One of the reasons Marvel Comics X-Men is such a popular franchise is the work legendary writer Chris Claremont and subsequent creators have done seeding and tending to long term plot threads. Elements and characters introduced one issue will return several months or years later, and then further down the line, a story will come that pays out satisfying developments for readers that have watched that story grow. It's a grand tradition in X-Men books, and is something writer Marc Guggenheim wanted to continue with his run on X-Men Gold.
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For the past 20 issues, Guggenheim and his artistic collaborators have been tending to long-term developments with regard to relationships, characters arcs and antagonists. The months ahead will reward readers who have been following the book since issue #1, with a number of payoffs that will culminate in a wedding between team leader Kitty Pryde and Colossus in June's X-Men Gold #30.
CBR spoke with Guggenheim about the wedding and the events leading up to which include the return of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, the formation of a new X-Men team, and the climax of his long term plans for team member Rachel Grey AKA Prestige.
CBR: Let's kick off with the big announcement, the fact that Kitty Pryde proposed to Colossus, and they'll be getting married in X-Men Gold #30. A lot of the subplots in your run on the book so far have involved setting the stage for that. What made you want to bring Kitty and Peter back together? And what made you want to take their relationship to the next level?
Marc Guggenheim: This was part of my original pitch for Gold. I knew that I wanted to have Kitty lead the team, and I knew that I wanted Colossus to be a member of it. In my mind, once you've got Kitty and Colossus on the same team the elephant in the room then becomes: what's the status of their relationship? Are they going to get back together? The trick is, they've been back and forth for so many years, I thought that if I was going to get them back together, their relationship has to progress to the next step. Because otherwise it just feels like you're going backwards instead of forwards. So my goal was to try and push their relationship to a deeper, more advance place than what we've seen before.
Weddings involve families both biological and chosen. So will we see more of Peter and Kitty's biological family members in the months ahead in X-Men Gold?
Unfortunately, both of them don't really have much in terms of biological family that's still alive. Of course, this may the part of the interview that gets me in trouble with the internet if my recollection is wrong. [Laughs] It's my understanding though that Kitty's father is dead. I'm pretty sure her mother is dead too. Peter's parents are dead as well, and he has an uncle who's currently warming a cell in Russia.
So there's not a whole lot of people who are alive and available to make the wedding. They'll instead have to rely on their friends and adopted families.
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There is of course one blood relative of Peter's in their immediate circle, his sister Illyana, AKA Magik.
Yes! You'll see her in Gold for sure. In fact, Illyana will be part of the team lineup starting with issue #24.
Another character you've been doing a lot with is Rachel Grey. What hints and teases can you offer up about your plans for her over the next few months?
Issues #26-30 are designed and have been written as one large, overarching story arc. It culminates, obviously, with the wedding, but that story arc, which I'm calling “Sacrament,” will pull together a lot of plot threads that started in the first few issues of Gold.
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Issues 4-6 of Gold set in motion a plot line with Rachel that is going to come to fruition during “Sacrament.” So issue #30 is going to be a sort of culmination and tying up of just about every dangling plot thread I have. It's fun and exciting to bring everything together and to fruition.
Speaking of older plot threads, the latest issue of X-Men Gold brings back a threat you introduced in your first arc, the new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. What can you tell us about the reemergence of the new Brotherhood?
I had story space for a two-part story. So rather than bring in a different X-Men villain or create a new character I thought it would be fun to revisit the antagonists of our very first arc, X-Men Gold #1-3. There is a bit of a twist to it, but primarily we're dealing with Mesmero, Pyro and Avalanche. You'll get a chance to understand better who this Pyro and Avalanche are. That's something I didn't have the chance to do back in the first three issues.
I say that you'll get a chance to better understand who they are because many fans know that original Pyro and Avalanche died. So who are these guys? We'll get a chance to meet them and know them a little better in issues #21-22.
In issue #23 you kick off a new arc titled, “Cruel and Unusual.” I understand it begins with your main cast behind bars.
Yes. As a result of the end of the Brotherhood arc in #22 the X-Men Gold team finds themselves in prison in issues #23-24. And with the Gold team in prison there's a need for a new team out there that can help protect New York City and the world. To fulfill that need we get a brand new group that's made up of Iceman, Magik, Rogue, Ink, and Armor.
What's it like writing this new team? Their ranks include some characters we saw recently in “The Negative Zone War” arc, and some classic characters you haven't had a chance to write much.
Yes. I've never written Bobby. And I always love writing Ink and Armor. So it's a fun mix. It's also helpful because issue #25 is going to be an extra-sized climax with Scythian, the villainous god from “The Negative Zone War.” And to fight a god you need as many X-Men as you can get your hands on.
There is a little bit of conflict within the team, but that's not where the story lives. It really lives in the fact that they are by no means a well-oiled machine. They're going to have some real growing pains particularly in light of the fact that in issue #24 another mutant shows up to join the replacement team. I don't want to reveal who it is yet. It's a mini-surprise.
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These next two arcs find you collaborating with Diego Bernard who helped you finish “The Negative Zone War” arc, and Thony Silas who did some recent work on X-Men Blue.
Yes. Diego is drawing issues #21-22, and Thony is drawing issues #23-24. Their styles are a bit different, but they're both very dynamic albeit in different ways. Both Diego and Thony really get these characters and it’s fun to see them do their thing.
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Diego's style is a bit more traditional and Thony's work is a bit more stylized. They're both awesome, and I think when everything is collected in a trade it's not going to feel as schizophrenic as some people may think. They both really know how to draw the X-Men.
It really sounds like you're building towards a summer of payoffs for readers who have been following X-Men Gold since the beginning, as well as some possible new and big developments.
Issue #25 is definitely a culmination of sorts with the disposition of the Brotherhood, with the arrival of Scythian on Earth and the establishment of this mega sized team of X-Men. That momentum carries us into #26-30, which is designed to be like a singular storyline, and obviously the climax of that is the wedding.
It's pretty cool to get to this point of the run where a lot of the seeds I've planted, since the very first issue, come to fruition. I went into Gold with a long term plan for the first 25 issues. Things have moved around as they often do with crossovers and making space for certain events. So that plan has stretched into issue #30, but it's really kind of fun to see everything I've seeded come together; with Kitty and Peter, with Rachel and there will be consequences from her relationship with Nightcrawler, as well as the character of Lydia Nance who I introduced in issue #1.
Starting with issue #21 you'll get some new insight into why she is a bigot against mutants. My editor, Mark Paniccia, had given me a note that asked, “What makes her different from the Robert Kellys, the William Strikers, and all the other mutant hating bad guys we've seen over the course of X-Men history?” That challenged me to try something new. I came up with something that Diego executed brilliantly and I kind of dig it.