With House of X and Powers of X steaming towards their close (or vamping towards the close, if you’re Mister Sinister), Marvel is starting to ramp up its promotion of the post-relaunch event X-Men line of comics. They’ve relased a teaser trailer for the “Dawn of X” lineup of books– X-Men, Marauders, Excalibur, NewMutants, X-Force, and Fallen Angels – that is mostly covers but has a handful of preview images. If you’re anything like me (which, let’s face it, you absolutely are), you are freeze framing the video to try and suss out clues about the end of HoXPoX from the preview art. Because I value your time, I went ahead and did that for you.
The first book featured is the flagship X-title, X-Men, from Jonathan Hickman and Leinil Francis Yu (most recently the penciler of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ very good Captain America relaunch). The preview art consists of the Summers family reunion cover, with Corsair, Vulcan, Havok, Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Wolverine, aka the rumored 43rd Summers Brother from the gossip page of Powers of X #4. Hickman has said in interviews that this series is going to be one-and-done stories with a rotating team of X-people, but it is interesting to note the Orchis logos on the arms of the people being zapped by Storm. Orchis is the interagency anti-mutant strike force that killed Cyclops, Jean and Logan (among others) on their Dyson Mastermold next to the sun in House of X #4.
The next book is Marauders, by Matteo Lolli (Asgardians of the Galaxy) and Gerry Duggan (Infinity Wars). This book has a team of mutants – Kitty Pryde, Pyro, Bishop, Iceman, Storm – doing some light piracy on behalf of Emma Frost’s Hellfire Trading Company. There’s nothing revealing in the art here, but it does look pretty nice.
Following that is Excalibur. Tini Howard (Thanos) and Marcus To (Age of X-Man: NextGen) have Betsy Braddock taking over as Captain Britain, and her team (Rogue, Gambit, Rictor, Jubilee and Apocalypse) gather together to explore Otherworld. We see a woman who certainly looks villainous, if what my superhero color wheel tells me green means is accurate, swirling a crystal ball. Could it be Morgan le Fay? Roma? Saturnyne? Does it matter, after what’s being done to Apocalypse in HoXPoX? Because it doesn’t to me, I’m buying.
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Next up is New Mutants, from Hickman, Ed Brisson (Extermination) and Rod Reis (Exiles). The New Mutants will be heading off into space for a mission (to hang out with Cannonball, I bet), and the solicits said they’d be meeting up with the Starjammers. What the solicits didn’t tell us that this preview art does is that Illyana and Raza have a swordfight and it’s DOPE. Also, Mondo is in the book, and considering his power set (organic matter absorption and like, dirt teleportation) and background (he’s a former henchperson and plant golem spy for Black Tom Cassidy, who is now in charge of Krakoan defense, according to Powers of X #4) it’s not particularly surprising that he’s around.
read more: How Marvel is Redefining the Future of the X-Men
After that is Szymon Kudranski (The Punisher) and Bryan Edward Hill (American Carnage) on Fallen Angels. The title is a throwback to an ’80s miniseries that was primarily about lobsters. This one has a resurrected and re-bodied Kwannon teaming up with young Cable and X-23, and if I’m seeing this preview art correctly, Magneto riding Fantomex’s external nervous system/flying saucer, EVA.
Finally, we get a look at Ben Percy (Wolverine: The Long Night) and Joshua Cassara (Falcon) on X-Force. This book is going to be about the mutant intelligence service, a Krakoan CIA, with one side working on gathering and interpreting data – Beast, Jean Grey, Sage, and Black Tom – and one side acting on their intelligence – Wolverine, Kid Omega, and Domino. The preview art here has Wolverine and Beast being attacked by 30-50 mutant hogs.
Go on below and see the video for yourself. And for more on what’s next for the X-Men at Marvel, stick with Den of Geek!