I guess this is considered spoilers... but they're just pictures of upcoming news. These are some interesting things that I found when snooping around looking for something new.

December solicitation for a new 4-part Longshot miniseries!

December solicitation for X-Men #8... looks like M is joining (hopefully) Brian Wood's X-Men. Sad to see X-Factor go, but I'm glad to see that the characters (at least M) are being put to good use.

December solicitation for All New X-Men... looks like whatever hell X-23 is in in Avengers Arena... she obviously gets out. Question is, who is she kissing!? Hellion?

I'm already bracing myself for the nerd-rage that will ascend these forums if it's not Hellion.

It probably is, and I don't really care either way, but you know what will happen if it's not..

Personally, I'm just interested in the prospect that this represents: y'know, the New X-men taking over All-new X-men? Maybe finally getting their own book again? That would excite me.

Of course, then people still wouldn't be happy because Bendis is writing it, so we'll get another whole bunch of complaining about that, but whatever. I'm still curious.

X-23 be like kicks down the front doors "I've been on Murder World... I'm back... you new students... f*ck off... where are Surge, Mercury, Dust, Elixir, Hellion, Pixie, Anole, and Rockslide!?"

haha, sure. At which point Quire appears behind her and is all like, "those kids are the new students, you're probably looking for me."

"Quentin Quire, senior class president and original leader of the New X-men, at your service."

I'm pretty sure I'm going to nerd-rage if that's not Hellion.

The book has been meh so far, but Cassandra Nova in the cover of X-Force? I'm interested.

Oh...my...bloody...gosh. M? On the cover of Brian Wood's X-Men?

NO!

SAY IT AIN'T SO!

Yes! M is in X-Men, my dreams come true!

M is joining Brian Wood all girl team excellent, so is X-23 coming back to the X-Men.

Oh, Brian Wood. You've seriously done it again.

Kinda wanted Emma (or Dazzler, Dazzler would be totes great) to join, but Monet' s an equally amazing addition. Love you, B. Wood. Look forward to her interactions with Jubes and, of course, Storm.

But this is great. In other news, X-23 has been subject to yet another scandalous teen-relationship sub-plot. Lol boring. She really should have stayed in Arena, now Bendis is going to deconstruct her.

@ageofhurricane: Arena is rubbish though, as we know some covers can be misleading. X-23 should be back with the X-Men, where she belongs. Not in some stupid Avengers title

That's your opinion. She's now being written by Bendis in a overtly stated cliche sub-plot as her to showcase her apparent "return", that's a fate far worse than anything i could imagine.

Avengers Arena is one of the better marvel titles out right now. I'm not a fan of the Avengers in the slightest, but even I can recognize a good title when I see it.

would love the idea of x23, hellion,surge,dust,mercury,armor,pixie an rockslide making up the all new xmen. Dont want Bendis

Then she stabs him in the neck... one less character to keep tabs on!

@ageofhurricane: If X-23 in a team with Wolverine, I have hope. I wished she join Brian wood title.

@rickbarry: It just got a lot of bad characters in it. I like X-23 in X-Force and in her own series. Then Marvel ruined it and made her join avengers arena. Typical Avengers, always stealing Heroes from other teams.

You know your sarcasm is stale...

Agreed... to an extant.

So are your reading skills. There was no "sarcasm" in that statement.

@papad1992: @oldnightcrawler:

im going to guess that shes kissing teen cyclops or did the o5 go back to there own time????

ha! not a chance.

I like X-23 and all, but Quire's put down the real Wolverine on more than one occasion. :P

@the_goddess_of_chaos: no, but I feel pretty confident that they will.

Uh-Huh.... It's ok, we can have a proper lesson on the usage of sarcasm later.

Wolverine was distracted... that's all.

@papad1992: alright, but even if she could, why would she?

@oldnightcrawler: I'm hoping/predicting the original X-Men will go back but the future X-Men will be stuck for another few story arcs. Fingers crossed. Otherwise this'll just turn into another X-Men title, but they have to keep it "all-new" somehow.

well, seeing as they've spoiled X-23 smooching some mysterious figure on an upcoming cover, I'm kinda hoping that means the book will turn over to the New X-Men, or some variation of that idea with the students/younger characters that they haven't been using much. Like you say, fingers crossed.

Maybe this could lead to another X-title in the All New Marvel NOW! Line?

With X23 and a ton of New X-Men (Academy X) students lying around, with a bunch of Gen X-ers not being touched for a long time, I'm sure Marvel might try to pull a "Geoff Johns Teen Titans" and reintroduce all these characters in one book, with old and new members together?

Hey! Maybe it would be called All-New New X-Men (Academy X) :D

that would be so freaking awesome!!!!!!

I was surprised with the cover to Uncanny. Kitty is possibly switching over to Scott's team? I'm glad she's finally smartened up and hopefully ditches the human anchor known as Bobby Drake!

I've still got my hopes up for Emma joining Wood's X-Men as well. The dude is great, he got to write one line, one FREAKING line for Emma on issue #5, and it sounded more like her than most of what Bendis have written so far.

And also, please let Kitty abandon the shit hole that is the JGS and join Cyke. I would love to see more Emma/Kitty interactions again, and if the O5 are staying as well, I would love for Jean to do it as well, to be honest, it would do wonders to Emma IMO, she needs to let go of the hate, and she would make a great teacher for a newbie telepath like Jean.

I doubt she'll switch sides, she's probably just guest starring.

:')

Because he's an annoying stereotypical anti-hero.

I know... I have this scenario replaying in my head over and over again! :P

Which is your opinion. You have no idea what the plot is and she is now being written by Bendis which means she might get some focus and character development.

The plot's stated in the solicit, would you like a bold copy-and-pasted version ?

She was perfect in Arena, coming back to the X-Men is character regression, even more so when you're doing nothing but snogging ambiguous bad boys while at it, as if she wasn't doing that prior to her opportune departure. Lol "She is now being written by Bendis", that is not a good thing--see Emma Frost.

I quite like how Bendis writes Emma Frost. That is my opinion, just as it is your opinion that you do not like how Bendis writes Emma Frost. And you can't say that because a character was written well by a writer in one series that it is regression for them to be done by another writer..... when he has not even written the character yet!?

compared to who?

also, I asked why would she, not why would you.

This is one of the biggest problems with fan fiction..

Dotell what there is to like about Bendis'Frost in detail, if possible. I'm very intrigued as this is a first for me. It's not about who's writing who. Laura left the X-Men for specific reasons, she needed a change of environment and there was a change of dispositions. Her time was up. She needed to develop outside of their ranks and fully realize who she was, inside and out, without Hellion stalking her and Logan breathing down her back with binge-breath, and as it were, she liked it.

I've seen Bendis write a plethora of other females who should be strong and independent of the usual tropes. X-23 kissing some guy with her leg flicked in the air like that, written by Bendis, is more than an indication that she is going to regress. The story need not be shown. Bendis is typical.

The Longshot series will be written by Chris Hastings of Dr.McNinja fame, so I'm a tad bit hyped although his I've heard his non-Dr.McNinja stuff is a bit less good.

@decoyelite: Should have been Longshot and Dazzler save the universe.

Well I think it was suppose to be a play on "Punisher kills the Marvel Universe" and stuff like that. Hence the single star character.

That would be AWESOME.

I know, right?

@tomasmaclgh said:

I'm pretty sure I'm going to nerd-rage if that's not Hellion.

The book has been meh so far, but Cassandra Nova in the cover of X-Force? I'm interested.

Holy crap, that IS Cassandra Nova!

Damn, now I have to read X-force...

I enjoy seeing Emma in a situation where she has none of the control that she had before. A situation Bendis has dumped her in. In fact since she has grown from her constant snide remarks I think she is far better off as a character. The scene where Emma is thought projecting and we can read her inner and outer turmoil in Uncanny X-men issue 2 was fascinating. In fact her whole conversation about her tenuous relationship with Scott was all highly interesting.

The same goes for the issue when she psychically converses with the Cuckoos. Here we see her vulnerable, yet at the same time showing the resilience of character we know from her. Again it is character development that many writers would never dare do.

And it's always about who is writing who. It is the writers who are the ones to place trust in, the writers who we want to both match and defy our expectations. And Bendis writes a fantastic, very unconventional Jessica Jones in Alias, which is a fantastic book that everyone should read.

I was pretty skeptical of Bendis writing Emma (not so much because I don't enjoy his stories as because I find his dialogue to be pretty stylized), but I have to give him credit: I haven't been this interested in Emma or Cyclops in years, and I really like the direction and approach he's taking with both of them, especially Emma, for basically all the reasons you say here.

That said, still can't see the justification for her not wearing pants, though. Is it because she's the team bruiser now, like Colossus? Because even he's been wearing pants for some time now..

If that is indeed Cassandra Nova, I would've seen a team composed of characters like Emma, Scott, Beast, Wolverine and even Jeen to be more fit to fight her instead of X-Force. She has a lot of story with Morrison's New X-Men, specially Emma.

Also, we don't even know what happened after Torn, if she was trapped again in the stuff, or if she stayed inside of Emma or Hisako.

I see. Thanks for your informative input.

But towards Laura, when said writer's decided to take a character out of their personal development train to showcase them in something seemingly less imaginative and on a different route, and when said writer has a reputation of drastically taking characters under his wing for "development" only to be found wanting a few issues later, disdain when it happens again is only warranted. Bendis has time and again hyped fans for years in dragging characters from the pit only to do the worst or do nothing at all (see Dazzler where she's since been used as a convenient foil for Mystique's mastermind of a plan.

X-23, honestly, does not need to be back with them again.

Tbh, without the snide remarks, you have a lifeless doll of what used to be--it's a definitive trait--her own definitive and distinct trait. That's who she is, snarks and snide and that's why her fans love her for it. Indeed he has left Emma in a different place from whence she used to be, the mighty have fallen, but he hasn't done anything of substance with it. She's still Scott's latex handbag and she's still lost in life since the first issue of UXM, which has, for the majority of the time, been another rendition on the life and times of Scott Summers. Emma's basically just standing around doing nothing or having convos with the Cuckoos. Heck, they've received more development than she has.

You can place characters in different contexts and change the dispositions, but when nothing's done with it, what's the point ? What's her motivation for actually being with Scott Summers and being a part of his revolution ? Your guy certainly hasn't delved into that.

She literally doesn't even sound like herself anymore. More like a Portland druggie. Jessica Jones on the other hand, is a Bendis creation--not a valid enough point of reference for how Bendis writes strong female characters (which he can't), in comparison to all else. go figure (but Alias wasgood).

I could go on, but i for one, see a very bleak, regressive and unimaginative future for X-23 now that she's no longer in Arena.

IIRC, the solicitation for that X-Men issue with what we presume is M on the front cover actually lists it as 'Frenzy'. I really hope not, M is a perfect addition to the cast.

Yeah, Wood said on CBR that he had scripted it originally for Frenzy, but turns out at the last minute, M, his first choice, became available. So it's Monet for sure.