Welcome, X-Fans, to another uncanny edition of X-Men Monday at AIPT!
Ah, holidays. Comic book stories don’t always line up perfectly with real-life calendars (though Fall of X happening during the actual fall season is some solid synergy), but when they do, we here at X-Men Monday want to celebrate it! So with Halloween fast approaching, I reached out to the X-Office‘s resident X-horror writer Steve Foxe to see if he’d like to revisit a classic X-Men story with the appropriate level of spooky vibes. Steve selected the perfect comic — 1996’s Generation X #22, written by Scott Lobdell and illustrated by Chris Bachalo — which allowed us to reflect on this gem, touch on related themes, and yes, even tease the just-announced Dead X-Men.
Courtesy of stevefoxe.com
So grab some candy, X-Fans, and join us for the latest edition of X-Men Monday Halloween Book Club!
AIPT: Welcome back to X-Men Monday, Steve!
Steve: Thanks for having me! Always a pleasure.
AIPT: When I first contacted you about participating in this year’s X-Men Monday Halloween edition, I figured you might select one of the many times the X-Men crossed paths with Dracula and vampires. But you actually picked the perfect comic — 1996’s Generation X #22 — an actual Halloween issue! I forgot about this one as I bought and read it when it first came out and I was probably in middle school. But was this issue top of mind for you? What made you want to discuss this one?
Steve: While I’m usually down for some Dracula discussion — and it looks like Marvel has lots of vampiric fun on the horizon! — I do love explicitly holiday-set stories. In my other career as a writer of licensed kids books, one of my goals has been to hit every holiday. Frustratingly, I’ve done Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Pride, and Easter — but no Halloween! A shame, I say.
Besides, there’s never a bad time to revisit Generation X, especially with some of its alums playing such a big role in the current era. It should come as no surprise that I count several of them among my favorite mutants and that I reach for them whenever I can. Like in the pages of Dead X-Men, perhaps…
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
AIPT: Oh, we’ll talk about Dead X-Men, trust me. But before we dig into the Generation X issue, I mentioned all those times the X-Men have tangled with vampires. And in 2021, X-Men Senior Editor Jordan D. White and I discussed the time the original five met Frankenstein (or an alien robot who inspired Frankenstein’s monster). Also, you’re currently writing the horror-tinged Dark X-Men. So my question is, what, in your opinion, is it about the X-Men that makes it so easy for writers to mix in horror and the supernatural?
Steve: I wish I could say it’s X-Men-specific, but I think capes and tights tend to mix with fangs and hauntings pretty often? If you view superheroes as one distinct genre (and there’s plenty of discussion to be had about the exact taxonomy there), a lot of our most beloved runs come from crossing superheroes with neighboring genres, from Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum liberally borrowing sci-fi staples in Uncanny X-Men to Gerry Duggan & co. steeping Savage Avengers in sword-and-sorcery fantasy to Al Ewing and Leonard Kirk plopping Janet Van Dyne into a noir tale with Avengers Inc.
If anything, you’d think horror would be the WORST fit, since it tends to require victims who can’t fight back on even footing and death that feels somewhat permanent. Carol Danvers, on the other hand, could punch Jason Vorhees into space, which cuts some of the tension. Horror is a big fun umbrella, though, and I’m far from the only superhero writer who counts it among their favorite genres. It’s only natural we’d try to bring some of those thrills and chills to the merry mutants.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
AIPT: OK, back to Generation X #22. Upon rereading it, my major takeaways were: 1. Every page is bursting with creativity thanks to mid-90s Chris Bachalo’s incredible art. 2. It’s sort of an in-between issue, touching on recent major events (Onslaught) and setting up what comes next, while hyper-focused on characters and personal moments. What were your major takeaways?
Steve: It’s fair to say it’s a transitional issue — if you come to it cold, reading “the late Reed Richards” is a bit of a jump scare all its own. But that’s also how uhhh almost all comics used to feel? Not to sound like Grandpa Simpson shaking my cane at the sky, but when I was a kid, you jumped in the deep end and learned to swim as you went. The idea that every comic could be someone’s first used to mean “…so it better be good!,” not just “…so write it as if they’re starting with issue #4 of #5, just in case!” I don’t think it’s a bad thing to make comics accessible, mind you, but this was before every character and plot point had its own annotated wiki entries and we managed OK. Even runs we think of as bursting onto the scene as big flashy jumping-on points often felt pretty ingrained in what came before – the early issues of Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s New X-Men mention Cyclops and Apocalypse being bonded several times!
AIPT: Preach!
Steve: OK, putting away my soapbox… you’re absolutely right that Chris Bachalo steals the show. He adds a whole other story in the margins, for pete’s sake! Bachalo is one of the great masters of pushing anatomy in unexpected ways. His Nightmare contorts around the page just like you’d expect of a boogeyman. Even though this isn’t Nightmare’s most intimidating outing, he LOOKS terrifying. This issue’s also just a great example of Scott Lobdell’s classic X-bonafides. He juggles an ominous Emma scene, a heartwarming Banshee/Husk/X-kids story, and a humorous aside with the rest of the Gen-X cast, all in 22 pages. Even if you’re lost on what the issue transitions between, you get some really punchy examples of the cast’s characterization, from Paige’s caregiving instincts to Emma’s cool confidence to a bit of long-overdue reconciliation of (the very hunky!) Banshee’s familial flaws.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
AIPT: It was fun seeing Emma Frost so clearly unfazed by Nightmare after recent X-Men comics where Jean Grey was unfazed by… Nightmare. What’s this guy’s deal? Over 20 years later, you’d think he’d learn to stop messing with telepathic X-Women.
Steve: No one learns that lesson, because no one can resist the X-Women! Jests aside, I like the different takes here (although I have no idea if Gerry has read this issue or had it in mind when writing Jean’s confrontation). The key distinction between Emma and Jean has never been power, but application and attitude. Jean can out-flex Nightmare, while Emma can out-guile him. He’s not necessarily showing up here dream-guns-a’blazing, but it is still fun to see Emma refuse to blink when confronted with the Ghost of Halloweens to Come, more or less.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
AIPT: Obviously, comic book storytelling evolves over time. But what stood out to me about this ‘90s X-comic was how many character moments Scott Lobdell managed to pack in. We learn a lot in just a few pages — Paige’s concern over Artie and Leech in the crowd, Franklin missing his parents, the Generation X kids bonding over spooking some townies, Sean’s feelings about missing his daughter’s childhood, and so on. I mention all this because I think you do a very nice job of telling modern stories that still make time for character development in a limited number of pages (your X-Men Annual is a perfect example). Would you say stories from this era (and before) influence your writing style? Is it even something you’re conscious of?
Steve: Thank you! To a certain extent, I’d say it’s not a wildly conscious decision. But the two pillars of my superhero storytelling approach, especially when it comes to the X-Men, are reading the Morrison era as it came out and binging *everything* X-Men from Giant-Size through to the Age of Apocalypse, chronologically, in the last five years. So I still reach for the cool and confidence of the former, but I try to simulate the ongoing storytelling feel of the latter, if that makes sense.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Lobdell, at this moment in time, had the luxury of space. He could expect dozens of issues on a successful title, whereas now we’re in a much more mini-series-driven market. So for something like the X-Men Annual or Dark X-Men, I knew I had a finite amount of pages to deliver a thrilling story and some sort of character growth or spotlight or reflection. With the Annual, that was comparatively easy – the only character who needed to stand in that spotlight was Firestar. With Dark X-Men, I chose a MASSIVE cast, so I had to have a more tiered approach and go in knowing, OK, Maddie and Carmen will get the most substantial character arcs; Havok and Gambit will get the clearest secondary spotlights; Azazel, Emplate, etc. need good moments but will stay in the wings a little more. If Dark X-Men had been positioned as an ongoing, I might have had the runway to space that out differently and rotate the spotlight arc to arc, but times and expectations have shifted a lot since the ‘90s!
AIPT: You mentioned there’s never a bad time to revisit Generation X and that some of the cast number among your favorite mutants. That classic run certainly holds a special place in a lot of X-Fans’ hearts, but what did you love the most about it and who was your favorite cast member when you first read it?
Steve: I’ve talked about it a lot in relation to Carmen Cruz joining the Dark X-Men cast, but I just love the generational aspect of the X-Men. Ever since Kitty Pryde and the original New Mutants, the idea of new generations coming into their own has been baked into the X-Men in a way that no other superhero team franchise can quite match (owing, no doubt, to the school setting). Generation X holds a special place in my heart because they were the young mutants when I was a young mutant. Err, well, flatscan… as far as Orchis needs to know. I was too young to grow up with Cannonball and Sunspot and the rest of the NM crew, but the exact right age to follow Jubilee, who I recognized from the Animated Series, into a brand-new cast of strange and unfamiliar mutants. It’s the book that introduced me to a sympathetic Emma Frost, made me think Banshee was cool, and reinforced the idea that visible, occasionally gross mutations like Chamber’s and Skin’s were a vital element of the mutant experience.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
As for a favorite… if we disqualify Emma, I have to say I’ve always been a Chamber boy. Something about his British melancholy mixed with such an upsetting mutation endeared him to me fast. I’ve been wildly lucky to write so many of my favorite X-Men, but Chamber remains on my bucket list!
AIPT: Because it’s the Halloween edition… forget the Hellfire Gala — you’re invited to the X-Mansion for a Halloween party. Which X-Men are you hanging with for a night of spooky fun?
Steve: Option 1 is asking Remy and Rogue to show me the cats and spending the entire night playing with them. Option 2 is tailing Cecilia Reyes so that, when the party is inevitably attacked, she can protect me in her forcefield. Option 3 is ogling Kurt Wagner the whole evening.
AIPT: All good options. You’re no stranger to the horror genre, so if X-Fans are looking for some seasonal reading recommendations after they finish Generation X #22, what Steve Foxe horror comics should they check out?
Steve: Ooh, am I allowed to extend past the X-bubble?! Well, I of course have to say Dark X-Men, where Jonas, Frank, and I get increasingly horrific with each issue. And I’ll also throw out a recommendation for Hallow Eve, which similarly builds on the Dark Web crossover with some incredibly fun Halloween-mask powers.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
But leaving the Marvel realm, I’d be remiss not to mention Razorblades: The Horror Magazine, the horror anthology I co-created with James Tynion IV. The hardcover is available from Image and actually includes many of my Krakoan peers, like Tini Howard, Vita Ayala, and Steve Orlando, all doing original horror shorts. Orlando and I also co-wrote Party & Prey, which is more thriller than straight-up horror, and I recently finished All Eight Eyes from Dark Horse, which is my giant-spider creature feature – tribute to arachnophobic excess with Piotr Kowalski, Brad Simpson, and Hass Otsmane-Elhaou. And if you really want the deep cuts, Erica Henderson and I did a short for the Eisner-nominated Creepshow anthology last year that is sort of a Misery for the comic-creator set, and Lisandro Estheren drew the bleakest story I’ve ever worked on, Night Train, as part of TKO’s horror short collection. There, that above covers the current Spooky Foxe collection!
AIPT: The Prolific Mr. Foxe! Before we wrap up, Dark X-Men #3 goes on sale this week — what can you tease?
Steve: Hmmmmm let me try to be vague and ominous: Prophecy. An oft-requested costume. An inferiority complex. An explosive confrontation. A stalking beast. A friend or foe in their midst. Another X-Man gone. Utter annihilation. That work?
AIPT: Yeah, that’ll do. Finally, Marvel just announced your next X-series — Dead X-Men — just in time for Halloween! But these aren’t just more Marvel Zombies, are they? In fact, this story sounds downright ambitious. So what can you tease about Dead X-Men? The trick-or-treating X-Fans have their bags wide open, Steve. What do you have for them?
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Steve: Ahhh yes, I’m INCREDIBLY thrilled to reunite with Jonas as well as a host of Krakoa’s finest artists – you’ve only learned the tip of the iceberg so far – for Dead X-Men, which absolutely is the most ambitious project I’ve worked on with Marvel. There’s VERY little we can say before folks have had a chance to read Rise of the Powers of X in particular, but I can drop a few tidbits.
First off, as I tweeted, I’d consider this a seven-person cast, so let the speculation begin. I’ll also say not to invest too heavily in the idea of zombies or even horror. Sometimes a teaser image is just that. In many ways, this is the “purest” X-Men story I’ve worked on, with a handful of mutants taking on an impossible mission across time and space. Claremont and Cockrum were top of mind at times, as were Al Ewing, Jonathan Hickman, and Kieron Gillen, who has been WILDLY generous in developing this story. The mutants on our cast deserve a major showcase, and we’re working hard to make Dead X-Men the biggest, most spectacular X-mission they could possibly undertake!
AIPT: Alright, I’ll let you keep the rest under wraps… for now. But on that note, thanks for stopping by X-Men Monday Halloween Book Club and taking the time to re-read an X-classic and chat! As for this week’s eXclusive preview images, X-Fans — beware — I asked Jordan for an especially spooky batch this week…
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
I’ll understand if you need some time to recover. But do it quick, because next time, it’s our milestone 225th edition of X-Men Monday, featuring the X-Office!
Until next time, X-Fans, stay exceptional!
Join the AIPT Patreon
Want to take our relationship to the next level? Become a patron today to gain access to exclusive perks, such as:
- ❌ Remove all ads on the website
- 💬 Join our Discord community, where we chat about the latest news and releases from everything we cover on AIPT
- 📗 Access to our monthly book club
- 📦 Get a physical trade paperback shipped to you every month
- 💥 And more!
You must be logged in to post a comment.