After decades of struggle, the mutants of the Marvel Universe now have a home to call their own, Krakoa. The island nation has now become a global superpower thanks to its residents and cutting-edge biotechnology. But, now comes the hard part. What will it take to protect and define the spirit of the mutant paradise? Writer Benjamin Percy chronicles the choices of one of Krakoa's most prominent defenders in the current volume of Wolverine. In the ongoing X-Force series, Percy details the mutants' struggles and the Krakoa's equivalent to the C.I.A.
Wolverine has had several harrowing adventures fighting alongside his X-Force teammates. However, the exploits that Percy planned for these characters for the rest of 2021 are herculean challenges to their physical, emotional, and mental fortitude. CBR spoke with Percy about how his love for horror informs his X-office work, X-Force's next mission which pits them against a major mutant adversary that ties into the Inferno storyline, Wolverine's upcoming spy mission with Maverick, and how he's taken a novelistic approach for both titles.
Also included within this interview are exclusive preview pages to X-Force #23, Wolverine #16, and Wolverine #17. The two pages from X-Force #23 are drawn and inked by Martin Coccolo and with colors by GURU-eFX. The two pages from Wolverine #16 are drawn and inked by Adam Kubert and with colors by Espen Grundetjern. The first look page from Wolverine #17 is drawn by Lan Medina with inkwork by Cam Smith.
CBR: You recently completed a Wolverine story where vampires played a big role and an X-Force arc, which had some body horror elements. What is it about mixing the horror genre with superheroes, and the X-Men in particular, that you find so appealing?
Benjamin Percy: [Laughs] It's just the way I'm hardwired. I grew up on Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Anne Rice, Peter Straub, and Shirley Jackson. I loved EC Comics, Tomb of Dracula, Werewolf by Night, Man-Thing, Swamp-Thing, Hellblazer. I've seen Jaws, Evil Dead 2, and American Werewolf in London so many times I could recite them from memory. So, I tend to see the world through a shadowed lens. There's something instinctual more than intentional about it. I just naturally go there. I go to the dark places.
There are also specific reasons for bringing Wolverine and the vampires together. When I put together my big pitch for the series, and what I wanted to do, I broke down different facets of his character. Such as his primal nature. And his want for atonement. And so on. Immortality was an element I honed in on. Because Logan is essentially an immortal, and I'm interested in the emotional toll of that terrible, wonderful gift. His body never ages or scars, but his mind is loaded with injuries. He keeps on even as others wither and die. There's something exhausting and bewildering about that that gives him a unique perception of life's meaning and his obligations toward the vulnerable. When exploring that element of Logan, I drew a parallel to the vampires. I thought they would be interesting as dark, cracked reflections of one another.
Because Wolverine is immortal he's relied so much on a chosen family, but he now has a place for his biological family where they can thrive. What does it mean for Logan to have Laura, Daken, and even Gabby on Krakoa?
When you're writing a legacy character you always want to acknowledge and honor their history while putting your unique stamp on the character. Don't do karaoke. Don't be a cover band. Find a singular way into the character so that you're a worthy custodian so that your run will be hopefully recognized as significant.
On that note: it would always be an exciting time to write Wolverine, but especially now -- especially during this Krakoan era -- I feel like we have a chance to explore the character in a unique way. Because he has a nation to call his own. A home where he can rest his weary head. And family. And by that I mean both his biological family -- you mention Laura, Daken, and Gabby -- and his chosen families; Xavier, Jean, the Summers, X-Force as a whole. All of this adds up. Logan has a shot at, no other word for it, happiness.
The question is, Will he achieve it? Will his affinity for the island – and Xavier's dream -- last? Trouble and mayhem continue to challenge him. And there's more -- so much more -- on the horizon that will shake the character to his core.
Right! And what hard choices do you have to make to preserve that happiness?
Exactly. From the beginning, we've highlighted several moments where Logan expresses his doubts about Krakoa. He wants to believe in it. He likes to flirt with the idea of Xavier's dream… But he just can't quite choke down the Kool-Aid.
Speaking of doubts about Krakoa, the next X-Force arc, which kicks off in issue #23, brings in another mutant with uncertainty about Krakoa and has decided to directly oppose it, Mikhail Rasputin.
Yes, I'd say these next two issues of X-Force might be the most important that I've written. Close readers of the book will note that some data pages have popped up in the past that are written by a mysterious figure known only as the Chronicler. We're finally going to get the reveal of who that is and why they're so important. This storyline is essential to Mikhail and Colossus. It's also a direct tie-in to Inferno.
What's it like for someone like Colossus who seems to just want to live a quiet life farming and painting to be drawn into the conflict between Krakoa and his brother?
Is that really what he wants though? Stay tuned. There are loads of dangerous revelations coming our way.
Colossus' involvement begs the question of will his and Mikhail's sister, Illyana, play a role in the story?
Not only are these two of the most important issues I've written, but they're also two of the most incendiary that I've written. There are going to be some feelings. I've said from the beginning: X-Force is the dirty book. Poisonous things happen in it. No punches will be pulled.
This is not to say I'm endorsing what transpires -- in a book about the mutant CIA. It means I'm trying to be brutally honest about the dark dealings and moral muddiness of nation-building. There's also a lot of set-up taking place here regarding the next stage of not just my run, but for events that haven't been announced that are coming your way. So, I can't give away too much because it's so explosive.
X-Force features a cast of great characters and one of my favorites is one I love to hate, Beast. It feels like if X-Force is the mutant C.I.A. he's their Allen Dulles. Was that your intention?
[Laughs] Yes, it was. I knew from the very beginning that I wanted to have an intelligence wing to the Mutant C.I.A. working alongside a "wetwork" unit. Beast is the "head" and Wolverine is the "fist." It's a long game, but these two will eventually come crashing together. I tried to seed that eventuality from the very start.
Beast, as is fitting of his position, is making morally dubious calls. As he puts it, "Every nation has to have a bastard." He is very much in favor of utilitarianism. He wants the greatest good for the greatest number of mutants, and ugly decisions have to be made in order for that to be true. These decisions are tacitly embraced by Xavier. He's given Beast carte blanche to make these decisions on his own.
The moral quagmire of X-Force is central to my time on the series. I don't want any answers to be easy, and I want people to be upset. They should be. If you're a close reader, you've witnessed Beast transforming physically not just emotionally. He's bloated with hubris. Very soon, in these next few issues, there are going to be some physical scars left behind that approximate the emotional scars that he now carries with him. Ultimately we're moving towards a place of reckoning. That's the long game though. I know patience is not something that comes easily to comics fans, but we’re taking a novelistic approach to all of this.
So, you're interested in old-school-style pacing and letting your plot lines simmer to a boil?
I don't take the time I've been part of the X team for granted. I'm grateful for every issue that my run is extended. But I believe in patient pacing -- and I've been writing with the long game in mind -- and thankfully the fans have been supportive of that approach.
You mentioned Inferno earlier. Given what we know about Inferno and X-Force's mandate it feels like some huge moral questions are about to be raised.
Yes, huge moral questions! Plus, some explosive revelations. Inferno is just the beginning. It's going to open up the door to something… Something that will be announced imminently… That I would say is the best work I've done in comics. More soon.
It sounds like what you're doing in X-Force compliments what Si Spurrier is doing in Way of X. He's writing about the battle for the literal soul of Krakoa and you're writing about the battle for the mutant nation's metaphorical soul.
I think that's a great comparison, yeah.
Let's talk a little more about your plans for Wolverine. This current arc brings back Logan's X of Swords rival, Solem. What can you tell us about this tale? And what makes Solem such an interesting foil for Wolverine?
When we first introduced Solem I referred to him as the Loki to Wolverine's Thor and I do love how slippery and eely he is. The two of them make such a wonderful odd couple. Solem is wholly invested in pleasure whereas Wolverine is owned by his pain. And now this Arakki trickster is making his play on Earth.
The storyline is titled The Unusual Suspects, and what you're going to see as it plays out is Wolverine engaged in a series of interrogations. He's cornering different people; Russian agents, Arakkii pirates, and trying to figure out the truth of a story that keeps slipping through his fingers. It's going to twist and twist until the very end until your head dizzies.
As always Adam Kubert is going completely wild with his layouts and art for this story. One of the things we talked about from the very beginning is how through these interrogations the reader would experience unreliable points of view. One of his thoughts was to work with Frank Martin, our colorist, to create unique visual perspectives on each of the stories told. So, if you have an Arakkii pirate telling you a story that slides into the past, what does it look like? It will have its own color scheme, specialized layout, and filters that will be completely different from when Solem or a Russian mobster tells a story.
Another thing that came out of this early discussion with Adam: reflections. You'll see them in doorjambs, water, wine glasses. He uses them as a device to hint toward the idea of duplicity. There are a number of influences to the storyline -- including The Usual Suspects and the TV show True Detective. This is a noir story and what better place to kick it off than Madripoor?
In October's Wolverine #17 you and artist Lan Medina kicks off a spy story involving the C.I.A.'s Agent Bannister and Maverick.
If I'm going to offer up some canonical cousins I'd say this bears some resemblance to Three Days of the Condor or Enemy of the State in that you've got Bannister on the run, eyes everywhere, and shadowy forces in pursuit. Some of those forces are housed within the US government, spearheaded by the X-Office of the C.I.A. Others come from mutantdom.
And then there’s…oh, I can’t say. The return of a fun villainous organization Adam and I recently co-created.
We've talked about your Wolverine collaborators. Let's chat a little about artist Martin Coccolo, who's doing the next arc of X-Force.
Yes, he's doing a killer job. His art is at once realistic and hallucinatory. The storyline focuses on Russia and builds up the secret history of what's happened there since M-Day and details what Mikhail has been planning all this time. So, Martin has been world-building. He's been drawing up a sort of alternate Krakoa. Mikhail is building his own mutant nation over there.
Finally, your comic fans might not know that you also write prose novels. Which of your novels do you recommend to readers who enjoy your X-Force and Wolverine work?
Thanks for mentioning that! My latest novel -- The Ninth Metal -- came out this past June. It kicks off a series called the Comet Cycle. You could say it's my attempt to create my own DCU or MCU, a shared literary universe loaded with mayhem and high-concept sci-fi coolness.
The trigger event is an age-old sci-fi premise: a comet comes streaking through the solar system, the Earth spins through its debris field and new elements are introduced. They're elements that create a geopolitical crisis. Elements that upend the laws of biology, geology, physics, and create a new dawn of heroes and villains.