X-Men Monday #256 – Jed MacKay & Ryan Stegman Talk ‘X-Men’

Welcome, X-Fans, to an all-new, all-different — but still uncanny — era of X-Men Monday at AIPT!

On July 10, Marvel’s mutants take their next step into the “From the Ashes” era when the first issue of X-Men — one of three new flagship X-titles — goes on sale. This powerhouse X-Men team, led by Cyclops and featuring heavy hitters like Magik, Psylocke, and Juggernaut, promises to make mutant business their business.

To learn more about this new X-team, what the future holds for them, and — most importantly — whether Glob Herman will have his chickens, I sat down with X-Men‘s creative team: Writer Jed MacKay and artist Ryan Stegman. Let’s see what they had to say.

AIPT: Welcome to X-Men Monday, Jed and Ryan! So, 1991’s X-Men #1 is famous for being the best-selling comic book of all time. Let’s go back to when you’re told you have the opportunity to launch an all-new X-Men #1. Jed, what’s your goal as a writer? And Ryan, what’s your goal as an artist?

Jed MacKay: We’re going to hit that 1 million copies mark, I think.

AIPT: [Laughs] Surpass it?

Jed: Yeah, surpass it. Why not 2 million? No, I mean, it’s kind of the same thing you do with every new No. 1, right? You need to make it easy enough for new readers to jump on without losing old readers who already know what’s going on, pay tribute to the past and acknowledge its importance, all while doing something new. It’s really trying to strike a balance between serving many masters. So it’s no different than any other No. 1 — just with significantly more pressure. That’s all.

Ryan Stegman: Obviously, I just wanted to improve as an artist and do the best work that I can possibly do. I want to live up to the history of X-Men artists. You’ve got John Byrne, Jim Lee, Joe Madureira — I just wanted to be able to live up to those that came before and not embarrass myself. But there’s an acclimation period of getting used to the characters, so I just tried to make sure I had my takes on them down beforehand so I didn’t have any bumps in the road.

AIPT: Based on what we’ve heard, it seems like you two have arrived at a very collaborative creative process. When I spoke to Tom Brevoort, for example, he mentioned Ryan wanted to draw a specific villain, so Jed worked them into a story. and Ryan, I know you’re a writer yourself. Can you two describe your collaborative process on X-Men so far?

Ryan: I mean, it’s pretty much what you just said. I don’t have a ton of input. I guess we did kind of create some stuff for the future of what we’re going to do together via text message when it was still costing Jed like $5 per text message… before we figured that out…

Jed: It costs a lot to text across the border.

Ryan: But now we’re on Discord, so we just share ideas on there. But make no mistake — Jed’s the writer. I just like to poke my nose in when I can.

Jed: Yeah, I always try to be collaborative. If there’s something Ryan’s particularly interested in, then that’s a direction we’ll go in because this is a book that everyone needs to be interested in making.

AIPT: Nice. OK, I want to spotlight your X-Men, starting with the team’s leader, Cyclops. So far, Marvel publicity has used words like “revolution” and “radical” when describing this series, which brings to mind Cyclops’ mutant revolutionary era. Jed, X-Fan Hank asked if you’re writing Cyclops as more of the classic leader, like in Chris Claremont‘s iconic stories, or a more revolutionary leader like he was portrayed in the mid-2010’s X-books? 

Jed: I think it kind of strikes a balance between there because this is very much Cyclops in a leader role. He’s running this team, he’s established basically the territory that this group works in and the philosophy they work within. However, this is certainly a position that isn’t necessarily meeting with mainstream approval. We’re going to see in X-Men #3, for instance, Cyclops and his merry band of mutants are quite frequently butting heads with the Office of National Emergency, which moving forward for us, is going to essentially be a Department of Mutant Affairs within O.N.E.

So as we go on, we’re going to explore a little bit what it means to be X-Men in this post-Krakoa world and to be X-Men in such a loud and visible manner. As you can see in the previews, they live in a building with a big “X” on the front — they’re not exactly hiding from anyone. Though Alaska is certainly remote.

So regarding Cyclops’ character, I don’t think it’s either one or the other. But it certainly draws from all that because Cyclops has such a long history and so many — I think — really interesting and different phases of his career. Moving forward, we kind of try to take a piece from every bit of it.

AIPT: And Ryan, it’s been a minute since a character like Cyclops had such a drastic redesign. The chunky visor, the bold yellow, the hair flowing freely — how do you approach redefining such an iconic character?

Ryan: Well, you just try to keep the iconic aspects of him intact while putting your own spin on them. So the chunky visor thing — I just thought we had this era of kind of downplaying the visor. I wanted to play it up. So it’s more squared. But to me, the idea behind it is it’s a little more like there’s an onboard computer in that visor that he can use for various purposes to see like 360 or something. Just cool stuff like that because that technology exists now.

Then, on the body, I just started playing around with shapes and I’ve always liked the yellow with Cyclops. I wanted each character on this team to have their own signature color. I didn’t want to do the thing where they all have this unified uniform. I want them all to have their own individual accent. So for Cyclops, I landed on yellow. I love the hair-out look. I feel like we’ve had the covered head for a while and it’s fun to go back and forth. So I just tried to come up with something that I thought was iconic and would also be exciting and new.

AIPT: Well, mission accomplished. And one last Cyclops-centric question for you, Jed — X-Fan Briar loves how you write Strange and Clea’s marriage in Doctor Strange. In fact, it might be Briar’s favorite Marvel marriage right now. We know Cyclops will appear in Phoenix, so can we assume Jean Grey will pop up in X-Men? If so, how do you plan to approach writing Scott and Jean’s marriage?

Jed: We’ve actually stayed away from it for these early issues just because there’s already a Phoenix book and already an X-Men book, so we don’t need to have them be too closely interlinked right from the get-go. I think it’s something that kind of behooves us to let each book breathe and stand on its own before we get into tying them too closely together. And also, it’s just part of a long-distance relationship. Scott’s on Earth, Jean’s off in space, so by necessity, she’s not going to be around all the time. That’s something we’ll explore more moving forward. But in these earlier issues, it’s more focused just on our X-Men and what our X-Men are up to.

AIPT: Switching gears to Scott’s fellow original X-Man — X-Fan alliterator said you’re inheriting a vastly different Beast. How does it feel writing a Defenders-era Hank, who probably doesn’t know a lot of his fellow X-Men other than what he’s read, and has to familiarize himself with this new world? Anything you can share about upcoming Beast arcs?

Jed: I think Beast is super interesting. I was really into what Ben Percy was doing in Wolverine and X-Force with bad Beast and then bringing in this younger version of the Beast. He’s someone who has very clearly seen what he can become. And he’s also someone who has missed a large part of this history that everyone else has shared with him. So, it’s very frustrating for someone who is very smart and a scientist who has always been on the cutting edge. He’s now having to catch up on years and years of technological and scientific advancements. And having to play catch-up is an unfamiliar situation for him.

And of course, he’s working on something, which is one of the reasons why they’re in the factory. What that something is, we’ll explore further. But yeah, the Beast is certainly not without a project and we’re going to see what that is and what that entails.

AIPT: Ryan, in a recent IGN interview, Jed said you draw Beast “much sexier now than he was looking previously.” Should Nightcrawler step aside? Do the X-Men have a new, blue sex symbol?

Ryan: Well, I said it on Twitter, but really I just wanted to do an homage to George Perez’s version of Beast, just because I think that’s cool. And I wanted him to kind of go back to his roots. Well, not his roots roots — but the blue fur to me has always been Beast. I like the evolution of Beast over time, but I do like, particularly, George Perez’s Beast. And also, I just thought it was a nice thing to do for a guy who contributed so much to comics over the years.

Jed: And also, it’s a real signpost to where this Beast comes from chronologically.

AIPT: Time for some Psylocke talk. Ryan, I’m obsessed with how you’re portraying Kwannon’s psychic katana. This is a Todd McFarlane-redefining-Spider-Man’s-webbing moment. 

Ryan: Jed was talking to me about Psylocke’s katana and what we could do with it to make it cool. And I had been doing those Hellverine covers and had this way of wrapping the fire around his claws that I really enjoyed. I thought it added some cool movement. So we just kind of moved that over and I think it’s pretty neat.

AIPT: Definitely. And how do you approach the X-Men’s powers, in general? Did you set out to redefine them, visually, or is it very much just you drawing them in a way that comes naturally to you?

Ryan: I think I just have specific things that I look for in everything that I draw. I want to find a way to make it look like it’s moving and breathing and I’ll use anything I can to add sort of a flowing movement to a page. But I feel like I don’t think about it too much ahead of time. I definitely just kind of plow ahead. So there’s some part of it that’s unconscious. But in everything I do, I want to make it mine. I want you to come into the book and be in my world when you’re there. That’s the type of artist I love.

You know, like when you go into a John Romita Jr. comic, you’re going into John Romita Jr.’s world. That’s the only place you can get those people and the way they look, and the way that everything looks and feels. That’s what excites me about comic book art. So I definitely try to do that with my art. But it’s less conscious and more just allowing myself to do things the way that I want to do then. 

AIPT: I never want to be in a rainstorm in John Romita Jr.’s world because of how he draws that heavy rain pouring down on Spider-Man. [Laughs]

Ryan: Yeah. [Laughs]

AIPT: Bring an umbrella.

Ryan: Exactly.

AIPT: Back to Kwannon — X-Fan Emily wanted to know if you could talk about Psylocke’s role and motivations on this team.

Ryan: I’ve drawn quite a few panels of her kicking people, punching people, and beating people up — and also reading their minds. So, you know, general Psylocke awesomeness. I would say that in Jed’s view, Psylocke is almost like the muscle of the team. She comes in and kind of takes care of business quickly and efficiently.

Jed: Yeah, Psylocke is very much the professional. You know, a lot of them are arguing or goofing around, but she’s always been the one who gets things done. And she’s the one who Cyclops looks to to do that. She’s not going to get distracted. She’s not going to mess up. And she has the focus of a ninja assassin because that’s who she is. But of course, that background is also the reason why she’s with the X-Men, as we’re going to see explained in X-Men #5.

AIPT: A nice tease. Now, Jed, X-Fan Skywalker asked how your background writing magical characters like Strange, Clea, and the Scarlet Witch influenced your approach to Magik.

Jed: It’s a good question because Magik’s a really tricky character given that she’s got a mutant power, she’s got her demon stuff, and then she’s got her magic stuff on top of that. I think a lot of how I approach it is that I tend to write Illyana as a very rowdy character. She’s not the sagacious wizard or the wizard crone who thinks things through and casts spells. She’s more interested in getting right up in it and solving or creating problems. She’s more hands-on.

So writing her is a lot different than someone like Clea or Strange, as those are characters who are magical characters first and foremost. Whereas Magik is a character where the magical sort of power set aspects are things she uses to solve problems, but she’s much more hands-on about things. That’s what happens when you have a character carry a sword around. The sword is generally the first response to a problem. 

Ryan: I’m having a blast drawing her. 

AIPT: Next up, Jed, X-Fan Shaun was curious to learn how you view Kid Omega’s relationship with Magneto and Cyclops.

Jed: It’s what we’re exploring. Quentin’s a really interesting character because he’s constantly pinballing between ideologies. He’s only kind of now starting to figure out where he stands as himself. You know, first it was Magneto was right, and then Cyclops was right, and then Wolverine was right. He’s kind of started trying to figure out what it means if Quentin is right. So as far as his relationship with Magneto and Cyclops — he’s more just sort of a general pain, just because that’s generally how he identifies with himself. If he starts towing the company line too much, he’s going to get a little confused and not really understand what he’s doing. So he gives people a hard time because he thinks that’s what’s expected of him. 

AIPT: X-Fan Little Red Jungle asked what made you choose Temper as Idie’s new codename? And is it “Temper” as in the angry emotion, or the counterbalancing of tempered glass?

Jed: Let me tell you, trying to name a character with heat-based superpowers that has not already been done is an enormous pain. I think I have a Google Doc with maybe a page or two of just potential names and a lot of them are crossed out — already used, already used, doesn’t make sense, is stupid. So Temper is what we settled on. I think it sounds cool. It’s got a bit of an aggro tone to it, but yeah, it does refer to tempered glass or tempered steel. Because Idie’s background is they tried to burn her — and she didn’t burn. When you apply heat to steel, it grows stronger. And when you apply heat to glass, it grows stronger.

Ryan: As I said, I was trying to come up with accent colors for all of them, and orange and blue made sense because of fire and ice. I wanted her look to be a little more signature than she had been in the past. I think she’s a great character, but she was kind of dressed in one of those team outfits. So this is her expressing her individuality. That’s kind of the X-Men thing — show what you’re made to do. 

AIPT: X-Fan Jude T said after the events of Fall Of X, it looks like Juggernaut will become a more trusted face to the X-Men than his stepbrother, Charles Xavier. Can we expect any exploration of Cain’s thoughts on this change of status?

Jed: Yeah, we’re going to explore Juggernaut’s ongoing relationship with the X-Men and why he’s doing what he’s doing. Because, you know, it’s not insignificant in a world where mutants are suddenly given a newer and rawer deal that you have a guy who’s not a mutant wearing an “X” between his eyes. That’s something we’re going to look at. And again, is he perhaps suddenly the good stepbrother? We’ll see how that goes, because Juggernaut has been a bad guy in the past, but not really at the scale we’ve seen recently. So I think a lot of this kind of remains to be seen, but we’ll get into Juggernaut a bit more in X-Men #4.

AIPT: Would it be accurate to say you’ll spotlight characters in individual issues?

Jed: Yeah, there are moments for different characters to shine because this is a large team, but you want everyone to be able to do their Claremont stuff, right? So I’m trying to make sure that everyone’s getting, if not the focus in every issue, everyone’s getting some focus as we go on. So in X-Men #4, we’ve got some good Juggernaut stuff and we’ve got some good Magik stuff. X-Men #5 has Quentin stuff, that sort of thing.

AIPT: And then, Ryan. We were talking about redesigning Cyclops. Juggernaut was right there with him in those ’60s comics. Let’s talk about what Cain did to his helmet.

Ryan: They’re grooves. He’s the only one that could do that. He’s etched the “X” in there with his fingers, almost to say, “I’m an X-Man now, this is for real.” Because it’s permanently etched into his costume. I feel like I just changed the color scheme a little bit — maybe he spray-painted it and then etched in the “X.” Then, really it’s the classic costume. 

AIPT: I need Marvel and Hasbro to fast-track the Marvel Legends figures for these new designs.

Ryan: The cool thing is that the X-Men fanbase is passionate and really into it, so I’ve already seen some cosplay. I’ve seen a great cosplay of Psylocke and somebody did a Cyclops one the other day that actually helped me to better understand my own design. [Laughs] I see these things on Twitter and it’s just so flattering, but it’s also really cool. I didn’t expect it to happen so fast. I mean, the issues aren’t even out and we’ve already got really elaborate cosplay. 

Jed: It does show the clarity of your designs, though, considering no one’s even seen the frigging book and they’re able to build a costume from it.

Ryan: Well, some people were like, “Can you show me a picture of the back? I want to cosplay it.” And I’m like, well, I’ll send you that when I draw their back. [Laughs] I haven’t even gotten there yet. I need a minute.

AIPT: And then we’ve got Magneto — and Xorn. Jed, X-Fan Planetfrosts asked, how fun has it been writing Magneto and Xorn on the same team, seeing as the two have an interesting history with one another?

Jed: Um, it hasn’t come up that much. Xorn is largely a background guy at this point in time. I love the New X-Men run. And also, in part, if you’re leading an X-Men team into danger constantly, you probably want a guy on your team who can heal people.

And then Magneto’s always fun to write, because he’s got that voice that I really love that I get to do a lot in Doctor Strange-type stuff. Very articulate, very clearly spoken, and also just like a little bit bitchy. So it’s fun working with Magneto. We’ve got some big stuff to do with Magneto coming forward and there’s the mystery of his current circumstances yet to be revealed that people are already sort of freaking out on Twitter about. But yeah, I think Magneto’s a great character and I’m glad we’ve got him for our team and I’m looking forward to some of the stuff we’re going to do with him.

AIPT: You mentioned New X-Men — not one but two X-Fans, JG Piff and MK, asked if Glob Herman will have his pet chickens with him in Alaska.

Jed: He absolutely will have his chickens. No one was quicker to ask me that than Ed Brisson at a show last weekend. He was like, “So Glob’s got his chickens, right?” And I’m like, “You mean the chickens you gave him?” He’s like, “You better believe it.”

AIPT: [Laughs] Ryan, how’s it been drawing Ed and Glob’s chickens?

Ryan: I haven’t drawn the chickens yet. Ed’s going to have to pay up if he wants to see the chickens in the book. I have the final say there. We’ll see, Ed.

Jed: As per Ed’s legacy, Glob has his chickens and Glob is still vegetarian.

AIPT: OK, as we wrap up here, X-Fan Lina was wondering if all the characters on Cyclops’ team have been announced or if there are any surprises to come.

Jed: All the characters currently in play have been announced. There will probably be some flex coming down the line. It’s not a team I would say is firmly structured, like the Avengers, for instance. With the Avengers, it’s like, these are the big Marvel characters. Whereas with X-Men, it’s like, here are some big-name X-Men characters, here are some smaller-name X-Men characters — let’s see what happens when they come together. And let’s see if we can make these small names into bigger names.

The way we’ve structured this team and set up their mission lends itself to saying, well, this mutant has now moved to the Factory and will be in the book — either on the field team or part of the base team, hanging out at the Factory, working on the big projects or the small projects. So I don’t think there are any surprise members of the team, because that would be bad marketing for us.

Ryan: There are new characters. I just want to get that out there.

AIPT: Well, that’s the perfect segue to my next question. Ryan, in May, you said you were a few issues into drawing X-Men and you’ve already drawn a half dozen new characters. It’s clear the makeup of the X-Men team needs to be visually striking. I’m wondering if there’s anything else you strive for when designing new characters — whether new villains, aliens, or human supporting cast members.

Ryan: I mean, anytime you’re designing a new character, the first thing I think of is what can you do to that character to give them some iconic piece to their costume. Something that you could explode out. Like, you would just see that one little piece and you know that that’s the character. Beyond that, each character has a power set, right? You want them to have something in their costume that kind of says what their power set is. And then from there you just try to make it as streamlined as possible.

In the end, I always think, if an 8-year-old read a comic with this character, could they put that comic book down and go and draw it themselves? Would it stick in their brain enough for them to be able to do that? Because that’s what I used to like to do. Some new characters just kind of wash over you. So you want to find the thing that will stick with people.

AIPT: Looking forward to seeing those original characters. OK, final question. Why should readers still on the fence about picking up X-Men #1 buy a copy?

Jed: Because Ryan Stegman’s drawing it.

Ryan: Because Jed MacKay’s writing it.

Jed: Hey, there we go.

AIPT: [Laughs] What a team.

Jed: We didn’t even practice that. I mean, why should you pick it up? I think it’s an exciting issue. It looks great. It’s setting new things up for this world moving forward with mutants. It’s starting new mysteries that we’re going to resolve and setting up new interpersonal conflicts and triangles that we’re going to see play out. So I think this is going to be a great run of X-Men and this is where you get in on the ground floor.

Ryan: I would say that it’s a new era and you can pick up the first issue without having to read anything else. I think that even the Krakoa stuff you can just kind of glean from the first issue. You don’t need to have read all of that. Jed and I intend to do a lot of this stuff, so hopefully this could be the start of a great era of the book. You want to get in on the ground floor.

AIPT: Confirming I’m on the ground floor and ready for the ride. But on that note, that’s all I have for you two. Thanks for stopping by X-Men Monday, Jed and Ryan!

X-Fans, for this week’s X-Men Monday eXclusives, here’s your first look at the cover and solicitation for X-Men #4, on sale September 18.

X-MEN #4

JED MACKAY (W) • RYAN STEGMAN (A/C)

THEY KILL FOR KICKS & THEY KILL FOR CLICKS!

“Hello, internet – it’s your boy, Trevor Fitzroy! That’s right, Trevor Fitzroy and the Upstarts, out there delivering the content you crave: livestreamed, bespoke, mutant murder in high-def! And best of all, you, the viewers, are the ones rating the kills! So smash that like button, hit subscribe and tell us who the number-one killer is!”

On Sale 9/18

It seems Trevor Fitzroy has ascended to the ultimate form of villainy: Running a YouTube channel. Let’s just hope he doesn’t have opinions about pop culture.

But wait, there’s more! Wouldn’t it be cool if you could read a few pages of X-Men #1 — eXtra early? Well, keep scrolling…

Thought you’d like that. Thanks, as always, to our friends at Marvel for the eXclusives!

In the next edition of X-Men Monday at AIPT: Writer Alex Paknadel returns to discuss the new weekly X-Men: From the Ashes Infinity Comic, exclusive to Marvel Unlimited subscribers. Be sure to read the first two issues and then click here to submit questions to Alex by 7 PM ET today (June 17, 2024).

Until next time, X-Fans, stay exceptional!