Arrow Executive Producer/Writer Marc Guggenheim will take over the all-female X-Men book with issue 18 according to IGN.
Guggenheim will pick up where Brian Wood left off. No word on a new artist yet or Wood’s next project after an acclaimed run with the all-female X-team.
Guggenheim tells IGN he’s not planning a radical change. The book will still focus on the women of the X-Men and take the team into space:
“You know, I pitched several ideas, and the one that [editors] Mike Marts and Daniel Ketchum far and away responded to the most was the space story. You know, I’m a longtime X-Men fan. The first issue of X-Men that I ever read was Uncanny #139, which is the one where Kitty Pryde joins the team. Relatively shortly after that, they had The Brood Saga. Thanks to ComiXology, actually, before I started pitching on this, I happened to be rereading a lot of the Claremont-era X-Men books, including The Brood Saga. I was sort of struck by just how long it’s been since there’s been an X-Men in outer space story. There was Ed Brubaker’s really fantastic Rise and Fall of the Shi’ar Empire.
Since then, the X-Men really haven’t been in space all that much. There was a little bit with the Breakworld in Joss Whedon’s run. There’s been little things along the way, but nothing that really sort of grabbed me in the same way The Brood Saga grabbed me as an early reader. I just found myself getting nostalgic. I didn’t want to do another Brood story, because Chris Gage had done Children of the Brood, which was fantastic. But I liked the idea of taking this all-female team of X-Men and putting them in outer space. In doing something that was a little different than “The X-Men meet Star Wars,” this was more along the lines of “The X-Men meets Aliens.” It’s darker, it’s a little more mysterious, and it’s scarier.
Guggenheim confirmed Deathbird will be appearing during his run. Deathbird is the ruthless sister of the late Lilandra and D’Ken – rules of the Shi’ar Empire.
Here’s the official description from the Marvel:
X-MEN #18
NEW CREATIVE TEAM! And a new mission for the first all-female team of X-MEN…
• S.W.O.R.D. is Earth’s premiere counterterrorism and intelligence agency when it comes to dealing with extraterrestrial threats.
• But when the ferocious Shi’Ar warrior Deathbird lands on their doorstep at the brink of death, S.W.O.R.D. calls in the X-MEN to investigate!
• But are the X-Men equipped to handle the horrific new threat that’s emerged from the edge of space?
By Editor