Valentine's Rachel & Korvus Comic Con Ad

Uncanny X-Men artist Billy Tan appeared at the
Chelmsford MA Comic Convention on Feb 11th and the advertising for it featured a Valentine's Day theme featuring Rachel & Korvus (from Uncanny X-Men 481):

Hasbro Finally Releasing the Marvel Legends Marvel Girl Action Figure?

Cool Toy Review has rumors about the upcoming Hasbro Marvel action figures coming out this year. It looks like the long anticipated Marvel Girl (Rachel Grey) figure will be finally coming out:

In addition to the movie themed waves, Hasbro will also follow up the first two waves with the Build A Figure Brood Queen Wave. This assortment will include:

Black Knight
Bucky
Captain America
X3 Colossus
Cyclops
Danger
Hydra Soldier
Marvel Girl

UPDATE! MarvelousNews has pictures of the Marvel Girl figure from the New York Comic Con:

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.

May Marvel Solicitation

CBR got an early look at the Marvel solicitation for Uncanny X-Men 486:

UNCANNY X-MEN #486
Written by ED BRUBAKER
Penciled by BILLY TAN
Cover by JOHN WATSON

THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SHI'AR EMPIRE

This is it! The final chapter to Ed Brubaker's Uncanny X-Men epic! Who lives? Who dies? And who gets left in outer space?! It's the action packed finale that sets the X-Men and the Shi'Ar Empire into whole new directions! Part 12 (of 12)!
32 PGS./Rated T+$2.99

Uncanny X-Men 486 is due out on May 16, 2007.

UPDATED! Phoenix Limited Series Campaign

Joe Quesada made a major error in his Joe Fridays' Q&A with fans on Newarama when asked by a fan about the Phoenix Limited Series that was never published:

Q: novak- Does Marvel have any plans to finally publish the Phoenix limited series that was written by Chris Claremont and penciled by Rick Leonardi back in 1986? It was frequently mentioned in the letter pages of Uncanny X-Men in 1986 and 1987, leaving many fans greatly disappointed that it never came out.

The pages that have leaked onto the Internet are amazing and fans would love to finally see that series published.


JQ: Novak, I believe this story eventually was printed several years ago in the X-Men: Fast Friends limited series.

Joe Quesada is confusing The Phoenix Limited Series with True Friends, which was also penciled by Rick Leonardi. That was an Excalibur Special that was stopped when Chris Claremont quit Marvel in 1991 and later resurrected when Claremont returned to Marvel in 1999. They are two completely different titles and have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

For more information about it, see the Unpublished Phoenix Limited Series summary page.

Rachel Fans Need to Take Action!


We need to let Joe Quesada and the X-Men editors (Axel Alonso, Nick Lowe and Sean Ryan) know that fans want the Phoenix Limited Series published and we aren't going let Quesada get away with claiming it was.

Please, take some time to do each of the following:

1. Post a reply on the Newarama thread discussing Joe Quesada's erroneous answer to the Phoenix LS question.

2. To make sure Quesada gets the message, post on the Newarama thread with questions for Joe Quesada and ask him if the Phoenix LS will be published.

3. Email the X-Editors at officex@marvel.com requesting that they publish the Phoenix Limited Series.

4. Write to the Marvel Editors at:

X-Mail
c/o Marvel Comics
417 5th Ave
NY, NY 10016


If all of the fans can do a major push here, maybe we can finally get the Phoenix LS to be actually published.

Update! Joe Quesada Responds!

Joe Quesada responded to fans telling him that "Fast Friends" is not the Phoenix Limited Series Newarama when asked by a fan about the Phoenix Limited Series that was never published:

JQ: Well, novak, I got to tell you, I've asked around the office and no one can recall or has any knowledge of this story. Help me out here; send me a link to where you've seen these pages and we'll look into it. I wish I could be more helpful here and I'm sorry about giving the wrong answer, but this one has thrown everybody here for a loop, including Ralph Macchio who has been here [shudder] 30 years!

By the way, also the fact that no one can recall this story doesn't bode well for future publication as I would suspect that the entirety of the art and story may have been lost to the winds.

Fans needs to keep emailing officex@marvel.com and demanding the Phoenix Limited Series.

Update #3 - Joe Q Finally Gets a Clue But the Campaign Continues:

In this week's Joe Friday, Joe finally figured out what the Phoenix Limited is, but gave a very disappointing answer.

Q: "Dark Beast" - Re: The Phoenix LS that has been discussed in the last two Joe Fridays.

I posted info about this at CBR well over a year ago (8/7/2005) that featured unfinished penciled pages turned up for the series. I'll repost the info and the links here, maybe that will help jog Marvel's memory on things. CC at least probably recalls the storyline, or at least the jist of it. Hell, he may even still have his script on file somewhere. So it wouldn't be that hard to dust it off.

“I saw this posted over on ComicBoards.Com, and thought you guys would like to take a look at it. It's art by Rick Leonardi from the Chris Claremont's unpublished Phoenix Mini-Series which was announced in the Uncanny X-Men #208 letters page and then scrapped. It was supposed to take place between Uncanny X-Men #209 (when Rachel leaves with Spiral) and the Excalibur Special (where Rachel escapes from the Mojoverse and ends up in London) back in the 80's. There's only three pages up there, but it's nice to see what might have been.

http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryP...&GCat=0&UCat=0

http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryP...&GCat=0&UCat=0

http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryP...&GCat=0&UCat=0

http://img32.imageshack.us/my.php?image=p16wp.jpg

JQ: Just so you folks understand how important your comments and suggestion are here on NJF, we’ve been looking into this since it was first discussed and I think we’ve finally come across the answer. Editor and moonlighting private investigator, Andy Schmidt, did some digging and emailed Rick Leonardi about the project.

According to Rick, the series was going to be written by Chris Claremont and inked by Dan Green. Rick said it dealt with Rachel and her relationship with Franklin Richards and the Power Pack. The going logic at the time was that it got too complicated with past/present/future continuity and was subsequently shelved with I believe less than an issue having been penciled. That’s the whole story, folks, wish I had better news to report but it seems that this project was no where near completion before it was killed.

The campaign needs to continue! Keep contacting the X-Office and asking that the Phoenix Limited Series be finished and published!!

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.

Rachel is not in Uncanny X-Men 483

Uncanny X-Men 483 is the final all-Vulcan issue of the Rise & Fall of the Shi'ar Empire arc and Rachel doesn't appear and isn't mentioned.