LWW: In the very long-term, which of your characters do you think are most likely to become fully-fledged X-Men?
CK: X-23 already had a romp in Uncanny , she's kind of already been an upper classman. I don't think she's going anywhere, I think she'll be in X-Men sooner or later and I almost feel like she's already have that opportunity and she kinda went down to help this book and help these kids although age and emotion-wise I think she's better suited for the New X-Men I think she is a X-Man at this point.
I think Surge deserves it, I think Hellion deserves it. As I think about it, I think all the kids we're focussing on deserve it, I think they all deserve that respect, and I think the others can get there too. If you told me I had to make Wallflower an X-Men I just don't think I could, I don't think I could get my head around it. For me, she did nothing for me, she literally was a Wallflower, Tag, no, nuh-uh, never. DJ unless a rave broke out, why?
Ohhhhhh, that's harsh. [Disapproving] Ohhhhhhh
[laughs] I gotta be honest, this is why we made our choices.
Dazzler's managed perfectly fine.
[laughs] You're all you killed these characters, you don't care about who made them' first off it's not my responsibility to care about anyone except the characters we're writing, but people disregard the fact that we held on to so many of the other characters that were created by the previous creative team. We did that because we think they're awesome, so I make no apologies about saying that there were ones we didn't care about, and [laughs] we rode them on a bus and blew them up, it's done, but we love these others that we're focusing on.
We're trying to make these others everyone else's favourites. So you don't like it? So you disagree? I killed em. Oh well. But the ones we love, we're doing great things with. If they move forward, if they keep growing beyond the work Chris and I are doing today, I think it's only a testament to where they began, with their creators, where we've kept pushing them along, and that they always had the potential to be spectacular, so I think any of the guys on our team deserve to be full-fledged X-Men.
I think it's going to be tough for them all to make it, I think if I had to put money on the table who has the best chance, I think Cess has a great chance, I think Dust has a great chance and I think
Hellion's tough, I think his character's there but I think his powers are pretty common place and that's what worries me with him. Surge, I think she's got a great look and a good attitude but again I don't know if she's got a power so unique that she can just transcend characters that have similar attributes. Rockslide, as much as we love him, does he have a chance? I don't know, I dunno. I think if he does he could be that guy who would be the first red coat on a new team, he could be easily killed. It's just tough, I don't know, but I think Cess and Dust have the best chance of all the old characters that we came in on because they're both very unique, very cool, and there's nothing else like them out there right now, so they've both got a very good chance, I think.
When I look back through the different generations of training classes New Mutants, X-Force, Generation X why do you think so few of the characters have successfully graduated to the senior teams?
Brrrrrrrrh. This is where you've got to be careful what you say so you're not poo-pooing other people's work. This is just one guy's opinion, but a lot of them not great; and the other side is, if they didn't connect with the more current creators out there doing stuff, they don't stand a chance. I'd love to write a New Mutants book, so would Chris, why? Because we love those characters, we love those old guys, it would be great to do a series of those old guys brought back together after all these years apart and try and put it back together and how do you, so much has happened to these kids, they're just not the kids they were when they started. When you look at these stories, all these ongoing threads, so whatever happened to them definitely didn't end in the pages of New Mutants , there's a lot more story to tell, but our passion for them is what we believe makes them valuable now, and of course like you, many share that opinion.
The problem is that a lot of the people I think you're talking about don't matter to enough people or to the people who could keep them alive and important. It all comes down to personal taste, but if I was excited about them we would find a way to put them in a book and do something with them and hopefully light a fire under them and get people excited about them. That's the trick. If it matters to the right people and by right I mean the people making comics then they've got a chance to keep going. I'll read books but if I don't see characters I love, it may have a X in the title but I don't see the characters I care about so for me it's not necessarily a X-book. It's tricky. I don't know if there's enough people that read our kids to give them the validity they're gonna need to move on to a X-Men or an Uncanny .
As far as Chris and I are concerned, hey, they are X-Men. It says New X-Men on the title, as far as I can read, that's X-Men, they're X-Men. They may suck, they may stumble and fumble all the way to the finish line but they're X-Men and they're gonna do the job, it may just not be as pretty as what the Astonishing X-Men might do. So for us, they're X-Men, we don't need to see Uncanny or anything about 'X-Men' for them to matter and we'll kick their ass all the way to get them there and we'll continue to do so.
You get these die-hard fans who say who's gonna make it? Who's gonna move on?' and if you want that for them then you don't respect them enough to say [getting enthusiastic] they're X-Men now. I'm not saying they're good, I'm just saying they're X-Men. We'd rather have the B-team because it's a lot more fun to write the unpolished heroes than the ones who nail it every time.
Given your love for the first generation of New Mutants and that so many of them turned up as teachers at the Institute for this generation, are we going to see more of those teachers involved in the stories, even in cameos?
This is a personal taste thing, it's my opinion, I don't like them as teachers, I don't want them as teachers. It's kinda like the Batman Beyond series I'm a huge Bruce Timm fan, but I never liked the idea of Bruce Wayne teaching a younger Batman. To me, Bruce Wayne's Batman, I don't want to see him in the role of teacher. Return of The Joker is one of my favourite direct to DVDs ever, I'm not saying this stuff isn't good, it was great, all I'm saying is for my personal preference, I don't like seeing my heroes instructing someone else. Having these guys as teachers although it's an interesting role for them I want them to be X-Men, I want them to be New Mutants again, I want them to be heroes, I want them to be in the action, not in the classroom.
Where I want to see them is back in costume, put back together, dealing with whatever issues have been created in the years since all of that, and have them put the pieces together and be a team again. What unresolved issues are waiting for them to reunite so they can be dealt with? To me that's much more exciting than when I was a kid I couldn't control my powers' that's the way I look at it. It makes them too old and too darn stuff for me, when in all honesty they're pretty close in age because kids age so slow in comics. I'd rather them be heroes again rather than instructors, and that's why I'm not crazy about the X-Men being instructors either. You're an X-Man, what are you doing, shouldn't you be saving someone, not teaching class? Don't waste your time on me, I'll get it'. We also use the other X-Men sparingly Emma's great for us, Scott's great for us, but they bring a great conflict to the whole group and a whole new level of interaction. They're not just and in today's class' and who wants that? And people do, so when I say that I'm only speaking for me. As far as I'm concerned, these heroes should be in costumes and doing what they do and the less time they spend in the classroom, the better.
The frustration is for me that those characters aren't in other books and things aren't going off for them, and those short scenes, those occasional pages are proof that they're not forgotten, whether they're in costume or not, and encourage the hope that they'll get their day in the sun again, but I agree, I'd rather see them in costume, having adventures
and we agree, hence the Magik arc. We want to see these characters do something that matters, so if we're gonna do something we're gonna bring them in and I assure you, she's not coming to teach them algebra. Chris & I share your frustration 100% and this is how we're gonna try and get the moments that you're gonna enjoy.
In terms of the art, we've got Nico
[Henrichon]
coming on for The Quest For Magik and then Skottie Young. Is Skottie going to be the new regular artist?
From my understanding, I believe that's the case. Once we've gone through Magik and Skottie's a mad genius, I worked with him briefly in animation, he did some concept stuff for us a couple of years back, that guy
obviously animation's my main business and he has that beautiful fluid style where these still images look like they're moving on the page, I love that
I love his style.
The four covers that he's doing for this arc, after the kick-off issue, all connect in one beautiful layout that's just breathtaking. It's just unbelievable, I've never seen anything like it. Chris tried to buy the whole lot, God bless him Skottie's keeping them. I told him he'd be insane if he didn't. It's incredible and I think it's reflective of the kind of stuff we're going to see from Skottie, which is not to say that what Nico is bringing forward
I mean, our book is taking a turn that no-one saw coming ands visually it is just stunning, it is
I read Pride of Baghdad, thought it was a great read but a beautiful beautiful book and to get him for this one issue which is so appropriate given the content there are panels that are just
I tell you
they're moving. We got a recent batch that I think you're gonna enjoy immensely, on a personal level. I tell you, this is really fun time.
Don't think for a second that we're not sad to see Paco [Medina, penciller] and Juan [Vlasco, inker] move on from the title, because they've been so wonderful for us, they've done so many wonderful stories for us, that funeral scene that Paco did for our kids is one that I'll never forget in comics, so beautiful, so wonderfully done, so moving, but
we've been really blessed, we started with Mark Brooks, then Paco and now we've moved on to Skottie and I think everybody's upped their game when they've come on to the title. I really hope Skottie's the regular artist on the title, I think there's a good chance he might be, but in this business you don't want to jinx it, so I'll put it out there that I hope and I think Chris hopes
and his style is gonna match what's coming beautifully. It's gonna be really exciting, what he's doing.
When I talked to Ed Brubaker recently, he said his original plan was to sign on for a year of Uncanny and review his options then. He's doing more, fine. One of the things that I've got out of talking to you is the sense of longer-term plans in mind. You never know how long anything's going to last in comics, but given the opportunity, how long do you and Chris imagine you'd enjoy staying on this book?
Ahhh
. Brrrrh
Here's the thing: Chris & I have precious little time to dedicate to comics because we have really really involved day jobs. I have 9mm projects in various stages of development, production or post-production. Right now is a real crunch time because I have a lot of things in the scripting phase which demands a lot of my time, a lot in the development stage, so it's long long days and long hours, and I have a daughter who was born just ten months ago and a wife that would like to see me on occasion. She's happy with the cheques, but once in a while she'd like to remember what I look like; and Craig has a young son and a baby on the way and he's story editing a new series for us so we have these huge huge lives that we have to manage, as many do, and we want to put our best into comics, so emotionally we'd love to keep writing these kids of quite a while, they are a lot of fun and we've put a lot into them, you do get attached, you do want to see them keep growing and developing; we also want to find the best opportunities for us, selfishly.
If you can do a title that can bring a wider fanbase, try some things that we haven't been able to do in New X-Men that would be better for another series, we would seriously look at that. That's never to say we don't care about the fans who have been so great with us, and we don't care about the kids we've invested so much in, but if a great opportunity came up, with so little time and energy to put into projects, we'd always look at whatever the best thing was on the table.
We've put some great time in here. The plan was, originally, to do a year, and Marvel said how about another?' and we were well, you know what, absolutely, we love this book, it's great, and we also knew we'd left a lot of wreckage in our path we came in, killed off these kids, tore up they're house and left, it would be like wow, don't invite those guys back'. This is our year to mend all the destruction. The year after this would probably be okay, they've really come along way now, they can be really active heroes, they've established themselves. What you also look at is that at the end of the year, after the end of the crossover, that's a point where, who knows? That's a point where we can definitely go forward, because we've laid so many seeds for the future and we have plans if that's the way it falls.
Should Marvel call us and say hey, this has been a great ride, would you like to do this with this artist and this team, we'd think about that because we wanna reach more fans, try more things. Spider-Man would be fun, Fantastic Four would be fun, although my heart will always be deepest rooted in the X-Men universe. We have many stories inside of us that we'd love to tell. It just depends. It would be an honour for us to keep telling these stories, to keep following these kids, to keep doing great things with the series but it would be great to try other characters and go into other worlds and explore other options. We're just Marvel fans, we'll take any sandbox that sounds like fun. The future's wide open for us.
If I could just close with a quick bit of word association?
Illyana oh, you're tricky [laughs]
ahhhhhhhh
there's an answer I do want to give, but I can't.
Go on, give it, [laughs] give it!!
No
we're having a great time but we're gonna hang up and I have to go back to my real life and there I have to deal with Chris Yost and I'm not doing it [much laughter]
You know you want to! [gales of laughter]
[long pause]
. Object of desire
Match [chuckles] Rockslide, but I have to explain why. There's a scene Chris wrote a couple of issues ago where they're interviewing the kids to see if they can be good enough to come to the main roster and he was So Match, if we were in a dark environment could you blow out your head
it was such a weird moment because we don't know what Match does really. We're gonna get into that coming up soon, he's someone you'll see more of in the Magik arc too, but I just look at him and go what do you do again?' I just don't understand how he works in a room. How do you watch TV with the kid, how do you have furniture, he's puzzling to me. The reason I say Rockslide is Rockslide handles my confusion as best as anyone else.
Kitty Pryde Astonishing. [Astonishing X-Men writer Joss] Whedon really celebrated her in all the wonderful ways. She's truly a great hero and she's also such a flawed person and I love it and I think she's the X-Man who reminds me the most of the kids in our book so I love her, I think she's fantastic. It's obvious that Whedon feels the same way, it's awesome to see what he's done with her. I love her and I would love to write her.
DeciMation About time. That was long overdue. X-Men
if we were all Grant Morrison we could keep having a whirlwind, with billions of mutants, but we're not all Grant Morrison so for those of us with lesser skills it's nice to have more conflict, less obstacles and less mutants to save the day so, ah, it was a great decision, in my opinion.
Trance Yeaaaaa
I'm drawing a blank on Trance. Trance has little to no meaning for me right now.
Colossus The best. He is the ideal hero for me. He has the power, but all heart, he's perfect. My favourite.
Young Avengers [long pause]
wonderful. I think Heinberg succeeded where we have tried and had some success. I think he brought something new to the world that was celebrated by both young fans and old fans and it's quite a triumph. To him I just tip my hat, he did a wonderful job on that series.
Dani Moonstar Missed, deeply missed. She didn't belong where we needed to go right now, but she's definitely missed and not in a negative way. We care about her and wish there was a role for her in our story, but she isn't. She's missed by us.
Julian Second favourite after X-23 [laughs]. I love Julian, I think he's my favourite character on the team. I love that boy, I think he's great.
Emma Frost Wonderous, she's fantastic. The best X-Man we've got right now. For all the reasons I love Julian, I love her ten times more. She is, in my mind, perfection dark, twisted, evil, wicked, reborn in a hero's costume but still has all the darkness that she possessed when she was a villain absolute perfection.
Loa aaaaAAHHHH! [dramatic pause]
Dead Man Walking.
Karma Her too
I wish she was a part of something. She's not one of the ones I look at as the same level of some of the New Mutants. I love her, but she's not someone I think of as fondly as Moonstar and Cannonball and Warlock, who I love. Cypher I don't miss. Magik, of course. She's part of the collective but not someone that I long to work with as an individual.
Elixir He is key and his story has just begun. As far as we're concerned, what we've done with him so far is simply the beginning you just wait. He's a good kid, he's set himself on a path he's definitely not prepared for.
Without asking you to be critical of other books, do you have a favourite X-Men team book which one are you most enjoying at the moment?
It's so tough because I think there's a nice uniqueness between all of the books at the moment, they all kinda fill a different category, y'know? X-Factor is a title that I never thought I'd be able to celebrate, and that's not knocking Peter David in anyway Multiple Man's not someone who does anything for me but I tried it and I love it, I just loved it, and it just surprised the hell out of me. So from a uniqueness quality standpoint
I love Mike Carey's X-Men , c'mon, it's Uncanny , I love the stuff that Brubaker's doing and how he built into this story with the Deadly Genesis storyline, and it's Joss Whedon and he had me after the first six.
Some of those other ones we're just kinda gimmes'. Peter David's team was for me was like I don't see the draw yea, I like Wolfsbane, but not enough to read the book. Multiple Man does nothing for me. The way he's handling that character and the way he's handling this series, it's such a refreshing new element to the X-universe. I love it. I gotta say, just from what I expected to what I've been given, that book is great, I can't say enough good things about it. All the rest are what I expected, and I mean that in the highest regard. C'mon, these are great characters with great guys behind them. I was surprised and delighted that Peter David could find ways for me to like characters that I've never
that I wasn't crazy about. It's especially a credit to him and so X-Factor would be my answer on that.
Fantastic. Craig, it's been a pleasure, thank you very much and thanks for your patience with me.
I'm so sorry to eat up so much of your time. I'm a fanboy and I love talking about this stuff and it's nice to spend time with someone like yourself who loves comics just as much. I just hope you enjoy what we do. I know Chris couldn't be on this call to talk about it but he's really putting his heart into this coming arc and I think it just kicks serious ass and I hope you love it and I think after talking to you that you're gonna be thrilled so we should connect as friends on a social call when it's all wrapped up because I'd love for him to hear your feedback on that run, okay?
Cool, we'll do that.
Well, thank you so much, you have a wonderful weekend okay?
