Broken Frontier

At its X-Men: Things To Come panel, held at Wizard World Philadelphia on Friday June 4 at 3:30pm EST, Marvel Comics offered fans and convention attendees a glimpse at the future of its most popular franchise.

X-Men: Things To Come was attended by Editor-In-Chief Joe Quesada, editors Nick Lowe and Sean Ryan, Marketing Manager John Dokes and creators Chris Claremont and Tony Bedard.

Here's an overview of the panel's highlights:

- New Excalibur which will spin out off this summer's House of M and which will be set in England, will consist of former Excalibur team members Captain Britain and Pete Wisdom and newcomers Nocturne, Juggernaut, Dazzler and Sage. Creative team on the book is writer Chris Claremont and artist Michael Ryan.

- From issue #69 to issue #82, Exiles will go on a World Tour, making stops in the Future Imperfect, 2099 and Heroes Reborn timelines, among others. Exiles #69 sees regular series writer team up with his Negation (CrossGen) collaborator Paul Pelletier as the title’s new artist.

- Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost are the new writers on New X-Men: Academy X, with Mark Brooks hopping onboard as the new penciller. X-23, created by the writing duo, will join the team as of issue #20.

- Wolverine #33-35 will sport the creative team of writer Daniel Way and artist Javier Saltares, following Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.’s run. No announcement was made on the creators taking over the title with issue #36.

- Colossus: Bloodline, a new mini series starring the recently resurrected X-Man was announced. The mini is written by David Hine (District X), with artwork by Jorge Lucas.

- Chris Bachalo, who took over the title following Joe Madureira’s exit with issue #350 about seven years ago, returns to Uncanny X-Men with issue #464 for a second stint as the new series penciller. As the preview artwork suggests, Bachalo is not the only one to return to the X-universe -- Psylocke appears to return as well.

- Since these days no Marvel panel is complete without any House of M tie-ins, the company unveiled that the crossover event, of which the first issue was released this Wednesday, will lead to five other major events in 2006.