF.
AIPT: And Alex, X-Fan Firena4Red said with Theresa Cassidy trapped in Graymalkin Prison, are there plans for Banshee to become aware or involved with what’s going on at Graymalkin, especially given what’s being done to his daughter?
Alex: He’s been thrown off the scent a little bit. He’s actively looking for Siryn, but for one reason or another, she does not want to be found. But I can say that when they do meet again, I think I’m safe to say that it will be, at the very least, hinted at in Astonishing X-Men first. But they are on a collision course, and we will make good on that promise to the reader. A meeting is coming.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
AIPT: And on that note, thanks for stopping by X-Men Monday, Alex and Tim! Remember, X-Fans, new issues of Astonishing X-Men go live on Marvel Unlimited every (X-Men) Monday.
Now, as for this week’s X-Men Monday eXclusives, I already mentioned that upcoming X-Men: Demons and Death one-shot above. Here’s the cover and solicitation.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
X-MEN: DEMONS AND DEATH #1
Written by Alex Paknadel
Art by Phillip Sevy
Cover by Mike McKone
FOLLOW HAVOK AND OMEGA RED’S JOURNEYS FROM KRAKOA INTO X-FACTOR AND SENTINELS!
Deep in the heart of the Limbo Embassy, Havok and the Goblin Queen sit surrounded by the secrets they keep from each other. And amid the cold mountains of Russia, the man called Omega Red returns home for the first time. Can these bloodstained heroes of Krakoa hold onto their new lives when old demons come calling?
Collecting X-MEN: FROM THE ASHES #7-12 for the first time in print!
And finally, three eXclusive preview images from upcoming Astonishing X-Men issues.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
In the next edition of X-Men Monday: Writer Jason Loo returns to discuss his upcoming Concert of Champions one-shot.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Until next time, X-Fans, stay exceptional!
