WEAPON X-MEN ORIGINS 002

Continuing how we got here...

PART TWO OF TWO

August 2023. There was something in the air. The rumors were flying. Apparently, seismic changes were taking place within the X-office at Marvel Comics. Jordan White’s semi-cryptic e-mail to me was confirmation of those rumors (see a previous newsletter for Part One of this non-saga).

In this business, the ability to practice a certain degree of patience is a necessary coping skill. So I waited. I hung back and, hopefully, let the dust settle to see which way the wind was gonna blow.

As I recall, I didn’t have to wait too long. Soon enough, longtime Marvel editor, Tom Brevoort announced that he had been recruited to take over the X-office and editorially usher the entire franchise into its next publishing iteration. Now, I wouldn’t say it was a bombshell… but it was somewhat significant. For as long as Tom has been at Marvel -- longer than any other employee (that I know of) currently working in editorial -- he’s never edited the X-Men (aside from a tiny handful of random projects). He’d edited almost every other character or franchise, mostly to great success, so bringing him onto the X-books full-time made sense, both from a business point of view as well as a creative one.

For myself, I’ve known Tom for almost twenty-five years. He first roped me in for a fill-in on THUNDERBOLTS back in late 1998, not too long after I’d broken in at Marvel. Over the subsequent years, we worked together on many projects that ended up being some of my favorite things I ever wrote at Marvel. Tom was the editor on my three (to date) historical AVENGERS series. He recruited me to write the HEROES REBORN: MASTERS OF EVIL one-shot. He edited IRON MAN: THE INEVITABLE and FF: FIRST FAMILY (for those gigs, Tom hired me and, in return, I brought artists Frazer Irving and Chris Weston to Marvel for their first gigs there). He also edited the DARK REIGN: ZODIAC mini-series (where I co-created the very same Zodiac that was brought back in MOON KNIGHT a few years ago, also edited by Tom).

Needless to say, he and I have some history. So, I figured there was a chance that WEAPON X-MEN could still have a life. I confirmed with Jordan that my pitch had been passed on to Tom, after which I quickly got in touch to see where things were at. Tom assured me that he did indeed have the pitch, he saw its commercial merits, and that he would get back to me once he’d settled in and figured out how he was gonna tackle the X-franchise, in general.

Cut to: about two months later. I received an e-mail out of the blue from Jordan White, still serving out his term now as a lame duck X-editor. Very matter of factly, he let me know that Marvel was about to announce a brand-new series…

… called WEAPON X-MEN.

Not the same series I had pitched, of course. Jordan preemptively assured me that this was an entirely different idea (in language that, to me, kinda smacked of corporate ass-covering).

Coincidence? At that particular moment… I thought not.

And, I’ll admit, I was pretty pissed off. Here I was, all full of myself, patting myself on the back for thinking of a name that had never been used before. Hadn’t even been thought of before. Not by Claremont. Not by Morrison. Not by Liefeld. Not by Hickman. Not by anyone. And it clearly had some commercial value. Needless to say, any and all manner of conspiracy theory raced through my brain.

So I did what any borderline sane professional comicbook writer would do and got in touch with Tom Brevoort right away to find out what happened. And, to his credit, Tom did a quick bit of investigating on his end and soon came back to me with the real story. I won’t go into too much detail here, because I suppose it’s probably Tom’s story to tell… but the long and short of it is as follows: the mini-series in question had a different title originally. Tom wanted that title as part of his upcoming relaunch and informed the editor involved that they should simply find a new title for their mini-series. Without Tom’s knowledge (or Jordan White’s, for all I know), the WEAPON X-MEN title was lifted from my pitch and haphazardly slapped onto the mini-series. Even the writer of said mini-series (an amazingly standup guy, btw) didn’t even know what had happened (or where the title had originally come from).

Tom was sympathetic to my frustration. We talked about still going forward with the series concept I had pitched… but maybe under another title. A different title. I told Tom specifically that, if my pitch was eventually approved, I definitely wanted to keep the title I’d thought of. If, for no other reason, so I could tell this behind-the-scenes story when I did press for it. I’m like Dustin Hoffman’s movie producer character in the film, Wag The Dog, and his exasperated motto… “I want the credit!”

Three months later, we got the greenlight.

I suppose there’s some comedy to be found in the fact that something so relatively simple had to take this kind of journey. Certainly writing about it here has… I dunno… exorcised some of the more intense negative feelings that I experienced when all of this originally went down. After all, it’s all part of the dance. And admittedly, I’m not entirely sure why I got so bent out of shape about a title I don’t own.

Then again, neither did Marvel… until I thought of it. I guess that’s why.

Anyway… WEAPON X-MEN #1 debuts in February 2025.

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ON SALE THIS WEEK: The fifth scintillating issue of BLOOD SQUAD SEVEN will be hitting your local comicbook store on Wednesday. Written by me and drawn by Paul Fry. Check out the new hotness — INTRODUCING THE ALL-NEW, ALL-VIOLENT GANG OF FOUR! The next generation of evil has arrived -- and they’ve got a score to settle with the new Blood Squad Seven! Can superheroes exist without super-villains? And vice versa? Find out in this issue! Published by Image Comics.

Joe Casey

USA