Kieron Gillen teases the mutant politics of Immortal X-Men

The X-Men are gearing up for a new chapter. With the epic miniseries Inferno marking the end of House of X mastermind Jonathan Hickman's time at the helm of Marvel mutants, most X-comics are currently on hiatus while the event series The X Lives of Wolverine/The X Deaths of Wolverine plays out. But come spring, Marvel's line of X-Men comics will relaunch under the banner "Destiny of X" — referring to the precognitive mutant who finally returned to life in the pages of Inferno.

As part of "Destiny of X," writer Kieron Gillen — who previously wrote Uncanny X-Men and is credited with developing the modern incarnation of Mr. Sinister — returns to Marvel's mutants with Immortal X-Men, teaming up with artist Lucas Werneck (X-Men: The Trial of Magneto). This series will focus on the Quiet Council, the governing body of the mutant nation-state of Krakoa. The Quiet Council has been a big part of X-Men stories since being formed in House of X, but this is the first time an ongoing series is directly focused on their internal machinations.

Gillen spent the past couple years mainly focused on creator-owned comics like Die (with artist and co-creator Stephanie Hans), which revolved around a group of Dungeons & Dragons players whose game becomes all-too-real. Just as Hickman applied storytelling techniques from his own independent comics like The Black Monday Murders to House of X, so does Gillen plan on bringing some of that Die flavor into his new Marvel work.

"I've spent my last few years predominantly doing my own creator-owned stuff like Die and the end of The Wicked & the Divine. So now it's going okay, what techniques are useful to a Marvel book?" Gillen says. "So Eternals is taking a lot of the deep research and Tolkien-style world-building stuff I learned from Die and applying it at Marvel. As a creator, every piece of work feeds into the next: Okay, I've learned this, and I failed here. What can I do better? So yeah, Die's absolutely influenced some of this stuff. After all, Die is a group of people pushing and pulling against each other."

For one thing, Die balanced its ensemble cast by having most issues focus on one character in particular, and Immortal X-Men will do the same when it comes to the mutant VIPs of the Quiet Council. So who are these mutants who will be pushing and pulling against each other? EW spoke with Gillen about his plans for various members of the Quiet Council.

Magneto

Immortal X-Men begins with a bombshell: Following the events of Inferno, Magneto is stepping down from the Quiet Council. The story reasons of this will surely continue to unfold over the coming months, but it does have some nice meta resonance too.

"Now that I'm in the X-office, I do my meta bulls--- and I describe Jonathan as Magneto and the X-office as his Brotherhood of Mutants trying to fight for a better way of comics existing," Gillen says. "Of course, my series starts off with Magneto leaving the Quiet Council. It's not deliberately meta, that bit, but it certainly works."

So there you have the first order of business for the Quiet Council: Figuring out who should replace the Master of Magnetism in government. Those certainly aren't small shoes to fill! And that question gives Immortal X-Men some Succession vibes, as Gillen notes.

"I like Machiavellian characters with plans," Gillen says. "I hadn't watched Succession when I started writing Immortal, but Succession has a lot of Immortal in it. I'd love to do an homage cover from behind Magneto's chair."

Emma Frost

The White Queen of the Hellfire Company made a major power play in the pages of Inferno. After Xavier and Magneto brought her in on the secret of Moira MacTaggert, Emma Frost revealed the truth to the entire Quiet Council — thus depriving those two of their advantage in secret knowledge.

"Emma's a character I've always loved and she's so driven right now," Gillen says.

Emma is eager to continue shaping the future of Krakoa, and will soon be hosting her second annual Hellfire Gala.

"If I was in charge of a country, I would put on a music festival with two huge stages at the each end of a pitch. I think Emma would understand that through her own filter," Gillen says. "What's the point of ruling a country if you can't have parties, darling?"

Destiny and Mystique

It's not called Immortal X-Men for nothing. Destiny and Mystique have already been alive for centuries, and you can count on Gillen to explore their long history together now that they've finally been reunited.

"Immortal X-Men for me is this love story of two women across time," Gillen says.

Fans are used to seeing Mystique as an amoral operator, but now that this shapeshifter's favorite person is alive and well again, it might be easier to see the motivations behind her actions.

"Saying that Destiny is Mystique's moral compass is too simple, because that implies that morals are important," Gillen says. "But she is the object Mystique orients herself around. That's how I see it. She is of fundamental importance to Mystique, and vice versa."

Mr. Sinister

During his time on Uncanny X-Men, Gillen reinvented Mr. Sinister from a classic "mad scientist" archetype into a campy, funny character who nevertheless retains the ability to terrify. Hickman continued that characterization in House of X, and writer Zeb Wells took it even further in Hellions.

"Jonathan has said he saw himself as looking after Sinister while I was away," Gillen says with a laugh. "I say Sinister's one of the lead characters, but one of the concepts I'm trying to do is each issue focuses on a different character. The first issue is so strongly Sinister, and he's such a defined character, he comes on strong. But I want to move around this Quiet Council."

Gillen continues, "a really useful technique in comics is going okay, let's do a focus issue where we see what this person thinks about everyone else. Especially if you're doing a politics book, you know this person hates that person but they're not giving it away. There's a bit in issue #1 where Sinister reveals he's petrified of Exodus. That's not something you'll know anywhere else, because Sinister's not gonna let him know that. It's not as simple as each issue is from someone's perspective, but they'll be who we focus on."

Exodus

Speaking of whom, Exodus' main role in Krakoa so far has been to act as a foil to Sinister. And that's not their only connection.

"I view Exodus the same way I viewed Sinister the last time I came on the X-books: He's a character who I feel is underdeveloped and could do with a strong spin," Gillen says. "So I'm doing a strong spin on Exodus, I think."

Part of that spin will be religion; unlike many mutants, Exodus is a true believer, having once been a knight from the Crusades who was made immortal by the mutant Apocalypse.

"He's Catholic," Gillen says simply. "I was raised Catholic, so my Catholicism is all over the place. I like how he has his own warped mutant take on Catholicism. I'm not sure how far deep I'll go into the concept of antipopes and stuff, but, I might! Exodus is about the weirdness of being a believer."

Professor X

Professor X and Magneto were the two main founding fathers behind Krakoa. With Erik now departed from government, Charles Xavier may find himself in a very different political position going forward.

"I feel sorry for Xavier in the same way I feel sorry for Loki," Gillen says. "I did the whole Journey Into Mystery book about how awful it would be to be Loki. Xavier's in this weird position where the book's named after him but he's never been the lead character, really. That greyness is key to Xavier. I'm trying to think of him not as a father figure but as a son. I'm trying to write Xavier as a person, as opposed to somebody who has failed other people, while building on everything else at the same time."

Selene

One possible candidate to fill Magneto's seat on the Quiet Council? Well, there's always Selene, who may be the oldest mutant alive. She certainly fits the "immortal" description. Sure, every mutant now can be resurrected via Krakoan techniques, but that's old news to Selene.

"We're talking about how the X-Men are now immortal, but some of them already have been," Gillen says. "The compare/contrast with that is really cool to me."

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