As is tradition, let's see what the X-Men were up to when they first reached 275 issues.

Wow! X-Men Monday is in its Jim Lee era! I forgot to ask him to illustrate a special feature image for this anniversary edition. Maybe for 300?

Now, we may not have Starjammers, Deathbird, or Zaladane, but we're still celebrating this mutant milestone in style, as Tom Brevoort, the Conductor of X, is back. This is Tom's first appearance since our last anniversary edition, X-Men Monday #250. As that interview dropped before the start of the "From the Ashes" era, now is the perfect time to check in and learn the state of all things X. (And try to get to get some teases out of him.) There's a lot to get through, so let's get started.

AIPT: Welcome back to X-Men Monday, Tom! The last time we spoke in X-Men Monday #250, you said, "I want to sell a lot of X-Men comics." So, let's start there. Are you selling a lot of X-Men comics, Tom?

Tom Brevoort: Well, it seems like we're selling a decent amount of X-Men comics. There's no particular public-facing website or anything that I could point to that's not anecdotal. But even anecdotally, as X-Men and X-Men-related issues are released every week, they tend to be at the top of those charts. So it's all good. Despite my best efforts, the X-Men are not finished.

AIPT: That's a relief. It's good to know I have job security. Now, for X-Men comics, the high volume of solo series was certainly a change of pace -- Phoenix, Storm, Psylocke, Magik, and so on. We're only a few months in, but are there any surprising takeaways from this solo experiment?

Tom: I don't think we've had enough time to really have a particular takeaway other than my hope that it will be successful. I hope that any number of these characters are strong enough on their own to center a title -- at least for some period of time. These days, building books that go on infinitely into the future is a very rare thing. I know that frustrates a lot of readers. It certainly frustrates us in that we would love it. It would be super easy if I could launch six books and those books would just run forever and they would have enough readership and support to be self-sustaining. But it's a tough market. It's a tough entertainment landscape because there are so many options and so many things vying for people's attention, time, and money.

But again, my hope is that at least some of these things will hit and connect. And I kind of plan to keep doing them because I don't know that just every time a leaf falls from a tree establishing another X-team is a great way to go about things. Maybe there is more strength in having five different characters in a book, so the fans of all five will show up to check it out or whatnot. But I find that a lot harder and a lot more difficult to create legitimate reasons for these particular characters to all be doing some mission together that's not exactly like the mission these other five characters are doing over here.

It's a lot easier to focus in on solo players and go, OK, what is Psylocke about? What's the tone of that character and how can we make that different from the other books in the line? What ground does she stand on? What history does she have? What conflicts relate to her differently than they relate to Magik, Phoenix, or Storm?

I kind of knew from the jump we were going to launch a whole bunch of stuff and not all of it was going to stick. So my metric is always, do I think these projects are good? I've done plenty of books over the years, and some of them have lasted a long time and some of them have lasted a short time, but that's not really how I remember them. I remember the ones I thought were great, and I remember the ones I thought fell apart and didn't work well. So I'm not judging this by the same metric the fans might be, all of which is to say, I haven't learned anything yet. Maybe by X-Men Monday #300.

AIPT: I do feel like all these solo series have helped a lot of X-Fans better understand comic sales, preorders, and what they need to do to ensure their favorite characters' books continue. A lot of campaigning. It's encouraging to see.

Tom: For sure. You certainly see that with Phoenix and Storm fans. And there are a lot of really, really angry Emma Frost fans right now. They're angry that other female X-characters are getting solo books and that Emma has not yet gotten the same treatment. And part of the answer for that is, well, there are only so many books I can do at any one given time anyway. And we put Emma in a place for a reason -- to be one of the anchors of Exceptional X-Men. That doesn't mean she can't have a solo project any more than Storm or Magik.

All things come in time, but you can't tell that to the fans of those characters. They love those characters and they want it now, now, now. So that's kind of the downside. Well, that's not even a downside. It's an alternative upside of trying something like this. You do a handful of books and then everybody else goes, "Well, what about all the other characters? Why don't they have books?" And maybe someday they will.

AIPT: So, we're about 5 months into the "From the Ashes" era. What's one thing you assumed you knew about the X-Men that's been turned on its head thanks to the creators you're working with or X-Fans?

Tom: Well, I didn't assume I knew anything about about X-Men. I watched it all from afar and I certainly read the books back when I was just a reader, and I've kept up with them on and off during my Marvel tenure. So I wasn't a stranger, but I also wasn't enmeshed in that world. It's very different than running the Avengers books -- or what we used to call the Marvel Heroes books. Part of that is, for the most part, when it was time to launch a new Iron Man series, I didn't have to care much about what was going on in Captain America and I had care a little bit, but not that much, about what was going on in Avengers. These were intended as individual solo titles that all had a common hub, which was Avengers.

But X-Men doesn't work that way. X-Men is all interconnected and has only become more interconnected over the years. So every piece resonates with every other piece. Every piece of it has to be coordinated in a way that's a lot more complicated than just doing Fantastic Four. All of the characters feel communal and they're all talking to different aspects of the same experience -- and it's a multifaceted experience. There are a lot of stories you can get out of the mutant metaphor, but you're making sure that two different people don't want to use Cyber in the same month or use Cyber in two completely different ways. It's a constant thing that you bump up against.

Or maybe so-and-so wants to bring back a character and I don't necessarily want to bring that character back in that way at that time. Maybe I think there's more value in waiting until we can do X, Y, or Z. There's a lot more of that involved. So I don't know that I learned it, but I got to experience it, and I'm continuing to get to experience it as we work out and develop this stuff.

AIPT: In the First Krakoan Age, we moved from the "Dawn of X" to the "Reign of X" and ultimately ended with the "Fall of X." Will the "From the Ashes" era eventually mutate into something else?

Tom: Honestly, I was expecting that we wouldn't still be using "From the Ashes." But editor Darren Shan wanted to put it on the Psylocke #1, and I thought, well, there's no reason not to put it on that issue. Fine, go ahead and do that. But after the initial 12 books were out, these were just going to be X-Men comics. "From The Ashes" has maybe stuck around just a hair longer. We really only ran it mostly on the first issues.

AIPT: It's a launch title for the new era to differentiate from what came before, but you're not thinking in terms of phases. Got it! OK, so Exceptional X-Men #1 confirmed Kitty Pryde's bisexuality in Marvel Universe canon. This is something many X-Fans have wanted to see for a long time. Could you share how this came to be and why now was the right time to make this confirmation?

Tom: From my point of view, and from the point of view of pretty much everybody up here, including the creators, we didn't see this as a big deal. Like you say, we kind of saw that as fait accompli -- there are enough scenes and enough moments. People have been talking about this since forever.

It's very much like when Karl Kesel and I now, 25 years ago, did a Fantastic Four story that was a fill-in that spelled out the fact that Ben Grimm was Jewish. We didn't really think much of it. We were just going to do a story that takes Ben back to Yancy Street and deals with his roots and plays a little bit with his Jewish heritage. And it blew up like crazy because it was like, "Oh my God, Marvel confirms the Thing is Jewish!" And we were kind of like... you didn't know that?

So this is sort of the same circumstance. And I think Eve Ewing very much plays it and played it like it's just a thing that's always been there. Nobody comments on it. It's not a big deal. It's just the character living her life. And I like that. I like the fact that it's just a fact of life and an ordinary thing and that's fine. And none of it negates any of the stuff that came before. There's at least a little reference once we get to Exceptional X-Men #4, when Bobby Drake shows up and says, oh yeah, we used to date. So none of the stuff that she's been through is gone. It's just an aspect that hasn't really been played with in a while. Why not?

AIPT: This week's first X-Fan question comes from Liam Ocker, who said X-Men #7 just debuted Resurrection-Linked Degenerative Sickness (R-LDS). Is R-LDS going to be something that is contained in the X-Men series or will it have an effect on the entire X-Men universe?

Tom: Well, just by its nature, it almost has to have a wider effect than just adjectiveless X-Men. It has to be a thing that's in play across the line for potentially any person who went through Krakoan resurrection. I had our Marvel Handbook team do a deep dive to get me a full, comprehensive list of who was resurrected, because I asked Jordan D. White for it and he said they didn't keep track of it. So we had to put some experts on the case. And I'm sure we'll screw it up somewhere because we always screw it up somewhere.

But theoretically, this is a circumstance that could pop up anywhere. And as the characters say in X-Men #7, they don't really know what it is. They're not even entirely sure that this postulation about it is accurate. This is what Beast is working to try and figure out. And he's a little bit hampered by the fact that he's been reset to a much younger period in his life, where he knew less science and less of the developments that have come in all the time since then. But he's working to figure out what's caused it.

Will it spread? Can it spread? Will other people get it? How do we stop it? Is there treatment for it? Is there a cure for it? There's a lot more story there to be unveiled. That's really just the tip of the iceberg for stuff. But it will definitely be a thing you'll see as we progress. I'm not rushing to get there. But as we go, it'll be a thing that's of interest to X-Force, X-Factor -- you know, everybody. And the fairly rare characters who were never resurrected -- you're safe until that's not the case anymore. And it turns out that you're just as susceptible to whatever this is. We know very little so far.

AIPT: While we're talking about the future for mutants, in Uncanny X-Men #5, Harvey X provides a quick glimpse -- possibly -- with a four-armed Nightcrawler, Charles putting on Magneto's helmet, and a female Cyclops. What's going on here, Tom?

Tom: I think it's exactly what you described. Harvey X has given us a glimpse of a strange future and the images he saw. Beyond that, I would tend to expect that any, some, or all -- or none -- of those will be things that might show up in Uncanny X-Men, particularly at some point in the future. Or it could just be an outward manifestation of Gail Simone's growing insanity, having to keep up with all of this X-stuff.

AIPT: I was going to say, Gail dislikes Cyclops so much she just made one she can stand.

Tom: [Laughs] Exactly, exactly.

AIPT: At this year's New York Comic Con, X-Fan avatarkyungsoo said it was revealed that Jean Grey will undergo some changes and Phoenix writer Stephanie Phillips mentioned Jean would emerge from a psychic cocoon as a "cosmic queen." How might this affect Jean's role in the X-Men franchise and her dynamic with the X-Men line at large? Will this new direction see Phoenix eventually tackling storylines to do with the cosmic hierarchy or other cosmic entities?

Tom: I'll answer the last part first. You'll definitely see that and probably sooner than you even really expect. It's hard to give you too many specifics because the actual story in which she goes through the things she goes through and emerges in the way she emerges hasn't come out yet. But you'll definitely see more larger and well-known cosmic entities. We've already seen a few in upcoming solicits and it's been spoiled that a couple more are showing up. Thanos is in issues 6 and 7 and the Dark Gods are coming. But also, some of the more abstract entities. I'm probably not spoiling too much to say, oh, yeah, you'll see Eternity and you might see the Living Tribunal and a few others as we go. But it's difficult to really give a lot of specifics, at least until we're on the other side of that transformational issue where at least there's something I can point to and talk about.

AIPT: You're keeping Jean busy. She's making lots of new friends.

Tom: Yes, and without putting a timeline on it, we will see Phoenix interacting with the more earthbound X-cast at some point within the next year. So she won't be completely on her own in space full-time. We'll at least get some circumstance that will bring her back into the sphere of some of the other earthbound X-characters in a way.

AIPT: X-Fan CyclopsSandwich asked if there'll be any unexpected relationships or twists between characters coming up soon.

Tom: That's such a broad question. There's almost no way to answer that other than yes, of course, there will. Certainly, as we get into "Raid on Graymalkin," we're going to see two groups of X-Men, some of whom have a lot of history with one another, and some of whom have practically no history with one another, encountering each other in these new circumstances for the first time since the end of Krakoa. And that will lay out some relationships and begin to bounce some stuff.

We're also building more subtle touchpoints between titles and more subtle touchpoints between characters that we haven't so directly seen on the canvas. We have a secret crossover. We've already solicited this and nobody knows about it yet. We have a secret crossover between two books that hopefully people will figure out when it happens and go, "Oh, that's what that's all about." That's fun and kind of hearkens back to the reveal of Magneto's kids back in the day. So there'll definitely be instances where characters are revealing new things about who they are, where they are, where they're going, where they've been, and what their relationships are.

Gail just turned in a script that starts to delve into the existence of mutants at a time we haven't really studied yet. It's a whole thing going back to like the early 1900s and that has bearing on stuff going on now. So there's definitely stuff coming up that's new, unexpected, and strange, and hopefully interesting and to people's liking. And that'll continue to play out as we all come up with stories and find ways to bounce the characters off one another.

AIPT: X-Fan Phil said, given you have an excellent Canadian writer on a flagship X-title, is there any chance of Alpha Flight reappearing, and expanding on their "Fall of X" fate soon? X-Fan Kasi was also curious whether any Alpha Flight characters might show up in the future. The people want Alpha Flight, Tom!

Tom: Well, Jed MacKay just doesn't want to write Alpha Flight ever. He's never wanted to write Alpha Flight. He refused, put his foot down -- but he was Canadian, so he was easily convinced. So, we'll do that in X-Men #12.

AIPT: And as this week's first X-Men Monday eXclusive, here's Ryan Stegman's cover for that issue (on sale in February 2025), courtesy of our friends at Marvel!

As a horde of the galaxy's most fearsome killers descend upon the X-Men, help comes from an unexpected direction: across the border! ALPHA FLIGHT fly into action again - though at what price? And can even Canada's hardiest heroes turn the tide?

You're welcome, Phil and Kasi. Next up, X-Fan Tedwards was curious if you could give a hint or let us know when we'll be seeing two of Tedwards' favorites: Sunspot and Cannonball.

Tom: Alpha Flight will distract you from the fact that Sunspot and Cannonball are not there yet. There is a sequence involving one of them in Uncanny X-Men... I'll say in the next six months. It's hard to keep track because that book comes out 18 times a year. But yeah, we definitely haven't abandoned Sam and Bobby. Although, they were kind of left, to the best of my knowledge, in space in the Shi'ar Empire because of Sam's relationship with Smasher. And, you know, Bobby's just interested in hanging out with Sam and doing big, crazy stuff. But we'll definitely get back around to them in a bigger way soon. But the first little piece of that will be in Uncanny X-Men coming up.

AIPT: X-Men: Heir of Apocalypse #4 teased that Revelation -- the mutant formerly known as Doug Ramsey -- will return. Tom, where's Revelation?

Tom: He's a coming. You'll see maybe a little something in the Timeslide one-shot in December. It's just a little crumb. But it's a crumb for something that you'll see much more of in 2025.

Timeslide would be a book to look at. There's a lot of X-stuff and it's just the natural result of the fact that I've put the book out again this year and I'm mostly doing X-stuff. There are a lot of different little X-Men clues, hints, phrases, cameos, tips, and things in that Timeslide one-shot. So if you're an X-reader, this year's Timeless is almost more bent in that direction because that was the stuff I could most immediately make decisions on, get references for, and use. So I did.

AIPT: As we wrap up, I have a two-part question. First, how far ahead are you with X-planning?

Tom: Well, before this call, I had just started reading through the final lettering on Magik #1. But I have enough track to go through 2025 and early 2026 in some broad strokes. That basically means I know this happens here, I know this is our thing here, and I know this is in between. There are stories that will happen in all of the books and issues in between, some of which will bubble up and turn into things that happen here and here, and some of which may surprise us.

Our 2025 as a whole is largely planned out in that we know what the big things are that are going to hit in May, July, October, and so forth. And those tent polls are locked in and everybody involved knows about them and knows what they're doing in the meantime and can operate heading toward them or heading away from them.

AIPT: OK, great. So thinking ahead to those distant plans, who are three characters who will play pretty sizable roles that come to mind?

Tom: So thinking ahead... let me see... I think Ms. Marvel has an important role coming up that's very centrally X-related.

I think Legion has some stuff that's relevant in the days ahead.

And of the Outliers in Uncanny X-Men, Deathdream is going to get the next big spotlight. I mean, we're going to be peeling back the onion layers on those characters progressively as we go, but Deathdream is the one who first gets a story that's most centered around him.

AIPT: Excellent. Final question: X-Fan Professor Louise Hastings was curious -- when you call yourself "Conductor of X," do you mean it in more in a train conductor way or an orchestra conductor way? Perhaps a secret third way?

Tom: Well, the gig needed a title. Jordan used to refer to himself as the Krakoan Gardner, which kind of made sense. When I sort of settled on Conductor of X, I was thinking both as conductor of an orchestra -- everybody plays their instruments, but I kind of keep them together. Or a conductor of a train. These books all have to come out and everybody's got to get them done, and I have to make sure they get to the station on time and that everybody's where they're supposed to be on the map.

I hadn't thought about it that much more deeply, but you could also say that I'm the Conductor of X as in the lightning rod. So any decision anybody makes in the group, people come and yell at me because I'm at the forefront of all of that. And it's not like I don't have a voice in those decisions, but every once in a while somebody will come up and be either happy or unhappy about something and express that to me and I start to think to myself, yeah, I'm not really the one you want to tell that to. There's somebody else who would either appreciate or not appreciate hearing about that. But that's part of the job. So I'm also the lightning rod that pulls in everything good and bad from the X-Fan community.

AIPT: Very nice. You need to commission some art of Storm shooting lightning at you or something.

Tom: [Laughs] There you go.

AIPT: Alright, Tom, is there anything else you want to say?

Tom: I'd like to thank everybody who's so far given these crazy new titles a chance. Hopefully, in the rainbow of different styles and flavors that we've been trying to do, there have at least been some books that people have enjoyed and taken to their hearts. And hopefully, there will be more as we continue to experiment, play around, and try to do all sorts of crazy stories in and around the X-universe. And hopefully, history not withstanding, I'll become better and more knowledgeable at this as I go.

So, theoretically, the best is yet to come.

AIPT: [Laughs] An optimistic note to end on. Thanks for taking the time to celebrate 275 editions of X-Men Monday with us, Tom!

Alright, X-Fans, as this is a special edition we've got lots of cool eXclusives to share with you. Starting with another Ryan Stegman cover for February 2025's X-Men #11...

A deadly cadre of warriors pursue their target to Earth, a target making a beeline to the X-Men's home territory of Alaska! But who is this fugitive, and what grim portents do they carry for the X-Men?

Next up, some eXclusive preview pages from upcoming X-issues, starting with Gail Simone and Javier Garrón's Uncanny X-Men #6...

Take a trip to the big city in Collin Kelly, Jackson Lanzig, and Michael Shelfer's NYX #6...

And finally, a long-distance telepathic call between Jean Grey and Scott Summers in Stephanie Phillips and Marco Renna's Phoenix #6...

Thanks, as always, to Marvel for all the wonderful eXclusives! And the biggest thank you to all the X-Fans who regularly read X-Men Monday and submit questions!

(Side note: I recently set up a Bluesky account, so if you're on there too, feel free to find me: @chrishassan.bsky.social)