Welcome, X-Fans, to another uncanny edition of X-Men Monday at AIPT!
X-Men Senior Editor Jordan D. White is back this week to provide commentary on Fall of the House of X #2’s biggest moments, just as he did with the series’ first issue.
But before we discuss M.O.D.O.K., Polaris, and the rest of the gang, we of course have to talk about that X-Men ’97 trailer everybody’s buzzing about.
AIPT: Welcome back to X-Men Monday, Jordan! So, what did you think of the X-Men ‘97 trailer?
Jordan D. White: Oh, it’s super fun. I’ve seen a little bit more footage than that. I’m really happy with it. The impression that I’ve gotten from looking at it and watching it is that it’s a continuation of the ’92 show — as that show lives in our memories. Like, it’s better than the old show because we remember the old show through rose-colored glasses and sometimes, going back to those things, it’s like, “Oh, it’s not quite as exciting and as beautiful as I thought it was.” It’s a great show — I watched it all the time — but I feel like this show is even better. It elevates the animation, the character work, and the stories. And then it’s a continuation of the show as it lives in our hearts and minds, rather than the exact way it was on the screen. I think that’s awesome and even cooler.
But I don’t know everything about it — not by a long shot. So there were things in that trailer that surprised me.
AIPT: It had the Hellfire Gala!
Jordan: Yes, I did not expect to see that in there. I was very pleased.
AIPT: And you’re working with Steve Foxe on the prequel mini-series?
Jordan: I am, so again, that’s why I know some things. I’ve met with [Executive Producer and Head Writer] Beau De Mayo a couple of times. He is such a delightful person to meet with, and his passion for the X-Men is absolutely boundless. Like, it’s contagious. If you’ve seen interviews with him, you’ve seen this. But it’s the same behind the scenes. He loves everything about X-Men and loves celebrating it. It’s been a joy working on that with him. I’m actually sending the first issue to press today.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
I’ve worked on a number of X-Men ’92 series, which were all a blast. The one during Secret Wars, the one after Secret Wars, the more recent one — X-Men ’92: House of XCII. It’s really neat that the same team that did House of XCII with me, Steve and Salva Espin, could continue on this. When we started talking to Beau, he was like, “I loved that book, I’d be thrilled if you got those same guys.” We were like, “Great, we loved working with those guys.” So it’s been a really fun series to work on.
AIPT: It’s funny, I recently bought all the single issues for X-Men ’92 and reread them. I had read them in trades way back when. But The Flaming Lips were randomly in there. I’ve been meaning to ask you about that.
Jordan: That was so much fun. Yeah, the Toadies and The Flaming Lips for Lilapalooza. That was so strange and random. I don’t even remember how that came up. I think it was a thing that sort of came up by us knowing that both of those bands were into comics and into what Marvel was doing in general. Because sometimes, people will come for tours or we have folks who are aware of celebrities who are really interested in that stuff. I think maybe we heard about that, and then we just sort of said, “Well, those are both bands who were around in the ’90s and we’re doing this weird ’90s book. Do they want to be in it?” And they were both totally game for it.
And like you said, it’s so strange and so crazy that it was happening. But I’m really glad it came together.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
AIPT: Alright, let’s dig into Fall of the House of X #2. M.O.D.O.K. resigns from Orchis in this issue, and I wanted to take this opportunity to talk a bit about him as he played a surprisingly large role during the Krakoan era. How did this Avengers and Captain America villain become an X-villain?
Jordan: Gerry Duggan wanted to bring him in. Gerry was just like, “Can we get M.O.D.O.K.? And I was like, “Yeah, probably.” So for that first issue where he shows up, X-Men #8, we were already laying the seeds for what would happen. Because that is the beginning of the technology that allowed Orchis to corrupt the mutant medicines. So Gerry wanted him to join Orchis, the other offices didn’t have plans for him, and we’ve been happy to have him. He’s just a really weird character — he’s a funky guy.
Now that I’ve said all that, I have done a bunch of other M.O.D.O.K. stuff. I did the M.O.D.O.K. Head Games mini-series a little while before that with Jordan Bloom and Patton Oswalt. That was a lot of fun too.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
AIPT: Do you think M.O.D.O.K. will now be considered an X-Men villain?
Jordan: No.
AIPT: [Laugh] The same way Iron Man’s now an X-Men character.
Jordan: Right, right, right. Like when I asked a million years ago who everybody’s favorite X-Men character was and some people said Spider-Man because he was in Spider-Man and the X-Men for a while. But no, it does not count. I think only because we used M.O.D.O.K. in a relatively contained amount of time. We’ll see what happens in the next few years.
AIPT: OK, let’s talk about Polaris. Before Fall of the House of X, we saw Lorna at the end of X-Men #24, resting at the Treehouse, mourning her father Magneto’s death. Cut to this issue and she’s the new master of magnetism. How would you say Polaris is doing these days?
Jordan: Well, I think that she worked through it — but not to the extent that she’s made peace with things because obviously she hasn’t. She’s extremely unhappy. But she’s gotten back on her feet enough to give in to anger and act accordingly in a big, bold Magneto way.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
I was just talking to somebody about this the other day. I think it was Peter David who kind of officially confirmed that she had bipolar disorder. I feel like it was hinted at for a long time, and then Peter confirmed it. I think it was also depicted that way on The Gifted if I remember correctly. She’s struggled with the large and traumatic events she’s lived through. But now, I think she’s ready to take Orchis down for what they did.
AIPT: And she’s got help from Wolverine, Colossus, and Nightcrawler.
Jordan: I did see some folks very shocked at Kurt’s behavior — that he’s willing to kill. The X-Men right now are really in a very difficult place.
What’s tricky about Kurt is that he’s coming off of a really fun, freewheeling mini-series. Now, it did have some deep emotions in it, but they’re not necessarily the emotions that will make you kill people. They’re more of the emotions that come with huge revelations and him kind of hiding from his responsibility to mutantkind and then coming to realize that you can’t do that. But then you also have to look at all that in the context of what happened before, where he was forced to be an assassin against his will. He’s killed a number of people recently — some of them world leaders. Control was taken away from him. Then, while he was hiding from that fact, the entirety of Krakoa was taken away from mutantkind.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Most of mutantkind was lost and it’s unclear at this moment whether they know they’re alive or not. So I do think it’s understandable that this is wartime for the X-Men. This isn’t just fighting supervillains time. This is wartime and that’s kind of ugly.
AIPT: We see Synch in battle briefly, but I feel like we should also touch on the recent and heartbreaking end to the longest romance in X-Men history. What can you share about Talon’s demise? Is she really gone forever?
Jordan: Well, resurrection is kind of in a difficult place right now. They have put the Five back together in the White Hot Room — but they’re also in the White Hot Room, so how exactly does that work? In addition, there was a lot of ambiguity about who is allowed to come back in situations like this. So I think that for now, that seems to be the end of Talon, which is a bummer.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
But what’s interesting about that is this question: Is that the real Laura?
Obviously, that’s the Laura who is more different from the Laura that we’ve come to know because she suddenly had hundreds of years of life experience under her belt. But also, she was the Laura we had pre-resurrection. And then, the Laura we now have in Sabretooth War is the Laura who was brought back without those memories because they didn’t have access to her mind at the time.
I’ve always maintained, and I still do maintain, that when you resurrect someone, it is that person. It’s not a clone of that person. There’s something in the process of resurrection that goes beyond physical duplication. In House of X #5, when Magneto is speaking to Polaris after the Five finishes the process, he says, “The first was copying the mind–the essence, the anima–of any mutant Xavier found. So he could one day put a soul back into its mutant shell.” Something about this process is more than just their memories. It’s their actual selves.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Talking about souls is complicated because, obviously in the real world, souls are a matter of what your spiritual beliefs are. And without getting into mine at all, what I can say with confidence is that it is not a matter of what you believe in the Marvel Universe. In the Marvel Universe, it is 100% factual that there is an afterlife. We’ve seen it. It is 100% factual that there are souls. We’ve seen them. So in the Marvel Universe, what I can say with confidence is these are the actual X-Men. Their souls are back in their bodies. They are not in the afterlife once they’re resurrected.
How does that work with the two Lauras? I don’t know. It’s a metaphysical conundrum. I would say the new Laura is still the real Laura. And that there were just two real Lauras all this time. But now we’re back to having only one.
AIPT: You say that, but in 30 years we may have two again the same way we now have Jean Grey and Madelyne Pryor again.
Jordan: That’s true, that’s true. I always used to maintain Madelyne shouldn’t exist. She was back inside of Jean. Why would she be around? But Zeb Wells had to write a good enough story that I would be like, “All right, bring her back.”
AIPT: OK, Manifold, Rogue, and Gambit. What’s next for this group?
Jordan: Well, it’s going to involve teleportation, I can tease that much. And Fall of the House of X #3 is not the end of it. Manifold has a very important job that he helps with in a different book that probably no other teleporter could have done.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
AIPT: Then we have Dr. Gregor’s sudden change of heart. Do the X-Men have a new human ally?
Jordan: I think you’ll find out more next issue about the exact details there. But yes, as she alludes to in this issue, she thinks there’s more going on in Orchis than she’s being allowed to know about it. And readers know that’s accurate. Cyclops alluded to it in the previous issue when he was with Dr. Gregor and Omega Sentinel. What was their real plan, because I think he has a little sense of something being off. It sounds like either she picked up on that or perhaps there’s something she knows that we have yet to learn about. She says, “Tell me, what do you know about Sentinel City?” That’s a very good question.
AIPT: Well, what do you know about Sentinel City?
Jordan: All sorts, I know all sorts about Sentinel City.
AIPT: Have you been? Is it nice?
Jordan: Yeah, it’s beautiful. This time of year especially. No, no, no, I have not been, but I do know some stuff and I have seen some stuff and you will too.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
AIPT: OK, to wrap up, what can you tease about Rise of the Powers of X #2 and Fall of the House of X #3?
Jordan: So at the end of Rise of the Powers of X #1, you started being introduced to Xavier’s team. In issue 2, you’re going to see more about them. You’re going to see where they are, you’re going to find out more about what their plans are and what they need to do in order to achieve them. It’s fascinating, it’s trippy, it’s complicated.
I mean, if you read the first issue, you saw that we had some interesting and complicated data pages — that was not the end of the interesting and complicated data pages. I really like them and the ones that we have in issue 2 are very cool. Hopefully they give you more to chew on about Xavier’s plan and what you think about it, whether you think he’s right or not, and whether everybody on his team thinks he’s right or not.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
AIPT: And then Fall of the House of X #3 — it looks like there’ll be a Wolverine and Dr. Stasis confrontation?
Jordan: It does have Stasis and Wolverine on the cover. Stasis is definitely going to be in it and Wolverine is going to be in it too. What exactly goes on between them? You will have to see. I know some people saw that scene at the end of issue 2, where Stasis calls him a varmint, and they really hope Stasis gets his just desserts. I think they will be very fascinated to see what happens to him.
AIPT: They become friends.
Jordan: They become best buddies. You know that famous cover with Wolverine and Nightcrawler? It’s going to be exactly like that.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
AIPT: [Laughs] Which came up in last week’s Valentine’s Day Special! But on that note, thanks for taking the time to chat about Fall of the House of X #2, Jordan!
Before we wrap, X-Fans, our friends at Marvel are letting us eXclusively provide an extra early look at Resurrection of Magneto #2, on sale February 28, 2024. Let’s see what Al Ewing and Luciano Vecchio have coming our way…
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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