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3 questions with past and present X-Men creators
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3 questions with past and present X-Men creators

We asked several past and present X-Men creators the same three questions–here’s what they said.

Since their debut in 1963, the X-Men have sworn to protect a world that hates and fears them. But you know what? Here at AiPT!, we’ve got nothing but love for Marvel’s mighty mutants! To celebrate the long-awaited return of Uncanny X-Men, AiPT! Brings you UNCANNY X-MONTH: 30 days of original X-Men content. Hope you survive the experience…3 questions with past and present X-Men creatorsEvery X-Men fan remembers when they first discovered Professor Charles Xavier’s colorful students and their adversaries. And, every X-Fan can name their favorite X-Men character. But what about the creators who have actually had the privilege of chronicling some of the X-Men’s many adventures?

When did they first fall in love with the X-Men? Who are their favorites? And what contributions to the ongoing X-Men saga are they most proud of? As it’s Uncanny X-Month, there was no better time for AiPT! to ask these three questions of some of our favorite X-creators!

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Ed Brisson: (Writer: Uncanny X-Men, Dead Man Logan)

AiPT!: When did you first fall in love with the X-Men?

Ed Brisson: I started reading X-Men when I was VERY young and on a cross-country road trip. One of my parents bought me Uncanny X-Men #135. They bought it, and others, to shut me up, I’m sure. Couldn’t have been pleasant to be driving 10 hours a day with three kids in the back of the car.

I really liked X-Men going forward, but think the moment I fell in love with it was during “The Fall of the Mutants.” That was the first big X-event I remember running down to the comic shop every week to follow.

3 questions with past and present X-Men creators

Image Credit: Marvel Comics

AiPT!: Who is your favorite X-Men character and why?

Brisson: I tend to have a fave who’s a mainstay and one who’s an underdog. I already explained my love for Glob, the underdog, so won’t repeat myself here. The other is, of course, Wolverine. Being Canadian, we’re generally inundated with American media, to the point that it obliterates our own. So, as a kid, I was thrilled that the coolest, most bad-ass X-Man was a canuck, that Canada had a place in the Marvel U. My love for him goes beyond patriotism, though. I tend to gravitate to loners and love it best when Logan is off on his own, wandering from town to town like Clint Eastwood, dealing with whatever nastiness he might encounter.

3 questions with past and present X-Men creators

Image Credit: Marvel Comics

I think he’s a very complex character, someone who seems hard and cold on the outside, but is truly a deeply caring person that seems to get hurt every time he allows himself to be vulnerable. It’s quite tragic.

AiPT!: What contribution to the X-Men mythos are you most proud of?

Brisson: I’m going to cheat here and say: It’s yet to come. There’s some stuff that’ll be happening in X-Force #5 and #6 that I’m excited to write and that will add to X-Men (or at least X-Force) history in a very real way.

Leah Williams (Writer: X-Men Black: Emma Frost, What If? Magik)

AiPT!: When did you first fall in love with the X-Men?

Leah Williams: When I was working in a comic book shop. I had days to gorge on comics for hours and hours and this is when I fell in love with both X-Men comics and the A Song of Ice and Fire novels.

AiPT!: Who is your favorite X-Men character and why?

Williams: I used to pretend it was “lots of mutants, actually” but after the experience of feeling like my love for a character was going to sabotage my actual chance to write the story I’ve been desperate to tell with her for years for Marvel, I no longer pretend it’s anyone other than Emma. I do love lots of X-Men characters to an enormous degree, but the way I feel about Emma Frost in particular is the same breathless, tearful devotion you see young girls with in the concert audience of a musician they care about. It’s the same passion. It’s just pure love.

3 questions with past and present X-Men creators

Image Credit: Marvel Comics

AiPT!: What contribution to the X-Men mythos are you most proud of?

Williams: Definitely MMA [Mindfulness for Mutant Appearances]. [Editor] Chris Robinson linked me to the sparkling new wiki page for it and I had a moment of incredible appreciation and awe I shared with him about it–the fact that I got to contribute something that is small, yes, in the grand scheme of the universe; but somehow also feels fiercely revolutionary and progressive to me is truly a wonder.

3 questions with past and present X-Men creators

Image Credit: Marvel Comics

Also, the first time I got to write Emma Frost was in Secret Empire: Brave New World #5, and the first thing I did with her, literally the first panel, my first contribution to Emma’s canon, was her butt along with the caption “Being a hot girl is weird.” I scripted Emma’s booty. #priorities

Marjorie Liu (Writer: Astonishing X-Men)

AiPT!: When did you first fall in love with the X-Men?

Marjorie Liu: In the ’90s when the X-Men cartoon first came on Fox. That was it.

AiPT!: Who is your favorite X-Men character and why?

Liu: Jubilee! [Laughs and points at a Jubilee pin on her jacket] Jubilee and Wolverine, yeah, those are my favorites.

3 questions with past and present X-Men creators

Image Credit: Marvel Comics

AiPT!: What contribution to the X-Men mythos are you most proud of?

Liu: I really loved–I still have such a tender place in my heart around the X-Men. I love that I was part of the Northstar-Kyle wedding.

3 questions with past and present X-Men creators

Image Credit: Marvel Comics

I love that I had a chance to write Warbird as a woman who’s discovering her inner artist and having to make choices about her life, whether she gives up the sword or takes up a pen, that sort of thing. I’m really proud of having had a chance to work with Gabriel Hernandez Walta. So it’s hard to pinpoint one thing because the entire run, like I said, I just have such tender feelings for it. It was always my dream to write the X-Men. I feel a glow when I think about it, it was just so much fun.

Ray-Anthony Height (Artist: X-Men Blue, X-Men: Wakanda Forever)

AiPT!: When did you first fall in love with the X-Men?

Height: When I saw Pryde of the X-Men, that was it. Of course, I sought out the comics after, and that was it for me.

AiPT!: Who is your favorite X-Men character and why?

Height: I would say a cross between Beast or Nightcrawler. Of the older X-Men… those two guys–I love those guys. If I were to go newer in the X-Family, I’ve always liked Prodigy, but I don’t think the direction that they went would have been the direction I went in. It’s still a great character. Who else is awesome? Surge. I love B- and C-list characters, especially the ones that have great potential. There’s so much you can be doing with those characters, but they don’t have the right stories. Anyway, those are my characters.

AiPT!: What contribution to the X-Men mythos are you most proud of?

Height: Working with Cullen Bunn and creating the Raksha. That was great, that was a highlight. So when I go to Marvel.com and I look them up and it’s got my name and Cullen’s name on there, I geek out. I contributed to the X-Men… that’s awesome.

3 questions with past and present X-Men creators

Image Credit: Marvel Comics

Jordan D. White (X-Men Group Editor)

AiPT!: When did you first fall in love with the X-Men?

Jordan D. White: Excalibur was my way into the X-World. I am not sure how I stumbled onto an issue… I think a friend traded me an issue that they had been given while trick-or-treating. I think my first issue was issue #4, the infamous Janitor cover, though it was already a back issue when I got it.

3 questions with past and present X-Men creators

Image Credit: Marvel Comics

I became obsessed with collecting the full series, and did so just in time for Alan Davis’s return to the series to start coming out. Like many before me, I was in love with Kitty Pryde, who at the time was an older woman who would be totally out of my league, being 11 years old. Now, I am nearly twice her age. Funny how that works. That was also right around the time of X-Force #1 and then X-Men #1, as well as the Animated Series, so the X-Men started creeping into my reading which had been mostly Spider-based before that.

AiPT!: Who is your favorite X-Men character and why?

White: I hope you will forgive me for saying that Kitty is still one of my favorites, along with Nightcrawler. Excalibur is always gonna be my truest X-Love, and those were the characters I followed into the X-Men back issues and stories of the years before and after. Over the years, I learned to love a lot of them–Wolverine, Cyclops, Psylocke, Gambit… but Kurt and Kitty remain at the forefront.

3 questions with past and present X-Men creators

Image Credit: Marvel Comics

AiPT!: What contribution to the X-Men mythos are you most proud of?

White: I got to edit the issue where we officially stated that Longshot and Shatterstar are each others’ fathers. I greenlit that.

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