Yesterday, we chatted with writer Kieron Gillen about “Journey Into Mystery”, one of our favorite Marvel comics. However, as it turns out this week saw the release of “Uncanny X-Men” #8, the conclusion of the ‘Tabula Rasa’ arc of “Uncanny,” and we thought it would be quite fun to have a second sit down with Mr. Gillen about the arc, the upcoming prison break story and the future of the X-Men as they march to war in “Avengers vs. X-Men.”
Luckily for us, Mr. Gillen obliged.
Take a look behind the cut as we discuss the past, present and future of Gillen’s “Uncanny” run. As a note, spoilers for the finale of ‘Tabula Rasa’ are discussed, so if you haven’t read it yet it might be wise to hold off reading certain parts of the interview.
With “Uncanny X-Men”,starting with the recent end of the ‘Tabula Rasa’ arc, an interesting set ofoccurrences throughout your entire run begin to become noticeable. You’vementioned it before in other interviews that you keep putting the X-Men againstfoes that are the last of a species to show off the mutants in parallel, butanother recurring element is that the X-Men never truly “win” at the end of theday; we still get a “downer” ending. Is there a reason you keep pushing towardsthe darker endings as opposed to the team succeeding?
I might just be a depressive Englishman. I do look at mywhole run and think, well, my first arc ended deliberately on a high note, tothe point where quite a few reviews said that it was unrealistically happy. Iwas thinking, “Well, this is the last they’re going to be happy for a while,”so what I wanted was one genuine moment of hope that has them sitting on thecliff and holding hands, with everyone having decided to be nice. It’s acompletely saccharine sentiment, but twists aggressively in the current marketplace – that people can actually be nice to one another, that the superheroesdon’t necessarily have to pull the head off the villain at the end of a story.In that first arc, rather than doing that they help a species start again.That’s a really humanist statement… but I also knew it would all kind of godownhill from there.
We’re building towards “AvX”, and there is no way “AvX” isgoing to be happy. These two groups are the world’s greatest heroes going ateach other, and I’ve all the way through my run known that “AvX” was coming, soany of those battles in “AvX” is going to have an element of that, too. Whoeverwins, the other side is going to have to lose, and that’s a fight that neitherside wants to be in. It’s like having a fight with your brother; even if youwin, it’s not something you’re meant to be doing.
Maybe I’m trying to work that in as a tone. I’m thinkinglong-term, as these are characters on a tragic arc. These are people whoeventually going to end up fighting the Avengers and the world’s government forsome reason. There is a sadness there. There is nothing fun about punchingCaptain America in the face, though if you’re Namor, there is a lot of fun inpunching the Thing. That’s my major memory — Namor really likes punching theThing in this crossover.
These are heroes and they manage to get their victories, butthere is a general sadness to it. If you look at the second arc, ‘Tabula Rasa’,it’s fundamentally about communication. If you look at the Immortal Man storyand who actually wins there, it’s Storm, and Storm wins by making the ImmortalMan actually realize what he’s doing. Storm wins by an act of communication. Wecall this the most powerful team on Earth, but what wins the day is to actuallyunderstand and communicate with somebody. They didn’t punch the Immortal Man todeath, they just made him realize he was destroying everything he was fightingfor. If he wants to blow shit up, he’s going to destroy his people’s legacy,and that’s the only thing he really cares about. The flip of that is the moretounge-in-cheekness of the Namor story, in which Namor creates peace by spending some not-so-subtle off-panel time with the Tapeworm Queen! That is, joking aside, a storyfundamentally about how people interact with each other, no matter how alienthey may seem.
Continued belowI like to think my Uncanny is doing several things. I do alot of down endings, maybe more than I should, but I also try and put in thesemoments where the characters manage to defy the odds, and they defy the odds inways that don’t necessarily mean punching. The second arc especially is the onewhere I basically wanted to put Storm in charge. Cyclops is in there, but Itake him off the table early on. Storm is a kinder leader, which I like becausethe extended Extinction Team has the danger of being cold, and that’s part ofthe point (they’re deeply scary mother fuckers!).
There’s a lot of human stuff going on, especially when weget to the Colossus and Magik element of it. Through all of the subplots runningthrough my work, the Colossus character who asks what he’s willing to give upto save the world, and I think in this issue you start to see what he’s reallygiving up, and you might imagine that that’s not even the bottom of thatparticular hole.
There was definitely the idea of leaning towards the tragedyand the downbeat. There is a continuing question mark over what the team isdoing. I set it up in the first issue of the relaunch, with Storm’s “Who hasn’tbeen a super villain?” By giving complete and utter punching the air victories,you kind of negate that question mark. I want to keep the question mark, and ina very real way, the question mark is the story.
With the Colossuselement in particular, that is perhaps the most clear of the threads thatyou’re working on, both throughout what your endgame might be but as well alongthe downbeat ending element. Are you at all afraid of taking a character likeColossus, who is really not known for being a darker character, down too dark apath?
Not really. Colossus was a character who was brought backfrom death and it never really seemed to bother him. It was like waking up froma hangover, and then he kind of got on with it. There is something worryingabout a guy who does that. In the same way, the idea pretty much came from himbeing a character who is into self-sacrifice in a way that I don’t think isnecessarily healthy. It’s not like, say, Captain America; Colossus’ his firstoption is generally to find a way to sarifice stuff. If you had two people andthere was one meal, he would always give the meal away to somebody else, and hewouldn’t even think if there is a way to spread it between the both of them! Heis naturally sacrificing in a way that I feel is self-destructive, and I wantedto take that to the ultimate degree. I’m taking him down a dark road, but notin the sense of “Oh my god, now I’ll make him do this!” I’m basicallyconfronting the ultimate extreme of that already existing character trait.
I also felt like Colossus hadn’t had a major story inforever. I also want to teach him something. That’s the thing: with all thecharacters I want to make them generally learn something about themselves. Thisis my favorite element from the X-Men from even before I joined (and when I saythe X-Men I mean the modern X-Men); people say Cyclops is acting out ofcharacter, but these are people who haven’t been reading X-Men for the pastfive years, because the actual slow drift into the guy he is now has beendelineated really well across that time. At the same time, the stuff that Jason(Aaron) is doing with Wolverine in terms of taking a thread of the character,which has always been the paternal big brother who looks after teenagers, andbuilding that out and his role as a father, and exploring those angles. Itmakes him quite natural that the Wolverine who would set up a school, which ofcourse is intrinsically a funny idea but is also a great way to delineate howthings have changed. So I kind of wanted to carry on that tradition.
Whenever I eventually leave the characters, they will haveall learned something, and if they haven’t learned anything, there will be areal tragedy. This isn’t my line, and I think I first heard it from a GaimanIntro, but there are three sorts of stories, and the third one is that a manlearns a lesson. And if you inverse the three stories, you’ve pretty much gotevery story you can tell. I don’t quite believe that. In fact, I did a wholegraphic novel about that being wrong called “Busted Wonder”, but — yes – a man whodoesn’t learn a lesson is also a compelling story. It’s called a tragedy for areason.
With Cyclops, thecharacter certainly has a downward slope of a path, but Colossus at least hasthe excuse that he’s possessed. Cyclops doesn’t have that excuse, and there’s aline in a recent issue where Magneto retorts that Cyclops is beginning to soundlike him. Am I wrong in assuming that part of your run here on X-Men is reallytrying to push all the characters to the limits of their personalities?
I literally just got the hardcover of the “Fear Itself”trade for the X-Men, which I think is probably my favorite arc weirdly of arcsthat have been published so far, but the final scene in the arc is when Cyclopsrealizes, “I trusted the mayor, she stabbed me in the back, maybe if Ithreatened her it would work out better.” So he goes off, and he has thismeeting, says, “Of course I would have never thought of betraying you!,” andthen he opens the door, Magneto’s there and the two walk off together. It’s acomplete contrast between what he’s saying and what she’s thinking, which is abrilliant mindgame on his part.
Heh. When I first went to the first X-Summit, the firstthing I noticed is that all the people talk about the characters by their firstnames. It struck me as such an uncanny thing, so when I first said “White Queendoes something,” I felt like I’d just faux pas’d! In the same way, when I talkabout scenes like right now where Cyclops does something cool or whatever —dude, I wrote that scene! I’m essentially slapping myself on the back! But whatI mean is, it doesn’t feel that way. It feels like that is a moment in thecharacter’s life, and for me that’s it. That’s where we left Cyclops where hewent into this; him realizing occasionally he doesn’t have the time to playnice, and if he does play nice he risks everything.
But! Threatening someone that you’ll do something violent isdifferent from actually doing the violence. I think that’s a fundamental line.This, to me, is the difference between being the Batman and being the Punisher.Batman has spent decades hanging poor people out windows. Scott says, “Well,occasionally I have to say I’ll throw a prime minister out a window.” But if hedoesn’t actually do it, then what’s the difference between doing it to aprivate citizen or a government official? There is a difference, but does thatmatter? It’s complicated and interesting, and that’s the thing that mostappeals to me. Yes, he’s soundinglike Magneto, but is he acting like Magneto? That’s the difference, betweenappearances and actions, and I think you would know if Scott would ever cross aline. When Scott crosses that line, you will know it. Sure, at the moment he’stalking like Magneto, and acting like something a little bit different. If youbelieve everything Scott says, you’re missing that very careful double gambit.
If he was genuinely like Magneto, he wouldn’t have Storm onthe team. He has explicitly said that he’s fully aware he’s playing a dangerousgame, which is why he has Storm along; he doesn’t want to be Magneto, and he’saware that that’s a fundamental risk.
That’s one of the fundamental question marks of the run,though; has Scott gone too far?
Another question thatlooms over the book a bit is that the book now stars a group calling themselvesthe Extinction Team. The popular idea of the X-Men in general is that they’vealways been an analogue for minorities, but now they’ve segregated themselvesoff into a corner and this portion of the team is very much fighting forthemselves or the survival of mutants. Does that take away that larger metaphorfrom the team?
Continued belowIt depends. The “problem” with the X-Men and the minoritymetaphor is that it’s a big metaphor, and the areas I was choosing to explorewith this aren’t necessarily the ones that have been done before. There was alot of minority stuff in my “Generation Hope” book, but — and I’m trying tofind a way to particularly phrase this — there’s an element of class in whatI’m writing about. In the last few years, in between the riots in London andall that, I came out with an awareness that most of the Marvel superheroes, ifthose riots happened, would side with the people doing the kettling. The X-Menwere the one team I thought might be in the kettle, and that is the idea thatI’m interested in, the idea of individuals versus the state, the idea ofcommunity and when the state is destroying your life, what can you do? How muchautonomy do you really have? Those are the sort of things that underlie whatthe Extinction Team are talking about.
Basically I suppose how people will describe them asterrorists now, but that’s not really what they are. If they were actuallyterrorists, they’d be blowing up cities. They’re something else; I don’t wantto say too much on it, but you mentioned earlier that they’re fighting peopleon the edge of extinction, which is therefore used as a device to talk abouthow mutants are maybe now. I didn’t want to say that in interviews, and I cameto saying it because we were seven issues in and no one had picked up on it. Atthis point I had thought it was getting a bit over-obvious in the comic anyway,so I figured I should probably talk about this now so people pay attention tothe details. But still, I don’t want to over-explain it.
I think when you’ve essentially got the mutants down to twohundred people, it changes them as a metaphor. That said, there’s ways aroundthat. I wasn’t particularly subtle in the “Fear Itself” arc, which was ahateful mob marching towards San Francisco to destroy the deviants. That’s nota subtle story! With the Extinction Team, I think if you strip away thesuperheroes — because of course, the thing to remember about mutants is thatthey’re not real — but if you strip away the metaphor, it’s really aboutpersonal power, or personal autonomy. How much does one have to kowtow to agovernment that doesn’t speak to your interests? In the case of mutants, thegovernment have built Sentinels! If the government made a machine to hunt andkill my people, I would probably be a bit antsy myself.
This can still be a metaphor for oppressive laws that don’tlet you have the same rights as everybody else, or — say – over the topredistribution of wealth away from your class. It’s still a metaphor, but aboutpersonal autonomy. There’s lots of stuff in there, churning away.
This makes it sound like this is the most serious orpolitical book in the world! It isn’t that. Despite the underlying darkness ineverything I’m doing, it’s an adventure fiction book. It’s still about a groupof people choosing to go and save the world, and that’s really heroic. It’sheroic as it gets! And there’s all the weird science fiction ideas, and Namorhitting on aliens. It’s not a dour book in any way. It can be down, butcertainly not dour.
It’s the difference between being the Smiths and JoyDivision, and I think we’re more like the Smiths. You can dance to us.
You used this phraseearlier in the conversation, but I think it makes sense for some serious issuesto be tackled with a wink and a nudge, where we still have fun with the X-Menhaving adventures, but there are always serious implications underlying theentire story at the same time.
That’s the X-Men for me. An over-literalism in the metaphor,to me, is problematic. In the real world, if someone really had the power ofgods, we’d probably be iffy around them. But we’re not talking the real world,we’re just talking in this genre, and you’ve got to be able to get the energyby rubbing in these real world issues into the genre. Too much over-literalism isa failure in the reading, I think.
Continued belowBefore the book goesheadfirst into “Avengers vs X-Men”, there is one more arc which sees you returning to SWORD. I saw yousay it somewhere else, but this is the story of the Avengers AND the X-Men onthe even the Avengers VERSUS the X-Men. As much as this is the return of UNITand a prison break-out story, but are you purposefully showing how everyone canwork together before everyone starts fighting?
There isnothing in my run that was not done on purpose. Except for the stuff I wrotewhen I was drunk.
I’ve probably slightly over-sold how everything is buildingtowards “AvX” in other interviews — it’s not that every single line is aboutAvX – but yes, I was always aware that this is the underlying theme. My first arcafter the relaunch was them against an enormous threat who is incrediblyantagonistic to them, the second arc splits them apart and does something a bitsmaller scale and human, and the third arc is a series of world-scale threats,five or six in the first issue alone, and now they’ll team up with theAvengers. We see how they deal with it, and how the Avengers deal with this andwhat’s the difference. I wanted to show them at their best, both workingtogether and both saving the world, both showing they really are heroes, butthen show that line in the ice where it’ll crack. It’s very clear there.
It’s also agreeably hyper-compressed story for the twoissues. I originally planned it for three, but the previous arc needed to befour issues and I ended up working it out in two instead. Issue #9 is probablymy favorite superhero issue since the relaunch. Issue #4 is my favorite, butit’s so weird it doesn’t feel like a traditional X-Men story. Issue #9 has asuperhero adventure story with character development and explosions and areally sinister bad guy.
Has it been statedwhich Avengers you’re working with here? Specifically in that Captain Americahas Beast on an Avengers team, and there is that background tension betweenScott and Beast, but Beast is very important to the SWORD operations since he’sdating the head of SWORD.
He’s Officer in Charge of Snuggles.
Yes, it’s Captain America’s traditional Avengers team ratherthan the New Avengers team. Beast isn’t there, but Wolverine certainly is.
Then that alonebrings up it’s own tension!
There is so much story going on in these two issues that Idon’t want to over-sell the “AvX” of it. It’s all in glances; there is aCyclops and Wolverine tension beat, and they pull together. Remember in issue#543, and the X-Men go up against the Juggernaut and throw everything they haveagainst him? I do a similar sort of storytelling method, so it’s basically anissues worth of X-Men story within a panel.
Apart from UNIT, who is very important, this is kind ofDanger’s arc. The first three issues were mainly about Emma, Scott and Hope.The middle arc is about Storm, Namor, Juggernaut/Colossus and Magik. This arcis primarily is Danger and Hope, with Scott, Emma and Namor in secondary roles.Danger is a prison guard, UNIT is a prisoner — that is the character axis Iwant to explore in this arc.
Continued belowWith the upcoming“Avengers vs X-Men” storyline that starts at issue #11, though you’retight-lipped as one could imagine about this, how do you plan to write the mainX-Men book when it serves as a tie-in to the X-Men’s main story in the eventbook?
It’s tricky. “AvX” is a 12-issue story, and it’s pretty muchsplit into acts, so the story depends on those acts. Doing “Journey intoMystery” has given me quite a bit of practice in this sort of thing, but I kindof recapitulate the main beats of the story which are relevant to the X-Menwith a completely different spin on it because we’re interested in slightlydifferent things.
Without giving away the inciting incident, the first issueis kind of “What was going through the Uncanny X-Men’s head when the incitingincident drops?”, which also includes a really big Red Hulk vs.Juggernaut/Colossus fight. I look at the major story and see what issues shouldbe explored to create the most meaning for the X-Men. “AvX” is about theAvengers AND the X-Men, but mine is just the X-Men’s story. It’s such anenormous event, and I want to really put a tight focus on what they arethinking and feeling in the areas I’m exploring.
Issue #11 is kind of the Pearl Harbor story, “Where were you that day?” It’s one ofthe more serious stories I’ve written. In it’s own way, it’s kind of like theseriousness of issue #10 of “Generation Hope,” the Idie issue. Issue #12 isweirdly a bit of romp; I wanted to write it quite serious, but it actuallyended up being full on fun. Issue #13 is weirdly melancholic, and this buildstowards the second act of “AvX”. I’ve mentioned Sinister comes back into it,perhaps unexpectedly as Sinister was the first person to mention Phoenix toHope. There might be a reason why Sinister would turn up again, and that isperhaps my most apocalyptic story. It’s big, and that is me putting all thedials in the red with madness in every panel.
You’re writingportions of “AvX: Versus” as well, which is the big fight book. If you look at“Versus” and “Uncanny X-Men”, is one of the books everyone punching each otherwhile the other serves as the more introspective one?
I wouldn’t go that far. The thing about “Avengers vs X-Men”is, how many Avengers and X-men are there? There’s hundreds of them! There area lot of fights that people want to see. I think the “Versus” book is, there’sa realization there that no matter how much proper action you’re going to havein the main story, because there is still loads of action in the story, peoplewill still want to see more. That’s what the “Versus” book is.
My story is Colossus versus Spider-Man, and my first versionof the story had too much story in it. I re-did it, re-wrote the emotional bit.It originally had another down ending! No, no emotions in this story! Onlypunching! (Well, there’s a bit of emotion.) But here are the coolest charactersin the Marvel Universe throwing down, ten pages each story and go for it!
I entrust that there is just enough context for it to makesense. Where my fight takes place, I set up the situation, where they are whenthe fight starts, and then the fight ends and they beat the shit out of eachother in imaginative ways.
Meanwhile, in “Uncanny”, it’s more about the emotionalaspect of it. Red Hulk vs Colossus in issue #11, you’ve seen how I’ve treatedColossus throughout the book, so it’s a bit like that. When he was hammeringthe hell out of the original Juggernaut, there is that little bit more introspectivenessin the violence, but there is still the violence. It’s one of the bigger brawlsI’ve done since the relaunch, and it has some ridiculous over-the-top images byGreg (Land). There’s one particular splash page which is awesomely horrific.
“Uncanny” will continue being “Uncanny”. There’s action andadventure and emotions, but the book remains my book. If you like “Uncanny,”this will continue the story. Conversely, “Versus” is a fight comic. It reallyis about dudes punching dudes, ladies punching ladies, ladies punching dudes,or dudes — any combination of dudes and ladies having it out, and that’s whatthe book is about. And while “AvX” or my “Uncanny” issues are what you’drecognize as the modern superhero comic, it’s not like they’re just going to besitting around talking for the issue.
Continued belowLooking at theentirety of your run, from where you began with Matt Fraction to whatever thefuture holds (and I don’t think you’ve stated if you have an endgame in mind),are you pushing everything towards a larger arc? Or is Uncanny mostly to betaken story by story?
I try to do that. That was always my aim going in, to makeit arc based. Even the single issues I’ve done are all kind of big issuesingle-issues. I think when people re-read my run, they’ll be aware of mythemes for the book, the whole thing. I have a plan. I’ve talked a bit aboutthis before, but I have a chapter based plan through years. Year One was fromme taking over in #543.1 to the relaunch, and that was the movement of theX-Men in power and X-Men realizing humans don’t quite trust them. Whatever YearTwo is, that’s the Extinction Team year, and I knew that would basically end atthe end of “AvX”. That’s basically the modular structure of my story, whichsets up for what comes next. All the “years” have all their own really, reallybig climax.
I think people will be able to stick all my issues in atrade where I end and they’ll see, oh, yeah, there’s a story there. He knewwhat he was doing. Hopefully.
To begin to close,but this book more than “Journey” has experienced more double shipping. Howdoes this affect you in terms of how you are writing your stories since you canget through more stories quicker, or have longer stories? ‘Tabula Rasa’ wasoriginally pegged for a three-issue arc.
It’s more like the opposite of that. “JiM” also does getdouble-shipped; we did ten issues of “Journey into Mystery” in the eight issuesof “Fear Itself.” “JiM” shipped three issues in one month! But yes, “Uncanny”has shipped more, with 19 or 20 in the year and “JiM” did about 16.
When I relaunched “Uncanny X-Men,” I knew it was four orfive months until “AvX”, and “AvX” changes everything. Whatever this statewhere the Extinction Team can go around and have adventures… whatever happens,it’s never going to be the same again. So in terms of the naïve state of theExtinction Team, we’re in that year of doing stories. So I have ten issues(originally nine issues, but we did issue #4 which got inserted) and I havebasically three three-issues arcs, as opposed to before the relaunch withfour-issue arcs. My plan was to still include as much as a four-issue arc wouldbecause we had to motor, “AvX” was arriving and stuff gets crazy.
The first story worked the way I wanted it to, but with the‘Tabula Rasa’ arc, I wrote it as a three-issue arc. The third issue was socramped it kind of ruined the story. It motored so much through, you never gota sense for the Temple of Slumber, you never got a sense of theother-worldliness, you never got Storm reaching out emotionally; it just wenttoo quickly. Nick (Lowe) said, “Ok, let’s do it as two issues,” so I split thestory in half and took all the Immortal Man stuff for issue #7 and the othertwo subplots for issue #8. Expanded into two issues, you’ll see that neither ofthose issues feels empty. Can you imagine it one? Frankly, it was a fuckingmess doing it one issue! I misjudged what I could fit in this three-issue arc.It works much better as four.
Conversely, that meant I had to do the final arc as twoissues, even though so much stuff happens. With the compression techniques I’musing, you still get a really nice fight sequence against UNIT, a wonderfulcross-section of the aliens, all these character beats between Namor and Emmawho is back on her feet, Cyclops getting antsy, all building. Two issues, butthere’s a lot of stuff in there — and it still doesn’t feel cramped in the waythat my original issue #7 did. I’m really happy with it.
So yes, the double-shipping means I get to do more story,and abstractly that means I could be more paced. In actual fact, it’s thecomplete opposite.
Continued belowWith the idea thatnow there is more story that can be consumed in shorter periods of time, from afan perspective it does weigh on the wallet a tad. If you expect to get Xamount of books, now you end up getting X and Y. For you, when thinking aboutwhat fans might appreciate or what they might like to see, how do you usedouble-shipping as a tool for the benefit of all?
I am, generally speaking, I lean compressy. I’m not the kindof guy who does masses of silent pages, as anyone who has read “JiM” will know.Most issues of “JiM” probably take longer to read than most other comic books.I’m already someone who is aware of the value proposition.
Weirdly, in terms of actual content, I do not change itsignificantly because of the double-shipping. The only difference is, inadvantage of the consumer, is the sense of pacing. If you have an issue whichwould be necessarily plot-based, where you have the old Warren Ellis line of“the only bad reviews we ever got were the issues where we had to slow down andexplain what the story was,” the next issue is out in two weeks. The pace addsa lot, and for the reader I think it’s a good thing.
I have nothing but sympathy for people in the currenteconomic climate worrying about money, and there is no one who isn’t feelinglike that. That area is sort of out of my control. But a bi-weekly series is abit more like *snap* *snap* *snap* compulsive over a monthly serial, sort oflike a weekly television show. That’s the major advantage to the reader.
