Welcome, X-Fans, to the final uncanny edition of X-Men Monday at AIPT of the First Krakoan Age!

And yes, that also means this is former X-Men Senior Editor Jordan D. White‘s last appearance in this column.

Typing that feels weird, as X-Men Monday — in its AIPT form — wouldn’t even have existed if Jordan and Marvel didn’t reach out way back in February 2019, following Uncanny X-Month in November 2018 and Cyclops Week in January 2019. In fact, it was during Uncanny X-Month when I first interviewed Jordan — and he teased that 2019 would change everything for the X-Men. Now, I guess we could consider that interview X-Men Monday #0. Though, I wonder what he was talking about…

Kidding.

Now, I know I’ve had a very different relationship with Jordan than the X-Fan who didn’t love how their favorite mutant was handled in a story, or the X-Fan who wasn’t satisfied with how Jordan answered their question. And it’s not my place to tell those folks how to feel. All I’ll say — as an X-Fan myself — is what a tremendous privilege it’s been to collaborate with Jordan weekly over the past 5 years of exceptional storytelling. Overseeing the X-Men can be a thankless task, but I’m so happy to see Jordan leave the X-Office with the same infectious positivity, sense of humor, and passion for comics that he had going in. And while I’ll no longer email him every Friday for eXclusive images or torture him with questions about mutant fashion and relationships, I’m excited to just be his friend.

But this one’s GIANT-SIZE, so we should get going. Read on for some final thoughts on the First Krakoan Age, reveals about what could have been during Jordan’s entire tenure, and a bit about what comes next for him. Plus, keep your eyes peeled for a few special guests.

AIPT: Jordan, welcome back to X-Men Monday for one last time. So, last time we spoke, we ran through the greatest unresolved mysteries of the Krakoan era (Part 1, Part 2)…

Jordan D. White: Much to everyone’s satisfaction.

AIPT: [Laughs] Yes, a lot of fun reactions. But in X-Men Forever #4, we saw the resolution of one of X-Men history’s greatest mysteries — Hope’s true origin. What can you share about how this twist — which managed to pay off so many theories from Hope’s early appearances — came to be?

Jordan: Well, Kieron Gillen was involved with Hope very early on. Hope existed already, but he got involved with her pretty quickly, writing Generation Hope. To call him a fan of Hope sounds weird, but he’s always liked using Hope. And as he returned to the X-Office, writing Immortal X-Men, he immediately put her onto the Quiet Council. I think he really wanted to pay off all the things he teed up for her. It was a great way to actually let her come into her messiah role through the course of it all, and then it culminated in this moment of finding out what her actual origin was.

And giving her mom an actual scene of dialogue and action, instead of just being there to be burned alive.

AIPT: Related to Hope, Kieron has done a lot of work adding new layers to the Phoenix and its relationship with Jean Grey. What can you share about the work that went on behind the scenes redefining the Phoenix and White Hot Room for this final stretch of the Krakoan era?

Jordan: I think Kieron has alluded to a big piece of that coming from an idea Al Ewing had. I remember it being a day during the pandemic when we were having a virtual summit and we were batting ideas around after the summit. An idea came up that was basically using the resurrection process in the White Hot Room to give birth to the Phoenix, and how it’s almost like a Dominion itself because it’s all the mutants coming together, but not quite.

Everybody loved the idea. And I’m pretty sure this was back when Jonathan Hickman was still in the X-Office as well. We were all just like, “Oh my God, this is such a cool idea” and “That is absolutely where we have to go with that.”

So then Kieron took that idea, ran with it, beefed it up, and made it sing. I think it was absolutely wonderful because the Phoenix has always been tied to mutants — aside from that little Avengers vacation. But it’s always been tied to mutants and Jean. But also, what does “Now and forever” mean? It was fun to explain it.

Jean is the Phoenix and always is the Phoenix, even when she’s not the Phoenix. And the Phoenix is always Jean, even when it’s not Jean. And it’s always all mutants, even when it’s not all mutants and it always has been and that’s why it gravitated to them, because it was always them — because it is from this place outside of space and time, which is complicated. It’s a complicated thing to think about. We spent a lot of time thinking about it all.

And then, Luciano Vecchio is an absolute madman. Kieron wrote the script with a zillion mutants becoming the Phoenix. But I don’t think in any of our wildest dreams we imagined what Luciano ended up drawing. The amount of love and detail he put into every one of those panels was staggering.

And there are a couple of specific characters that Kieron asked for, so that means all of the other characters reflected Luciano’s love for the X-Men and his depth of knowledge of the lore. We were constantly zooming in closer going, “Wait, that’s this character from this one thing.” [Laughs] And I’m sad to say I missed Gwenpool and he had to point out that Gwen was in there, but I’m super thrilled she’s in there. Like, there are characters from Age of X-Man.

AIPT: Jimmy Hudson was pretty prominent!

Jordan: Jimmy Hudson is in there despite my ban on Jimmy Hudson.

AIPT: And it’s so nice that here, in our final interview, we can confirm that Hellion made an appearance.

Jordan: Hellion was in there.

AIPT: You played coy all these years but you knew he was coming.

Jordan: That was the payoff.

But anyway, I was so glad to get Luciano on those pages in X-Men #35 as well — he made them sing. The page of everybody crying is so gut-wrenching and great. And the captions over it go along with it so perfectly. And then that awesome image that him and David Curiel did of Krakoa leaving — it’s so weird and trippy, but awesome, beautiful, and awe-inspiring. It’s a four-page sequence, but it’s just four beautiful pages. 

AIPT: Believe me, we’re not done talking about that scene in this interview. But right now, we’ve got a question from X-Fan AdamTheUncaring, who wanted to know if you could elaborate on the Phoenix timeline where Moira now resides. Is it a dimension that will go away once Moira passes away?

Jordan: Well, that would be unfair to everybody else in it. [Laughs]

My opinion would be, no, it’s a whole new universe that she gets to live in. Maybe she’s the reason it exists, but she doesn’t have to be the most important person in it. That said, as with all things, the real answer’s going to be if we ever see it again. Someone will have an idea for it and we didn’t establish rules on the page. Therefore, anything I say here is just my speculation. But I would say it will be just a whole universe that she will be able to live in and then die. Then, it will go on without her.

But I saw some interesting responses to Rise of the Powers of X #5. Some people were really happy with how the book ended for her. And some people were very upset about how it ended for her because she did terrible things. And to that, I just want to say, yeah, she definitely did do terrible things. But the terrible things that the readers are talking about, from what I can understand, are the terrible things she did in the last 0.01% of her life. She’d already done a lot of terrible things.

There was a whole universe where she was married to Apocalypse. It wasn’t because she made him more calm. [Laughs] She went bad and she did terrible things in that universe. There was also a universe where her and Magneto ran things. And probably not everything she did there was great. Also, there was a universe where she murdered an entire family. [Laughs] And yes, that was a family responsible for some bad things, but man, she just assassinated the heck out of them all. So she doesn’t have a history of being the most calm and collected person.

That said, yes, she was responsible in many ways for allowing Krakoa to happen. So the Phoenix was merciful and it granted her the thing that she wanted the entire time. 

The lines that haunt me from House of X #2 were from Moira’s second life: “Meeting the love of your life already knowing every flaw they possess — along with the knowledge they will never change — destroyed any chance of Moira re-creating what she had in her first life. Familiarity breeds contempt, and her once-husband could see it in her eyes. There would be no family for Moira in this life, no one to be loved by… no children in the yard playing and laughing.”

That’s the part that devastates me — that one panel. Because she had a normal life. She had a family, she had children, and she had happiness. And then she died and lost it all. And she tried to get it back for a second, but then was like, “I can’t, it doesn’t work.” It’s so sad and devastating. If she could’ve just lived a normal life, she would’ve been fine. “It was a good life. A human life,” it says of her first life.

AIPT: Wishing her all the best in her final life. Try not to become an evil robot. So, what can you share about X-Men #35 and how the final story of the Krakoan Era came together?

Jordan: Well, when we knew around the time we would be ending, we realized it was the legacy 700. And I want address that again really quick. I know we’ve addressed it before. But the reason it’s Uncanny is because of the mistake. If you look at Jonathan’s first issue of X-Men, it has the legacy numbering of Uncanny X-Men. I didn’t intend for that to happen, but it did happen and it printed that way. So now that it has been publicly acknowledged and official, I was like, “Well, we have to stick with that.” And I looked at what numbers were coming up and realized issue 700 was coming.

Also, if you think it’s lame that we made X-Men into Uncanny X-Men, just remember it was called X-Men first. It didn’t become Uncanny X-Men for like almost a hundred issues.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter. That’s me defending myself again. I realized it was going to be 700 and the timing worked out really well with the timing we were aiming for when we needed to be wrapping up. So that’s what we aimed for. We immediately said to everybody, we want that to be one of those big $10 issues with the giant story in it. And the original thought was we’ll use that to wrap up the two series. Gerry Duggan can have half of it, and Kieron can have half of it, and they’ll both write their final stories. And later when discussing it, we kind of went, “Well, wait, do we want it to be two different stories or do we want it to just be one story?” 

And it was just before the actual writing started happening that we were like, “Oh, let’s actually bring Al in on this as well and have him put the finishing touches on some of his stories.” And so the three of them worked out the outline of it all and then divided it up. I was really thrilled with how it came out. 

As for the actual story, we knew what things would be wrapped up. We knew the Orchis story would be over at the end of Fall of the House of X. The Enigma story would be over at the end of Rise of the Powers of X. And this is the place where we needed to end the Krakoa story. So there were a number of things we talked about regarding how we were going to end Krakoa.

There was a time… get ready Maggott fans, you’re going to be devastated. [Laughs] There was a time when we were talking about how we were going to pivot away from Krakoa. When I would talk about the future of Krakoa, I would be like, “But then it’s being run by President Maggott.” That was my code for “someone is running Krakoa who we don’t have to do comics about.” [Laughs] So I would always be like, “President Maggott is handling that, we don’t have to worry about that anymore.” But that did not come to pass.

I mean, listen, I’ll be real with you. I didn’t ever want Krakoa to go away. I wanted Krakoa to be a piece of Marvel forever. So it was a bummer for that not to be the case. But Kieron had a pitch that changed the nature of what Krakoa would be. And then it took a little while to land on it living in the White Hot Room. But we talked a lot about it and we went back and forth on a lot of ideas, and we landed on this one that I think works really well.

It’s a bittersweet ending. It’s a sad ending because their child moved on beyond them. Krakoa outgrew the X-Men — but they did save it. People wanted it dead and they fought for it and they won. And now, the thing that they made gets to be what it wants to be. And that’s not with them right now. But hopefully, it will return someday.

AIPT: You know, I’ve reread those Luciano pages countless times over the past few days. They really get to me. I think it’s the almost meta feeling to them — combined with the fact Cyclops is my favorite X-Man, and I was genuinely happy for him the last 5 years. I think it’s fair to say — and we’ve talked about this before — that the Krakoan Era was the happiest Scott has ever been. Mutants were safe, they defeated death, he had everything he wanted, and he could finally rest. But here, we see the shackles of being a 60-year-old comic book character in serial storytelling. Cyclops can’t have his happy ending, and we watch him making peace with that one panel at a time. It’s both heartbreaking and beautiful. 

Jordan: I mean, listen, I’m a very meta person. Which is not to say that I make my books meta on purpose necessarily, but I often feel that the books are very meta. In many ways, the whole Krakoan Age was the X-Office making its own little island, right? And we did form our own society and said, “We’re not going to do things the way you human comic books do.” [Laughs] “We’re going to do it differently.” And it was glorious. And also, there were people gunning for us, you know? So I do feel like there is a very meta read to it all that I feel in my heart — but that’s not to say the creators made a book about themselves. I would never imply that at all. That is not what was going on. 

AIPT: Having experienced the Krakoan Era from beginning to end, being a fan of it — and also being so close to it through this column — X-Men #35 was a sobering reminder of how temporary so many aspects of superhero comic books are. 

Jordan: You talk about the nature of comic books, but I think even in-world, the X-Men are experiencing the nature of their world. They tried to make the world different and the world pushed back really hard. They did things they’re really proud of and saved what they could save. But they’re still going to have to keep fighting no matter what. All of that is part of it for sure.

I don’t know if I’ve talked about this in X-Men Monday, but I’ve definitely talked about this some other places. I look at the run of X-Men that made me a monthly reader, which was Grant Morrison’s New X-Men run.

I thought it was incredible. It was different. It was exciting. It was so neat. And when it ended, Marvel pivoted so quickly and so hard away from it — they went against the ending as fast as they could. There were certain bits of it that carried on, but overall, it changed immediately. And it took a lot of time, but eventually, those things all came back around. Jason Aaron started bringing all that stuff back in a little bit at a time. There was some annual he did where Fantomex was in it. And I was like, “That character still exists? This is amazing. He’s brought this character back.” And then, obviously, he brought back Quentin Quire in a huge way, along with ideas seeded in Grant’s run.

The people who loved it started writing comics. And that is where my hope for the future of Krakoa lies — that the people who love it are going to share that love in the future.

AIPT: I think that’s inevitable. Now, X-Fan Sinister said throughout the Fall of X, there have been pages from a manuscript called “Fall of the House of X.” Who was writing those?

Jordan: You know, that is one of the things that got cut from Uncanny X-Men #700 in the earliest outlines of it — revealing who wrote that document was a part of it. As certain scenes got bigger and it got bumped out, for a hot second, there was going to be a data page that reveals it. And then that just didn’t feel right, so we ended up not doing that. And then, in the end, we didn’t reveal it. 

We had been planning to say it was Cypher. That’s not a shocking reveal — that wouldn’t have made people’s socks fall off. But that was our plan.

AIPT: While you’re setting the record straight — Scott and Jean decided to open their marriage at the beginning of the Krakoan Era, right?

Jordan: If you Google it, I think there are a bunch of articles in which Executive Editor Tom Brevoort has addressed this directly.

AIPT: Jordan, Tom was talking about throuple allegations, I’m talking about an open marriage.

Jordan: Oh, very different. Certainly very different. The work speaks for itself.

AIPT: It sure does. OK, X-Fan Almatik was curious to know how you mark the end of an entire era. 

Jordan: Uh, we didn’t. [Laughs] I wrote an emotional post to everyone and I had a lot of feelings. But here’s the thing: My editorial team was kind of shrinking over the last six months. Meanwhile, the actual creative teams are not anywhere near me. They’re scattered all over the world.

AIPT: Well, what happens to the X-Slack? Stories from the X-Slack were such a big part of X-Men Monday throughout the Krakoan Era.

Jordan: We’re going to blow it up. I wanted to keep it up through the final issue coming out, but it might be gone by the time this goes live.

I will say, a bunch of the folks who haven’t done an X-book in a while are still on it. When I wrote my farewell to everybody, a whole slew of people responded who haven’t done a book for us in a while, because they’re still on it and they still care about it. I feel like we’re a fellowship now, right? Like, whenever I see these people at a convention for the rest of our lives, we will be thrilled to see each other. But since C2E2, before the pandemic, we haven’t been in a room together. And I don’t know that we ever will be again, unfortunately. 

AIPT: I think that closeness was one more thing that made this era so special for fans. At times, they felt like they were in the X-Slack with all of you.

Jordan: You know? In keeping with the meta nature, we are now scattered all over the globe — and hated and feared.

AIPT: [Laughs] Which one of you is running through the woods naked?

Jordan: Ben Percy! Like, you had to ask? [Laughs] Which one of us is a barista? That’s the real question.

AIPT: And who’s sitting in an alley, depressed like Havok?

Jordan: Poor Havok. But he’s not a zombie anymore. So I guess in some ways, things are looking up for him. And if anybody wants to be happy I’m not the X-Men Editor anymore — I was going to keep Alex as a zombie. I’m not even joking. I was like, “I want him to stay a zombie permanently.” [Laughs]

AIPT: This next one’s a question that doesn’t go away — X-Fan KingdomX wanted to know if you had any final teases for what the pitch for “New X-Men” was?

Jordan: I’ll just tell you. It was Weapon X-Men. It was Weapon X-Men and the name was changed.

AIPT: That’ll make it go away! One more mystery from the very start of your tenure that you promised to reveal in your final interview. Pre-Krakoa, at the end of Hunt for Wolverine: The Adamantium Agenda, Tony Stark shares that one of the X-Men isn’t actually a mutant and is also a sleeper agent. What was he talking about?

Jordan: I can tell you what I pitched it to be at one point. And “pitched” may not even be the right word — it was what I was thinking we would do. So this was done at a time when there was a lot of stuff up in the air. We didn’t know what was going on with Jonathan. I’ve mentioned before that when I first heard about him coming to X-Men, I was not aware of the scope of what we were talking about. I was told Jonathan was working on something and it was probably going to be a mini-series before a relaunch. 

So we didn’t know what we were doing yet. This was an idea to seed a mystery, as X-Men obviously has a history of mysteries that were seeded and played out over long periods of time. The third Summers brother, the X-traitor — those sorts of things. 

I will be real with you. The plans that I tried to seed wouldn’t have been like, “This person is secretly evil and working for someone.” It was going to be much more about them having no idea. There was no story behind it when I was pitching who it was going to be in my head. I was going to go, “Here’s my suggestion, writer, who is a person who writes stories for a living, come up with a story that makes some sense out of all this.” And we never got there because then Jonathan came in and everything got abandoned. So instead, we went into the “X-Men Disassembled” storyline knowing this all had a finite scope. 

But I was pitching it should be Kitty Pryde. Kitty should find out she’s not a mutant. And the reason I thought that was an interesting idea was because so much of her story has been about learning that she’s a mutant and what that means. I  thought it would be an interesting twist on her story to say, what if she learned she wasn’t a mutant, and then she can learn that it doesn’t matter. She is still who she is, she believes what she believes, she’s still an X-Man, and she still stands for everything she’s always stood for — whether she was born mutant or not.

I mentioned that to Gerry and Jonathan later, but I wasn’t going, “Hey, what if we did this?” I was going, “Oh, this is a thing I had been thinking for a minute that we might do. Does anybody want to do anything with this?” And nobody picked it up.

AIPT: That’s interesting, because I feel like that was one of the theories behind Kate not being able to use the Krakoan gates. Did that influence that story beat in any way?

Jordan: No. Gerry wanted to write about Kate from the start of Marauders. And like I said, to many people’s dissatisfaction a couple weeks ago, in our minds, it wasn’t that mysterious. We were really just like, it’s weird Krakoan technology and she messes up technology. So we were more surprised by people’s reactions. It seems fairly natural that her powers would interact with the gates poorly.

AIPT: Now, forget about the gates. Something that truly frustrated X-Fans was any time we would dedicate precious question-asking space to in-depth Weezer discussion. But, you and I know something they don’t that makes all the angry feedback worth it. Can we finally reveal at least a little about what happened a few weeks after X-Men Monday #136 went live a few years back?

Jordan: I can’t say everything about it, but I can say that we were in contact with Weezer’s representation, talking about whether or not we could work out something. And unfortunately, we were not able to work something out at this time. 

AIPT: I will never forget the night you sent me an email titled “Uhhhh” about Rivers Cuomo asking his record label to reach out. X-Men Monday’s impact!

Jordan: Here’s the thing that didn’t happen — and it’s probably for the best because I don’t know if this would’ve gone well. But at one point — if we were able to — I thought, wouldn’t it be fun if at the Hellfire Gala, one of the reveals is that Rivers Cuomo, the lead singer of Weezer — for those of you who don’t know — is coming out as a mutant. He’s like, “I’ve always been a mutant, but I’ve hidden it the whole time I was in Weezer and here’s my power.” But it’s the Gala where Orchis strikes. [Laughs] And Rivers ends up in the White Hot Room. And in the background throughout the Fall of X, we have updates like, “Weezer frontman still missing and presumed dead.” Like, some other singer is touring with them in tribute or something.

I thought this would be so awesome. But there was no way this was happening. 

AIPT: And you didn’t pitch this, right?

Jordan: No, no, because it was too late. And it was a very grim issue. [Laughs] I don’t know that it would’ve been appropriate to put that in.

AIPT: Now I’m wondering, if Rivers had been in the White Hot Room, would he have chosen to return to Earth or stay in New Krakoa?

Jordan: Well, that part wasn’t locked down when I was planning it. But that would’ve been interesting. He could come back, but canonically, Rivers is 15 years older than the rest of the Marvel Universe.

AIPT: He’d probably have written a lot of songs in that time.

Jordan: Oh, yeah. He’d come back with every-color-of-the-rainbow albums.

AIPT: Well, anyway, I’ve been very clear that Rivers is my X-Men Monday white whale. We know he’s seen the column before, so, Rivers, if you or anyone else in your camp is reading this, I’d love to interview you about your history with comics, Kitty Pryde, and Nightcrawler too. Perfect timing too, with the Blue Album’s 30th anniversary!

Jordan: Well, if you do ever hear from him…

AIPT: You’ll come out of X-Men Monday retirement?

Jordan: Of course I will. Oh, and now that I’m a Springsteen fan, I’m going to try to get him in the Venom costume in the next couple of years.

AIPT: [Laughs] He was on Curb Your Enthusiasm, so we know he’s got a sense of humor. But back to comics as we begin to wrap up. X-Fan Dr. Khaliden Nas wanted to know what lesson from overseeing the X-books all these years will you take with you as you move on in your work as an editor?

Jordan: Oh, gosh, that’s a really good question. I mean, the closeness of the office — of the whole creative team — is something that was really revelatory. And I will never leave that behind to the extent that I can still use it. Obviously, I’m doing Incredible Hulk and there’s only one Hulk book, right? With Venom, we’ve got a bunch of folks working on tie-ins and whatnot, and we’ve got crazy plans for the future. But if I ever do a full big line the size of X-Men again, 100% I will do that. I will absolutely find a way to rally the troops into a little community again because it was beautiful and lovely.

In addition, the thrill of just really trying to do something new was so wonderful. I would like to think that in all the things we did, there was still a lot of connection to the history of the X-Men and the characters. And I don’t want to make it sound like I’m saying everybody else is just doing a bunch of nostalgia books, but I don’t want to just do nostalgia books for sure. If I’m going to do a thing that’s the old thing, I want it to still be something new somehow. Like, there should be a reason that we’re doing this and not just reprinting the old books. What are we adding to the legacy? What are we looking at differently? What are we revealing creatively? That’s something important.

AIPT: And what do you hope the legacy of the Krakoan Era will be?

Jordan: That we turned the X-Men into bad guys and replaced them with clones. 

AIPT: [Laughs] Oh right. Evil plant people, doing evil things like… believing they have a right to exist.

Jordan: No, I think the legacy was mutants trying something new and different in the world. It was very much the “Did you think we were going to take it?” But also, for as aggressive as that line was, it was, like you said, “Now let’s go be a family and have dinner and relax. Let’s live well instead of being hunted.” It was them going, “Let’s do something new and different.”

I hope that that’s the legacy. Mutants coming together and supporting each other. The mutant circuit, right? It can make things better for all of them.

AIPT: Alright, X-Men’s in the rearview — what are you currently working on, Jordan?

Jordan: I’ve got a whole bunch of stuff on my plate. Venom is a big one. I’m still working with Al Ewing, who I adore. His Venom run has been so great. And I’m working with Torunn Grønbekk. We’re building up to “Venom War,” which is a big Venom storyline that’s going to have a bunch of spinoffs and craziness going on in there.

If you haven’t been reading Venom, it picks up at the end of Donny Cates’ run. At the end of Donny’s run, Eddie Brock became the King in Black, which is the king of all symbiotes, basically. Al picked that up and the book went in two directions at once. Eddie goes on this crazy, mind-bending adventure through time and space because he finds out not only can he travel to the location of any symbiote but he can travel to any time that there’s a symbiote and take over that symbiote. It’s the best kind of madness. Meanwhile, his son Dylan Brock got the regular Venom symbiote and becomes Venom in the present. And their stories diverge and they come back together — and this is the culmination of that. They’re rushing headlong into each other because both of them believe they have to be the one to have the Venom symbiote or else everything is going to go terribly. Dylan’s seen a vision of what will happen if Eddie keeps it and Eddie has seen a vision of what happens if Dylan keeps it. It’s going to be awesome.

And after that, things are going to get even crazier in that book in ways I cannot tell you yet. 

I’m also doing Incredible Hulk. Phillip Kennedy Johnson’s been writing and it’s terrific. It’s so dark. It’s Hulk fighting monsters, but not just monsters in the sense of big, bulky guys. It’s very mythology-based and folklore-based. Hulk is traveling. He hates Banner. He wants to take his body completely from Banner because of what Banner did to him in Donny Cates’ run. And Banner is trying not to lose to the Hulk. Meanwhile, there’s a young girl named Charlie who comes from an abusive family and is on the run with Hulk because she wants to be strong like him. And Banner’s trying to save her from Hulk. It’s so good and creepy and emotional. 

And then I took over Spider-Man Unlimited. I love working on those Infinity Comics. I got to do X-Men Unlimited for what? 142 issues in a row? Pretty much weekly for like three years almost. It’s a blast. I think Infinity Comics are great. They’re comics but made for your phone and they’re fun to read. They come out weekly, so the rhythm is a little different than the print comics we do, but they’re a blast to work on and I’m thrilled to still be working on them. So I took over Spider-Man Unlimited. We’re doing a couple of shorts, including one written by Scott Aukerman that’s coming out right now.

AIPT: Former X-Men Monday guest Scott Aukerman!

Jordan: Former X-writer because he wrote X-Men Black: Mojo for me, which was a delight. He’s got another project in the works for me that I can’t announce yet but it’s going to be awesome. And there are big things coming up on the Infinity front on the Spider-Man side from me as well. So I’m looking forward to that.

And then I’ve actually got other books that I can’t even talk about yet. So there’s going to be plenty on the way in Jordan D. White comics. So, I’m sorry, everybody.

Also, if you want to hear me talk about nonsense that isn’t comics, I do have a podcast where I talk about horror movies with my friend Stefan Lawrence. It’s called Nature Trail to Hell. As of this recording, we just finished a season where we covered all the Saw films and then a couple of bonus ones. Before that, we did The Purge. And before that, we did Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And then before that, we did Friday the 13th. And we just announced that we’re beginning work on the Leprechaun series. [Laughs] I don’t know why we’re doing this. I don’t know why we’re watching the Leprechaun movies, but we are, and it’s going to be really stupid. So you should definitely listen.

AIPT: The X-Men met some leprechauns once, so there’s crossover.

Jordan: They did meet leprechauns, and I did a book about that one time — Uncanny X-Men: First Class.

AIPT: OK, Jordan. Do you have one final message for our readers, those uncanny X-Fans?

Jordan: I know no matter who you are, you didn’t like every book that I did. I hope that I did more that you liked than you didn’t. But I’ve mentioned before, the only way to do a good job as an editor is to love the comics you’re putting out. And man, do I love the X-books that I put out. I really love them with my whole heart. I put a lot of love and passion into them. I worked really hard on them. I am so lucky to have worked with the creators I did. And I hope that we did some things you enjoyed, at least. I know for some of you, we did a lot you liked, and that’s great. And I know for some of you, not so much — but hopefully, there’s something that we did for you.

I’ve loved getting to know you. I’ve done a bunch of X-podcasts and being on them has been a blast. It really has. Because again, I love talking about comics and I love talking about comics with other people who love comics. So it’s been wonderful.

I love your passion. I love how much you love every small character.

AIPT: And you mean every mutant who can shrink down.

Jordan: Micromax, I’m talking about Micromax. Nobody loves Micromax. No, there’s somebody who does and that’s what I mean! There are passionate fans for every X-character out there.

And I know we didn’t spotlight Academy X enough, specifically. Honestly, I think it’s one of those things that is cyclical in the sense that it’s an era that the writers we were working with… it just wasn’t their era. None of them were big Academy X fans. But those folks will be there. Those folks will come back. 

But thank you for all the love and support during those six years. And I hope if you read Venom and Incredible Hulk, you’ll enjoy them. And if not, keep enjoying X-Men and maybe I’ll see you again someday.

Maybe when they bring back Krakoa, they’ll bring me back. You never know.

AIPT: If and when that day comes, I’ll be sure to relaunch X-Men Monday with a shiny new #1. Finally, your last X-Men Monday X-Fan question. Someone named Tom Brevoort wanted to know where you left the keys.

Jordan: Well, interestingly, we gave one to Magneto, and Al Ewing kind of used it, so I don’t know if it’s going to be useful anymore. But it certainly looked like it fit into a keyhole back in the World. You’re just going to have to figure out what to do with that now. I’m sorry, man.

AIPT: That’s really funny. And the perfect note to end on. Jordan, thank you for everything.

And now, you’re free. It’s over. You’ll never have to answer a question about Marvel Girl’s dress again.

Now, X-Fans, there are no eXclusive images this week. Hopefully, you weren’t expecting panels from Venom or Incredible Hulk.

As Jordan’s been pulling eXclusive images for you for 5 years, I thought it’d be nice if he got a chance to see what his efforts — and the efforts of the entire X-Office — have meant to X-Fans during his tenure as X-Men Senior Editor. Take it away, X-Fans!

Jason0808: The Krakoan Era is my first time reading the X-books on a weekly basis. Still sad to see it go, but nevertheless, thank you to you and all the creators.

Dr. Khaliden Nas: Thank you for being a part of the team that put this era together and brought so many of us back into Marvel comics. I hope that From the Ashes, something just as bright will rise — and until then, I’ll hopefully see you in the Second Krakoan Age one day!

England’s Dreaming: Thank you for bringing back Excalibur and thank you for Captains Avalon and Britain!

Michael: Thank you to you and your team for all your work and love of all things X these past few years! 

Kenny: I really just want to say thank you to Jordan and everyone who contributed to the Krakoan Era. It really was special to so many people during a time when it was so needed.

Sinister: Thank you so much for a lovely era. It’s been a delight to follow and I’ll hold it close to my heart.

Joshua Jones: Thank you for your hard work and for your contributions to the Nation of Krakoa. I never thought I’d see Apocalypse in a suit, and that image alone was worth the price of admission.

Dabid K: My most heartfelt thanks to you and the entire X-Office! I had a series of strokes in the fall of 2021 and learned to read again in the hospital clutching Krakoan Era X-Men comics. I will forever be grateful to have had these amazing stories to help me through the last 3 years of difficult recovery. Thank you for all of the hard, meaningful work that you and the team put in to create a lasting legacy in comics history and in readers’ hearts!

Rinoa: Thank you, Jordan and the rest of the X-team for an amazing era. I have not been this hooked on comics since the original Claremont run. I do not usually pick up ongoings as I usually trade-wait, and it was only your era that excited me enough. My best wishes to you all!

By the Time I Get to Phoenix: Thank you so much for overseeing these extraordinary comics!

AlmatikHope: Thank you, Jordan for the wonderful five years of Krakoa. I really enjoyed it, along with many cool stories. #BringBackXTerminators.

Phil A: Thank you so much for shepherding the X-Office for the past few years. The First Krakoan Age was a great time for the X-line, and I’m sure we’ll talk about it for years to come. I can’t wait to see where you go next.

Erik Ojo: Thank you for your hard work! Editing such a monumental experiment in X-Men storytelling is no small task.

Avi: Really enjoyed the whole journey of the last five years of the X-Men. Keep up the good work!

Nate X: Wish you all the best on your new endeavors, and thanks for your patience with Betsy fans. (Chris too!)

NAGLFAR: Jordan, I would like to thank you for this wonderful era and the excellent X-Office interaction in it, which is visible to the naked eye.

Charlie X: I’ve been an X-Men fan for most of my life, through good and bad eras, falls, and resurexxions of mutants. The Krakoan Age has been something new, strange, and fun.

Dave Brooke: You work so hard and it doesn’t go unnoticed!

Jason Lightbourne: Thank you so much for an epic ride through the end of the Krakoan Era. It’s sad that it has to end, but all good things (and for me, the Krakoan Era was a really good thing, I followed it ever since it started) must come to an end. It will be a wonderful journey in the next series, which I hope to explore.

Rob – Synch Needs More Page Time – W: It’s been great reading your answers here and even though we all hate to see this run come to an end, it has been amazing! Thanks to everyone who has written a book during the Krakoan Era. It was a great time to come back to the books and be an X-Men fan again.

Arjun: Krakoa was such a chance idea but kudos to reaching for the stars and shepherding not just one of the greatest eras of X-Men but one of the most exciting ideas in comics to date.

William Rose: Thank you for providing as much as you can for making this era something for this generation and previous generations to revisit! I came into this ride in 2020, and you and Jonathan made the magic happen, despite the whole plan not coming to fruition. Excelsior and Krakoa Forever!

Jaime: Thank you so much for all the work you put into the Krakoan Era. I’m very happy to have experienced it. All these stories multiplied the love I already felt for the comics medium and the X-Men tenfold, so it’s hard to not wish there was more to it. Still, I’m thankful for everything we got and excited for what’s to come. (I just hope Elixir gets to be there too. I love that guy.)

Grevling: Thanks for a truly great X-Men run and best of luck on future endeavors.

Xmenredfan: Having fallen in love with the X-Men in the Krakoan Age, I will be forever grateful for being able to read my favorite writers (Kieron Gillen and Al Ewing) month-to-month writing X-stories with some absolute juggernauts on art. What the teams did with Immortal X-Men, X-Men Forever, X-Men Red, and Resurection of Magneto was nothing short of spectacular. “To save one life is to save the world.” Here’s to all the stories that save the world! Best wishes on the next things!

Askani’s Flame: I truly appreciate your honesty, candor, and genuine interactions I’ve had with you over the years whether it be through X-Men Monday, Twitter/X, or CBR. Wishing you the best and looking forward to diving into the Venomverse with you.

Alex of X: Thank you for five years of stellar work. You have survived the experience!

So ended the First Krakoan Age of X-Men Monday at AIPT.

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The From the Ashes era of X-Men Monday at AIPT begins.

New era, new guests — starting with writer Jed MacKay and artist Ryan Stegman, who are coming to X-Men Monday to answer questions about X-Men (on sale July 10, 2024). Click here to submit your questions by Tuesday, June 11 at 5 PM ET.

Until next time, X-Fans, stay exceptional!