Well, the Sabretooth’s out of the bag: Both X-Men Blue and X-Men Gold will come to an end this September with their 36th issues. Let’s face it–by modern Marvel standards, those are two pretty epic runs! Here’s what the House of Ideas revealed about the color-coded series’ final issues in its September 2018 solicitations:
X-MEN GOLD #36
MARC GUGGENHEIM (W) • Pere Perez (A)
Cover by Phil Noto
FINAL ISSUE VARIANT COVER BY WHILCE PORTACIO
• A special look into a day in the life of the headmistress of the Xavier Institute…
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99
Kitty took the whole “final issue” thing a little too seriously.
X-MEN BLUE #36
CULLEN BUNN (W) • MARCUS TO (A)
Cover by R.B. Silva
FINAL ISSUE VARIANT COVER BY MIKE ALLRED
• Are the young X-Men’s destinies set in stone? Are they only fighting the inevitable? Only their modern-day counterparts can answer that!
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99
So… what’s next for the X-Men?
Well, for starters, The Blue team’s time in the modern Marvel Universe isn’t over yet, as writer Ed Brisson and artist Pepe Larraz’s event series Extermination (which the Blue squad appears in) will only be on issue 3 of 5 come September. Whether the original five finally return home has yet to be revealed, but if Marvel’s going to do it, there’s no better time.
Plus, Brian Michael Bendis is gone, so no one has to worry about offending him by wrapping up his unresolved plot lines.
Could a new Uncanny X-Men title rise from the ashes of Blue and Gold with every fans’ new-favorite X-writer Matthew Rosenberg at the helm? Rosenberg’s involvement may be unlikely considering he’s about to launch his Astonishing X-Men run. Or maybe the critically acclaimed X-Men Red undergoes a secondary mutation and becomes the new flagship X-series. Also unlikely, considering writer Tom Taylor’s ongoing story shows no signs of wrapping up by September.
No matter what the future holds for the original five, one thing appears to be certain: Their current writer Cullen Bunn won’t be a part of it. Or possibly anything related to the X-Men. Following the big news, Bunn tweeted the following:
Well, there ya have it. I guess it was announced that X-MEN BLUE (and, as far as I know, my involvement with the X-Men) ends with issue 36. I've got lots to share in terms of my thoughts of writing X-Men books for the last few years. For now, I'll just let the ending sink in. pic.twitter.com/H5L0OsOy5v
— Cullen Bunn (@cullenbunn) June 19, 2018
While we’ll surely hear more about the future of the X-Men franchise in the weeks ahead, the Blue and Gold news hasn’t stopped fans from speculating about the future of their favorite mutants. Zachary Jenkins of the Xavier Files fan site eats, sleeps and breathes X-Men, so I figured he’d have a pretty good hunch as to what could be next.
“I imagine we get an Uncanny X-Men book out of this,” Jenkins said. “It’s among the most well known, and historically best-selling, titles in the market, but that may be all we get to replace these. Too many books titled ‘X-Men’ means the market has no idea what to buy.”
Jenkins added that while Blue and Gold were interesting experiments, they lacked the focus necessary to be considered “flagship” X-Men books.
“The hope is that whatever replaces these will continue the trend of books like X-Men Red and Cable,” Jenkins said. “Give fans the X-Men they love, but evolve them. Blue and Gold’s biggest issue was that they continued to spin their wheels with stories that have already been done time and time again.”
With Comic-Con International: San Diego not far away (July 19-22), perhaps we’ll learn more soon.
No matter what the future holds, we can depend on Marvel to spoil it all in The New York Times… right?
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