Brian Wood has completed his last X-Men script for now. Wood will continue writing Ultimate Comics X-Men for Marvel and The Massive for Dark Horse. I love those books but it’s hard to see Wood leave the X-Men. Wood and artist David Lopez crafted a beautiful and thrilling run starring Storm, Psylocke, Domino, Colossus and Pixie. The Wood/Lopez run reminded me of the Chris Claremont/Paul Smith era mixed with a Torchwood modern edge.
I wanted to share some fan questions and Wood’s answers from today’s X-Position on Comic Book Resources. He was asked about a dream project and the artist he would work with.
“I like writing the X-Men, and I’d love to do more of it with David Lopez. Second to that, I’d love to write a new Runaways book and a Thor MAX that’s heavy on the Viking stuff.”
If you’re not familiar – Wood has an amazing series of Viking graphic novels – Northlanders so the idea of a Thor MAX book is very exciting.
Wood’s X-Men team dealt with the discovery of ancient mutant DNA and inspired a fan to ask what Psylocke meant when she was “being a mutant…it means something different now.”
“All that means is they have a greater understanding of their shared history. The proto-mutants weren’t just ancestors, they were a whole different species, one that died out. It would be like if we, as humans, just now discovered that there were Neanderthals. It casts everything that came after it in a new light.”
One of my favorite part of Wood’s run was how he portrayed Storm as team leader and how his script worked so beautifully with David Lopez’s pencils. Wood revealed the best part and biggest surprise of this run was Lopez and Storm.
“If I had to say just one thing, it would be finding a great partner in David Lopez. Sometimes you work with an artist and something about it just feels right it just click with your words in the perfect way. That’s how I felt about David’s work, and I keep coming up with new project ideas for him to draw.
“I wouldn’t say I wasn’t crazy about any of them, really. Some of them surprised me. Considering how well received my Storm was, I really had a strong vision for her as a character at the very beginning. But once I started writing the first script, it all clicked into place and I was like, “Oh yeah, this is working”. And so it went.”
Will Wood be back writing the X-Men?
“People at Marvel can answer that better than I can. I hope the chances are 100%.”
X-Men #36 is out this week.
Op/Ed
I have no knowledge of the inner workings of the Marvel offices and don’t mean this in any disrespect to other writers that I enjoy but I can’t help but think this title is falling victim to the Marvel Now revamp.
Every X-book has to be part of a biggest picture. This book was perfect and stood on its own. In fact – I recently was asked to recommend an X-book for a newbie at my local shop and this was the only one not tied to AvX. so it was perfect for a jumping on point. I’m proud to say I converted a new X-Men fan! I really hate to see this title go and hope both Wood and Lopez are back on an X-Men book.
By the way – The Massive is my favorite non-superhero book right now – pick it up!
By Editor