The X-Men Blue and Gold team rosters have been revealed

It may be a terrible time to be a mutant right now thanks to both an X-tinction event on the horizon and a war with the Inhumans, but there’s a bright future ahead of all that turmoil. Ressurexion is the name of the event that’ll restore Marvel’s merry mutants back to prime-time, and in the aftermath of that mini-series will come a need for new X-Men teams.

Here’s a quick rundown of what to expect, and the creative teams that’ll be leading Marvel’s new primary coloured mutants into a new age of heroics.

X-Men Gold

Bigger threats require a more experienced team, and that’s just what writer Marc Guggenheim and artist Ardian Syaf will be doing with their team that sets the gold-standard. This time, it’s Kitty Pryde who leads the charge after a stint serving with the Guardians of the Galaxy. She’ll be joined by Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Old Man Logan and Rachel Grey. “Kitty is the right person to bring the X-Men into the future, to herald in the next era of the X-Men,” Guggenheim said to IGN.

We are post the war with the Inhumans. The X-Men are sort of at a crossroads. They’re at a point where they are trying to decide, is there a future for the X-Men? And Kitty is very much of the mindset that there is a future for the X-Men and it’s a bright future. That there’s more work that the X-Men still have to do. Not just for mutants, but really for humanity.

What Kitty’s leadership does from a storytelling perspective is that it really positions the book for its mission statement, which is we really want to tell stories that get back to the idea of just the X-Men as superheroes. Not all of the stories that we’re doing are based on mutants or the problems of mutants or the conflict with the Inhumans. It’s very much a team superhero book.

So what threats are on the horizon for the Gold team? A reformed Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, whose latest roster will include some heavyweight surprises. “There’s more going on here than just another new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, the umpteenth iteration,” Guggenheim explained.

One of the things that I wanted to get back to and really sort of drill down is what does it mean to be a mutant in the 21st century, in a world where you’ve got Inhumans and you’ve had mutants for all this time and you’ve had M-Pox and Genosha and all the things that have happened to mutants throughout the years. Why does this racism still exist?

In fact, the very first page sort of sets out my anti-mutant treatise. I really tried to put on my racism hat and justify hatred of mutants for the 21st century. And the brotherhood really plays into that.

While the Gold team set themselves up, so will veteran X-man Rachel Grey, as this time-traveller will reinvent herself with a new identity: Prestige. “She was Marvel Girl, then she was Phoenix, she was often times less Rachel Grey and more Jean Grey,” Guggenheim said.

And I had this idea, wouldn’t it be fun to take an X-Men and give them a new identity, kind of like the way Chris Claremont did with Carol Danvers and making her Binary many years ago? I thought that was kind of intriguing,” Guggenheim explained. “As I thought about that, I started thinking about that idea in connection with Rachel and the notion that if there was any character who needed to adopt a new identity, that was forward thinking, that wasn’t about her legacy or her family, it was Rachel.

And I think in many ways Rachel represents this mission statement that Kitty has given the X-Men, which is let’s not look backwards, let’s look forwards.

X-Men Blue

They may be the Blue team, but they’re also somewhat green. That’s because this squad of X-Men happen to be made up of time-displaced and younger members of the original team: Cyclops, Jean Grey, Iceman, Beast and Angel. Somehow unable from being able to return to their native timeline, the Blue Team will need to deal with the fact that their very presence is causing the fabric of time to fall apart as writer Cullen Bunn and artist Jorge Molina craft this monthly adventure.

But this time, it’s Jean Grey who’ll be in charge, as the team needs to learn to work together under the guidance of their old nemesis Magneto. “Jean is really the catalyst for bringing them all together,2 Bunn explained to IGN.

She gets this new team back together and Jean actually takes the leadership role. I kind of feel like readers of X-Men have always felt that Jean was supposed to be the leader of the team. And now Jean is definitely taking the leadership role in this group.

X-Men Gold and X-Men Blue start their runs in April 2017.

Last Updated: November 29, 2016