Lots of Rachel & X:EV News in X-Position

Comic Book Resources weekly X-book column, X-Position, this week features and interview with Ed Brubaker (and Nick Lowe helping) and many of the questions relate to Rachel and the upcoming X-Men: Emperor Vulcan. Here are some excerpts:

Ed, this next one might be difficult for you to answer at the moment, but I'll give SGuthrie the opportunity to ask anyway because, hey, that's why we're here at X-Position! I know there are long-range plans involving Havok, Polaris, and Marvel Girl Emperor Vulcan, but are there any plans to bring at least one of them back to the fold during your run, or are you planning on keeping them with the Starjammers in space indefinitely? Or can you not answer this until that limited series is over?

Brubaker: Yeah, I can't really answer that. Ask Chris Yost, since he's writing Emperor Vulcan.

Chris isn't around, but Nick is still here with two more cents - we almost have a nickel!

Nick Lowe: Keep your eyes peeled for Emperor Vulcan to see what happens with those characters. Rest assured, they are some of my favorite characters in the whole world and Chris Yost is doing some awesome things with them.

We had several fans write in about the Cable and his "sis" Rachel. To cover our bases, I'm combining jarrod and Ashley Keller's emails to come up with the following query: "I'm just curious if Yost (or anyone) plans on dealing with Rachel's reaction to Cable's recent death. Given that Rachel forged a permanent mindlink with Nathan, she should've actually experienced his death. Will we see her go after those responsible for killing him"�

Brubaker: I don't know. I notice whenever anything happens in any X-book, someone wants to see some specific character react to it, and all I can say is, give it time. Patience is a virtue, supposedly .

We'll take your word on that. Hey, it seems as if rodyega might have a solution to that whole Endangered Species problem. "Couldn't Rachel undo M-day since she has been displaying powers she got from her 'Mom' She has chronokinetic powers, right? Couldn't she just change the past and prevent Wanda from ever saying, 'No more mutants'?�

Brubaker: Hold on, let me write this down...

X-Men: Emperor Vulcan

Newsarama.com has posted an interview with Ed Brubaker that reveals that a mini-series dealing with the Starjammers, the Shi'Ar & Vulcan will be out in the fall and written by Chris Yost. (And it looks like our campaign really made an impact)

NRAMA: Looking at the bigger X picture, Endangered Species is coming up � so where do the adventures of the spacelost X-Men and Vulcan pick up from here?


EB: I believe there's a mini-series in the works called: X-Men: Emperor Vulcan that spins out of the whole Shi'ar arc. I'm not writing it, Chris Yost, of New X-Men fame is, though. I've read the outline and seen the first cover, and it's great stuff. It's going to really surprise people. I don't know the release date, but it's not too far away, for people angry about Rachel being left out there. That's the one character readers seemed to really be upset about me leaving out in space, but she's got a great story ahead of her, I promise.

Upcoming Brubaker Convention Appearances

Uncanny X-Men writer Ed Brubaker will be appearing at several conventions in the next few weeks.

Brubaker will be appearing at Wizard World Los Angeles on March 16th and 17th. On Saturday, there will be an X-Men panel featuring Brubaker and New X-Men writers Chris Yost and Craig Kyle.

He will also be appearing at the Emerald City Comicon in Seattle Washington on March 31st-April 1st.

If any Rachel fans attend, please let Ed Brubaker know how much you support Rachel!

Another Brubaker Interview & Uncanny 484 Preview

Newsarama has posted an interview with Ed Brubaker about the final three issues of the Shi'ar Arc that includes preview pages from Uncanny X-Men 484.

Brubaker Interview

Livewire World has interviewed Ed Brubaker. He does reveal some details about the next arc and rumors about Rachel's future. Here are some excerpts: (SPOILER WARNING!)

Q: There are persistent rumours of Rachel, Marvel Girl, staying out in space and maybe getting her own mini-series or something at the end of the Shi'ar arc. Is this something you can comment on?

Brubaker: Wait - rumours about Rachel doing what?

Q: Staying out in space, not coming back with the team, getting her own mini set out in space

Brubaker: I don't want to talk about who's coming back and who's not coming back but some of them aren't coming back. Some of the characters who are in this storyline - the last five or six issues - don't live through it and the last two issues are pretty much a non-stop battle, which has been a lot of fun to fight. There's some really evil stuff that goes on and I think that people are going to be sorta shocked. There's a storyline that's left hanging at the end of it all - I tie up as much as I can but this was part of a story - The Rise & Fall of the Shi'ar Empire was kinda the sequel to that and there's room for another sequel after that - what happens next?

Everything is shaken up and it leaves a whole new status quo out there in outer space and my main goal for the whole Shi'ar storyline was to de-sissify the Shi'ar. I thought they started out as this really badass group and the Imperial Guard were like this evil Legion of Super-Heroes - all that stuff was really cool because they were the bad guys; but then the minute D'Ken goes insane and falls into a coma and Lilandra becomes the Emperor, then they're like nice and you can't go from Caligula to nice. I wanted to see more of the Caligula-style Shi'ar where you're worried they're going to come to Earth.

There's some of them not coming back and Rachel might be one of them.

Q: Does that mean those characters will, in effect, be in limbo?

Brubaker: Yes. They won't be in Uncanny X-Men for a while.

Brubaker's Take on The Phoenix

Ed Brubaker posted the following on CBR about his take on the Phoenix (a cosmic entity vs fragments of Jean Grey):

Honestly, that's the only version of Phoenix that makes sense to me, either, that it's this force that's been around forever that occasionally takes people over. It being Jean is confusing, but if it's left vague enough, we can all be happy.

"All you Rachel fans will love next issue" - Ed Brubaker

Ed Brubaker posted the following on CBR hyping Uncanny X-Men 479:

All you Rachel fans will love next issue, which is Billy's finest art to date on the book, by a mile, honestly. There's a double-page spread of his hanging on my wall right now that's so good it's not funny.