Marvel have revealed what their ‘X-Termination’ teaser image is all about: a crossover storyline between X-Treme X-Men, Astonishing X-Men, and Age of Apocalypse. Spinning around the fact that there are currently a series of different Wolverines being used right now (along with a couple of Nightcrawlers) the story will be a cross-dimensional adventure between the three books. There will be an opening and closing one-shot, with each series crossing over for one issue, for a total story in five parts.
CBR have interviewed Marjorie Liu about her side of the story in Astonishing X-Men, which will be drawn by Matteo Buffagani. The essence of the story will revolve around Age of Apocalypse’s Nightcrawler – last seen on the run in the current arc of Uncanny X-Force – attempting to get back to his homeworld, now he’s killed the men who betrayed him. With the ‘regular’ Wolverine on her team, it looks like things will be getting very personal for the team-members of Astonishing X-Men. Also, Gambit will be reunited with Sage, which is secretly the most exciting thing about this part of the story.
Newsarama spoke with David Lapham about his side of the story in Age of Apocalypse, which the article suggests will be drawn by Roberto De La Torre. In this interview, we get a little more of a look into how the teams will mingle together, as well as the structure of the story. Lapham will write an ‘Alpha’ issue starting things in March – as is standard for Age of Apocalypse-based storylines – to set up the crossover, before ending with an Omega issue in April. There’s no details here about what it’ll be like when Sage meets up with Jean Grey, although early speculation suggests that it’ll be one of the most exciting things about this story.
Nobody seems to have interviewed Greg Pak yet. Poor old Greg Pak.
Here’s an interesting little addition to the discussion of the upcoming superhero wedding in Astonishing X-Men. Marvel have been saying that this was a storyline they’d had in the works for over a year, and had been planning for longer. But as writer Marjorie Liu only started work on Astonishing X-Men only a few months ago, how could that be true?
Well, it appears that the storyline was planned to be the second storyline for Greg Pak/Fred Van Lente/Dale Eaglesham’s Alpha Flight series, which concluded… hey, around a year ago, actually. That eight-issue maxiseries had a particularly strange behind-the-scenes history if you recall; it was first announced as a limited series, then officially upgraded to an ongoing…. then downgraded again as part of the ‘cull anything without Avengers or X-Men in the title’ massacre of 2011.
Ah, 2011.
Writing on his forum, Eaglesham states, simply, that
This wedding was in the works on AF
as part of a more general sigh he makes at Marvel’s decision to take the storyline – which would’ve played out last year, and brought attention to this low-selling book – and give it to an X-Men book instead instead.
Alpha Flight fans may have enjoyed the book (and especially Marrina!), but there’s always a lower readership when a book is known to be a limited series. Knowing there’s a clear ending which may or may not be worth the previous seven issues, readers will just wait for the trade instead, if they choose to read it at all. So instead, Marvel decided to buckle down on ancillary titles over the past year, and focus centrally on their two big franchises.
As Eaglesham notes, the addition of a gay marriage in a newly-ongoing Alpha Flight series would’ve certainly given the book more mainstream attention, and brought more readers to the series.
Also, gay marriage has been legal in Canada for YEARS.
But oh well, what could have been. This does also, interestingly, suggest that the central purpose of Marjorie Liu’s Astonishing X-Men series is to tie up dangling plot threads, rather than create new ones. We’re also dealing with some unresolved story ideas from Liu’s own cancelled X-23 series in Astonishing at the moment, along with hints that we’re soon going to see a resolution to Karma’s long-running sub-plot picked up from Zeb Wells’ run on New Mutants.
Shame the wedding won’t be happening in Canada, but at least this means Dazzler will be able to attend now.
I’m guessing this will wrap up both X-treme X-Men and AoA. It could be an end for Astonishing also because although sales are decent, for an X-Men team book they are pretty awful.
@ Mesektet – here’s hoping. Marvel has a great X-Men book (Wolverine and the X-Men) and a pretty good one (All-New), getting rid of some of the dead weight would help rehab the line.
I am so glad that this crossover story involves X-titles I do not buy!
I still buy 3 or 4 others, of course…
Oh, phoo. The lack of cross-over nonsense is one of the things I enjoy about Astonishing.
Crossing over the three least essential X-Men titles is a great way to interest nobody.
“Also, Gambit will be reunited with Sage, which is secretly the most exciting thing about this part of the story.” –> And here’s plenty of reason to buy the x-over, if it doesn’t happen I’ll be mighty pissed-off.
“Like Sabretooth, she was apparently rescued, revived, or separated, as she was later seen helping Dazzler and an alternate reality Wolverine rescue a kid version of Nightcrawler from the robots of yet another alternate reality.”
And now “Gambit will be reunited with Sage”… it’s about time