Another one of our most anticipated releases for Marvel NOW!, Brian Michael Bendis and Stuart Immonen’s All-New X-Men aims to explore the post-Avengers vs. X-Men mutant landscape by sending Charles Xavier’s original teenage crew – a young Jean Grey, Cyclops, Beast, Iceman, and Angel – into the present day to see what their future holds. Naturally, this causes many interesting relationships to form as the modern day X-Men can see how far they’ve strayed from Xavier’s perhaps unachievable dream, while the original X-Men have a new light shed on the world they’re only just stepping into.

Marvel’s Next Big Thing call for today connected us with Bendis and X-editor Nick Lowe to talk about the development and expectations for this new X-book. Bendis said that he’d been offered an X-title multiple times over the years, but never had a take that hadn’t been seen before. But the idea of the original X-Men coming to see what their future holds always intrigued him, and during a Marvel conference that was meant to hash out AvX, Bendis realized, “this would be a good time for me to gently bail out on Avengers and start talking about what I would do next.” Marvel Editor-in-Chief reminded Bendis of his X-Men idea, and that was that.

“It’s very rare that a freelancer gets to plan this far in advance,” said Bendis. “Sometimes you get a job, and by Monday you’re scripting. I got a really long time to think about all the characters and ideas, and I got to shepherd Avengers vs. X-Men thinking in the back of my head how this affects both how I wrap up Avengers and how I start X-Men.”

For the tone of the series, Bendis referenced his work on Ultimate Spider-Man, describing that he’s become very emotionally connected to the X-characters in a similar way he was to Peter Parker. “There is so much going on with these characters emotionally; that’s taken the front seat of the book. This is a very emotional X-Men book. It has a lot of action and mutant-related drama, but it’s a very emotional book that hearkens back to the original ideas of the X-Men. It’s an X-Men book I would buy. It’s an X-Men book I’m immensely proud of.”

Bendis complimented the work of Immonen as well, saying that the artist told Bendis he wanted to have that “emotionally connected” feeling the pair shared in their work on Ultimate Spider-Man. “I said, ‘well, I’m glad that you asked, because that’s exactly where I’m at in the writing process.’”

“This is such a different feel of a book than what we’ve done,” chimed in Lowe. “The character drama is so special and so incredible and unforeseen; I can’t wait for you guys to get your hands on it.”

“Sometimes I get a reputation for torturing the characters, but it’s because I love the characters so much that I want to put them in the most extreme situations to see how they respond and see where the heroism lies,” added Bendis. “It’s very easy to write a simple story where the good guy beats up the bad guy and does the right thing, but testing heroes and pushing them to the wall and changing their comfort zone is something that appeals to me as a writer.”

Bendis continued on to discuss the surprises that came to him when he began writing All-New X-Men. “Every scene with Jean Grey in it has been just the best. That’s the most fun to write. I literally have to stop myself and move onto the other characters because young Jean Grey, in this situation, is everything that I love about writing comics.”

Acknowledging the desire/resentment about having Jean Grey appear in the X-books after so long, Lowe said, “Now that she has been gone for quite some time, having her back on the page is so special in this book. She leaps off the page in such a special way.”

“Who gravitates to Jean and who’s scared to talk to her when she comes here is pretty interesting,” said Bendis. “I think how the relationship between young Jean and young Scott alters… you’ll see in the very first issue, they’re in a very specific place in their relationship; very young love, very young people with every emotion on their sleeve. Then they come to the present, and it alters her opinion of him dramatically.”

“There are many legacy characters of the X-Men with a large and/or twisted -- or just unresolved -- relationship with Jean in particular,” he added. “It comes to the forefront as they see her so young, baby-faced, idealized… and alive.”

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