The first mission for the Uncanny Avengers was pretty rough and even though the team eventually won against the new and improved Red Skull, he still escaped with Professor Charles Xaviers’ brain. Readers also learn an apocalyptic future is in store for the Marvel Universe three months from now as the Red Skull is revealed as Onslaught. Rick Remender recently sat down with X-Position on CBR to answer questions regarding the opening of Uncanny Avengers, expansion of the team’s roster and more. In regards to bringing Onslaught back, “The Onslaught choice is one that editor Tom Brevoort and I spent a good deal of time rolling over and considering, for all of the obvious reasons,” says Remender. “But in the end it all worked too perfectly to be scared away from. I really like ridiculous things from the ‘90s; I like the challenge of cleaning them up and making them pertinent to the now. The reality is a lot of people were buying those comic books that these characters are very iconic and recognizable, that in of itself is strength and one that I have been able to exploit in books like Venom, Punisher, and Uncanny X-Force. My first job writing for Marvel was an Age of Apocalypse What if… issue and that was when the Pandora’s Box of the ’90s sort of opened up to me and I saw that there was a lot of value in these things.”
“During my years at Marvel I have grown to love the challenge of taking ’90s relics and trying to breathe new life into them,” Remender continues. “And beyond that there is a very clean and natural story point that leads to this new Onslaught, and naturally won’t be anything like what you think it will be.” As for why the team hasn’t brought a telepath onto the team, Remender states how hard it is to find telepaths at Xavier’s level, but some characters are definitely being considered. When the question was raised on the future of Rogue and Wanda’s relationship, Remender said, “In my mind, the death of Xavier changed Rogue’s opinion of the Scarlet Witch entirely. While Scarlet Witch is the one who put the mutants on the extinction list, it was not wholesale slaughter. But that chain of events in one way or another led to the death of Xavier in Rogue’s eyes. Rogue also blames Cyclops, the person who actually killed Xavier, but she does not trust Wanda one bit. Her own experiences as a villain who redeemed herself definitely leave her a bit conflicted, but in the end she sees the Scarlet Witch is a ticking time bomb ready to blow up. And who knows, maybe she’s right.” Remender also went on to say how Wanda is trying to redeem herself, but it won’t be a big part of the story.
“I will say we put a tremendous amount of thought into the direction to take with Wanda, and it’s nothing like what you expect,” says the writer. As for the Janet Van Dyne returning to the team, it’s mentioned how the time in the Microverse has changed her. “Being on an Avengers squad half made up of X-Men, with one of the Summers brothers as the chairman, is definitely going to add some complications in Janet’s life,” states Remender. “She’d been front and center as the chairwoman of the Avengers for a long time; she’ll definitely have opinions on how things should be done moving forward. More than anything she’s going to be doing everything she can to solve the issue of human mutant relations, in making everyone get along in the Avengers Unity Division is step 1 in that task.” It’s also mentioned that there’s going to be a lot of tension on the team when it comes to Rogue because she sees herself as an X-Man rather than an Avenger. The Uncanny Avengers are definitely going to have a lot on their hands so it’ll be interesting to see how the team evolves and how they handle mutant/human relations. Havok has been a leader for some time now and even though he’s a little more short-tempered than his brother Scott, he’s always been a great hero so look for Alex to do some real good, as well as make some mistakes.
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