The mutant nation of Krakoa and the terraformed planet Mars, now known as Arakko, show when Marvel's mutant population unite they can achieve the impossible. Now that they've realized those dreams and created a mutant nation and a voice in cosmic politics, several questions remain. Will the X-Men hold onto their power or sabotage it? What will they risk to protect their people? How will they balance personal desires against what's best for mutants? How has being alive for a century or more informed the perspectives of older mutants?
In Marvel's Immortal X-Men, an ongoing comic series from writer Kieron Gillen and artist Lucas Werneck that launches in March, the creative team seeks to answer these X-Men-related questions and more. The upcoming comic series focuses on Krakoa's governing body, The Quiet Council. CBR spoke with Gillen about the series, which mixes the glamor and double-dealings of HBO's Succession with the political machinations of House of Cards, the absurdity of Veep, and the altruism of The West Wing. Also included with this interview is an exclusive sneak peek at Werneck's artwork from Marvel's Immortal X-Men #1.
CBR: You enjoyed working on the X-Men books in the early 2000s, and since then there's been a lot of new characters and concepts added to the X-Line's toy box like Krakoa. So, I imagine this was a very tempting assignment, but ultimately what led you to accept it?
Kieron Gillen: I'm very good at saying no. I have fundamental laziness that allows me to overcome any enthusiasm for a project [laughs]. Honestly, though, with books like Eternals and Marneus Calgar, I've been dabbling with work for hire again. I've really enjoyed those books in different ways. The pandemic impacted me too. I didn't possibly think my brain could do creator-owned work, with everything that entailed. Me a year ago was like, "No, don't sweat yourself. Do what you can."
So, I was certainly open to more work for hire (amongst other projects) and I've been enjoying it. I've also enjoyed reading the Krakoan books, and I've heard nothing, but amazing things about the X-Office in terms of how collaborative it is and that it's a genuinely supportive place. That sounded nice. Eternals is in the Marvel Universe, but I've been left in my own cage to do my own thing. That's been very rewarding, but it's left me feeling like a hermit. You could imagine this hermit guy with matted hair, dressed in something like a barrel looking up and going, "People?" [laughs]
They said to me, "Jonathan [Hickman] is going to step off the X-Books and we want to do a Quiet Council book. Are you interested?" Since it was specifically a Quiet Council book, it was relevant to my interests. It's a political, large-scale Krakoan book. Also, it's weird and I only recently realized that if Jonathan hadn't left I wouldn't be in the X-Office. It's not because I dislike Jonathan. It's that I'm pretty sure he would have done this book. Jonathan likes high-level, political books with people sitting around a table. This is absolutely his jam.
So, this book is a really exciting drama full of complicated, messy, intelligent people that I wanted to write. And being able to write this political superhero book in a glamorous place with a lot more give and take in this sort of writer's anarchist commune that Jonathan helped germinate was great. I say that regularly because I'm always the meta guy in the room, but I think the X-Office is Krakoa in that this is a community of people brought together to fight for a shared corner even if they disagree -- and they disagree a lot! That's part of the fun of it and the point of doing X-Men books. You get different angles, situations, and takes. It becomes this Hegelian dialectic in the form of a comic book line. That's my theory! [laughs]
Your title, Immortal X-Men, has a dual significance in that many of your cast members like Exodus, Destiny, Mystique, and Mister Sinister have lived long lives, but also that the Mutants of Krakoa have conquered death. So, they're all effectively immortal.
Yeah! It's interesting, isn't it? The name came with the book. The idea was that Immortal X-Men is a Quiet Council book, and that means doing this first wave of interviews is tricky because I don't want to step on the end of Inferno. The reveal that this is a Quiet Council book already does that more than I like. So, I'm sorry If I'm going to tease more than I usually do in this interview.
This is definitely the high-level Krakoan politics book. Krakoa is designed to be an immortal civilization. They are a people who have defeated death. So, what happens next? Living forever isn't the end of your problems: it's the start of them. It just means your problems go on and on and on.
Since this book focuses on the Quiet Council almost every story is a political thriller, but given the cast and concepts available on Krakoa you can tackle almost any genre in Immortal X-Men, correct?
Yes, this is a book about the high-level politics of Krakoa, but as you said, that touches on everything. If there's a problem in Otherworld, we're going to talk about Otherworld. If there's a problem on Mars, we'll talk about Mars. Also, I want my book to reflect the others in a soft way. I don't want to derail plots or anything, but I want to make sure that it all feels like one place.
So, yeah this is a book that can be anything. Plus, these aren't just politicians. These are people who get their hands dirty. So, if this is a political thriller everyone in the cast could be James Bond if they wanted to be [laughs]. Look at the fun Mystique is having in Inferno. There's a lot in Inferno that's the sort of stuff I'd like to do in Immortal. At the same time, the Quiet Council will have to tackle any sizable problem that hits Krakoa, and even if that means, "Send the army in," -- they're still sending the army in.
The "immortal" aspect of our book means we can also tackle time. There are several characters who are very old: Exodus is a thousand years old. Apocalypse is gone now, but his shadow is always over Krakoa. Mystique, Sinister, and Destiny are all 19th Century people. Erik is from the early 20th Century. So these people are already edging towards having a larger perspective on the world -- for better or worse because Sinister is a monster.
So, the opening scene of Immortal X-Men is not set in the present day. It's set pretty far back in time because, with these people, it can be. The history of the Marvel Universe is pretty important because it's not just the fantasy Lord of the Rings stuff. It's Raven and Irene drinking tea when World War I is announced because they were there. They have 150 years' worth of, "Remember when thing X happened?" style conversations. Sinister and Irene don't get along, but they've known each other on and off for a pretty long time and now they're here. So what does that mean? That's interesting stuff.
What's it like returning to some of the X-characters you have a great fondness for like Emma Frost and Sinister?
It's fun! Everyone ran delightfully with what I did with Sinister. People like Jon [Hickman] and Zeb [Wells] have built on it in amazing ways. How good was Hellions? It's been a decade though. So, the Sinister now is different from the Sinister of back then and it's nice to pick him up, build, fiddle with, and push him in different directions. Emma is also in a really interesting position. I don't really want to comment on Inferno except to say that she's doing interesting things in that comic.
So, this is a book that's a mix of characters I've loved and characters I've never written who I am just hugely excited to play with.
Who are some of the cast members that you've never written before that you find especially interesting?
I don't want to say too much, but I've got a big take on Exodus. He's a character I feel I'm doing the most work on in the same way I did on Sinister. I justified in the fiction that Sinister rebooted his personality in my run so he could be whatever I wanted him to be.
I don't do anything that big with Exodus, but I've aggressively leaned into the fact that he’s a French Crusader, profoundly religious, and a mutant. How does he square that? What is his creed? The way that all gets mixed up makes him interesting, striking, and terrifying. [laughs]
Destiny is another. She's one of the most influential X-Men to be on these pages. She's a fundamental character in the X-Universe and there's relatively little of her in existence. So, she's been really interesting to dig into.
There's a wide variety of character dynamics on the Quiet Council, especially given the end of the Hellions series, which suggested that Sinister now has a target on his back.
Sinister's take on that is, of course, "Come at me, bro." One of the things I'm trying to do is to have each issue narrated by a different Council member, which helps highlight the politics and moving the narrator around gives a character a chance to talk free and clear about how they feel about someone else. So, doing that in Immortal X-Men allows me to do really fun character work and make the book accessible.
So, in the first 12 issues, the "plan" is to go through all members of the Council. If that ever gets in the way of the story though I won't do it. My hope is to continue it for a while. It allows us to show what a character is like and what they want. Knowing what all these different people want and how they rub against one another, is just great drama. We know people and then we understand why they're digging their heels in, so, that will be a big part of the structure of the book.
It's hard to talk about specific dynamics without commenting on Inferno, but as you say, Sinister is an interesting one. I play a lot of cards early on with him in terms of, "What are you doing?" In fact, that's the game for all of them. So you'll see certain key cards right away. That's not to say there are no surprises down the line.
You get Sinister's issue early on and, in it, he gives you his honest opinion about everyone in the room. It's hilarious and hateful because he's an awful person [laughs]. He's a person who will talk one way towards another, but beneath it, there's often something else. Sometimes they're defense mechanisms because he's petrified. Plus, the secrets Sinister and others are keeping are kind of key to the book. It's all great fun.
Let's talk a little more about the Last Supper style teaser for the book done by artist Mark Brooks.
That was Mark's idea and I loved it because you expect it to be analyzed in intricate detail. So, yeah, we decided to do a complete Last Supper homage where we came up with specific positioning for each character. So, I went and did my research and decided which character was where. We also decided to work Death in because the book is called Immortal X-Men. So, having Death there was certainly loaded.
We loaded the teaser with winks and jokes. Around Immortal X-Men #8 people will go, "Oh! That's why that was there." So, it became a game. It was part of the fun of it -- the puzzle game. Remember how I said I would be playing some things openly? And others I would allow people to be detectives? Both of these things are true. I want to balance those out.
Part of that too is just the dynamics of the room mapped out to the Apostles and what they were doing. The easiest one there is Sinister is in the Judas position. That's not surprising anybody. The people on the outskirts are playing different games than the Council. Then on the other side, you've got Destiny, Mystique, and Xavier talking things over... It's also tricky because there are definitely people on the Council of higher-minded ideals than others. That's the push and pull off it.
Some of those higher-minded people are on the outskirts of that teaser like Nightcrawler. What's it like writing him?
For me, Nightcrawler is the heart of the Council. He's a genuine, good guy. I really enjoy writing him. He's also interesting because he's the other Catholic on the Council. He's a very different kind of Catholic from Exodus.
What can you tell us about your initial arc of Immortal X-Men?
That's another area I can't talk much about. Partly because the fallout from Inferno is so striking and partly because something big happens in the first few pages of our first issue. I'm sure more about that inciting incident will be revealed later, but I don't think we need to know just yet.
I wish I could talk more about the first issue. I'm very happy with it because it illustrates the pitch and says, "This is what the book's about." We've got politics, voting over something incredibly high stakes. We've got some big plays, somebody tripping up, and a big, "Oh my god they're doing that!" reveal, and then another one. There are also explosions. It's not just people sitting around a table and voting. This is still a glorious, high sheen -- Lucas [Werneck] does superhero action books. It's the other side as well though. It's also about how do we make the Quiet Council glamorous?
It's like when you're watching Succession. That show looks great. I hadn't watched it until well after I started on Immortal X-Men and Eternals. Both these books though, at times, feel very much in the mood of Succession. I started watching it about two months ago and it's like, "This is a comedy/drama about awful people in a political situation." Also to be fair, the X-Men are considerably better people than the characters of Succession [laughs] -- except for Sinister, and a few others. They have that kind of energy.
You mentioned artist Lucas Werneck. Given what he's done on X-Men: The Trial of Magneto with large casts, dynamic action, and character acting It seems like he'd be perfect for this book.
Yeah, he does everything. His people are so glamorous and so is the action. He also does the quiet, emotional stuff really well. Lucas' work has the same glamorous feel as Bryan Hitch's best superteam work. This cast all looks amazing on the page. When they walk in everyone has star power. Lucas has really great designs too. Raven has a hat in the opening scene and I expect her outfit and Irene's in that scene to be cosplayed at some point because it's a hot look! I love it.
The nature of this book allows you to bring in characters and concepts that have their own titles like X-Force and The Marauders. Can you talk about how that will work?
I want it to feel like what's happening in those other books matters. Stuff like Arakko is especially high-level politics, but we are going to skip around a little because if you have a second job you aren't spending enough time thinking about the Quiet Council. If you're running the Marauders, you're missing meetings [laughs]. So, in some ways I'd say the characters that are around in other places are probably less important in my book. They're still part of the book, but they're not the people whose main job is The Quiet Council. They're not being played for fools or anything like that. They're just really busy!
It also sounds like their absences would make them vulnerable to machinations.
Yeah, I can't name names yet for a number of reasons. You can imagine though that some of the more kind-hearted ones being out of the room when the shit goes down are like, "You did what?!" They'd be outraged, but being good isn't being dumb either. So they'll act upon it. This is a really fun group of weirdos to write. The Quiet Council is not quiet at all. They're very loud.
Kicking off a new era of X-Men, Marvel's Immortal X-Men #1 goes on sale on March 30.