X-POSITION: Hopeless Teases Long-Term Plots, Tag Team Action in "All-New X-Men"

The time-displaced teenage X-Men and their travel buds have survived the first arc of "All-New X-Men" and the threat posed by the Ghosts of Cyclops. Teen Scott Summers has faced his legacy once more, coming through the other end of the skirmish more determined than ever to make a separate name for himself. But the bad guys aren't taking a break from chasing after the X-Men as they crisscross the country in Beast's tricked out van. Two classic X-Foes -- Toad and the Blob -- are waiting for their opportunity to get revenge against two of their oldest enemies.

This week in X-POSITION, "All-New X-Men" writer Dennis Hopeless joins us and answers your questions about everything from Iceman and Beast's friendship to Angel's Black Vortex powers and more.

CBR News: Welcome back to X-POSITION, Dennis! Let's start this round of X-PO with a question from bananacrust.

Evan is one of my favorite new characters to pop up out of the last few years and i like the idea of him being the opposite of Apocalypse in terms of who he wants to be. We've already seen Evan as he was inverted to be Apocalypse, so I'm curious what kind of themes you wanna explore in the new Apocalypse story.

BANANACRUST! Like you say, the most interesting thing about Evan is how different he is from Apocalypse. Everyone thinks this kid will grow up to be steroid Hitler and yet somehow his primary personality trait is kindness. As with all the characters in this book, we'll be spending a lot of time exploring why Evan is the way he is and how that relates to this crazy destiny he's carrying around. You'll be seeing bits and pieces of this story in the first two arcs but Evan really jumps off in issue #9 when "Apocalypse Wars" begins.

Next up, Kamose1234 has a question about the time-displaced X-Men not named Scott.

In the first three issues of "All New X-Men" we've seen teenage Cyclops have to once again deal with the actions of his future self (who is now dead), but will we see his other teammates have to go through this as well?... I'm curious if they will be confronted with their older self's legacies as much as Scott, particularly Angel and Evan given the upcoming "Apocalypse Wars" event.

Kamose1234! Yes. Yes. Yes indeed. Living in the shadow of your supposed destiny is the primary theme of the series. To some degree, every character will be wrestling with that conflict. Our "Apocalypse Wars" story is primarily about Evan but Angel will be in the spotlight soon enough.

But on the Cyclops front, Casey has a question about Scott Summers' extended family.

We've dealt with Young Cyclops meeting Corsair, as well as many other figures important in Adult Cyclops life. Has he had interactions with Cable, or for that matter Hope?

Casey! Not to my knowledge, no. Not yet anyway. We focused a lot of our attention on Scott out of the gate, so it might be a few issues before we get back to a big Scott story. That definitely does sound like an interesting direction, though. We'll see.

Ian has a question about teenage Iceman and the potential for growth in his circle of friends.

So far it has been a fun ride. Thank you. I was wondering what you could tell about your plans for Bobby and his connections outside the team. Will characters like Anole, Graymalkin, or Benjamin Deeds be making any appearances -- characters that relate more to his situation?

Ian! Until recently, no one would've described Bobby Drake as a particularly private person. Bobby likes to talk and joke around and always seemed like an open book. Now we know that was never really the case at all. He's been keeping the secret of his homosexuality from everyone for years and years. We kept that fact in mind when deciding how to approach Bobby's self-discovery. This isn't an easy process for him and will take some time. He may not even really know how to talk about it yet. That said, I promise we're getting there.

I don't want to make any specific promises, but Bobby's story definitely reaches beyond his immediate teammates. This book takes place across the whole Marvel Universe. Literally anyone can pop into an issue.

Ian's next question involves a few characters that you should be familiar with, Dennis.

My second question is actually about Cullen Bloodstone and Aiden from "Avengers Arena." Any chance they might pop up somewhere soon, in any book (I'm desperate)? And again, loving the book!

The chances of them not popping up in this book at some point are absolutely awful. I love Cullen and Aiden. I love them to pieces. I haven't written them in yet, so I won't say definitely, but it's a damned good bet.

Complexed wants to know more about the book's breakout character sensation, Pickles.

Can you explain how Pickles exists? I thought all the Bamfs joined together to form a new body for Nightcrawler when he returned from the dead. Does Nightcrawler have control of Pickles?

Complexed! You probably won't like this answer but it's the one you get: The how and why of Pickles the Bamf will all be explained in good time. Pickles has plenty of free will (as we've already seen) but his connection to Kurt remains to be seen.

Cadaverine is curious about Angel's development and the usage of his Black Vortex abilities.

My question is, with Kid Warren having retained the cosmic power of the Black Vortex, are we going to see him use his new energy wings in any feats of strength like firing energy darts or whatever? Or has he forgotten he's now even more of a powerhouse so he's back to catching and punching people and aerial surveillance?

Cadaverine! Mark Bagley asked me a similar question just the other day. For the most part, Warren is back to flying and punching, but we definitely haven't forgotten what happened to him in Black Vortex. There are long-term character story reasons behind everything we've seen thus far (yes, including Wolverine sounding/acting differently than she did in "Avengers Arena" -- calm down). Explanations are forthcoming; we just have to get there.

MarvelMaster616 has two questions -- one about friendship and another about enemies.

In the first arc, there was an interesting moment between Bobby and Hank where Bobby hinted that they had grown distant during the eight-month gap. Is that something that'll be explored moving forward? Is it somehow related to Bobby's recent coming out?

MarvelMaster616! Yes! Nail. Head. You hit it. As I mentioned above, Bobby is in a weird complicated place right now and Hank is like his big brother. As much as Bobby cares about Hank and wants to keep Hank close, that's not super easy right now. And not for nothing, it's about to get harder.

A lot of the X-Men's enemies lately have been other mutants or other superhero teams like the Avengers. There haven't been a lot of human enemies for the X-Men to face. Will the "All-New" team be encountering any human threats or conflicts at any point?

I mean... probably, but maybe not like you'd think. Our book isn't going to be about human hate groups trying to kill the mutants. That stuff is very X-Men and I love it, but it just doesn't fit the tone of this book all that well. Not right now anyway. We may get there before too terribly long. For right now the book is about a bunch of kids trying to be old school super hero role models while also running from their weird, scary destinies. We'll be shooting for conflicts and villains that play well within that concept.

And we'll close out this week with a pair of questions from thedeenslist.

So far Evan and Idie have been mostly on the sideline, so it was nice to Idie get in on the action in #3. Is Bobby going to be able to handle the fact that someone not only has something similar to his powers, but actually his powers+? It seemed he was already having a bit of an issue with this.

Thedeenslist! Bobby would definitely have a problem with that. Fortunately, as we saw in issue #3, Idie recognizes it and has already worked out a cool solution. Those two are much more powerful together than they are apart. Expect to see more Bobby/Idie Tag Team Champions going forward.

I was a huge fan of "Cable and X-Force" and hated to see it end. Were there any unresolved threads or arcs you weren't able to get to when Marvel axed it at #19? Could you expound on where you were taking the book?

I loved "Cable and X-Force" too! Loved it so so much. Unfortunately, the schedule was wildly overwhelming right from the start. By the time we got things under control, plans were already being made to combine the two X-Force teams and relaunch. I had basic notions for where I wanted to go moving forward: Forge/Nemesis buddy cop stories; Colossus and Domino working disturbingly well together (I got to do some of this in "Inferno"); Boomer's terrible influence on Hope, Daddy Cable yells a lot. That sort of thing. In terms of actual concrete super hero plots, we got to do everything from my initial plot outline. Because we knew it would be ending, I didn't flesh much out beyond that.

Thanks to Dennis Hopeless for taking on this week's questions!

Next week, "Deadpool" writer Gerry Duggan returns to X-POSITION for the first of two X-POSITIONS! Have a question for Gerry? Go ahead and send 'em in via e-mail with the subject line "X-Position." But get 'em in quickly, because the deadline's Friday. Make it happen!