Coinciding with the 60th anniversary of the Children of the Atom, Marvel has announced that it will be revisiting one of the X-Men’s most iconic storylines in July as writer Marc Guggenheim and artist Manuel Garcia team for X-Men: Days of Future Past – Doomsday, a limited series exploring the events leading up to Chris Claremont and John Byrne’s groundbreaking Days of Future Past storyline.
“Growing up, I never thought I’d get the chance to write the X-Men as many times as I have. I particularly never thought I’d be able to play around in the amazing timeline that Chris Claremont and John Byrne brought to life in Days of Future Past,” said Guggenheim. “I still have the most vivid memory of visiting the stationery store where I used to buy my comics and seeing Uncanny X-Men #141 on the rack. That iconic cover blew my nine year-old mind. My goal with this story is to fill in some missing gaps in the thirty-year period that Kate Pryde summarized in just four panels back in the day. Prior familiarity with the original story won’t be required. The end result is an event that feels like the X-Men story to end all X-Men stories. At least, that’s the bullseye we’re aiming at!”
“This future timeline has always been such fertile ground for stories, and for the first time we’re getting the bigger picture only hinted at in various spin-offs over the years,” Editor Mark Basso added. “There’s some details fans have been waiting decades to understand the context of, as well as completely untold facets that bring will bring the Days of Future Past fully into focus for the first time.”
Told in 1981 within the pages of Uncanny X-Men #141–142, “Days of Future Past” enriched the X-Men’s mythology with the introduction of new core concepts like time travel and alternate universes, and raised the stakes of the X-Men’s mission by showing readers what the future held if they failed. Over the years, “Days of Future Past” has inspired spin-offs, film, television, and more, and now it’s time to witness the thirty-year descent into this iconic dystopic future where mutantkind was crushed under the full might of the Sentinel program!
Beginning at the pivotal moment that Kate Pryde desperately tried to alter in the original story and taking readers right up the legendary opening pages of Uncanny X-Men #141, the series will reveal all the dark history behind “Days of Future Past,” complete with the previously untold deaths of key mutant characters, super hero guest stars, and shocking revelations.
In a world where mutants are more than simply hated and feared, but not yet slain and apprehended, the assassination of Senator Kelly comes to pass, bringing with it the Mutant Control Act and Sentinels on every corner. But with mutantkind on the back foot, what lengths will Kate Pryde, Wolverine, Colossus, Storm, Banshee, Cyclops, Angel, Professor X, and the rest of the X-Men go in order to find some way to survive? And what scheme of Magneto will bring about their ultimate DOOMSDAY?
X-Men: Days of Future Past – Doomsday will launch in July.