By Marc Strom
The Young X-Men need some new blood.
After Wolf Cub's death at the hands of Donald Pierce in the tragic climax to the team's first mission, YOUNG X-MEN #6 features the team's first recruitment drive as they scramble to replace their departed teammate on September 17.
Series writer Marc Guggenheim explains that the search for a new member has something of a limited scope, however.
"Well, it's kind of a one-man recruitment drive," Guggenheim divulges. "In the wake of Wolf Cub's death in issue #5, Dani Moonstar seeks out a former New X-Man to replace him on the team. Or it could be a former New X-Woman. You never know. I'm crafty."
But fans can expect more new faces than that on the team's roster, Guggenheim teases, including "two former New Mutants. Hint: They're the sun and the moon."
"Beyond that, the cast of the book will be relatively fluid," the scribe continues. "We've got some cool returns of old characters coming up—Illyana and Doug Ramsey. Graymalkin formally joins the team in issue #8. Plus, there's someone who's already on the team—sorta—who we haven't met yet."
With a recruitment drive and a swelling membership, Marvel's youngest band of mutants will also follow their namesakes to a change in locale, and Guggenheim promises that's just the tip of the iceberg.
"[The Young X-Men] be joining up with the rest of mutantkind in [San Francisco]," the writer reveals. "There's a lot of picking up of the pieces to happen. Issues #6 and #7 will be self-contained issues that each deal with the emotional and logistical fallout of the first arc with Pierce.
"However, Pierce isn't going anywhere," Guggenheim ominously continues. "He'll remain the X-Men's prisoner and he'll develop a kind of strange...relationship with a member of the team. In addition, the team will visit a Krakoa. No, not
the Krakoa, but
a Krakoa. You mean there's more than one? Guess so..."
When the team first formed, William Pierce—masquerading as Cyclops—gave them the mission of killing the former New Mutants. However, with Pierce's true identity revealed, the team now needs a new mission statement, one which the real Cyclops will be only too willing to give them.
"Basically, they're going to get trained as the next generation of X-Men à la the New Mutants and the New X-Men," Guggenheim explains. "The difference is that those teams were based on a school model, whereas Cyclops has reformed the X-Men into an
army. Training in combat tactics will take precedence over, say, algebra. They'll be under the command of two former New Mutants and will occasionally go on missions—backed up by the X-Men proper as needed."
Wolf Cub's death, while shocking the team, served a larger purpose according to Guggenheim.
"There's an X-tradition—not to be confused with X-Tradition, my upcoming series about Mutant immigration enforcement—of team members dying on their first adventure going back to UNCANNY X-MEN #95," Guggenheim notes with a gallows humor, referring to the death of Thunderbird on the all-new X-Men's inaugural mission.
"I wanted to honor that tradition and dramatize the stakes for our characters. I chose Wolf Cub because I felt he fit within the team I was creating, but was expendable at the same time."
The final page to YOUNG X-MEN #5 set up quite a few teases of future stories, including an appearance by a certain wall-crawler that Guggenheim might have some experience with. But which story should fans keep an eye out for next?
"The 'Y-Men' will show up first," the writer teases. "They've already been teased in the book and they'll be the focus of a two-issue arc [in] issues #8 and #9. The name, 'Y-Men,' is a little joke. They think they're going to replace the X-Men. But you can imagine that the kids will have something to say about that."
YOUNG X-MEN #6, written by Marc Guggenheim with art by Yanick Paquette, ships September 17. While you wait patiently, read up on the original New Mutants courtesy of Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited!
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