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The trend has continued across Marvel’s just-relaunched X-Men comics with Phoenix #1 and this week’s NYX #1, which introduced major characters or plot points in online bonus scenes accessible only by third-party QR readers.
“It was a bonus page to begin with, an extra page — we didn’t scale back the contents of X-Men #1 in order to do it,” Marvel Comics VP Executive Editor Tom Brevoort explained on Substack. “And it gave us a page whose contents we couldconceal until the day of release, thus avoiding any early spoilers.You’ll find that we’re doing similar pages in most of the newX-launches.”
“They’re a little free bonus, a little extra — sort of a modernday equivalent of that ‘Things To Come’ page that ran in the firstissue of the [Chris] Claremont/[Jim] Lee X-Men #1,” the editor added, referring to the single splash page that ended the X-Men’s ’90s relaunch.
In a subsequent Substack post, Brevoort reiterated Marvel’s anti-spoiler strategy and clarified that the bonus scenes would be inserted into the eventual collected editions.
“In this era of early spoilers, I love that this approach givesus the opportunity to hold onto some plot points right up until the daythe title ships,” Brevoort wrote. “So you’ll see the pattern repeated in most of theother X-Launches of this era. We will include those pages in theeventual collected editions, though, for those who don’t own a phone.”
Upcoming X-titles include the relaunched Wolverine #1 (from new creative team Saladin Ahmed and Martin Coccolo) and Dazzler #1 (by Jason Loo and Rafael Loureiro) in September, followed by the previously announced Storm #1 (by Murewa Ayodele and Lucas Werneck), Sentinels #1 (by Alex Paknadel and Justin Mason), and Mystique #1 (written and drawn by Declan Shalvey) in October.
