Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, marvel, MVL, schism, wolverine, x-men

X-Men Schism: Respectfully We Informed You Of This Event At An Earlier Juncture… Ish

Published Sat, 02 Apr 2011 18:13:47 -0500

From February 9th, 2011

I'm told the members of the X-Men are planned split into two very distinct teams and books, each with a different moral outlook, aligning along the traditional Xavier/Magneto divide. Scott Summers, Cyclops, will lead the Xavier-minded team, while the Magneto-motivated will be led by… Wolverine!

Jason Aaron will be writing a four issue extra-sized mini about Wolverine's X-Men, with a different celebrity comics artist on each issue. Marc Silvestri is down for one and McNiven is another.

And look for companion mini-series focused on the setup of Scott's X-Men, potentially to be written by current Uncanny X-Men writer Kieron Gillen.

And of course, Wolverine will stay in X-Force… and Avengers… and Moon Knight… and Wolverine… and…

From March 16th, 2011

Well, at the X-Men panel at C2E2 you may expect to learn that the split will be as a result of Scott Summers continuing to want to unite all mutants separately from the human population. He started doing this on the Utopia island, but this will be a, for want of a better word, permanent solution.

Logan will finally kick off against this, insisting that mutants should integrate into the rest of humanity. And will lead the X-Men team that leaves to promote just that.

This is reminiscent of the Xavier/Magneto split but directly reflects the age old problem of population management. Do you isolate or integrate? At extremes you have South Africa and Israel. But even in the melting pots of New York and to a lesser extent London, you have ghettos andareas of ethnic concentration, poth physically and mentally as cultures split and segregate.

And that's where X-Men is headed. Which side are you on? Reading Generation Hope earlier today, I know which side Hope is on…

And now from WonderCon today;

X-MEN: SCHISM #1 (of 5)

THE BIGGEST MOMENT IN X-MEN HISTORY IS HERE!

This is where it's all been heading since M-Day and in one controversial moment, Cyclops and Wolverine make decisions that will forever tear the X-Men apart! Superstar writer Jason Aaron, along with a group of superstar artists (Carlos Pacheco, Frank Cho, Daniel Acuna, Alan Davis & Adam Kubert), presents the X-Men mini-series that breaks mutankind and sends shockwaves through the Marvel Universe.

Lines will be drawn and when the sand clears, the X-Men will stand together no more! That's right—the X-Men, as you know them, are OVER!

And from Marvel;

"We'll see pretty much everybody in X-MEN SCHISM," Aaron promises. "It's a huge cast; all of the X-Men play a part of this. Certainly it's very much about these two men, Scott and Logan, but also some other important characters as well. Some of the kids play a role in this, like the Five Lights from GENERATION HOPE. We're also having the return of a character from Grant Morrison's NEW X-MEN run that's coming back in a big way. We're also going to have a brand new Hellfire Club that plays a major role in this."

A thorn in the X-Men's side for years, the Hellfire Club has always been steeped in tradition and featured tenured villain such as Sebastian Shaw and even Emma Frost. However, expect the latest iteration of the group to buck all previous trends.

"It's a brand new take on the Hellfire Club concept," Aaron says emphatically

Aaron, check, five issues not four, different star artist per issue, check, not Silvestri or McNiven, and not specifically based on Wolverine's X-Men as opposed to Cyclops.

So not bad. Not great. But not too far off…