As recently announced at San Diego Comic-Con 2023, Marvel is resurrecting New X-Men - a title with significant history, and which evokes both a definitive run of modern stories and an underrated and oft-forgotten 2000s team.
So far, very little information has been shared with fans. Marvel promises that "Krakoa may fall, but the X-Men never will," and offered a teaser image declaring that fans will get a sneak peak of the 2024 project in November. However, thanks to the history of the franchise, fans can make some educated guesses about what the return of the New X-Men might mean.
The New X-Men Are Coming... But Who Are They?
Marvel has published two volumes of New X-Men before, but they told very different stories. New X-Men vol. 1 - by Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely, and a host of artists - reinvented the X-Men in one of their most popular runs ever. The X-Men were turned upside-down following the genocide of the mutant island nation of Genosha, with the story placing an emphasis on classic X-Men taking on the roles of teachers and mentors for the next generation of mutants. Morrison's ambitious epic built up the ideas of mutant culture and identity separate to humanity, sowing seeds that have been integral to Marvel's ultra-successful revamp of the franchise in the ongoing Krakoan era. The run introduced characters still core to the X-Men, including Fantomex, Kid Omega, the Stepford Cuckoos, and Glob Herman, as well as making Emma Frost a central X-Men teammate.
The second volume of New X-Men took place following the mass-disempowering of mutants caused by Scarlet Witch on M-Day. With the future of mutantkind on the line, Cyclops and Emma Frost were tasked with training a new crop of young mutants. 2004's New Mutants vol. 2 (launched by Nunzio DeFilippis Christina Weir, and Randy Green) turned its focus on the student body of the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning, though it also served as a continuation of New Mutants. The volume introduced Prodigy, Armor, X-23, Elixir, and others, initially under the tutelage of one of the original New Mutants, Danielle Moonstar.
What New X-Men's Past Means for Marvel's Future
Especially when it comes to the X-Men, Marvel has a habit of treating titles as a theme rather than a continuation of the same story - Dark X-Men has referred to a group of villains pretending to be the X-Men, and in the new volume will see a group of different former villains become their own X-Men as they sincerely feel their interests are being ignored by the main team. In this vein, it's likely that New X-Men volume 3 will again follow a new crop of mutants, but with old faces from previous volumes appearing in ing roles - e.g. a new team being trained by Prodigy or Armor.
Interestingly, the font and coloring used are from X-Men comics published during the Age of Apocalypse event, with many fans taking this as a sign that the new team will be led by Apocalypse himself. Apocalypse was recently redeemed as a hero to mutantkind, and is currently taking part in a war to decide the future of Arakko, a mutant civilization recently established on Mars. A team established by Apocalypse makes sense, as it would be a bold move for the former X-Men villain to be the one keeping the dream alive (echoing occasions in the past where Magneto has taken on the same role.)
On top of this is the fall of Krakoa, which will seemingly scatter the X-Men across the Earth, under fire by the hateful Orchis organization. This may mean the next generation of mutant heroes have to be trained on the run, which may also explain the idea of them being 'New X-Men' rather than any one of a dozen other groups, since they'll be disconnected from the wider systems that have defined the New Mutants, X-Factor, the Hellions, Generation Next, etc. Fans will find out more in November, as Marvel teases a New X-Men team heading for comic pages in 2024.
New X-Men Vol 3 is set to release 2024 from Marvel Comics.
