Marvel Announces New Creative Team For New Mutants

News

With Zeb Wells off of the title now, and Mike Carey only being on as writer long enough to do Age of X, we knew that Marvel was going to be announcing a new creative team for the title soon, as there had been no indicators of a cancellation….especially since we got a teaser last week.

Starting with New Mutants #25 in May, Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (Annihilation, Nova, Guardians of the Galaxy, Heroes for Hire, Legion of Superheroes, Resurrection Man, and a list that keeps on going and going with awesome reads) will be the co-writers on the title, with Leandro Fernandez (Punisher: Max, Northlanders, Stormwatch P.H.D.) handling art on the initial arc, though editor Nick Lowe teased a second artist.

“One of my very, very favorite artists working in the business. I have worked with him before.”

During the conference call today the writers, as well as the editor, had quite a bit to say concerning what’s going to be going on with the franchise.

Nick Lowe quickly covered something that I was curious about, “At no point in this book or any other book do the New Mutants call themselves ‘the New Mutants. They are full-fledged X-Men.” This I like, this makes sense. If they were actually calling them “New Mutants” in the books I couldn’t fathom the team sticking around. They aren’t new, it’s just the name they were all brought in under. Same reason Dick, Donna, Vic, Gar, Kori, and Roy ran around as the “Titans” years later.

“This is an X-Man team in every respect except for the title of the book.” According to Abnett, who further specifies that the team will be handling the loose ends that the core teams don’t have the ability to cover, loose ends like Nate “X-Man” Grey. “He’s X-Royalty that needs to be relocated.”

The first arc is currently called “Unfinished Business”, but the writers are mum on what exactly it’s about, or how Nate gets involved. Opting to not spoil readers early.

They also discussed that they would not confirm or deny if there would be a last page twist like in their debut issues of Heroes for Hire, but they did seem ready and wiling to divulge that there will be a lot of hooking up in the title….which works, some book has to do it. Seriously, for as many titles as I’m reading right now, there’s not a lot of characters hooking up.

The team will apparently feature a few lineup changes, but nothing drastic, and there won’t be any Wolfsbane as she’s firmly in Peter David’s sandbox over in X-Factor and they’re going to respect that.

Look for it in May, I know I will be!

A lifelong reader and self proclaimed continuity guru, Grey is the Editor in Chief of Comics Nexus. Known for his love of Booster Gold, Spider-Girl (the real one), Stephanie Brown, and The Boys. Don't miss The Gold Standard.