One Marvel UK related cameo last week, which I failed to mention the other day, came courtesy of the former creative team of Captain Britain & MI13 - Paul Cornell and Leonard Kirk.
Both are currently writing a Dark X-Men limited series for Marvel, a spin-off from Matt Fraction's Dark Avengers and Uncanny X-Men crossover event this summer. The basic principle being that now Norman Osborn is running the replacement for SHIELD he wants his own X-Men team, as well as his own Avengers, to control the mutant population of Marvel's Earth.
The team has changed a little since the crossover, but I really like what Cornell and Kirk have been doing here. The team now consists of Mystique (The original unscrupulous shape-shifting mutant) , Dark Beast (Henry McCoy's twisted Dr Mengele-esque doppelgänger from the Age of Apocalypse universe), The Mimic (The silver age guy who absorbed and copied the original 5 X-Men's powers) and Omega (The guy who siphons and uses mutants' powers when he comes in contact with them. Although he's better know for killing the entire of Alpha Flight in Bendis' New Avengers ;D).
The main crux if the story is a PR exercise to make this team look good in front of the cameras. Which is great, because (While they are not wearing them in that cover image above) the team are decked out in costumes looking very similar to those the original five X-Men wore in the original incarnation of X-Factor.
With Mimic looking like The Angel (With those big feathered wings).
With Dark Beast... well looking like The Beast.
With Omega, head covered by a cowl, looking a bit like Cyclops from a distance.
And with Mystique having used her shape-changing abilities to take on the physical appearance of Jean Grey.
The PR exercise, I'm sure it will surprise you, turns out to be a bit more than they bargained for. Largely centred around the 'Mutant Shaman' Nate Grey, who hasn't been seen since he was forced to dissipate his body at the end of Warren Ellis' brilliant run on his title ('X-Man') in 2001.
Nate's powers are nearly god-like in level. And he's slowly piecing himself back together. He's also got a lot of catching up to do. It won't have escaped may people's attentions that there have been a lot of things going on in Marvel's shared Universe. Reality warps, Civil Wars, alien invasions... So what does he do? Use those high level telepathic powers to do a bit of psychic 'reading up' to fill in the blanks.
It's what I'D do.
And what do we see amongst the flashbacks...?
Did you spot it? Top left!
Brian Braddock, wielding Excalibur (The sword obviously, not Faiza Hussain), kicking the crap out of that big Magic Skrull, in The Guns of Avalon!
It really does rightly deserve its place in the greater tapestry of Secret Invasion, obviously, but it's great to see the series creators getting a chance for a little cameo like this.
If you were a fan of the Captain Britain & MI13 team you really should be picking up this book. It's great to see the old team working together and this series is a lot of fun.
One more thing, at the point I had intended to post this Blog up I was going to mention that Paul Cornell was doing a 12 hour Q and A session on Twitter. However, unfortunately, I understand that he has had to cut this short. Because he's gone over the limit for the number of updates Twitter allows a user to post in a 24 hour period. Now THAT is dedication!
More info, and a selection of the questions he was asked/answered to day can be found here: Click Here.
That's it for today.
More tomorrow.
Sword.
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