Welcome, X-Fans, to another uncanny edition of X-Men Monday at AIPT!
And now for something a little different. For only the second time in X-Men Monday history, we’re dedicating an edition to a book — without pictures!
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Don’t worry, Kitty, you of all X-people will appreciate why I’m doing this! It’s because on October 14, 2025, Marvel and Penguin Random House will release What If… Kitty Pryde Stole the Phoenix Force?, the latest installment in their What If…? series. While previous books have featured Loki, Spider-Man, Moon Knight, and other characters, this one’s for the mutants. Beyond Kitty, you’ve got Jean Grey, Emma Frost, Betsy Braddock, and other popular X-characters.
To learn how all these X-characters — along with America Chavez and Doctor Doom — fit together in this time-sprawling 336-page book, I spoke to its author, Rebecca Podos. Let’s see what she has to say.
Courtesy of Marvel and Penguin Random House
AIPT: Welcome to X-Men Monday, Rebecca! Before we dig into What If… Kitty Pryde Stole the Phoenix Force?, I’m curious — what was your first X-Men eXperience as a fan?
Rebecca Podos: Ooh, first? I remember liking the X-Men as a kid; I definitely stopped on X-Men: Evolution when flipping through channels. But when I got to college, I had a good friend (hi, Tamara!) who went to the comic shop every Wednesday, so that’s when I really got invested. Phoenix: Endsong, Astonishing X-Men, House of M, X-Men: The End, and Civil War were all happening at the time.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
I think my most memorable Fan Experience™ was staying up during the shop’s 24-Hour Comics Day lock-in to draw an 8-page comic called Lego X-Men: Blocky Humanoids. You know, casual fan stuff.
AIPT: Surely, the greatest X-Men story X-Fans have never read! Now, for those who are learning about What If… Kitty Pryde Stole the Phoenix Force? for the first time, what’s the elevator pitch?
Rebecca: We meet Kitty Pryde in a future without Jean Grey, and thus, without the X-Men, who died decades ago when their space shuttle was torn apart by a solar flare. Now they’re nothing more than a cautionary tale told to Kitty by the White Queen, her mentor and boss, to drive home the lesson: mutants cannot count on the goodwill of humanity. They have to be stronger, smarter, and above all else, stick to the shadows to survive.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
So when Betsy Braddock, a near-stranger and minor employee of RCX, shows up claiming that something is wrong with the world and that the psychic trail leads right to her, Kitty wants to brush her off. But Kitty has been seeing flashes of a different world, a different life, since her powers first manifested. To discover the truth, they’ll have to follow Betsy’s trail back to the past, to the glory days of the X-Men, and to the future Phoenix herself. But they’re not the only ones searching for Jean Grey.
AIPT: The Phoenix Saga, Kitty Pryde, Betsy Braddock, America Chavez, Doctor Doom, the Watcher, the Multiverse — you’ve managed to pack a lot into 336 pages. I’m curious, how does this unique twist on a classic X-Men story come together?
Rebecca: It was a lot, juggling classic versions of beloved characters, canon versions throughout history, and AU versions that never existed. But I think they’re all tied together by the fact that they’re searching for something they care deeply about. Kitty, for the hero she might have been in a better world she’s not even sure she believes in; America, for what it means to be human and to be in the world, rather than to exist as an observer from afar; Betsy, for the pieces of herself she’s lost along the way, with the hope that it’s possible to feel whole again. Even Doom is searching for something he feels he needs desperately. The places where their needs intersect, and where they oppose one another, are the heart of the book.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
Also, the hot pants. The hot pants are the heart of the book, too.
AIPT: Of course! Let’s talk time. While Jean Grey became the Phoenix in 1976, it was more like a few years ago in Marvel comics time. What made you decide to hop around different decades in your story?
Rebecca: It was always going to be a time travel story; that was Marvel’s exciting pitch for the book. But I got to decide when Kitty was traveling back from, and when she was traveling to, and how. The strangeness of Marvel comics time made that tricky, but since we’re not writing in the Marvel Comics Universe, I had a lot of freedom of choice. I knew I wanted to splinter the timelines just before the “Phoenix Saga” began, so I followed the consequences of that forward for Kitty, writing her into a future where she never met Jean and the X-Men, and where she became entangled with the White Queen and the Hellions not as enemies, but as the only glimmer of hope she had.
I was also really excited to write glimpses of Krakoa; I loved Kitty’s Red Queen era so much!
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
AIPT: Same! Let’s talk about your cast of iconic X-Women. You’ve got Jean Grey, Kitty Pryde, Betsy Braddock, Emma Frost, and then Marvel powerhouse America Chavez. Who was your favorite character to write — and which character surprised you the most?
Rebecca: I knew the least about America Chavez going in; I wasn’t reading comics as much when she was introduced, and still, I was mostly paying attention to the X-Men. I started with her “Made in the USA” run, and her background is fascinating, as well as her relationship with the country she’s named for. I absolutely loved getting to know her.
As for my favorite character to write… while Kitty is my all-time favorite superhero, I have to go with Emma Frost. She isn’t on the page as much, but delving into her origin story, showing her softer (kind of) Krakoa era, and then extrapolating about where and who she would have been without Professor Xavier and the X-Men was wildly fun. I do love the White Queen.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
AIPT: What can readers expect from the Kitty, Betsy, America — and, maybe Jean? — dynamic? I feel like this isn’t a combination we’ve seen explored in the comics.
Rebecca: It was really fun to put them all in one place, as adults and strangers, and figure out which parts of their innate Kitty-ness and Betsy-ness and so on came through despite having grown up apart, and under very different circumstances than they should have. Betsy, Kitty, and Jean are also missing an extremely important hinge point between them all. But I think some things are true about these characters in every world, as America says in the book, so I hope they still feel familiar to readers and fans.
Courtesy of Marvel and Penguin Random House
AIPT: Obviously, you can’t have comics without the visuals, but monthly comics also only have so much panel real estate. What, in your opinion, are some of the benefits of taking away the visuals and exploring these classic characters in a book format? (Something I enjoyed about your book’s sample is how we really get to go inside Jean’s head at a pivotal point in her publishing history.)
Rebecca: That’s an interesting question! Comic art is such a skillful form of storytelling — being able to convey not only what’s happening, but to impose a narrative perspective, while having to choose the few moments that create the most story impact. I had a lot more space to explore what was going on behind the iconic visuals, sometimes literally; there were scenes from Uncanny X-Men, Excalibur, Marauders, Knights of X, and more that I got to weave into the book, and sometimes expand on, like the scene in the sample. This also let me explore the human, fallible people behind the power poses, as my favorite comics always do.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics
AIPT: Finally, what can you share about the threats our heroes face over the course of this story?
Rebecca: In the third book of the series, written by the wonderful Mike Chen, we find out that Doctor Doom is the mysterious threat who’s been stalking alternate versions of heroes and villains throughout the multiverse (at least, a version of Doctor Doom). In this book, we begin to dive into why and just how big a threat he presents, though you’ll have to wait for the next book for all to be revealed. On top of that, we have the perils of time travel, and of course, the threats these splintered versions of the characters present to themselves.
Courtesy of Marvel and Penguin Random House
AIPT: Sounds like quite the page-turner for X-Fans. But on that note, Rebecca, thanks for stopping by X-Men Monday!
Remember, X-Fans, What If… Kitty Pryde Stole the Phoenix Force? goes on sale tomorrow (October 14, 2025). You can order it via this link. And while you wait for your copy to arrive, you can read a 64-page preview below!
Until next time, X-Fans, stay eXceptional!
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