X-Men’s New OUTLIERS team is a masterclass in adding new characters to a franchise

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X-Men’s New OUTLIERS team is a masterclass in adding new characters to a franchise

Contains spoilers for INVISIBLE X-MEN #2!Long-running franchises like these X-Men They’re always adding new characters to their rosters, and the new X-Team, The Outliers, show just how to make characters stick when so many don’t. It’s harder than it looks to make the characters interesting from the jump, but the Outliers have what it takes, and it’s down to the craft of ​​their introductory issue and how well they are defined immediately.

The introduction of the outliers in Invisible X-Men #2 by Gail Simone, David Marquez, Matt Wilson and Clayton Cowles is The perfect example of how to introduce new characters to an established comic book franchise.


The introduction of the Outliers in Uncanny X-Men (2024) #2

The Outliers are a team of teenage runaway mutants (and one powered non-mutant) who, in Invisible #2, seek the help of the titular X-Men team and, in classic Marvel fashion, end up with the heroes thanks to angst and misunderstandings. They are a bunch of stubborn, awkward teenagers who don’t want to be here, and they will stick in the reader’s mind from their first lines.

The Outliers prove just how to introduce new X-Men characters

A new team for a new era


Uncanny X-Men, Marvel's newest mutant characters The Outliers jump into action.

on you x account, Invisible X-Men Writer Simone often talks about how she is deliberate in making every issue she writes accessible to new readers, referencing the Stan Lee quote that “Every comic is someone’s first.“As Simone talked about, readers need to know who the characters are and what they’re doing without having to look it up on an online wiki. The Outliers are the perfect example of this philosophy in action. in Invisible #2, every outlier gets a cool moment focusing on themIncluding dialogue that helps define their character and a visual display of their powers.

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Part of what is so effective here is the specificity of the characters. Jitter has a verbal stutter and uses a wristwatch to activate her powers. Deathdream speaks in black speech bubbles. It’s the small touches that make the characters identifiable and memorable. The characters are then cemented in the readers’ minds by having them list their names, places of origin and mutant codenames after the X-Men ask. It’s an on the nose way of giving readers this information, but it’s also logical. The X-Men don’t know who the kids are.

The Outliers are part of an established X-Men tradition

The most famous X-Men introduction of all


Storm's first X-Men uniform, from Giant-Size X-Men (1975) #1. It's a black top and underwear with a ring on her navel, with thigh-high boots and a hood, all in black.

Simone is taking a cue from the example of the X-Men debut, Giant-sized X-Men #1, which introduced characters like Storm, Colossus and Nightcrawler to the franchise. like Invisible #2, this book introduced a cast of opinionated, argumentative, and distinctly multicultural mutants who immediately demonstrated their powers in spectacular fashion. It’s a winning formula. Disagreements help illuminate characters’ personalities, and the X-Men’s diversity has always been one of its main strengths, with the fictional identities of mutantdom paralleling and intersecting the real-world identities of its characters and creators.

Giant size #1 and Invisible #2 Also share the fact that they represent an entire team in a single issue. The introductions Keep the issues focused on what matters with the limited number of pages they haveEmbrace the idea of ​​the “economy of narrative,” which is the question of how best to manage narrative resources with a set page or word count. Introducing a full team in one issue makes for a quick pace but requires a large creative team to make sure each character feels defined. Fortunately, Simone and Marquez are on the case in the 2024 Invisible X-Men Relaunch.

The new X-Men are really weird

And that’s a good thing


The Outliers in Uncanny X-Men (2024) #2

The other big part of that makes The outliers so great from the start is that they are all at least a little quirky – Which is a huge compliment. Every member of the team is deliberately a little off-putting. From Calico, who talks to her pegasus in a way that brings to mind the mythology of fairies, to Deathdream, whose over-the-top goth musings are made even weirder by the fact that he may be literally undead. A writer can do all the prerequisite information dumping they need to explain a new character, but if the character does not make an immediate impression, there is no point.

Comics should be funny. The creators shouldn’t be afraid to make the readers scratch their heads – or to give the new characters some silly beats. The X-Men are Built On strangeThat’s it. The X-Men franchise is a mix of social commentary, superhero action, soap opera, space opera, coming of age high school drama, Arthurian legend, and many, many more facets that all intersect and connect in unique ways. The X-Men are a smorgasbord of their creators’ favorite movies, hyperfixations, fears and kinks. The outliers are just the latest in a long line of weirdos X-Men Thoughts, and that’s exactly what they should be.

Invisible X-Men #2 is available now from Marvel Comics.

Source: Gail Simone

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