A little while ago, I covered the upcoming addition of Bunker to the Teen Titans team in this column. Now, as part of that, I mentioned how I thought it was a shame that they wouldn’t be focusing on people having negative reactions to him and his sexuality in the book, especially not from his fellow team mates.

Now, it has been asked of me why I think that’s a shame, and isn’t it better that a state of total acceptance is shown. And yes, that would be lovely in the real world, certainly. And when we get to that stage when it is the norm, then yes, we should definitely only have sexuality in comics handled as such. But sadly, that isn’t how it is in the real world. This is fiction we are talking about too, but sometimes fiction bears some powerful responsibilities in the context of the real world it’s released into.

My thoughts on this are maybe a little complicated, and I myself have been struggling to clarify it, so bear with me.

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Back again for the final update with Logan's teams now complete. First question I have is this Beast The Dark Beast or our very own 616 Beast? I've always been a big Beast, whichever universe he's from so I'm happy to see him back in the X-fold. Is that Rachel Grey/Summers looking all hound-like backing up X-Men: Legacy? Pretty cool if it is. How long has X-Factor has such a large team? Not read it in a while but the ranks seem to have swelled quite considerably since I last turned those pages. Seems more like a Detective Army rather than Agency.

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From issue #13, Generation Hope will no longer be written by Kieron Gillen and Sebastian Shaw will be heading up the team. No I haven't lost my mind, it's all part of the X-Men Regenesis that's coming off the back of Schism. The new writer will be James Asmus who's definitely got some X-Men form having written some Dark X-Men: The Beginning, specifically the Mimic story and some of the Manifest Destiny stories, clearly they've been gearing him up to take over an X-book for quite some time now. He'll be joined by artist Ibraim Roberson who also worked on Dark X-Men, The Zombie Survival Guide and then some the Second Coming stories, I'm a big fan of his classical pencils and especially the way he renders Hope:

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I had wanted to start this column with an entirely different kind of piece; something lighter in tone, maybe, and with the edge of self-deprecating fun. Then I picked up a copy of Generation Hope #9, from Marvel, by writer Kieron Gillen and artist Jamie McKelvie.

Frankly, I was blown away. Immediately after reading the comic, I had to go on twitter and thank Kieron for putting that story out there. This ultimately led to some discussion on the issue, and I let him know that I would have to write this column about it too.
So what is the topic of this issue that is both so sensitive and so vitally important that it needed to be addressed? For those of you have not picked up or read a copy of this issue, and I sincerely insist that you should, here be spoilers. So go away, get a copy, read it, digest it, and come back.

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Link: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/06/16/3704888/apnewsbreak-x-men-poised-to-return.html

It was not more than a week ago that this very blog reported on the cancellation of Uncanny X-Men as a fallout from X-Men: Schism. Well, by November Uncanny will be back on our shelves as will Wolverine and the X-Men, the NEW X-Men book launching in October, presumably with the X-Men team that sides with Logan, all neatly tied into an event shaped package called X-Men: Regenesis, how apt.

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Link: http://beta.news.yahoo.com/apnewsbreak-marvels-uncanny-x-men-ending-oct-070621654.html

Uncanny X-Men will end with issue #544 in October. That's it, that's all she wrote, no more Uncanny X-Men. WTF?!

This is all because of the fall out from Jason Aaron's Schism event, which has been described widely by Marvel folk and others as the X-Men's Civil War. Civil War was an event that ran in all the Marvel comics which split the universe straight down the middle based upon the inherent philosophical differences between Tony Stark (Iron Man)and Steve Rogers (Captain America) on how to deal/regulate with Superhumans and Superheroics. This Schism event seems to be based on a difference in opinion between Cyclops and Wolverine on how to move forward with Mutantkind, much like the Magneto/Xavier divide that came before this. What to do with a problem like Mutants eh?

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It started off as a joke, then it became self-referential, then it became the target of fan ire and now it's on the verge of eating itself... Just how many comics is Wolverine in?

From the way people go on about it (including us!), you may be surprised at the answer. Or I may just be being a little naive... I've only counted regular titles and not one-shots and/or guest appearances but click through for the answer and some cool artwork!

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2011 (MMXI) is The Year of The X-Men, it's no secret, Marvel have been filling our inboxes with press releases telling us so. So what exactly makes this year belong to the X-Men? There does seem to be some major movement within Marvel's merry band of mutants across the myriad of mediums available to us. To make sure you're all covered for X-Men news we have put together a mammoth round up of all the latest X-Men news.

First of all we have two new posters for X-Men: First Class, one of James McAvoy's Xavier and the other Michael Fassbender's Magneto. Most importantly each of these posters not only makes reference to each character's future incarnation but also the difference in their philosophical beliefs with Xavier's picture all dreamy and picturesque whilst Magneto's is all angsty and dark.

CLICK ON ANY OF THE IMAGES TO EMBIGGEN

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Link: http://www.eagleawards.co.uk/nominations/

First order of business, the above cartoon, nothing to do with the Eagle awards I just thought it was funny ok? - You can find Hope 'n' Change by clicking on the cartoon strip.

You may disagree with some of my nominations for The Eagle Awards this year but choices had to be made, mine were made based on what I have personally read and experienced in 2010. Fundamentally The Eagles are beautifully flawed as they allow those nominating to add to the list, this is both to it's credit and it's curse as you will see:

Some of these selections are bound to be disqualified mostly due to ineligibility, those that I feel may be marked as such will have the word FAIL written after them.

Q1: Favourite Newcomer Writer

Kieron Gillen

Newcomer writer? Really? The guy has been around longer than Old Spice but I thought, hey, why not? If Gillen hadn't been in this category the nod would've gone to Nick Spencer, I think.

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Kieron Gillen, man of the moment, hero of the hour, musical magician, indy supremo and Sidekickcast interviewee has now been announced as the sole writer on Uncanny X-Men. I know, I know, shock, horror, who'd have thought that was going to happen?! It's safe to say that this was on the cards, especially given the way the Uncanny X-Men has been passed around in Marvel from top writer to top writer in the last couple of years. Normally that would be fine but nobody really seems to know what to do with the book.

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