As 2022 begins, Hickman is leaving the X-Men soon, wrapping up his time in the X-office in the X-Men: Inferno miniseries, but Marvel's merry mutants still seem set to go from strength to strength. Marvel has recently announced an epic "Destiny of X" era, which promises to explore the past, present and future of the mutant race.
The coronavirus pandemic disrupted Marvel's plans for the X-Men over the last two years, but the comic book publisher found original and creative ways to make things work. One of their best ideas was an X-Men election conducted via social media, in which fans were given an opportunity to vote for the final member of the newest X-Men team. The ultimate winner was Polaris, but it included an opportunity for far less well-known mutants to step out of the shadows - including the likes of Marrow, Strong Guy, and Tempo. The X-Men writers seem to have recognized the excitement over some of these Z-list mutants, and the characters involved in the X-Men election have had several appearances in comics since.
Marvel originally promised an annual X-Men election, but nobody was entirely sure whether that referred to calendar years or in-universe years; Marvel's sliding timescale means they're not really one and the same thing. It seems Marvel meant the former, because today Marvel Comics took to Twitter to promise polls open soon.
It's easy to see why Marvel wants to embrace these annual elections; they drove an incredible amount of engagement on social media. Fans ed in with the fun, organizing campaigns for their characters, making fanart, and even running dirty tricks campaigns against rivals. Social media has often served to divide fandom, but the X-Men election was one of the (sadly all too rare) examples of it achieving the opposite - drawing the fans closer together, encouraging everyone to simply revel in the things they love. Even better, the decision to offer some lesser-known candidates for the X-Men election meant many readers discovered the characters for the first time, ushering them into new corners of the fandom.
Of course, the irony is that this may well prove to be something of a continuity minefield. The new X-Men team was elected at the Hellfire Gala, which Emma Frost hoped to make an annual event. It was strongly implied that the elections would be annual in-universe as well. Given Marvel's sliding timescale, it's likely only a fortnight or so will have actually taken place between the Hellfire Gala and these next elections. It's possible Marvel will avoid this by having someone leave the X-Men; but if so, this teaser on Twitter is really the first hint of a far bigger imminent shakeup.
