Wizard #147 - Preview: New X-Men #151

Originally published in Wizard, the Comics Magazine #147, January 2004

Preview: New X-Men #151

Superstar artist Marc Silvestri returns to the X-fold for writer Grant Morrison's futuristic 'New X-Men' finale

by Mike Cotton

With his last New X-Men story, writer Grant Morrison plans to hit the Marc - Marc Silvestri that is.

Morrison closes out his epic run on New X-Men with a four-part tale alongside Image founder and former Uncanny X-Men artist Marc Silvestri that gives fans a glimpse 150 years into the X-Men's future.

Much like Jim Lee's recent return to monthly comics with Batman, Morrison sees Silvestri's work - beginning with January's New X-Men #151 - as a groundbreaking and kinetic explosion of creativity that will reintroduce fans to one of the hottest artists of the '90s.

"Marc's work has been an inspiration," says Morrison of his collaborator's detailed pencils. "His double page spread of the new X-Men of the future is my favourite X-Men drawing ever. I keep asking him to draw wilder and wilder stuff and he just keeps coming back with these incredible pages. I think it's the most exciting work he's done in years."

The Scottish writer, whose New X-Men ranks as arguably the most successful and acclaimed stint on an X-title since the legendary team of Chris Claremont and John Byrne, says his final arc will venture into a distant X-Men future where a crater stands in Manhattan's place, humanity's almost extinct and an explosion of weird new species has arisen to fill the evolutionary gap, making mutants only one of many bizarre and outlandish new life forms fighting for domination of the planet.

But just because the story takes place a century and a half after issue #150 doesn't mean there aren't some familiar faces for Silvestri to draw.

"Some of our old pals are still around, like Wolverine, Cassandra Nova and the Stepford Cuckoos." reveals Morrison. "Beak's grandson - Jerome Bohusk the second - has joined the team, and although he's a super badass, he lives in the shadow of his famous grandfather and is convinced Beak was the biggest, stronest, greatest hero there ever was. The main villain is the Biblical 'Beast' of Revalations. Who he really is and what he's up to will be revealed. the final arc brings to the fore some deeply hidden plot threads from early issues of New X-Men, so everything gets tied together in this one."

Now exclusive to DC Comics, Morrison says he can look back on his New X-Men work with great pride, safe in the knowledge that he gave the X-franchise a much-needed jolt, moved stories along without breaking anything and left before he ran out of things to say. Of course, while he knows writers come and go, there is one relationship he brought to New X-Men he hopes will stick.

"I hope Scott and Emma stay together for awhile," admits the writer. "I'm very fond of them both and I really think they need each other. The Scott and Jean thing is so completely over, but Scott and Emma together could lead the X-Men to a new era of... newness!"