X-Men Monday #172 – Steve Foxe Reflects on ‘X-Men ’92: House of XCII’

Welcome, X-Fans, to another uncanny edition of X-Men Monday at AIPT!

If you loved X-Men ’92: House of XCII as much as I did, then you’re in for a treat this week, X-Fans. Writer Steve Foxe initially hyped his radical, ’90s reinvention of Jonathan Hickman’s own reinvention of the X-Men franchise in X-Men Monday #147. But that was before we had a chance to read the first issue. Now that the mini-series has wrapped, it’s time for the X-Men ’92: House of XCII eXit interview.

Fortunately for us, Steve had lots to share, so let’s get started.

Courtesy of stevefoxe.com

AIPT: Welcome back to X-Men Monday, Steve — and congratulations on the eXcellent X-Men ’92: House of XCII! It’s clear A LOT of thought and research went into putting this mini-series together. From adapting key moments from the Krakoa saga to only using characters who had appeared on X-Men: The Animated Series to ‘90s-accurate costumes for Marvel guest stars and relevant pop culture references (Bruce and Demi). I could go on and on. What can you share about your research process for this project?

Steve: I’ve actually never seen the animated series. This was all just a paycheck to me, Chris. What’s a mutant?

I kid, I kid. Not to sound too gee-willikers about it, but X-Men ’92: House of XCII is the sort of bucket-list, pie-in-the-sky gig I never expected to come my way, let alone have it be my first main-line Marvel project. I’ve been reading X-Men titles uninterrupted since I was about 6 years old, and X-Men: The Animated Series is one of two shows I can and do watch on repeat (the other being The Golden Girls). And as luck would have it, a few years ago, I started a chronological re-read of every X-Men comic ever published, from Giant-Size on. I had, hand to [A], just finished “X-Cutioner’s Song,” which ran from 1992 to 1993, when Jordan D. White, X-Men Group Editor extraordinaire, emailed me about writing this series. It was unbelievable timing and if my boyfriend hadn’t been looking over my shoulder at the email, I’m not sure I would have accepted it as reality.

Courtesy of Marvel Comics

Of course, as you acknowledge, the ’90s and the animated series are only half of House of XCII — the other era to which we’re paying tribute is the Krakoan resurgence that’s been sweeping the line since 2019. While I’ve never been a lapsed reader, I was one of many bowled over by Jonathan Hickman and co.’s work from the jump, and am lucky enough to be friends with some of the talented 616 X-architects. The modern-day side of things didn’t require a lot of brushing up — I’ve been hungrily snatching up these issues each and every Wednesday.

I did revisit key moments from the animated series for inspiration, and to remind myself of the heightened ways the characters were depicted on TV. The X-Men ’92 comics may technically be their own distinct timeline, but we wanted readers to be able to approach it from all sorts of angles and find ways to have fun. The writing on that show informed so much of my childhood love for the X-Men, and still looms large when we imagine how Storm, Rogue, and the rest of the cast speak and interact.

Courtesy of Marvel Comics

As for which characters pop up on the page under Salva Espin’s talented pen, there are actually a good number in House of XCII who never made it on the show. The rule I set for myself was to try to use everyone who did appear on the animated series, which we came darn close to doing save for like, most of the “Inner Circle Club” because they just weren’t visually interesting enough for the cameos (sorry, Mastermind). But I’d guess a solid 80% or more of characters who showed up on the animated series, including unnamed cameos like Gatecrasher, do make an appearance in the comic mini-series.

The other part of the rule was to not use anyone created after 1994. I picked that as the dividing line so we could get ’90s classics like Adam-X and Cyber and Random in there, but stopped short before the comics really turned a corner with Generation X and the second half of the decade. One of the last pages of issue #5 nods toward this, too, with Jubilee talking about the future and new members, and Maggott, Cecilia Reyes, and Marrow all popping up, signaling the passing of the torch from the first half of the ’90s to the second.

A lot of that “continuity” was second nature. It was honestly stuff like Bruce and Demi that took more research. While the show ran until 1997, the book is called ’92, so I wanted the references to make sense for 1992 when it came to things like the playlist in issue #2, or who’s in charge of the Soviet Union, stuff like that. In ongoings set in the current day, those references get dated fast. In a nostalgia tribute like this, it’s a key part of the set dressing!

Courtesy of Marvel Comics

AIPT: You managed to pack a lot into just five issues. There have to have been story beats and jokes you had to leave on the cutting room floor.

Steve: To be completely honest, very little got cut from the initial proposal. When I pitched the series, the first Hellfire Gala was either in progress or wrapping up. I think I knew about Inferno from my pals writing the books, but it wasn’t officially announced. So I had some really strong touch points to wrap issues around: HoXPoX, the Dawn of X kickoff, “X of Swords,” and the Gala. I’m also a big proponent of leaving it all on the field. If you check out my Spider-Ham books with Shadia Amin over at Scholastic, or my Web-Weaver short with Kei Zama in Edge of Spider-Verse, we really try to make the most of the page space given to us when it comes to story beats, cameos, groundwork for more, etc. Especially in an instance like House of XCII where getting more than five issues wasn’t really a goal or known possibility, I wanted to give readers a lot of bang for their buck in the 100 pages (plus data pages) we had to work with.

Courtesy of Marvel Comics

If anything, things got added to the plot as it went along. Issues #1-3 stayed very close to my outline, but my original pitch actually hinged on Sinister betraying the island, in a sort of, “Duh, what did you expect?” black-and-white cartoon morality moment. My logic was that the animated series would default to the bad guys being bad guys, since only Magneto really got a hefty redemption arc on the show. But after I accidentally made a habit of killing Beast in each issue, I realized I had a perfect opportunity to swerve. I sent Jordan and Associate Editor Lauren Amaro a frantic email late one night justifying using Dark Beast and deviating from my approved pitch, thinking they’d put up resistance, but they were just like, “Sounds great! We have Sinister plans anyway, so this is perfect.”

So, thank you, Kieron Gillen, for making Essex such a compelling bastard that I got the chance to live my Dark Beast fantasy for a few issues.

AIPT: Well, speaking of Dark Beast — Hank’s resurrection turning him into Dark Beast was definitely unexpected, and one way this adaptation really deviates from the source material. Was this decision at all a reference to Hank’s increasingly dark tendencies in the Krakoan era?

Steve: Aside from the previously mentioned opportunity to make House of XCII stand out more from where the 616 line was headed with Sinister, Dark Beast was definitely a nod to Hank’s long arc toward uhhhh… being a real mean jerk! I’ve said it elsewhere, but writing Hank in the first three issues was incredibly bittersweet. As a creator, reader, and fan, I appreciate and enjoy his descent into immorality, which arguably started in the ’90s but certainly accelerated in the last decade between Brian Michael Bendis and Ben Percy.

Courtesy of Marvel Comics

But as a kid of the late ’80s, Beast is always going to be an erudite, slyly clever jokester to me — the college professor who gets rowdy at the bar with students while debating Proust. Having this Beast become Dark Beast is a way to poke fun at and literalize his character arc in the main book. It hurt me a little to do, but I couldn’t resist.

AIPT: Of course, we can’t get too far into the interview without talking about the biggest change. Moira MacTaggert was well-established on the animated series, but you chose to swap her out with Jubilee. Other than giving readers a twist on the source material, what thoughts went into this decision?

Steve: Swapping out Moira for Jubilee served three functions: giving readers something meaningfully different about this version of events; celebrating an icon of the ’90s; and producing a first-issue surprise that would make you want to read more.

Courtesy of Marvel Comics

You’re right that Moira did appear plenty in the cartoon, and maybe I could have written her with a heavier accent to set her apart from Jonathan Hickman’s take, but I just couldn’t see the point in keeping the lynchpin of events the same as in the 616 version. I’ve always loved What Ifs, which House of XCII is in all but name, and the best What Ifs change the starting point of known storylines and explore the reverberations from there.

I’ve talked about it before, but I also feel like Jubilee often gets a raw deal. She’s so associated with the time of her debut that some readers who don’t have firsthand, nostalgic experience with her dismiss her as a relic of the ‘90s. And since her original character traits were really all about being young and bratty, aging her up has necessarily changed who she is — she’s now a post-vampire doting surrogate mother. Which is very cool! But that means that the version of Jubilee a lot of us met is not coming back any time soon. Since this book is meant to celebrate the ’90s, celebrating Jubilee — making her the most important mutant of all — felt like a solid choice. And that page-turn of Jubilee in the secret bunker, talking smack to Xavier and Magneto, really seemed to work as intended to get readers to go wait, WHAT and want to pick up #2 to find out what this twist was all about.

* This article was originally published here