This edition of the Top 10 Tuesdays is an attempt at a mini-primer of sorts focusing on the upcoming X-Men event, Necrosha. Unlike the other primers we've done for War of Kings and Blackest Night, this will be a short list of 10 Things You Need to Know For X-Men: Necrosha. It'll provide information on the number of titles involved, character profiles for key players, such as Selene, Wither and Blink, as well as general plot points you need to know going in. Curious about X-Men: Necrosha? Hit the jump for more.Top 10 Tuesdays - 10 Things You Need to Know For X-Men: Necrosha
1) What is Necrosha?
Necrosha is a 13-issue, 13 week event that spins out of a subplot which has been running in X-Force since it debuted, involving Selene, the former Black Queen of the Hellfire Club, and Magus (note: not the Adam Warlock version), a techno-organic member of the Technarch which Bastion rewrote the programming of and used the transmode virus native to the Technarch to revive several human X-Men villains. Eli Bard supplied the knowledge of this transmode revival process to Selene, who it appears will use the revival process on the population of dead mutants massacred on Genosha. What she will do with the 16 million+ revived dead mutants invovles an attack on the new mutant island nation of Utopia and somehow ties into Selene's vampiric powers and desire to sacrifice a large number of mutants, possibly the inhabitants of Utopia, in an attempt to gain godlike powers.
Simply put, it's Blackest Night for the X-Men titles. Instead of zombie Black Lantern versions of old friends back to prey on their friends, it's techno-organic zombie versions.
2) So, it's a big event crossover. What do I need to collect?
X-Men: Necrosha checklist included in several Marvel comics.
While this is an event that crosses over into several different titles and one-shots, Chris Yost described the event structure as follows:
This is an X-Force story that we've been building to for a couple years now. While it is a crossover, it's not one in the traditional sense. You're not going to have any "To be continueds" in another book. It's an X-Force story that's a five-parter. The events in it kind of spiral out. Essentially, little storylines are going to branch off from the main one and go into other books. But the main storyline is going to be in X-Force. - Chris Yost
Simply put, you won't have to buy every issue to get the full story, but it will add up to give you a better picture of the event if you do. There will be no 'to be continued' or need to read the tie-ins, but it does look like X-Force will be the 'event book' for this storyline and a must read for anyone following only New Mutants or X-Men: Legacy.
3) That's a lot of books. How much is this going to set me back?
It's a 13-issue event spread over 13 weeks. All of those issues save the three New Mutants issues, which are $2.99 each, will set you back $3.99 a pop. It's speculated that the anniversary and concluding issue of the event, X-Force #25, will be priced at $4.99, but for the purpose of this, I'll assume it is X-Force's standard $3.99 cover price. That puts you at a minimum price of $48.87 for every issue in the event.
If you only follow the X-Force related titles, you're looking at $27.93 and that covers all the X-Force issues and the Necrosha and Necrosha: The Gathering one-shots.
4) That's not too big a committment. Who are the creators involved?
The event is being spearheaded by X-Force and Messiah War collaborators, Chris Yost & Craig Kyle, with input from other X-writers, Zeb Wells and Mike Carey. Artists include the likes of Clayton Crain, Clay Mann and Diogenes Neves, among others. The full list of creators, including the books they are working on, can be found below.
X-Force - Written by Chris Yost & Craig Kyle with Art by Clayton Crain
New Mutants - Written by Zeb Wells with Art by Diogenes Neves
X-Men: Legacy - Written by Mike Carey with Art by Clay Mann
Necrosha: The Gathering - Written by Chris Yost & Craig Kyle with Art by Kalman Andrasofszky, Leonardo Manco, Ibraim Roberson & Mateus Santolouco
X Necrosha One-Shot #1 - Written by Mike Carey, Zeb Wells, Chris Yost & Craig Kyle with Art by Clayton Crain, Ibraim Roberson & Dustin Weaver
5) Anything we need to know going into the event?
Actually, not really. The general premise of the event should be enough to get you through it without much difficulty. However, generally speaking, you should also know the basic status quo of the X-Men titles, which includes the recent creation of an island nation off the coast of San Francisco called Utopia. It houses most of the mutant population currently left alive, which is roughly 200 or less thanks to the Scarlet Witch and her "No More Mutants" decree from House of M. The X-Men have also been keeping their most dangerous enemies captive in the basement with Danger as their jailor. These include Sebastian Shaw, Empath, Donald Pierce and several other high profile villains.
Current issues of X-Force are dealing with the fallout of their time travelling adventures in Messiah War and rescuing X-23, who was captured by the people that originally cloned her from Wolverine's DNA.
In New Mutants, the team has spent most of the run combatting the recently returned Legion and are pretty much a clean slate coming into the event.
On the X-Men: Legacy side of things, Rogue is dealing with Emplate and her new role as a councillor for the young mutants on Utopia. Danger and Gambit are also scheduled to appear, but will have minor roles in the grand scheme of things.
6) Any key issues we need to know about or should pick up?
As far as key issues leading into the crossover, the only ones I recommend are New X-Men #32, X-Force #11 and X-Force #18. Of these three, the only one remotely required is X-Force #11. It was a stand alone issue that fleshed out Selene's and Eli Bard's past together and lays the groundwork for Selene's current plans set to be carried out in Necrosha. It also has the two reviving the recently deceased Caliban, who's mutant tracking powers will come in handy with finding dead and living mutants, as seen in the other key issue on this list, X-Force #18, where Selene's group revived Doug Ramsey.
As for New X-Men #32, that was the issue Selene first reappeared under Yost's & Kyle's pen and saw her recruit the New X-Man Wither. Wither had run away from the Xavier school due to his inability to control his necrotic touch powers and was living alone on the streets, making him an easy mark for the immortal Selene, who was also immune to his power. This issue will probably be touched upon in Necrosha: The Gathering, which explains how Selene gathered her Inner Ciricle of mutants, which Wither is a part of, but is not something you really need to read either (though Yost's & Kyle's New X-Men run was quite good and worth reading either way).
7) Okay, we know the premise, have a checklist, cost, know about the lead up to the event and creators involved. Now, please tell me just who the hell Selene is and why I should care?
Selene is a near immortal mutant with vampiric, life draining and psychic powers. She is over 7000 years old and also knows a great deal of magic and is adept enough to have been considered by the Eye of Agomotto as a potential successor to Dr Strange. On top of her other powers, with the dawn of mutants, she eventually came to realize she gained far more power when absorbing the life energy of a mutant than that of a normal human. In addition, Selene was also the former Black Queen of the Hellfire Club and has had several run-ins with the X-Men in the past. She has particular vendettas with Rachel Summers and Magma, of the New Mutants, which will most likely be explored in the New Mutants portion of this event.
Yost & Kyle have expanded Selene's origin leading up to Necrosha and tied Eli Bard's origin to earlier days in Selene's life. She originally seduced Bard into helping her perform a ritual to sacrifice every living creature in Rome at the height of the Roman Empire, which would number about a million people, in an attempt to gain god-like powers, but the plan was foiled due to Bard warning a little girl to flee Rome. It is speculated Necrosha will follow a similar plot and see Selene attempt to sacrifice either the dead mutants Bard is reviving for her or the remaining 200 or so mutants since mutants generate far more energy for Selene than a normal human.
8) Who else is involved that I probably should know about? Was that Blink I saw in a preview? Isn't she dead?
There are many characters involved or potentially going to show up due to the fact the villains are reviving the dead using the transmode virus, but the key players involved include members of X-Force, New Mutants, the X-Men: Legacy title (Rogue, Gambit, Danger, etc), Selene (see above for more), Selene's Inner Circle and just about any mutant that has died (16 million+ and counting). I'll briefly go over team members you should already know before touching on the more obscure villains in more detail.
X-Force
There are many smaller or lesser known characters involved with the upcoming Necrosha event. Chief among them is the X-Force team itself, which includes Wolverine, X-23, Warpath, Vanisher, Domino, Angel/Archangel, Elixir and Wolfsbane. Deadpool is supposedly going to become a recurring character on the team for this event, too.
New Mutants
The New Mutants team is made up of the original New Mutants, which includes Cannonball, Dani Moonstar, Magma, Sunspot, Karma, and Magik.
X-Men: Legacy
For X-Men: Legacy, Rogue will continue to be the main character, but you can expect minor roles from Danger, Gambit and many of the other X-Men and mutants found on Utopia.
On the villain side of things, it's a much more interesting picture. Selene, who we talked about above, is the big bad and has recruited several mutants to make up her new Inner Circle. These include Blink, Wither, Senyaka, Mortis and Eli Bard. Additionally, Selene has used the transmode virus on dead mutants, most notably Caliban, who she uses to track down living and dead mutants, and Doug Ramsey, a former New Mutant revived in X-Force #18.
Selene's Inner Circle
The Inner Circle is made up of humans and mutants with vampiric or death themed powers, such as the death touch of Wither and Mortis, or the life syphoning powers of Senyaka. It will be revealed exactly how each member was recruited by Selene in the upcoming Necrosha: The Gathering one-shot.
Blink
Blink supposedly died in her first appearance during the Phalanx Covenant and was a new mutant with teleportation powers. A young girl at the time, she proved so popular, she was "revived" for the alternate reality story, Age of Apocalypse, where she featured prominently as a member of the X-Men. She was also a recurring character and main focus of several reality spanning adventures in Exiles, though those did not revolve around the same Blink from the regular 616 Marvel universe. It is unknown if this is the same Blink we were first introduced to during the Phalanx Covenant that supposedly died, a transmode virus-revived version or something else entirely.Eli Bard
Eli Bard was first introduced as a member of the Purifiers, a religion based mutant hate group, in X-Force #3. It was later revealed he was an immortal vampire-like being in service of Selene. He was originally born at the height of the Roman Empire and nearly succeeded in helping Selene absorb the souls of every living creature in Rome before the authorities found out about their plans. Selene cursed him to an eternal life as a vampire-like human for his failures, but Bard, still in love with her, continues to serve her to this day.
In fact, he originally joined the Purifiers in an attempt to co-opt the group and sacrifice the thousands of Purifiers as a gift for Selene. When he found out about the Technarch transmode virus, he absorbed it into himself and is now using it to create an army of undead mutants for Selene, which is the impetus behind Necrosha.
Senyaka
Possessing the mutant power to drain the life essence from people through physical contact. He can also use this power to power a set of psionically controlled whips he uses to kill his victims. Believed dead on several occasions, it is his ability to drain the life force of others that keeps him alive. He has a sadistic streak and has served on various iterations of the Acolytes.Wither
Wither is a former New X-Man with a necrotic death touch that disintegrates any organic matter he comes in contact with. It first manifested itself when he was young. Terrified by his clothes disintegrating around him, his father attempted to calm him and was subsequently killed by his son's death touch. He later joined the New X-Men, but eventually left the team due to his friends fearing his powers and overhearing them refer to him as "dangerous".For a while, he lived in Mutant Town, where he was befriended by Selene, who was posing as an old lady. Seeing this old lady gun downed by two policemen, Wither lashed out and killed her assailants. Seeing him kill in cold blood, Selene then revealed herself and kissed Wither before offering him a place as her king. He is described in interviews as having a major role in Necrosha.
Mortis
The younger, half-sister of the X-Man, Dazzler, Lois London, also known as Mortis, has a death touch-like power that alters both organic and inorganic matter. The exact nature of her power was never explained, but it appears to give heart attacks to living creatures and disrupts the molecular bonds of inorganic matter, causing it to break. Other Characters of Note
Caliban - Former member of X-Force, he died during Messiah Complex and was recently revived by Eli Bard with the transmode virus in order to serve as an undead mutant tracker so that Bard could revive an entire army of dead mutants to serve Selene. He has been shown to be quite proficient in his new role and has already enabled Bard to revive Doug Ramsey and should feature prominently in his undead tracking role through Necrosha.
Doug Ramsey - The deceased New Mutant known as Cypher was recently revived in X-Force #18 by Eli Bard to serve in Selene's growing undead army. His powers are centered on the ability to translate any language he comes in contact with (yes, he's quite useless in case you are wondering how he could have possibly died), including alien and computer based languages.
Thunderbird - One of the first dead mutants to be revived by Eli Bard, Thunderbird is Warpath's brother and one of the original "All New, All Different X-Men" and debuted alongside Wolverine, Colossus and the rest in Giant-Size X-Men #1. His powers include super strength, speed, stamina, and durability.
New X-Men - While the team no longer exists, expect many of Yosts's & Kyle's New X-Men to show up during Necrosha, particularly the dead ones, whose numbers are far too great to list. Two key living members you should expect to appear are Hellion and Surge, both of which are currently appearing in X-Force.
Donald Pierce - Former member of the Hellfire Club and mutant hating bigot. He is also a powerful cyborg with super strength and durability. He was recently captured in Young X-Men and is held prisoner by the X-Men beneath Utopia with other dangerous villains. He has ties to Selene and aided her in escaping captivity by the Hellfire Club at one point. It is speculated, based on previews for X Necrosha, that Selene will either free or kill and reanmiate these evil mutants for her own purposes. Donald Pierce's past associations with Selene put him in a position to join her Inner Circle or army in some manner.
Sebastion Shaw - Another former member of the Hellfire Club, like Donald Pierce, he is also a prisoner of the X-Men being held in the depths of Utopia. Selene and Shaw have a storied past as rivals in the Hellfire Club, so it is unclear as to what she will do with him after the assault on Utopia shown in previews of X Necrosha.
9) Are there any previews or articles I can read to find out more?
Why, yes, yes there is. For previews, there was an 6-page preview of X Necrosha in the recent Dark Avengers/Uncanny X-Men: Exodus one-shot, but I've included images of it below for your convenience (click for larger images). On the article side of things, you can check out the original announcements for the event and interviews with Chris Yost & Craig Kyle at CBR, IGN Comics or read a newer entry on Necrosha on Marvel's website. All are informative and will give you a better general idea of what to expect from the event with preview and cover artwork to whet your appetite.
10) Any questions, comments or something I missed and you think people should know about?
I'm cheating a little here, but this final entry on the list goes out as a call to readers for questions or comments. Anything I missed that you feel is important enough to share with readers? Anything else you want to know about? I'll do my best to field any questions in the comments below and will try to update the information with anything readers point out I missed, so fire away in the comments below.
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24 comments:
But wait, there's more! Possibly the linchpin story of Necrosha occurs in X-Force Annual #1, a little 12 pager we like to call...
UNDEADPOOL!!
Crucial/ridiculous reading.
A couple of things: Senyaka was last incinerated on providence by cables self destruct mechanism just before Messiah CompleX. While Cable was fighting Sunfire and Gambit, Senyaka was fighting Deadpool over in the pages of 'Cable/Deadpool' (great series by the way). Also, Blink was just seen in an issue of 'Incredible Hercules', when Hercules and Cho visited the underworld, Blink was in the casino of Erebus.
Also, super enthusiastic about Deadpool coming under the pen of Kyle and Yost, he was hilarious in the Messiah War crossover. I read in an interview somewhere that Kyle and Yost were going to ask for him to be on the roster when they debuted X-Force, but they didnt think they would get him.
On a sidenote, as someone who has followed Yost and Kyles work since their 'New X-Men' days, I am really looking forward to this crossover, hopefully it delivers on its potential as opposed to 'Messiah War' (Yost and Kyle should have written that whole damn crossover).
Excellent work with this primer, Kirk, this is first-class stuff. Hope you don't mind if I link it to my blog that I never post in, okay? Honestly, great work.
Regarding choices for potential techno-zombie mutants, I definitely want to see Wallflower come back, especially with Wither and Elixir likely to mix it up.
"On top of her other powers, with the dawn of mutants, she eventually came to realize she gained far more power when absorbing the life energy of a mutant than that of a normal human."
It took her 7000 years to realize that? I'd hate to do a crossword puzzle with her.
I'd like to check this out, but it looks like I'm way too far behind on the X-books to even have an inkling of what is happening. Oh well.
this article is simply outstanding
WHat have they done to Blink?!
Man. I like Selene, but this really, really just seems like a Blackest Night ripoff.
When I first started collecting comics..and I'll date myself here....around the time of the MUTANT MASSACRE, there was one mutant who always stood out from the rest. That was DOUGLAS RAMSEY/CYPHER. I loved this character and for him alone I am looking forward to NECROSHA. I loved his power set, his Art Adams designed X-Men costume (w/ the visor) and his friendships with WARLOCK and (ugh) BIRD-BRAIN, back in the day and was very sad when they killed him.
PS-SPOILER? Doug Ramsey is coming back as the new MAGUS (techno-organic) not Adam Warlock related. Check out his profile on Marvel.com and you wil see him listed as Doug Ramsey/Magus (or something like that) with a disclaimer reading that the profile hasn't been approved for public viewing yet.
@Chris Yost - I knew I'd read something about an X-Force Annual, but couldn't find it listed on the checklists or in solicits. It must have been in an interview somewhere. I'll update the post with it now that I have confirmation.
@hobosk8er - I, too, am quite pleased to see Deadpool under Yost & Kyle's pens again. It's enough to get me reading the title again after my break since Messiah War. With how this one is scheduled to play out with no requirement/to be continued's to New Mutants or Legacy, I'm more than happy to pick up just X-Force for the whole story. But mostly for Deadpool, ahaha.
@The Phoenix King - Feel free to link away. I have no problemw ith people linking to anything we post and thanks, glad you enjoyed it enough to share with others.
@Anonymous - Well, there were like 2 or 3 mutants that old (Apocalypse, Exodus and Mr Sinister I think). She wouldn't have really come in contact with any until the 1900's at the earliest and even then, they didnt explode out until the last 20 years or so Marvel time, though reduced greatly post-House of M.
@Primewax - There's not that much to really know. You could get the whole story with X-Force and Necrosha one-shots and get by just fine. If you know who Selene is, the current status of mutants and basic knowledge of the characters in X-Force, you should be all set to get the story and this primer, combined with the linked to interviews, should be more than enough to cover all your bases.
This isn't some event with 2 or 3 years worth of build up. It's organically grown out of subplots in X-Force and is more of a mini-event being reflected in other titles.
If you have an interest in it, I wouldn't let the fact you've been out of the loop for a bit dissuade you from picking up something you think you might enjoy.
@Matt - If it's the original, could be transmode virus revived and evil'd by default. If the real deal, the X_Men did put her on the frontlines of Phalanx Covenant and kind of left her for dead, so we can go with some kind of revenge motif for that. Will have ot wait for the one-shot to find out though.
@PMMJ - There are worse things than ripping off a highly successful mega event from Geoff Johns and DC. This story has been building and hinted toward for years and even has ties to Yost & Kyles previous series, New X-Men. It's easy to call it a BN rip-off (I even made teh comparison in the description), but it's not just a matter of them seeing BLackest Night and going, "Oh, let's steal their thunder and do our own zombie story".
It's more like how movies always seem to have similar concepts at the same time (Armeggedon and that other one with Morgan Freeman and title wave in New York or the two ant-based CGI movies, for a couple of examples).
Both were developed and conceived independently at roughly the same time. You can't really say one is ripping off the other, despite time frames for releases.
I say give it a few issues. If it brings something unique to the talbe that differentiates itself from Blackest Night or standard zombie stories, then it's all good. If it's clearly just a matter of Black Lanterns with transmode viruses, then the rip-off critique can be rolled out and holds water.
@smkedtky - Hmm, that's interesting, but aren't the Marvel profiles updated by fans like a Wikipedia entry? If not, that's still an interesting bit of info. Probably will be followed up on in New Mutants and not overly relevant to the event, but we'll have to wait and see.
Kirk - I'm not sure about the fan involvement in Marvel's character profiles but I don know that Cypher was never referred to as Magus before that listing....and long before NECROSHA was even conceived, it was established that Doug Ramsey may have been infected with the transmode virus through his consant physical/mental bonding with Warlock (who's return later today I'm really looking forward to...oh, to be 12 again...not really though). I could definitely see him emerging as a hero again by the end of this story for just that reason (especially with the classic NEW MUTANTS up and running again).
I might have to be tempted out of my shell and to actually buy more than just New Mutants with this stuff.... maybe
@Kirk, haha, I know this is not Exiles-Blink, but it's such a departure from the character that most people know/have-heard-of, that I am sure people are going to be confused.
$50 say Banshee is alive by the end of this. Any takers?
@Kirk So I'd be OK even if my last X-perience (groan) was, say, Age of Apocalypse? Haha I guess I can Wiki anything else I need.
So we talking Phalanx Covenant 2.0 with a lil night of the living dead and fall of the roman empire thrown in for good measure...
I'll look at the first couple of issues but ultimately I think I'll look this up in the library when it is collected. I had high hopes when I saw Warlock come back in Nova and heard about the New Mutants returning.
Let's just say they weren't being met...
Funny coincidence that both companies had good 'teen-ish' books (New X-Men Academy, teen titans), screwed them up for big events / relaunches (House of M / Young X-Men; Infinite Crisis / Titans) and now are scuffling to re-find that magic again.
@Primewax - Whoa thats a long ways back ahaha. Hmm, you might need a little refresher on some present day status quo stuff and basic premise of X-Force being a 'kill squad' for the X-Men, but, yes, I think you could probably pick this up and enjoy it, assuming the premise and characters interest you. Like, you might be wondering who X-23 or Warpath are if it's been that long (unless you've been reading up online), but most stories are remarkably easy to get into without the need for backstory. Necrosha doesn't have a huge lead up like an Infinite Crisis, Secret Invasion or other linewide event either. It's just sort of out there on its own like an Annihilation or War of Kings.
I like that this event was developed since the early moments of X-Force, feels less like a Blackes Night rip-off, I just hope that the development of the event pays off, since the idea of seeing again many dead mutants is interesting, I hope we'll see many old characters (Doug Ramsey, Caliban, Pyro and 616 Blink are getting my attention). Also, I wonder if some revived characters will remain alive (I hope Caliban does, I liked him as part of the X-Men and his death in Messiah Complex upset me). I guess this will be a reason to start buying X-Force again.
Are the deceased New X-Men from Kyle and Yost's run coming back? Most of them were depowered and so they'd be pretty much useless to her... The only one that did have her powers that I can remember was Wallflower, who probably is back. Then again, I thought the dead were supposed to have had their X-gene removed too in M-Day, but I can live with that as a retcon.
@Anonymous - It's hard to say at this point, but I'd expect a lot of dead mutants to come back. the only thing I'm unsure of is if they will return with powers despite being depowered on M-Day. Beast concluded that even dead mutants lost their powers, so I can't really see how anyone revived that did not keep their powers post-M-Day will be of much use to them. We'll have to wait and see how the story resolves those questions.
@Kirk: I DID enjoy the crap outta Annihilation, and I had not read anything Marvel outside of Zombies and Civil War in a long time. I'll check it out, and if I have any questions, there's always Google. lol
Great article! If I may make one suggestion though: What in the world is with the trend of Marvel and DC coping each other lately? Has creativity completely gone out the window? I can go on and on with examples, but I think we all know what I am talking about!
@Travis - It's like Hollywood and television with how youll see similar ideas executed differently at roughly the same time. Antz and A Bug's Life, Armeggedon and Deep Impact, etc, etc. Marvel and DC are no different than these other entertainment fields and similar ideas crop up. This isn't the first time for Marvel and DC to have similar stories executed nor will it be the last.
Lois London/Mortis <3
Great summary!
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