We at Multiversity are big fans of guessing games, particularly when it comes to trying to (playfully) figure out “spoilers” in advance. We figured out who died in “3” and one element of the War of Green Lanterns, and now we’d like to lightly guess again, albeit to a much smaller degree, on the subject of X-Men: Regenesis.
With Schism ending Uncanny X-Men and relaunching the X-Men line (to a degree, anyway), we’ve already come to the conclusion that Cyclops is going to go wander the Earth for a while aimlessly. We’ve also reported of several changes, including the announcement of Wolverine and the X-Men by Jason Aaron, James Asmus writing Generation Hope with issue #13 and led by Sebastian Shaw, and Kieron Gillen writing what seems to be an Emma Frost-led Uncanny X-Men.
However, we’re slowly learning more. As pointed out over at Bleeding Cool, it looks like we are returning to the classic Blue and Gold formation of teams split amongst what appears to be 6 books, 2 of which are unannounced. Generation Hope and Uncanny make up two of the Blue books, and Wolverine and the X-Men and X-Men Legacy will be Gold, but we’re missing three titles: Uncanny X-Force, New Mutants, and X-Factor. X-Factor has always wonderfully maintained it’s distance from all the other titles, while Rick Remender has confirmed that Uncanny X-Force will see a line-up change. Is it possible that New Mutants will be the last Blue book, and Uncanny – featuring a new line-up – will make it to the Gold?
The main remaining question on a lot of people’s minds is: what is going to happen to Wolverine leading the Uncanny X-Force? In a recent interview at CBR, Remender is quoted as saying,
You have to consider that while many months have passed for you waiting for new issues of “X-Force,” to the team maybe only four to six total days worth of their lives are covered in the book. Jason Aaron covered this in an issue of “Wolverine” to great effect. Wolverine wakes up, he goes to whatever team he’s working with that day, he spends a day or two saving the world, then he shuffles off to the next team or solo adventure. I think he’s a man chased by demons who stays active to avoid having to face them.
However, it’s not too absurd to believe that with a promised line-up change as well as “a few other drastic changes”, it could be possible that Wolverine leads X-Force in someone else’s capable hands while he focuses more attention on his new X-Men team. Given that the current Uncanny X-Force arc, the Dark Angel Saga, is eight parts, it is safe to say that the story will end in December, at which point it will assumedly “meet up” with Schism – and wouldn’t you know it, someone very capable of leading X-Force is slated to be reappearing in the Marvel Universe come December. Could these pieces be lining up to something along those lines?
Of course, one other assumed possibility with the changes, an idea kicked around in the Multiversity offices, would be that New Mutants could possibly be canceled or even re-titled (seeing as they aren’t very “New” anymore), at which point they could graduate to the new X-Force line-up, assuming the change is that drastic. However, the idea of New Mutants becoming X-Force in order to make way for a possibly new X-title seems, at least to our ears, a tad familiar.
And of course, all this is to say nothing X-Men and Astonishing X-Men, both of which will assumedly remain untouched. Astonishing is basically a place for creators to just play within the lines of continuity and tell their own stories (with Greg Pak and Mike McKone taking over in November and making Storm and Cyclops go kissy kissy), whereas X-Men is the “and the Marvel Universe” title, where the same basic between-lines-of-continuity logic applies, just on a grander scale.
Regensis is right around the corner, and the third issue of Schism is in stores today. Only time will tell, I suppose.
