Posted in: Comics, Comics Publishers, Current News, Marvel Comics, X-Men | Tagged: from the ashes, krakoa, tom brevoort

Tom Brevoort On The X-Throuple, Promises New Villains, What Of Magik?

Last week, Tom Brevoort wrote in his Substack newsletter about how Wolverine, Jean Grey and Cyclops were never a throuple in the Age Of Krakoa.

Last week, Executive Vice President and new X-Men Group Editor at Marvel Comics, Tom Brevoort wrote in his Substack newsletter about how Wolverine, Jean Grey and Cyclops were never a throuple in the Age Of Krakoa. And it kind of blew up. Bleeding Cool jumped on, naturally, offering counter-evidence. And he got a lot of letters. So this week, as well as talking lots about X-stuff, again addressed the issue of the throuple. Polyamory on the island of Krakoa. Again and again…

"If anything wound up X-Fandom last week, Zack, it was my comments about this situation. And I had a couple people come back and show me assorted pages and moments from the X-Books to support their position that such a "thruple" relationship was in force between Cyclops, Jean Grey and Wolverine. And you're entitled to read anything the way you want to, of course. But speaking of just the letter of what is on the page, rather than the spirit, I'm still unconvinced that there's enough evidence to support this position within the stories themselves. And most of those examples came from very early in the Krakoa era, and haven't been reflected in more recent times, not that I was shown, anyway. So I'm not saying that it didn't happen—everybody gets to have their own head canon about whatever they like. But I do still hold to my original thesis, which is that while Jonathan may have cheekily made a reference or two to such a situation in interviews, there isn't a whole lot to support it as a thing within the stories themselves. Your mileage may vary."

"I don't know that a house diagram really gives you much of anything here, nor Jean saying heartfelt farewells to both men upon her impending demise. So, sure, there's still that "hot tub" scene in X-FORCE #10, but that's one scene in five years. Again, I don't want to litigate matters here, but that's hardly a definitive and unassailable batch of evidence—especially when you consider how many years we're talking about here.

"You guys are really hung up on this, eh, Yoyo? Lots of questions about it this week. But I don't know why you'd think that anything is being made non-canonical. If anything, I think what I was saying is that there's precious little that's there on the page and canonical in the first place. But any of this will be addressed in the pages of the stories—my answers here are no more canonical than Jonathan's in his interviews or whatever."

My take is that Tom is basically right; it really wasn't established on the page, and as time went on, sly references were fewer and fewer. The lesson is for comic book creators trying to push representation of whatever form, just put it on the page, publish and be damned. Whether that

It may still get retconned away, but it will be a lot harder. If the X-team really wanted a throuple between Scott, Jean and Logan, they could have expressed that in black and white. And then coloured by Marte Gracia.

Although that was a fun one. As for From The Ashes, Tom Brevoort does underline one change coming;

"one of the more difficult things about transitioning away from the Krakoa era is just how many characters that previously would have been considered villains are now just neighbors. Makes it hard to find ways to create physical conflicts between characters in the manner they may have done pre-Krakoa. But as much as anything, that's why you'll see a bevy of new villains showing up as well.

And that then Krakoan philosophy and language will continue…

"I think you'll find those themes coming up in a lot of different titles in different ways, Shaun. But possibly the most overtly in NYX, in which Prodigy is teaching a college course on that subject. And while we likely won't use it as often as was done during the Krakoa era, the Krakoa alphabet still remains a thing, and it will be used whenever relevant."

And if you wanted more Tom Brevoort controversy, at the end of his Substack, he links to another column of his from 2003, reprinted in 2014, that we had previously highlighted about why he shouldn't edit the X-Men books. Or at least why you shouldn't want him to do so. "The things you like about the book and the characters aren't the things that work for me. (I'll tell you this much: were she not already dead, I'd delight in dropping a concrete block on Illyana Rasputin's head, so annoying did I find her Magik persona.)" Then, in 2014, adding "Illyana is alive again these days. Joy."

Bleeding Cool gossip had it last year that Magik would be a prominent character in From The Ashes, and solicits seem to suggest that is indeed the case…

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