Announced via alpha reporter Brian Truitt over at USA Today is the news that Mike Carey and Salvador Larocca will be the creative team for an X-Men graphic novel due for release in 2014, No More Humans.
This is fairly notable, not least because Mike Carey is one of the best writers to ever handle the X-Men, and his return has been long-awaited. But it’s also worth noting that this is a continued step into graphic novels for Marvel, following the launch of Avengers: Endless Wartime and next year’s launch of a Spider-Man OGN with Mark Waid, James Robinson, and Gabrielle Dell’Otto.
Set during the aftermath of Battle of the Atom, the story will start with all humans on earth wiped away, gone missing, with no explanation. Overnight, in one sense, the battle for survival has been won by the mutants – but how, and why, and what’s happened?
The X-Men have been featured in graphic novel format before, in the form of Chris Claremont’s seminal ‘God Loves, Man Kills’ storyline which defined the concept of the X-Men and directly addressed their central message. In the announcement, Carey speaks to that touchstone:
The themes of intolerance and bigotry addressed in God Loves, Man Kills carried a lot of weight and felt — as a lot of Claremont’s work did — like a new color in the mainstream comic book palette. They also felt like a perfect fit for these conflicted characters, who were hybrids of the hero and the outcast.
On one level, I’m writing for those earlier versions of me. I try to triangulate on the stories that both 8-year-old Mike Carey and 16-year-old Mike Carey would have loved to read.
Doesn’t Marvel know this is a shitty business model?
Hi, Chris. I’m glad Mike Carey is back writing the X-Men. Why should I care about the business model again?
I was joking due to the other article on this site.
Seems sorta weird to do this as an OGN when it’s knee-deep in continuity. Why not just release it in serial format and then collect it in a bound format? What makes this not just an arc of an existing X-Men book or a mini-series, yah mean?
Don’t care about BOTA, but Mike Carey writing the X-Men is worth my money.
Looking forward to this, great creators.
Do have to agree with Zach–it seems odd that after the first two OGNs were specifically designed to be standalone, this one is going to be a follow-up on a crossover (with a title referring to another crossover).
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