X-Men Promises “Mutant Evolution” That Rejects Superhero Clichés for Something Deeper

Contains Spoilers for NYX (2024) #1!A new X-Men team is headed to The Big Apple not as superheroes, but as a community, and Marvel has just shared more information on NYX, which will explore mutant culture like few others. Despite returning to a familiar title, the book looks to be doing its own thing with Marvel’s mutants. Unlike other X-Men titles, NYX also promises to explicitly grapple with the fall of Krakoa and how mutant culture is developing in the post-Krakoan age.

Marvel has now revealed a new preview and variant covers for the first issue of its newest X-Men series, NYX, which will be written by Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly and drawn by Francesco Mortarino. In addition to its main cover by Sara Pichelli, the first issue will feature variant covers by Rickie Yagawa, Stanley “Artgerm” Lau, Rogê Antônio, Todd Nauck and Pablo Villalobos.

Launching as part of the X-Men’s From the Ashes line-wide initiative, NYX will follow a group of younger mutants living in New York City as they grapple with what mutantdom means in this new status quo. The series stars Ms. Marvel, Laura Kinney’s Wolverine, Sophie Cuckoo of the Stepford Cuckoos, Prodigy, and Anole, and more characters are sure to join as the book progresses.

Marvel’s New NYX Series Will Distinguish Itself From the Original

This new book shares its name with the original seven-issue NYX series that ran from 2003 to 2005.That controversial series set in NYC introduced Laura Kinney to the mainstream Marvel Universe after first she first appeared in the animated cartoon X-Men: Evolution as X-23. However, it’s likely that Laura’s appearance and the general setting will be the only major points of crossover between these two books. The original series, like so many comics of the early 2000s, pushed the envelope with edgy, lurid plots that ostensibly aimed for being “realistic,” but instead came off as sensationalist and ill-considered.

The new NYX doesn’t seem to have this energy, instead taking the mandate of a young mutant group based in NYC and running with it. The original book had little connection to the wider world of the X-Men beyond Laura, while this one features a cast of well-known X-characters from the start. The book promises to explore how mutantdom itself is evolving through the eyes of these characters who aren’t exactly superheroes. As co-writer Collin Kelly says, “One of the things that we’re lensing in on is, ‘Yes, this is arguably a team, but they’re not a super hero team. They are a friendship, they are a community.’” These younger mutants are positioned perfectly to explore what mutantdom means in the “real world,” which can be more divorced from superheroics.

NYX will be Grappling with the X-Men’s Krakoan Era

Out of all the From the Ashes titles, NYX appears to be the most interested in dealing with the aftermath of the fan-favorite Krakoan Era. The series’ first villain will be the mysterious “Krakoan,” a masked mutant using the memory of Krakoa to justify their own warped ideology. This team’s battles won’t just be fought with powers, then, but with words, with arguments about the direction of mutantkind itself. The book also promises to continue exploring the development of mutant culture, a key theme of Krakoa, but with mutants now as a diaspora without a nation.

The majority of this book’s cast also have diverse identities apart from being mutants. Ms. Marvel is Muslim, Prodigy is Black, and he and Anole are both queer. How these facets of their identity intersect and differ from their shared mutanthood is sure to be explored, and fits with them being based in NYC, itself a city with a long, complicated relationship with all these groups. There’s so much potential in this series to explore all the thorny questions of intersecting identities and cultures that often don’t get touched on in regular superhero comics, which makes NYX‘s take on the X-Men all the more exciting.

Source: Marvel Comics