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MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2007

MARVEL PRESS CONFERENCE: X-MEN: MESSIAH COMPLEX PRESS CONFERENCE

Marvel Comics on Monday staged a telephone press conference for its upcoming X-Men: Messiah Complex event.

Attending were writers Ed Brubaker, Peter David, Chris Yost, Craig Kyle and Mike Carey and editors Nick Lowe and Axel Alonso. (Click on the thumbnails above for larger images.)

Following are highlights:

* Messiah Complex was described as "the biggest X-Men event in a decade." Lowe said the event will be the biggest global change in the X-Universe in 15 years, "if not longer."

* Lowe said the first issue of Messiah Complex will feature the first new mutant since House of M and there is a race to find this mutant.

* Alonso said the possibile mutant birth is like "a shot heard around the world" and it forces people to choose sides, whether it be with Cyclops or Mister Sinister.

* Brubasker said the event is the event is the most fun he's had with the X-Men characters since Deadly Genesis and he likes widening the playing field. He compared it to the 1990s X-Men event with many characters, but the actual purpose feels more clear. "It actually reads like an X-Men story of modern times," he said.

* Lowe said the event has a simple throughline in its story.

* Alonso said the event will be accessible to new fans who are picking up the book for the first time. He said the story is very focused, instead of people running around punching each other.

"This is a big event. It forces people to look inside and what they believe," Alonso said.

* Alonso said the event recalibrates the X-Men Universe in a major way.

* Comparing it to Civil War, Brubaker said that the X-Men that come out of Messiah Complex are more interesting than the X-Men coming into it.

* Carey said one of the things he's enjoyed most about is that it's been planned for two years and that he attended his first Marvel creative retreat. "There's kind of an organic quality to this you don't always see in a crossover event," he said.

* Yost said the event has a really strong emotional core. "The big explosions really are just emotional events. People are going to have really strong reactions to what's going to go down here," Yost said.

* Yost said it felt natural for the Purefiers to be involved in the event. "How can you fight guys who believe they're doing the work of God?" Kyle added.

* Kyle noted he and Yost came on to New X-Men just after House of M, with the young mutants backed into a wall. "For us we got to change the book and show that the kids who did make it out could be really good X-Men," Kyle said, noting that this is the first time the younger mutants have had a chance to "run shoulders with the 'A' guys."

* David noted he was the only person on the call who was around in the 1990s X-Men crossovers. "I really like the energy coming out," he said, noting that crossovers needed to happen regularly back then to keep sales and sometimes lacked the energy of Messiah Complex.

"In this instance, this is something that flows from what's come before," David said. "It's the mark of quality fiction."

* David said the best science fiction is something that resonates in the real world. "Endangered species are something that we're all hyper-aware of," he said, noting that the human race might not be long for the planet.

David said that a story about people fighting for their survival but still keeping hope is uplifting.

* David reiterated the organic feel in creating Messiah Complex. "Back in the day, crossovers were disruptive," he said, noting how plans had to be back-burnered for them and that it led him to quitting X-Factor for the first time.

David said he had six months lead time into Messiah Complex, which allowed him to finish up his plans in #24 and plant seeds for the crossover.

* David said past events in the X-Universe were used as a foundation, instead of previous crossovers which simply took a different direction.

* Brubaker and David said that X-Men newbie Alonso was a good gauge for whether new readers could enjoy it.

* Alonso said there are four camps for the event: save the baby, control the baby, kill the baby and, "winkingly," eat the baby. "This event forces people to forge alliances," he said.

"If there's a character you don't know who they are immediately, you will find out through the context soon enough," Brubaker said.

* Carey said the event has given the writers a focus because of the pre-determined direction. "It's a brilliant way of clearing your mind. Working with simple themes and a shared goal cleared my mind quite a lot," he said, noting that the creators came away from the creative retreat happy with how the event would effect their titles and characters.

* Brubaker said he's attended a lot of event summits, going back to his Batman days. He noted he threw one idea out at the X-summit that he made sure he got in his book, but generally everybody had successful input.

* Lowe said the event will change every X-book in terms of cast and modus operandi. "And not every book comes out of this," Brubaker added.

* David said that in X-Factor's anchor has been Jamie Madrox, and the Messiah Complex has a major impact on Madrox's personality. "It's going to be a very different world," David said, adding that the book will still feature a detective agency with a major shift in dynamic.

"It can't help but change people because their world is decidedly different," David said.

* Lowe said every issue of the event will be numbered on the trade dress and will contain a recap page at the beginning. "It's one big story," Lowe said.

* X-Factor wasn't originally going to be part of Messiah Complex, but became a big factor. "X-Factor really fit because they fit organically," Alonso said.

David noted that X-Factor being a detective agency is important in the story.

* Andy Schmidt came up with the title Endangered Species, and Jim McCann came up with the title Messiah Complex.



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