Marvel has recently revealed the bold and exciting line-up and creative team behind the upcoming series Dark X-Men, which will follow Madelyne Pryor the Goblin Queen as she leads a team of deadly and dangerous X-Men into the newest Fall of X era.
The unruly Dark X-Men have been teased since the finale of the Dark Web event, which saw Madelyne Pryor regaining her memories and beginning to redeem herself after her demonic assault on New York City alongside the Spider-Man villain Chasm.
Marvel has announced that Dark X-Men – from writer Steve Foxe (X-Men ’92: House of XCII, All Eight Eyes) and artist Jonas Scharf (Avengers of the Wastelands, King in Black: Namor) – will depict classic X-Men Havok, Angel, and Gambit alongside an array of unique and shocking characters, like Nightcrawler’s demonic father Azazel, the Wolverine android Albert, and the formerly villainous Emplate, all shown in a gorgeous cover by Stephen Segovia.
DARK X-MEN will star a squad of X-Men unlike any other you’ve seen before: Madelyne Pryor, Havok, Archangel, Gambit, Azazel, Zero, Albert, and Emplate. This deadly group will band together to fill the void left by the X-Men, and are seemingly the perfect team to combat the harsh conditions of FALL OF X. Their hearts are in the right place but under the unpredictable leadership of the Goblin Queen and operating out of New York’s new Limbo Embassy, will this team’s dark ways turn the tide for mutantkind or make things far worse?
Madelyne Pryor May Finally Get A True Heroic Redemption Arc
Former hero turned villain turned hero once again Madelyne Pryor has one of the more complex and heartbreaking origins in Marvel Comics. She was born from an experiment by Mister Sinister as a clone of the X-Men hero Jean Grey. Madelyne was later abandoned by her husband Cyclops and manipulated into becoming the horrific villain the Goblin Queen, responsible for the 1990 event Inferno. The recent Dark Web focused on Pryor attempting to get revenge on Jean Grey, Cyclops, and the X-Men for their mistreatment of her, with Maddie and Ben Reilly launching a terrifying demonic assault on NYC with the creatures of Limbo. While the Goblin Queen still has much to atone for, after Jean Grey compassionately shared her memories with Madelyne of raising her and Cyclops’ son Cable together, the former villain realized the error of her ways. She then helped to stop Chasm from destroying New York City, and the character’s new era will give her more agency than ever.
At the same time, the Dark Web event led X-Men hero Havok, former and potentially current lover of Madelyne, to announce his departure from the main X-Men team, setting him up as Maddie’s right-hand man in Dark X-Men. In addition to Havok, Archangel, Gambit, Azazel, Zero, Albert, and Emplate, Dark X-Men will also feature the fan-favorite star of the Children of the Atom series, Gimmick. Dark X-Men takes place in the upcoming Fall of X era, which will see Krakoa and the mutants losing a massive war with the anti-mutant agency Orchis, forcing them back into a time of unrest and uncertainty. Writer Steve Foxe makes it clear that Madelyne’s new X-Men team could either help or hurt the mutants in this new era.
Dark X-Men Will See The Return Of Some Surprising X-Men Characters
The most shocking characters to be featured on the Goblin Queen’s new Dark X-Men team are Emplate, the vampiric older brother of X-Men legend Monet St. Croix, Zero, the sadistic and twisted former member of Hope’s Five Lights, and Albert, an android clone of Wolverine created by Donald Pierce. Most surprising is the return of the demonic mutant Azazel, biological father to Kurt Wagner, who was last seen briefly as a Krakoan amnesty citizen in House of X #5. Azazel was behind a confusing and controversial plot that established mutants like Kurt and Angel as descending from demonic or angelic mutants called the Neyaphem and Cheyarafim, so it will be fascinating to see if this plot is mentioned at all.
Krakoa’s new Fall of X era will be one filled with hard decisions, deadly battles, and fierce opposition, as the Goblin Queen Madelyne Pryor forms and leads the dangerous new Dark X-Men team into an unprecedented time.
Dark X-Men #1 from Marvel Comics debuts August 16th, 2023.
