Welcome, X-Fans, to another uncanny edition of X-Men Monday at AIPT!
Anyone else still recovering from X-Men Monday #200? Just me? After dropping a 10,000-word edition, I probably should have taken a week off for sanity’s sake… but then I’d be letting down X-Fandom. And if there’s one thing I’ll never do, it’s let down X-Fans… intentionally.
So here we are with an all-new edition — and it’s something a little different. Yes, we’re still talking about your beloved X-Men, but X-Men in the novel format! (I know, X-Men Monday cracks 200 and suddenly it’s madness!) On May 16, 2023, you can pick up The Phoenix Chase: A Marvel: School of X Novel from Aconyte Books, but right now, you can hear directly from its author Neil Kleid. Let’s get started.
Courtesy of Neil Kleid
AIPT: Welcome to X-Men Monday, Neil!
Neil: Hey, Chris! Thanks for having me. Very excited to be here talking about mutants on a Monday. Garfield had it wrong — Mondays are the best.
AIPT: Take that, Garfield! OK, so for the X-Fans who aren’t familiar with you and your work, let’s go back to the beginning. What was your first X-Men eXperience?
Neil: My memory’s a bit hazy (I was, what, 9?) but I believe my first exposure to the X-Men might have been Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars. (Not that abomination of a sequel. Poor Dazzler.) I remember digging the comic, but feeling confused as to who the characters were, their names, and relationships. Cyclops was a guy with crazy eyewear who reminded me of the Tele-Vipers from G.I. Joe. I hadn’t even seen the X-Men on Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends — I’m an Orthodox Jew, and the show aired on Saturday mornings which is a tee-vee no no… I knew about Iceman and Firestar from print ads, but not who they were or their backgrounds. So if I think about it, I first spied the X-Men on Battleworld and thought “Hey, cool, who are these crazy guys?” I liked Magneto’s helmet and powers and Colossus. I didn’t have the Wolverine action figure, and to be honest little Neil was more of an Avengers and Fantastic Four kid at the time, so my attentions were drawn elsewhere. So, yeah: “cool” is what they got out of me…
… until I spent Passover at my cousin’s house. He had all the Secret Wars toys, including Wolverine with those slide-on claws, and properly introduced me to the mutants by handing over a copy of Uncanny X-Men #190. That was the Kulan Gath storyline. The front cover was so disturbing, and I was always a sucker for medieval stories — this one included both the Avengers and Spider-Man — so I was all in, especially as X-Factor was introduced to comics soon after. The first X-Men comic I can actually remember buying myself, though, may have been issue Uncanny X-Men #210, the kickoff for the mutant massacre.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
AIPT: That’s a big one. And just so X-Fans get to know your X-preferences — all-time favorite X-character and X-story?
Neil: So, I know folks want me to say Kid Omega… but I’ma go with Magneto. Fantastic costume. Ridiculous helmet. His evolving backstory, his redemptive character arc, the gravitas… and the man’s Jewish! My mother would plotz.
Favorite story is a bit trickier. Researching The Phoenix Chase had me dig into X-Men: Kingbreaker and that era… but I’ll stick with the original cosmic storyline that introduced the Phoenix, the Starjammers, the M’kraan Crystal… that was Dave Cockrum on a grand scale and going back to re-read those issues has me eating well. It’s where I fell in love with X-Men space stories.
And then, well, I was a big fan the original X-Men arcade game as well as Madness in Murderworld, the first PC computer game I ever bought!
Courtesy of Aconyte Books
AIPT: Oh wow — I picked up the tie-in comic to that a few years back. But let’s move to the present and talk about The Phoenix Chase. How did this opportunity come about?
Neil: A while back, I was looking to pen some Marvel prose. I’d been lucky enough to adapt the classic Spider-Man storyline “Kraven’s Last Hunt” as a novelization and my then-editor, Stuart Moore, mentioned that he was working with UK-based Aconyte Books on a line of licensed Marvel novels they were producing. I reached out and after a few misses, managed an invite to School of X, a prose anthology they assembled that focused on younger mutants who appeared during the Brian Michael Bendis run. All of Aconyte’s X-books are set during that era — mostly taking place in the new Charles Xavier School, co-headmastered by Magneto and a post-Phoenix Five Cyclops. I pitched a few ideas to my fantastic editor, Gwendolyn Nix, and landed ‘Kid Omega Faces the Music’ — a first-person account of Quentin Quire’s accidental journey across time and X-Men history with his best friend, Glob, where Kid Omega learned about sacrifice and selflessness thanks to various incarnations of his idol, Magneto.
Courtesy of Aconyte Books
Once the story was done, I couldn’t get Quentin’s voice out of my head. I knew he had more to say — to me, to readers — and so I pitched a full novel. I knew that I wanted to explore Marvel’s intergalactic landscape, and I also knew the story I wanted to tell had to flirt with the Phoenix Force, an important aspect of not only X-Men canon but Quentin’s past and future, as well. Thankfully, Gwen agreed! Slowly, after doing the research, I believe we landed on the right story.
AIPT: What’s your elevator pitch for The Phoenix Chase?
Neil: After allowing his best friends to be kidnapped by a group of mysterious aliens, Kid Omega reluctantly partners with Alex Summers (aka Havok) and the Starjammers — captained by Alex’s recently resurrected father, Corsair! — to scour the galaxy for a Phoenix Egg, the one thing they can use to ransom back Quentin Quire’s friends. Along the way, they come face-to-face with not only some of Marvel’s better-known space-faring heroes, villains, and locales, but also their hopes and fears as fathers, sons, teachers, and students.
AIPT: I understand how comics are made. But I’m less familiar with what goes on behind the scenes with novels based on comics and their characters. The Phoenix Chase takes place during the Bendis X-Men era, but do you need to worry about fitting neatly into past continuity? Can Marvel veto certain ideas? Or is it a lot looser?
NEIL: So… I’m a big fan of trying to use continuity as a touchstone in order to fit my tale within not only the story of the X-Men, but of the grander tapestry that is the Marvel story. The nice thing about School of X is that the continuity of our stories is somewhat looser than what has appeared in the comics. So if things are slightly different in terms of the timeline or sequence of events… that’s all right.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Of course, because I’m an idiot, I wouldn’t let myself off the hook and tried to adhere as close as possible to existing continuity. The Phoenix Chase nestles itself into a very interesting place in the timeline — it takes place after the deaths of both Charles Xavier and Vulcan, around the time of the first Havok-led Uncanny Avengers team, and before “The Trial of Jean Grey”, the Bendis-penned X-Men/Guardians of the Galaxy crossover. But there are definitely… divergences from the comics. The chronology isn’t as neat as it could be, and there are characters who appear (or don’t appear) whose personal timelines are altered. Mostly, though, it’s pretty tight.
AIPT: Quentin Quire. X-Fans either love him or hate him. What is it about Kid Omega you find appealing as a writer?
Neil: I mean, he’s a mess, right?
Look, good character growth is motivated by conflict. And, sure: Quentin’s irritating, so plenty of conflict there. But I truly believe his character arc is one of the more fascinating of the younger, next generation of X-Men.
The Kid (oh, he calls himself ‘The Kid’ in the book. Hopefully he’ll outgrow that one day) started off as a nobody, remember? And then Grant Morrison turned him into a rebel and then a monster, a threat to Charles Xavier’s dream, attacking it from a punk-rock-anarchist-
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Was Quentin a villain? Technically. But no one really labeled him as such — not as they did the Blob, Juggernaut, Mastermind, or any of the true mutant baddies. Quentin was just… a problem? A mouthy kid who needed a time-out. Eventually, he bounced between varying levels of nuisance, and then kind of became… comic relief? Now, during the Krakoan era, he’s finally coming into his own as what may be kinda considered a mutant hero — I got to touch on that a bit in my short story. But it’s the Kid’s formative years, his journey from handful to hero, that I wanted to explore. The moments in which he had to learn the value in trusting in those who were very much not Quentin Quire.
Plus, I love the voice I’ve adopted for Quentin — I actually wrote the pitch for the short story while watching Loki on Disney+, so it’s been infused with a very trickster, wisecracking, quippy vibe. It’s Loki, but if the god of mischief were a social media influencer with a massive mutant chip on his shoulder.
My favorite review of The Phoenix Chase so far has been about Quentin: “Sir, you made me like him.” I’ll take it.
AIPT: When talking about your story online, you also haven’t hidden your love for the Starjammers. Which one of these space pirates did you have the most fun writing?
Neil: Oh, Corsair without a doubt.
Look, I’m a dad. And this is — at its heart — a story about fathers, sons, teachers, and students all learning from one another and conquering their greatest anxieties and fears. Major Christopher Summers, USAF, is absolutely channeling my own personal struggles as a father trying to do right by his kids… often failing, despite the best of intentions.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Yeah, sure; he’s got that swashbuckling Errol Flynn-meets-Han Solo vibe and one of the best costumes in the franchise, for sure… but it’s the feet of clay that really drew me as both a father and writer. I mean, he knows he did wrong by his boys; he died for it, too. For the rest of his life… ever since that fateful flight over Alaska, Chris Summers has been trying to make up for the collapse of his family. And though my family has not suffered the insane twists of fate that have affected the family Summers, I can’t say that I’ve always made the best choices as a father. So getting into Corsair’s headspace was incredibly cathartic.
Plus, I mean: space pirate. Corsair has some of the best lines and moments of the book, and is definitely modeled after both Han Solo and Lando Calrissian, with a little bit of Centauri from The Last Starfighter thrown in for good measure.
After Corsair, probably Raza who sets up the book’s absolute best one-liner, delivered by our pal Kid Omega.
Courtesy of Aconyte Books
AIPT: Let’s talk a bit about the novel format. What are the chief challenges writing Marvel characters without an artist’s accompanying images and how do you overcome them?
Neil: I mean, you have to use words to paint the story. Look, one of the best things about writing a Marvel prose novel is that most of its readers are at least somewhat familiar with some of the characters — I mean, there is a fantastic cameo in The Phoenix Chase featuring a team of popular Marvel characters, and I’m pretty sure readers will have a very specific picture of them in their head as they devour the pages. But for a novel that takes its readers from various locales on Earth to Kree-space in a repurposed Shi’ar dreadnaught, across a sea of stars to an asteroid field-turned-stronghold and stopping at various dives, compounds, and planets along the way… as a writer, you have to learn to be descriptive and set whichever scene you’re looking to tell with illustrative, evocative exposition.
Thankfully, I had the brilliantly designed, wonderfully illustrated comics from which to wrest my descriptions — from geniuses like Dave Cockrum, Frank Quitely, Jim Starlin, Jim Lee, John Byrne, Neal Adams, and more. The legendary costumes, spaceships, planets, and weapons they designed have easily helped inform my paltry efforts; I felt more like a correspondent describing what others had drawn, dictating designs to the pages and hoping that I’d done them justice.
AIPT: When I started reading X-Men comics in the mid-90s, there were several X-Men and Marvel novels available. It’s great to see new ones coming out. Did you read any of those novels back in the day?
Neil: I recall spotting a few of those novels on shelves as they appeared, but never really dug in. I did read the ones that appeared from Marvel in the early ‘aughts — which led to me adapting “Kraven’s Last Hunt”.
Courtesy of Titan Books
Bryon Preiss put out an Ultimate Super-Villains book that had a fantastic Ringmaster story by Tony Isabella and an entertaining Frightful Four story, as well. I have to track down that anthology; that was a fun book. And I started reading the Spidey/X-Men Time’s Arrow crossover, as well as Mutant Empire, but never finished either. I think the only one I actually finished was The Venom Factor. I might have to see if I can find some of those Preiss books at the library… in fact, this interview inspired me to request a few, and this weekend I’ll be digging into X-Men: Empire’s End.
AIPT: So many of those titles you mentioned brought me back to purchasing them as a kid in a bookstore chain that no longer exists in a mall that’s been demolished. But on a final, less depressing note, you had a chance to write a Colossus story once before in X-Men Unlimited #14. Do you hope to return to writing the X-Men in comic book form, and if so, any hints to which characters you’re most eager to get your hands on?
Neil: Yeah, I was lucky enough to do a short Colossus story titled “How to Be an Artist” with Mike Oeming in that last issue of X-Men Unlimited… me and Oeming have constantly spoken about doing another Colossus story — set in Asgard, really drawing from the “Asgardian Wars” storyline — but haven’t made a ton of headway in terms of getting it pitched.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Obviously I’d love to be invited back to write another X-Men comic book (or other Marvel comics, in general; please call me, editors! I’m very nice.) I’d like to do one of those digital Infinity comics, or a one-shot. I do have what I think is a fun Kate Pryde Passover story that’s set on Krakoa that I’d love to pitch one day. I’d also dig writing a Kid Omega comic, if they’d let me, and tackle some of the X-villains, too. I’m a big Juggernaut fan — not sure if I have the right story for him yet, though — and I’d love a crack at my take on a new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.
If I had to choose? My gut tells me it’d be Kate, and really highlight her background as a Jew — not just hang a magen david (star of David; the Jewish star) around her neck and call it a day, but really explore what it means to be a prominent Jewish mutant in a volatile world that hates and fears both mutant and Jews. I have to say… it’s important for me to write that take, and highlight Judaism in the Marvel Universe beyond portraying another version of “Hey, Magneto was in the Holocaust” or “Ben Grimm lit himself a menorah” — I think (depending on what might happen after Fall of X) Kate would be the perfect character, even in a small way, to explore what it means to be a Jew in a world where Nazi super soldiers are a constant threat.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
But then, if that pitch gets shot down after I pour my heart into it, I’d probably turn around and try to write a Starjammers comic where Corsair runs for space mayor or something. Or flies the Kessel Run in 11 parsecs instead of 12, angering a competitive-as-heck Han Solo in an X-Men/Star Wars crossover. Feels like a winner.
Mostly, I’m happy enough to have written as many X-Men — and Marvel — characters I have. If I get to write more, that’d be swell. If The Phoenix Chase is my final word, I’m satisfied — and thankful — for being able to play in the toy box and say what I had to say. It was a blast, and I hope our X-Men friends and fans feel the same when they finally get a chance to read the book.
AIPT: Well, you’ve certainly got that Phoenix fire driving you, so I hope more Marvel opportunities come your way! But that’s all I have for you today, so thanks for stopping by X-Men Monday, Neil!
Now, while The Phoenix Chase may have more words than art, Marvel’s still putting out new X-Men comics (phew!) — so here’s some eXclusive preview art from a few, courtesy of X-Men Senior Editor Jordan D. White!
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Until next time, X-Fans, stay exceptional!
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