Posted in: Comics | Tagged: kieron gillen, x-men

What If… Kieron Gillen Had Continued To Write The X-Men

Published Tue, 17 Oct 2017 10:30:42 -0500

Superstar writer Kieron Gillen took time out of his busy schedule of starring in Jumanji and casually having drinks at the pub with Bleeding Cool Rumormonger-in-Chief Rich Johnston to reveal what he might have done if he'd continued to write Uncanny X-Men. Gillen's run on the title ended with AvX: Consequences, but he had other plans in store, as he revealed in a Tumblr post which we've repurposed as a clickbait article.

Scott continuing the schism, but moreso – I was more comfortable with Scott as a "bad guy", by the end – I was going to have them in Asteroid M to really lean into it. Emma staying on the team despite the fact she and Scott were no longer together, and lots of tension here. End of the schism for me would have been a confrontation between Scott and Logan's sides, which Scott wins, and then Emma stabs him in the back at the worst moment takes Scott's whole organisation (and trainees) away from him, going full "villain." I half imagined her own school in Latveria as her new status quo. Scott was a weakling… and he'd made her feel weak. For my idea of Emma, that was entirely unforgivable. Emma is nothing if not her pride.

Gillen said that he never discussed these plans with an editor, since he knew he'd be leaving the title, so they were very early ideas.

Oh – most obviously UNIT's plans would have come to fruition and we'd have had a nice big plot ending with a pretty nifty death scene. There was at least one fight scene I wanted to write – UNIT had hacked all of SWORD's orbital defences way back in issue 9, so I was going to have him doing full on AKIRA-esque orbital bombardment at will.

Probably some more Sinister stuff, but less so.

What do you think? Would you have preferred that Gillen kept writing X-Men? Would you like to see some of his ideas explored? When is the next time he's going to the pub with Rich Johnston? We'll learn the answer to that last one soon, as Rich can't help but bring it up constantly in conversation.