Marvel Comics recently revealed a major change to its editorial ranks. Longtime Avengers editor Tom Brevoort will be moving over to the X-Men line, replacing current X-Men group editor Jordan D. White. This is easily the biggest internal shake-up at Marvel since C.B. Cebulski was promoted to Editor-in-Chief in 2017.
But what does this actually mean for the X-Men comic book line? How does this affect the current Krakoa storyline, which has been slowly unfolding since House of X and Powers of X established the new mutant status quo in 2019? Is Marvel about to hit a giant reset button to make way for more MCU-friendly X-Men stories? Let’s explore what we know so far and why fans don’t need to worry about any sudden changes to their favorite X-Men comics.
Tom Brevoort’s Marvel History
Brevoort is one of the longest-standing employees at Marvel Comics. He originally joined the publisher as an intern in 1989 and worked his way up the ranks to become Executive Editor and Senior Vice President of Publishing. Brevoort has spent the past 25 years overseeing Marvel’s Avengers line. It was under Brevoort that writer Brian Michael Bendis radically overhauled Earth’s Mightiest Heroes in the original New Avengers series. Brevoort has also been at the helm of numerous major crossovers like 2006’s Civil War, 2012’s Avengers vs. X-Men and 2015’s Secret Wars.
Now Brevoort is making the jump over to the X-Men line. This suggests that Marvel is looking for Brevoort to parlay his experience in overseeing large-scale superhero stories that impact the fabric of the Marvel Universe. Civil War had a dramatic effect on the entire Marvel Universe for years to come. Marvel may be looking to do the same for the X-Men line in the years ahead.
That said, it’s likely to be some time before the effects of this editorial shake-up become apparent in Marvel’s comics. Brevoort made it clear that he isn’t immediately pivoting to the X-Men comics. He still has some major irons in the fire over in the Avengers’ furnace, including a mystery 2024 crossover that may coincide with the July 2024 release of Captain America: Brave New World.
Brevoort wrote on Facebook, “There’s been a bunch of chatter this past week concerning the “secret mission” that Dan Buckley spoke with me about that got mentioned in my Newsletter—some of it pretty funny.... No, the big story is that, after a quarter of a century editing AVENGERS and its associated titles, I am going to be moving away from those characters and titles and instead stepping into the world of mutants. Yes, that’s right, I’m afraid that it’s true—I’m the X.”
Brevoort continued, “This isn’t going to happen for a good long while yet—I still have a ton of stuff cooking in AVENGERS (including next year’s big crossover event series) that needs to be seen to completion. And at the same time, current X-guru Jordan White and his team have a massive story that they’re in the middle of and that won’t run its course for a long while. What I do will grow directly out of what they’re doing—provided they leave me anything to work with. Did you read that HELLFIRE GALA book? Cripes!”
In other words, it doesn’t appear that Brevoort will be making the jump from Avengers to X-Men until well into 2024, if not 2025.
When Is the Krakoan Era Ending?
Brevoort’s comments make it clear that Marvel isn’t planning on immediately ending the current storylines in the X-Men franchise. As he points out, the X-Men line just recently underwent a major overhaul, with The Hellfire Gala 2023 #1 kicking off a new direction called “Fall of X” and introducing some major changes to the status quo that will continue to play out in the months ahead. That’s to say nothing of the fact that Marvel is launching a number of new X-books in the near future, from a new volume of Uncanny Avengers to the Nightcrawler-centric Uncanny Spider-Man.
According to Immortal X-Men writer Kieron Gillen, Brevoort’s tenure as X-editor is specifically timed to coincide with the eventual end of the current Krakoan storyline.
Gillen wrote in his newsletter, “This is earlier than Marvel normally announces stuff, for reasons Tom describes, and if you're wondering how it impacts our present plans, the answer is basically ‘It doesn't.’ I've talked about the story I'm telling and its broad length, and Tom will only be in the office after that's done.”
For those curious, Gillen suggested he had reached roughly the midpoint of his Immortal X-Men run prior to the start of Fall of X, suggesting he may remain on board the series for another 12 issues or more. That gels with Brevoort’s comments that suggest it’ll be at least a year before the switch from Avengers to X-Men actually takes place.
No, the current Krakoan storyline isn’t ending immediately. As successful as the current X-Men era has been, both critically and commercially, it wouldn’t make much sense to suddenly pivot to a brand new status quo. That said, Marvel seems to be past the halfway mark at this point, and we may see things begin to wind down over the next year.
Bear in mind that the Fall of X name is as much a nod to the passing seasons on Krakoa as it is a reference to mutantkind’s recent setbacks. House of X ushered in the spring, a time when the mutant nation was born on its new island home. That nation flourished in the summer, as mutants achieved one victory after another in storylines like X of Swords and A.X.E.: Judgment Day. Now fall has arrived, and the days are growing colder and darker. But that still leaves a Winter of X phase before this X-Men saga can be properly concluded.
All of Marvel’s new Fall of X titles are being published as five-issue limited series, suggesting this current status quo will last for about half a year before the next phase begins. We may see this Winter of X phase begin in early 2024, coinciding with the recently announced Wolverine: The Sabretooth War storyline. At some point in mid-late 2024, we may see the true climax of the Krakoan storyline, much like how Secret Wars acted as the grand finale of Jonathan Hickman’s multi-year Avengers run. It’s always possible that Hickman - who departed as Marvel’s “Head of X” in 2021 - will return to pen that final chapter himself.
With any luck, the X-Men will emerge from this winter phase intact and ready to embrace a new spring. And that’s where Brevoort may step in to kick off a whole new era for the franchise.
The X-Men in the MCU
It seems to be no coincidence that Marvel Comics is making big moves with the X-Men line even as Marvel Studios is slowly preparing to introduce the X-Men in the MCU. Brevoort’s arrival as X-Men editor will roughly coincide with the release of Deadpool 3, a movie that will feature Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine as well as other returning characters from the Fox X-Men series. Other mutant characters have started to appear in the MCU, and it’s expected that the MCU will focus heavily on the X-Men after the Multiverse Saga wraps up in Avengers: Secret Wars.
Bearing all that in mind, it behooves Marvel Comics to revamp the X-Men line and create a new, more accessible status quo. As popular as the Krakoan era is with readers, let’s not forget that it’s also an overarching storyline that’s now hundreds of issues deep (and, as we discussed, is still far from finished). It’s not nearly as easy to dive into the current crop of X-books as it was back in 2019.
Marvel is likely looking to Brevoort’s tenure editing 2004’s New Avengers as a road map for how to handle the X-Men line post-Krakoa. With New Avengers, Brevoort and writer Brian Michael Bendis radically changed the franchise by bringing in new, unexpected characters like Wolverine, Spider-Man, Luke Cage and the Sentry and revamping the tone of the franchise. After decades of dominating the sales charts in the ‘80s and ‘90s, suddenly the X-Men books were supplanted in popularity by the Avengers.
Now Marvel may be looking to do the reverse. The Avengers have been Marvel’s dominant franchise for years now, aided in no small part by the success of the MCU. But with the X-Men finally joining this sprawling cinematic universe, Marvel is looking to jumpstart that momentum on the comic book side of things. Will we see the X-Men’s answer to New Avengers - a title that radically rethinks the franchise in terms of both team roster and mission statement? Or will it be more about returning the X-Men to their roots as superheroes operating out of the Xavier Institute in Westchester? Will fans even accept a return to normalcy after all the larger-than-life drama of the Krakoan era?
We have no doubt those are questions Marvel’s editors are beginning to discuss as they plot out the next several years of comic book storylines. The X-Men franchise will probably be looking very different by 2025. But for now, there’s still plenty to come from the current mutant status quo. Why rush a good thing?
If you're not u pto date on the current X-men line, find out how you can read Marvel's X-Men comics in 2023.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.
